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The Continuing Death of Pinball
angkor writes: "To me, the first video games were something like electonic versions of pinball machines, so it's sad to hear that pinball is apparently dying off." I'd really like to see a pinball game based on Zoolander, but I doubt even that would be enough to reverse the current trend.
for me, the graphics just don't cut it anymore
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
More to the point, however, I think the problem is the loss of ARCADES. Dave and Busters just doesn't do it as far as economy goes (very expensive) and I don't know how many of those charming, cigarette burn covered arcades are still around.
Only one in San Francisco/Oakland that I know of... God I miss the silver bowl. Where the hell are they going to put pinball machines?
And bring back arcade games at 7-11 - that's where I learned how to play!
Oh man!!! First FreeBSD, Linux on the Desktop and now this?! I don't know how much more of this I can take!!
Please someone, tell me this isn't so!!
I have to say, on the cool toy scale, pinball ranks way up there, and it's pretty cheap to get your own machine (well, at least it was a few years ago).
Arcade auctions happen all over the country, and you can still pick up machines at good prices if you know what you're doing.
Got my machine in storage right now. Can't wait to set it up again.
The number of pinball machines nationwide dropped from 1 million in 1989 to 360,000 in 1999 and revenue slid from $2.4 billion to $1.08 billion in the same period, according to the trade publication Vending Times.
Chess is many hundreds (thousands?) years old, and people still play it today in large numbers. If enough people find a game fun/exciting/interesting, it will continue. If pinball can keep up, and can keep people interested, great, pinball forever. If not, so long!
The current computer games in bars are quite stupid. I guess it's more economic to place a small console with some (stupid) games on, than those huge pinball machines.
Luckily we still have table football (at least in Belgium). Do you have it in the states too? (I will try to explain the game if you're interested).
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Pinball is not dying off. What I see is that kids think that pinball is too easy and not challenging enough. That really isn't the case, I see that people want to do the cool thing and play those hefty 3d packed video games. I've also realized that a lot of arcades don't keep pinball machines since there is no competition with other players and games can last a long time. If pinball is dying, it is at the hands of the arcade owners, not the customers.
Arcades in general are basically dead.
Games like DDR breathe some life into them, but it's nothing like the Midway/Atari/Namco/Sega days of long ago.
Games are too expensive, they all seem to be 'imitations', and there's no arcade culture anymore.
Why there aren't/never were coin-op iD games.....arcade play against others all over the world.....
It's sad really. I own a pool hall in a small town and pinball still registers decent coin drop (I have two machines). The problem is that the industry went a little crazy trying to catch up to video in the early 80s and the designs got too complicated and therefore, more expensive to purchase and maintain. Operators started abandoning them in droves near the end of the last century. When companies such as WMS (Bally/Williams/Atari Games), who owned two of the major pinball manufacturers, bailed out in early 2000, the death knell was sounded for the industry. Stern Pinball is still alive, having bought out Sega's pinball division (originally Data East Pinball), but most of their sales are to overseas distributors. The pins they sell in the US are basically writeoffs. It's a shame really. I think if the industry stuck to innovative, less complicated designs, it might still be thriving, rather than barely surviving.
It's sad really. I own a pool hall in a small town and pinball still registers decent coin drop (I have two machines). The problem is that the industry went a little crazy trying to catch up to video in the early 80s and the designs got too complicated and therefore, more expensive to purchase and maintain. Operators started abandoning them in droves near the end of the last century. When companies such as WMS (Bally/Williams/Atari Games), who owned two of the major pinball manufacturers, bailed out in early 2000, the death knell was sounded for the industry. Stern Pinball is still alive, having bought out Sega's pinball division (originally Data East Pinball), but most of their sales are to overseas distributors. The pins they sell in the US are basically writeoffs. It's a shame really. I think if the industry stuck to innovative, less complicated designs, it might still be thriving, rather than barely surviving.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
First off, it seems like the last US manufacture stopped production about 3 years ago and there was a story here on /. about it. (I'll let someone else dig up the link).
