Slashdot Mirror
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!!
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!
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.
"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.
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.
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
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!
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!
Do any of you know how it is really spelled? So far there are 4 replies, and they are:
"We have it... although I think we call it fooseball."
"We call it "foosball"."
"...playin' any of that there foozball..."
"Well, we're familiar with it as "fussball""
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".
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).
It's not like pool table manufacturers are trying to find ways to shove expensive computerized components into a pool table, and pinball has reached a level of maturity where they ought to start acting similarly.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
We could just encompass all the spellings by calling it f***ball. Of course, that would probably tend to be misinterpreted...
I have nothing to allude to, and I am alluding to it.
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 ***
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...
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.
No, there are magnets. I had the game in my house for 6 months once.. in fact most modern pinball games had magnets for a while.. it sux sometimes when they activate. other then that part T2 was a great pinball game.
... but no, there are no magnets in T2. There are three in "Addams Family (Gold)", four in "The Twilight Zone" (and two of those are on the Powerfield), and occasionally those used for "Magna-Save" (clearly marked) ... in games like "Black Knight 2000", "World Cup Soccer", or "Theatre of Magic".
... I doubt the older ones did, either. What you are probably seeing is what's known as "ball spin", which affects the ball's path in somewhat unpredictable ways.
Sorry
"Modern" pinball machines do not include magnets
FWIW, I own four pinball machines, one of them being an Addams Family. I have also been fixing them for ~10 years now. If you can find me an actual magnet in a T2 game, I'll buy you lunch.
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!
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?