Secondly, pinball machines couldn't keep evoloution-wise. They are too maintainence intensive compared to video arcade games (which break often enough as it is).
To the point: here at the office where I work, there are about 16 arcade machines: 15-video and one pinball. The video games include Lunar Lander, Space Duel, Assault, Mortal Combat 3, pac man, sinistar, soul edge, virtua fighter 2, xybots, crystal castles, a D&D game, Blitz 99, sinistar, and star wars.
The lone pinball machine is Star Trek: The Next Generation.
When it is working, The Star Trek Pinball machine is the most popular arcade machine we have (followed by Mortal Combat 3).
And that is the problem: It's been in a state of disrepair for more than 6 months.
Over the last couple years we have had it repaired 3 times. I remember watching the first repair sessions and was astounded by the large numbe of individual mechanical repairs that had to be made: Bumpers, solnoids, lights, track alignments, and whatnot. Not to mention the table surface then had to be waxed - which changed the play characteristics (until it was played a lot and worn in again).
And then there was a problem with the plastic ball storage holder underneath the deck. The balls had worn a small groove in it, which caused problems for the ball sensor to report no balls available when there really were. Since that custom molded piece wasn't available from the manufacturer anymore, the repair guy took it and filled in the groove with some substance several time - sanding between coats, to bring it back to new condition.
So my conclusion is that modern pinball machines have too many custom parts, and are too physically demanding on them to have the uptime to compete with video games. And not to mention the knowledgable repairmen are hard to find.
And that was in a private setting. In an arcade setting, the operator can not afford for the machine to be down half the time, producing no revenue, and requiring him to spend $$$ on repair guys. The economics just don't work today.
-Mp
Netcraft has now confirmed: Pinball is dying
Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Pinball community when recently IDC confirmed that Pinball accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all arcade machines. Coming on the heels of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that Pinball has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Pinball is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last the recent Sys Admin comprehensive gaming test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Pinball's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Pinball faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Pinball because Pinball is dying. Things are looking very bad for Pinball. As many of us are already aware, Pinball continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. Non-computer Pinball is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core players.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Computerized Pinball leaders state that there are 7000 users of Pinball. How many users of non-electronic Pinball are there? Let's see. The number of computerized Pinball users versus Pinball posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 computerized Pinball users. Pinball posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of non-computerized Pinball posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of non-computerized Pinball. A recent article put computerized Pinball at about 80 percent of the Pinball market. Therefore there are 7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Pinball users. This is consistent with the number of Pinball Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Midway, abysmal sales and so on, non-computerized Pinball went out of business and was taken over by Sega, who sells another troubled arcade machine. Now Sega is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Pinball has steadily declined in market share. Pinball is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Pinball is to survive at all it will be among arcade hobbyist dabblers. Pinball continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Pinball is dead.
(This has been a test of the moderation system. We now return to your regular geek whining, already in progress.)
Pinball machines are expensive and time consuming to maintain, with all the moving parts to be cleaned and replaced - not so for video games. Arcades have been trying to wean us from pinball, and seem to have pretty much succeeded.
A video/arcade game auction is a good place to get pinball machines. A buddy of mine lucked out and got a Simpsons one for a few hundred dollars. It's godly.
sig
1000 points for a bumper?? What the heck is that about?
The best pinball machines have only 4-digit scoring systems.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
they should make holographic pinball, they have the technology, transparant sheets of organic light emiting diodes,.. would be the first real use for holographic arcade game, would fix the repairage problem of real pinball and let them do cool ultra impossible stuff that'd be too fragile and all that, not to mention you could load in any table you wanted.
Seeing as I own a Pin*Bot machine, I have to ask.... What are the rules??
Too late in life I rediscovered pinball.
:^)
As a kid, I used to accompany my granddad or my mom to the store to get groceries and occasionally I'd get a dime (that's right, 10) to play a pinball game that sat near the front, near the magazine rack. That machine had a mechanical scoreboard, unlike the LED boards I saw later in life. I recall being absorbed by the lights and the idea of trying to keep the ball in play with those little bumpers (hey, I was easily amused). After a while my mom stopped going to that store and pinball just about left my life for good.
Flash forward 20+ years and a fellow grad student, Joerg, started going to get pizza at a little college-quality Italian place over by the campus. The great arcade next door had closed, mostly, but some of the games had stayed to soak up quarters from the pizza eating patrons. As it turns out Joerg was a real fan of pinball and he enticed me into playing and I got hooked. It was really cool to finally be a bit coordinated and to have the cash to spend to actually get to know a machine. In this case, it was The Addams Family, with little audio clips from the movie. ("The Mamushka!" was my favorite.) Although I never measured up to Joerg's mastery of the game, I found truly irresistible the tactile feedback and use of real, honest-to-physics english that goes into working the table. Sure, feeling the kickback of the gun in Time Crisis is cool, but not like pinball.
Now, that Italian place is gone and the games are gone for good. While I still plan to get a Robotron machine first, I'm thinking of adding a pinball machine to my computer and work room when we finally get time to get a real home. They really are awesome.
If you haven't ever played a pinball machine and you get the chance, just remember that those quarters are pretty well-spent, even if just to say that you played pinball for a bit. I bet you'll find you enjoy it, to boot.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Personally, I think one of the big reasons pinball has become unpopular is because the tables are so obviously rigged. I used to play a lot when I was just a tyke, but modern pinball tables have become the equivalent of slot machines - constructed to extract as much money as possible in the shortest period of time. Basically, they suck.
I still enjoy playing on older tables when I have the chance, and I nearly always give any new table I stumble upon at least 3 games worth of opportunity, but it's very rare I stumble across a new table I consider to be a fair challenge.
I love pinball machines. They're great. However, the arcades I visit either end up ripping you off or the machines are in such a state of disrepair that well, it's not fun to play.
The main reason is probably because arcade machines, tend to be generic. Short of the special-equipment games like those from Konami (DDR, etc), all an arcade operator needed was to replace the CPU module, or even just the ROM cartridge. Whereas for pinballs, they have to ship the entire thing around (Pinball2000 attempted to resolve this, but ultimately, died because Williams decided to get out of the pinball business). So instead of a relatively simple job on putting in a new game up, you have to ship this $5000 pinball machine around (shipping $200 typically), rather than order a $100-$500 ROM cartridge (shipping trivial), or a hard drive...
Now, there are recreations of various pins around - thanks to Visual Pinball. Combine it with VPinMAME, and you can play some damn close reproductions to the real machines. (Hint to those interested: avoid the forums, or just read them. There's so much pettiness and egotism and selfishness on them that it's not worth it. Just leech. Your mind will thank you. I was on the forums back when WPCMAME was novel and everyone "played" them, and 2002 was nothing but a disaster for pinball emulation. Plus, you gotta register, and if you want to post, you better not register using a hotmail account - they want *real* email addresses).
However, check out ShivaSite (www.shivasite.com) for some of the best pin info ont he web!
Stern is an interesting company by the way. Stern stopped producing pinball machines in the early eighties, whereupon the company sat dormant for almost two decades. Only recently did they resume pinball production once again. A pinball phoenix if you will.
Here is a great links for anyone interested in pinball:
The Internet Pinball Database.
Loomis
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
Production will just move to hand assembly. I think that anyone with some skill and love for the machines could make a living building these things. You'd need a machine shop, and some wood tools too, but suppose you built 10 of these every year, and sold them for 5 grand. It would be a pretty nice living.
Of course, 10 grand isn't the going rate right now, but eventually the prices for a new custom built machine might get that high.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
One thing I haven't heard much of is that fact that while kids these days can hone their videogame skills at home (often with versions as good as those in the arcades), there's no easy way to do that with pinball games, save actually playing them in the arcade.
Now, at the arcade, what are you going to put your quarters down on. when you're playing your freinds... one that you know pretty well, and are cokpetitive at, or one you don't really know?
Stearn pinball still makes them .. and while some of their more recent ones were not that good .. .. but prone to breakage.
.. most machines are neglected by their operators .. so they have to dum them down to the operators only have to take 5 seconds to clean them.
.. and they make good money.
.. or whatever game.
.. and would rather spend 10 mins emptying quarters from a bucket under streetfighter alpha-omeaga-zeta-jones than to spend 10 mins cleaning a pinball machine off.
.. where a broken one makes crap .. its kinda like a well kempt retail store makes good money .. and a dirty one makes cockroaches.
0 00 8 is my basement pinball santuary.
monopoly was very good. Austin powers was ok
of course
Where pinball is dying is a crock really, i know several operators who still operate pinball machines on location
they also dont cost as much as a silent scope
the real issue is operators are lazy
A well kempt pinball will make a lot of $$
http://www.remsbox.com/index.php?content=000000
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
I'd really like to see a pinball game based on Zoolander
I would pay good money to play such a game, but only if it was really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking.
Is your browser retarded?
The story is rife with biassed comments like this...
If this article is a true reflection of the industry's opinion then the operators are ignoring a major cause of the decline in pinball machines, and it's not a decline in popularity.
My local arcade has 4 pinballs and 3 of those have been broken and unplayable for weeks. I went to play the last remaining pinball machine last night and it died too: looks like the ball eject has finally failed. Wherever I go it's the same story. The pinball machines are typically broken and unusable. No wonder the arcade managers aren't showing any interest in buying them.
But it's not a lack of popularity from the consumers. Where there is working pinball you'll find hordes of people crowded around it with dozens of dollar coins lined up along the table top. And it's not just 20-somethings. Younger kids and teenagers are just as interested. It's difficult to find a working pinball, and it's even harder to fight your way through the crowd to play on one.
But the article only focusses on the elitist "People don't understand pinball" or the defeatist "Nobody wants to play pinball anymore". I think the article should have at least mentioned "Arcade managers don't like pinball because they're always broken".
Pinball, what can I say, I would play pinball when I was out with my parents, I still play it now. My new job has me going about 400 miles away every month, for a week at a time, which means the dreaded hotel. Normally I stay at Holiday in, but my first week up there (first day on the job no less) the company made the reservations at the Best Wester. Well, they have the Twilight Zone (a machine I will own one day) and that is where I will be staying on all subsequent trips. I love that game. :)
Hotel: Thank you for calling how may I help you
Me: Yes, what pinball games do you have?
The problem with many new pinball machines is flawed design. We've got a Goldeneye pinball in our basement and there are a number of spots where balls constantly get stuck or where pieces break. We've been wires countless times just to keep the top ramp operating properly.
But for the most part, our pinball machines don't require too much attention. Not nearly as much as the Toy Crane we have (which once had wire problems almost weekly). Much of the pinball work is having a ball stuck or a wire break (coin mechanism problems are the norm in all of our machines, mostly because kids decide to jam dimes and pennies in the things to see if it works), we occasionally have a flipper coil go bad or a bumper break. Those problems aren't many. Granted, this could be because people aren't playing them frequently (everyone seems to gravitate towards the 3 Ms. Pacman machines we've got set up on Turbo speed), but maybe it's because many of our pinballs are older and more simple. We've got a Spiderman machine that sits in our basement and works fine except that the soundcard died a few years ago.
It's a shame that most arcades are dying and that it's nearly impossible to keep updated machines in an area where people will play them enough for you to pay for the machines. With pinballs costing over $3000 a piece nowadays, it's more wise to buy a number of older machines and put them in laundramats, pizza places, and convinience stores. The older games (Ms. Pacman, Police Trainer, Galaga) amazingly outperform our newer ones (Mortal Kombat 2, Tekken 3, South Park Pinball) regularly... Perhaps because many people see them as a novelty. But no machines make as much as the Toy Cranes and a prize vendor we have called "Sports Arena" that my dad sticks Zippo lighters and Laser Pens in. Those make fortunes.
Just my two cents.
Charlie
ps. Best Pinball of all time? I loved the Guns N' Roses Machine... perfect flipper balance (you weren't always using one of them like in Goldeneye and others).
With only one manufacturer of pinball tables remaining, pinball is really in a sad state. I've always been a fan of pinball, but in the last year, I doubt that I have gone more than a week without playing a game of pinball. Fortunately, a local college arcade (Playland, downtown State College, Pa) has 9 tables, and the local arcade vendor usually keeps a few on campus in commons areas. I'm darn sure I've spent nearly $1000 in the last year playing, and my skill has been rapidly improving (I have many of the top score / Grand Master scores on the tables). I just can't get enough. I'm fortunate to have good arcade ops who keep the tables in good working condition, but many do not have such luck. I am desperately awaiting the release of Roller Coaster Tycoon, Stern's next table. They are still using the WhiteStar pinball MPU, which by now is quite dated.
I plan to soon start a Pinball enthusiast's club here at Penn State, but rather than being a club solely for playing / competing, I would much rather build a table. To save costs, many off-the-shelf compents will be used, and the game would be controlled by a PC (most likely running linux or the such) with custom interface hardware. The backglass could feature a full-color LCD for score and animations, and all playfield lamps would be LEDs. I think this would be a fun project, and anyone who is interested should email me. Of course, it would help the most if you lived near Penn State. I need not only computer/hardware people other than myself, but also artists, musicians, and people good with woodworking and metal crafts. Any suggestions?
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
>but I couldn't find any redeeming qualities in Zoolander.
"Anyone could die in a freak gasoline fight accident"
That bit pretty much made the movie for me. That and the Starbucks cup flying straight out of the fireball into that camera.
While we're on this topic, does anyone know of any decent pinball game that runs well on Linux?
The Death to 2D games. Y'know-- Just because the hardware is bigger and better we gotta make 3D games out of 2D classics! What does this have to do with pinball? Those damn LED video displays that have been popping up with increasing annoyance. "Am I a video game or am I a pinball machine? Video game or pinball!? Keep your eyes on both as you play! Weeee!" Like 3D graphics, the LED displays use in a game can greatly enhance the play, but most of them cross the line and instead of the table itself being the primary attraction, the display takes center stage. It becomes the conveyance of the action with the table taking a backseat, ultimately failing in both realms. You might as well walk over to "Crisis Zone" or "Street Fighter 12" at that point. As a "raised on arcade games" guy, I actually like pinball machines here and there. The table is entertainment in it's own right, but fails miserably once it tries to cross over into "gotta split my freakin' attention in two spots at once so I can watch the stupid video and bounce the ball at the same time" style gameplay. YMMV, but it annoys the piss out of me and I could easily see THAT as being a contributer to the death of pinball.
My favorite Pinball game: Fun House (with the Chucky style character)
You need a FREE iPod Nano
It was tres cool last year.
www.caextreme.org coming up on Sept. 7-8!
here is a list of my favorite Pinball games of all Time.. Roughly in order..
1. Black Knight 2000.. Need i say more?
2. WaterWorld.. One of the best(horrible movie thoe)
3. Terminator 2.. lots of maggots(magnets) but still a great game
4. Bride of PinBot.. Sexist & a good play...
5. can't remember the name but ya got to hit the ball into the vertical area and little rc looking trucks would drive around up there.. stupendous!
just my list...
By trying to raise profits, they shot themselves in the foot by eliminating a greater percentage of business that would would have been made back on the price. Rather than making 4 million people paying $0.25, they got 1 million paying $0.50. Sound like advise from the recording industry.
It's either that, or the increase in pinball piracy.
come over here to France. They love pinball over here. You can find a pinball machine in every single brasserie (French bar). Of course, they're all old American machines, but the love is there....
Buses stop at a bus station
Trains stop at a train station
On my desk there's a workstation....
I have noticed that a lot of the arcades seem to be adjusting the tilt of the pinball machine (using the legs) so that the tilt is a bit extreme and it is harder to play. I guess they want fewer free games.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
I find the biggest problem I have with Ben Stiller is I can't tell the difference between him and Adam Sandler. (I wonder if they're the same person?) Both of these alleged actors annoy the tar out of me.
They're both obnoxious, loud, low-brow, pillocks, whose only discernible talent is the dubious ability to determine what will appeal most to the average eight year old boy.
But by far the most annoying thing about them is they both make far more money than me! Sods -- where is the justice?
by your own post .. its not the pinball table .. its the operators.
.. and hardly every have to fix stuff .. but then again .. i clean them regularly.] [http://www.remsbox.com/index.php?content=00000000 08] And these are some of the more 'gimmic' ridden ones too.
.. guess what you *WONT* find in the belly of the beast. The manual that tells you how to FIX everything.
.. fighting games need to have joystics and buttons replaced weekly/monthly depending on play. But operators never seem to complain about having to do this.
.. when SFII came out .. also neglected to change buttons/joystics etc. btw]
.. generally were eclipsed by technology before the machine could go into horrible states of dis-repair.
.. actually .. are much CHEAPER than a coin-op video, becuase .. with small maintanance .. they can (and have) been operated for YEARS. On the initial investment plus maint fees.
Pinball machines are pretty robust actually. [I own five of them
WMS includes(ed) a list of what you will need to do to each pinball machine, and after howmany X plays. The lists are step by step, and give detailed instructions. If you look in most pinball machines that are in operation now
Pinball machines are actually very sophisticated, and most are designed to tell you exactly what the problem is to minimise downtime.
For example, if you open the coin door on any late wms/bally machine, it will tell you how many errors it has, and the number of the errors. [which you are suposed to look up in your manual, and it will tell you what needs to be fixed/replaced.]
Some machines, like my Creature from the Black Lagoon, check the switches itself. If no one hits the circle bowl at the bottom right of the playfield in (i think) 40 balls (about 12 games) it will automatically trigger an error message telling the operator to check the switch.
Pinball doesn't cost more than a video game.
That is a farse. A new stean Monopoly (the latest one made) will run you $2500 out of crate.
A new Tekken machine will run you $5000 easy [cause its older now]. As for maintanance, last time I checked
End of the day, it all comes down to business. Operators were lulled by the 'street fighter' phenominum. They though all they had to do was plug a machine in, and they would rake it in.
[many operators
Compaired to that perception, cleaning a pinball field seems long and tedious.
What they always ALWAYS forget, is the machine they bought, HAS to be maintained - whatever machine it is. or it stops making money. Video games, in the late 80's early 90's however
when the life of your streetfighter machine is 1-1.5 years before streetfighter-alpha-turbo-whatever comes out. You can managet to make it hobble along with electrical tape. Knowing when the next one comes out, you retire it.
Where as a pinball machine, has much higher play value. new graphics cards (ignoring pinball 2000) don't mean anything. They are MUCH slower to become obsoleate, and therefore
Two of the machines in my basement were operated for 10 years.
10 years, and with minimal restoration, look almost showroom. show me a 10 year old galaga or pac-man that doesnt need a new CRT or a LOT of work.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
I love the death of pinball. At least to a point. All of the great games were made, in my opinion, between 1990 and 1999. Bally/Williams games are the only things worth buying, period. And by buying, I mean for my house. I've got around a dozen.
;-)
:-)
Here is how the death of pinball works:
1. Operators used to make a lot of money off their pinball machines. Buckets and buckets of it.
2. In the 90's, kids decided video games were cool.
3. Operators make less and less money on pinball machines.
4. Bally/Williams, the biggest pinball producer decides they can't financially justify manufacturing pinball machines. They close their pinball division.
5. Operators start pulling games from locations when they break down, or are worn out.
That's where I come in. Calling all of my local operators. Calling all of the old-school operators from the 60's. Just hoping that somebody has a warehouse full of pinball machines that I can buy, repair, restore, and resell. It's a hobby that I have really grown to love in the past year.
There is an amazing amount of pinball information on the internet, which has allowed me to do this.
Like the Marvin 3m Repair Guides or the rec.games.pinball newsgroup (try groups.google.com). If you are looking to buy a pinball machine, try the Mr. Pinball Classifieds. You can also have a look at most of the pinball machines manufactured in the past decade at the Internet Pinball Database
Or you can email me, I can set you up
And don't worry... if you want a game bad enough, and don't live close enough to go pick one up... most sellers of pinball games ship them these days.
Oh, and here is a list of my games:
Medieval Madness - Williams Funhouse - Williams Whitewater - Williams No Good Gofers - Williams Star Trek: The Next Generation World Cup Soccer 94 - Bally Hook - Data East
They are lots of fun
-S
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
While pingames certainly aren't doing as well as they once were, reports of the death of pinball are certainly premature. There is still a big pinball market outside of the US, which Stern (the only remaining manufacturer) is happy to serve.
Domestically, the market is shifting from arcades (where the games are seldom adequately maintained) to collectors, and the folks at Stern have realized that, modifying their design efforts to appeal more to collectors. One of their latest games, "Monopoly" (designed by the legendary Pat Lawlor, who also designed "Fun House," "Addams Family," and "Twilight Zone," among others), has been a tremendous success, to the point of extending its productions run...
"The robots can't help you..."*** Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams of Which Stuff is Made ***
It's that every pinball game is exactly the same. There's a ball which rolls at you, you have the flippers, etc. Ok, perhaps they can change things up, put some flippers up top, maybe have some complicated bonus scoring, but the bottom line is, a ball rolls at you, and you hit it up. Repeatedly.
Ok, maybe some people really dig this concept, so they're all over it. But these people are insane.
If you could design a pinball machine that was somehow radically different from others, then you'd have a market for it. But it wouldn't really be a pinball machine then.
Come on, give it up, that's
Play pinball and support the FSF at the Full Tilt For Software Freedom in San Francisco during LinuxWorld.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Funny, those look just like the rules on my machine... nowhere do they mentioned a special "drinking version" which is what I was asking the OP about, since they mentioned they had a drinking game for it.
That said, I hardly ever play pinball any more, even though there are a number of machines within easy travel distances. Why? Most arcades I see ratchet up the "score required for replay" so high as to be nearly unattainable, set the tilt detection so that it darn near responds to vibrations of passing trucks and jets, and set the down angle of the machines toward the drains at unreasonable angles, presumably with the goal of making more money by forcing the player to pay more often.
Instead they make nothing, because I won't play a game that is rigged too heavily against me. (Same reason I don't do casino gambling, BTW)
So what about the few arcades which set the machines more fairly? Instead of being near empty, I notice that folks gather to the pinball, and while waiting for a chance to play, patrons play the other games. I would venture a guess the increased business in the other machines would probably more than pay for any more frequent repairs if that statistic is true.
The best arcade I knew of limited how long one player could stay on the pinball instead of rigging the game, and were ALWAYS busy.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
There is something far more elegant about losing ones money to a pinball machine rather than a video game. The sensuality of hip and hand action beats any video game hands down :-). As for popping a pinnie, I am sorry but clocking a video game just won't cut it.
I quite like some of the modern pinball machines, but give me an open playfield and the cool physics of some late eighties old school anyday. It is truly sad about the decline of pinball. I think that they will come back, they just have to become cool again.
Maybe we just need to get them into a few cool films, can you imagine the irony of sliding some well placed pinnies into the Matrix sequels. Delicious.
Ob. Fav.: Black Rose - Queen of the Seven Seas. The cannon was superb.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
Only in America can something that generates $1.07 Billion in revenue be considered dead. Gotta love it!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
The pinball game in the Roger Williams University game room (sorry, I forget the name) gives you FIVE balls per game, lots of bonus balls, and has great flipper balance. This is not a slot machine - I've played games that lasted a half-hour, and I'm only a "good" player.
I'm the stranger...posting to
I have a few pins, here and out of all of them .. Attack from Mars is my favorite.
.. this is one of the better condition ones i have ever seen. (it was pure chance i found it) These pins were *so* easy to maintain .. that operators didnt clean them as often :( and you will most likey find them all beat to crap :(
.. its a good hobby, and pins appreciate in value as long as they are maintained.
There is almost NOTHING in the middle of the playfield (cept the saucer) it was designed that way to be an 'easy-clean' for operators.
actually
But you can buy a pin in middling shape, and get parts to (slowly) fix it up
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
The trouble with arcades these days is they are generally just not much fun. The games are too expensive and/or too complex. I miss the days when I could drop a single quarter in a machine and get a decent ten minutes out of it.
:)
Pinball machines got more complex then they needed to be in order to be fun. The cost of developing them went up, and so did the amount of custom parts, rate of failure, and cost of maintenance. I think the pinball manufacturers really went awry here. If they had stuck with affordable, sturdy machines that focused on what makes pinball great, maybe they'd still be making them.
Every pinball machine seems to have to have a licensed franchise plastered on the front of it. What's up with that?!
Of the more modern machines, the ST:TNG machine was one of my favorites. I used to love Pinbot too.
Maybe some day some pinball-building vets will get together and realize that pinball machines could be profitable if they trim the fat.
Don't forget, if you are in the SF Bay Area and like pinball (and classic video games):
California Extreme!
It's 9/7-9/8 in San Jose, and they have tons of good restored pinball and video games on free play for the entire weekend. So get in your chance to play pinball on machines that are [b]not[/b] broken :-)
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
agreed :( its a vicious cycle. .. (early 80's) I used to go to an arcade in my local area .. and admist the handful of 'popular' coinops (rampage comes to mind) that people used to crowd around .. were pinball machines.
..
.. because one day I asked him why he was always cleaning them. And (for whatever reason .. boredom .. thought i looked interested .. whatever) .. he TOLD me.
:
.. no one will be playing it in a few months .. and it cost me ($1800)(?) .. This pinball machine has been here for 3 years .. and as long as i clean it .. and fix broken parts .. it will make me money. not as much as that (rampage?) machine, but when you think that people have played it for 3 years, it is probally the machine that *paid* for that machine over there. So I clean it everyday.'
.. as I began to buy up pins (because they were getting harder and harder to find) this guy became my hero.
... one who maintained all his machines .. and I would buy it .. just because I knew by looking at it .. that it didn't matter if it had been operated for 10 years .. the playfield was clean and glossy, which told me someone knew its value. :)
When I was a teenager
I *ALWAYS* saw the owner of the arcade cleaning them etc
thats probally why I love them so much
He said something along the lines of
'Well kid, those machines over there make me some money. But that Rampage(?) machine, well
YEARS later
Every once in a while I would come across a pin that was handled by an operator like this guy
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
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Rawr
This isn't an empty proclamation in the vein of "Usenet is dying" or "Linux on the desktop is dying." Pinball really is dying, and has been for the last four years or so. For the longest time, the two big pinball makers were Williams and Bally. Then Bally/Midway bought Williams, but Williams kept on as the number one name in pinball. Relatively late, Sega and Data East got into pinball. And now of those companies are not producing pinball machines *at all*. The only remaining maker is Stern, which hasn't been any kind of force in pinball or video games for twenty years.
It's as if all TV stations and cable channels folded, except for Lifetime. Would you laugh that off or consider it to be the impending death of television?
Please be kind to us slow-witted types. The 21st century is only a couple years old. Refering to events of 10 years ago as "in the last century" is pretentious and confusing.