Keith Elwin Wins Pinball World Championship

Yesterday, writes reader woohoodonuts, "Keith Elwin won the world pinball championship in Pittsburgh, PA for the third consecutive year. The weekend-long event fielded 406 players from all over the world and distributed over $36,000 in prizes. The three games chosen in the final round were Stern Cheetah, Bally The Addams Family, and Bally Creature from the Black Lagoon. Keith scored over 500 million points on his final ball with $10,000 on the line to defeat fellow American, Andrei Massenkoff, by nearly 300 million points." Next year's gathering is slated for August 11-14, also in Pittsburgh.

Comments

Lots of good memories :)

[splutty]

The bar I worked at had The Addams Family pinball machine for about a year.

Very good memories there :) "Thing! Lend a hand!"

I'm glad there are still some of these weird people around that actually like a game of pinball! Way to go!

Re:Lots of good memories :)

[Telecommando]

The magnets don't move and they aren't exectly hidden but TZ is a fun game. If you want to talk about taunting your dreams, try repairing one of them, that will give you fits. TZ is one of the hardest machines to keep running. Medeival Madness and Addams family run a close second and third.

But I find it interesting that two of the three games in the final round are from a company no longer making pinball games. Truly the era of pinball is coming to a close.

Re:Lots of good memories :)

[stokessd]

I played Addams Family in grad school. The Student Union had it, and before that, they had Funhouse. Man did I drain a lot of quarters in that thing. A few years ago, I bought my own Addams Family, and while it's fun, it doesn't have the "magic" of going to the union and spending money I shouldn't have wasted.

Sheldon

Re:Lots of good memories :)

[Chelloveck]

But I find it interesting that two of the three games in the final round are from a company no longer making pinball games. Truly the era of pinball is coming to a close.

Well, considering that there's exactly one company currently making pinball machines...

Dude, the era of pinball ended more than a decade ago. I was there, working at Capcom Coin-Op programming pinball machines when the bottom fell out. All the manufacturers shut down within just a few years, between 1995 and 1999. Stern had shut down their line years ago, but they re-opened after everyone else quit. As I understand it, Gary Stern himself decided that someone had to keep making machines. I don't know if it's even profitable; it's a labor of love.

/me is the proud owner (and programmer of!) Big Bang Bar, due to be the next on the manufacturing line when Capcom got out of the biz.

Re:Lots of good memories :)

[Sonny_Jimbod]

I agree that Gary Sterns loves making pinball and that Stern doesn't make as much money as they used to. Trouble is, they are stuck in a catch-22 situation. It costs a lot of money to make a fun pinball, the cost of the designers, playfield manufacture and putting it all together all add up to be a lot. The more complicated a table is, the more it costs to produce. Also, traditionally new players don't really like playing the complicated games, as they don't have much of a clue as to what is going on. What Stern has been doing for the last couple of years now is just knocking out machines for as cheap as possible, with little in the way of features for the more discerning 'pinhead'. This is good (I suppose) for first time players and operators, but it sucks for anyone with half an interest in pinball. He's got rid of most of the good designers so now most Stern tables are just boring rehashes of ones from previous years. He really is treading water trying to keep the company afloat. It really is a shame to see machines from Williams/Bally during the mid-90's and what is being made today. A lot gets said on mailing lists as to what the future of pinball is, but I'm betting is going down the same route as Harley. The baby boomer demographic who has a bit of spare cash burning in their pocket is disappearing, and once they are gone, Pinball just isn't appealing to kids who have played Xbox/PS3 etc. I really hope another company pops up, but it's not likely.

Re:Lots of good memories :)

[TheHawke]

Shades of Raul Julia: "FIIFTY MILLLION!!" And there was great rejoicing (while the ball went down the drain).

Tilting: "Heh heh heh, you're a funny guy!"

That thing sucked more quarters out of my pocket in one day compared to when Gauntlet hit the streets.

I don't think Cousin Itt is ever going to like me; I used him as target practice every time he came up.

it's not even posted under idle

[underqualified]

slow news day?

Re:it's not even posted under idle

[SolitaryMan]

The news is OK, IMO, but the reporting is terrible: no pictures, no article, just the results tables. I was actually hoping to see a video of some awesome moves and the pictures from the event to get the feeling of it, but.. well, keep googling...

Re:it's not even posted under idle

[Ogive17]

Why Idle? Winning the World Pinball Championship sounds extremely nerdy to me, seems to fit in with what /. is meant to be. While the article isn't anything special, I think the news fits in well.

Re:it's not even posted under idle

[Cylix]

Yeah,

You totally missed the flying double jump kick to the right bumper. He later followed up with a round house flying dragon fist to the left bumper.

Though nothing beats the final move that helped the winner beat the loser by 200 million points.....

He performed the triple lindy to simultaneously trigger both bumpers in multi-ball mode. Without such a devastating move he wold never have been able to become champion.

Re:Yeah

[MRe_nl]

But is he deaf, dumb and blind?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIPKFVa5DP8

He's a Pinball Wizard

[mim]

There's got to be a twist!

Re:He's a Pinball Wizard

[smurfsurf]

Hey grandpa ;-)

Re:He's a Pinball Wizard

[SailorSpork]

Indeed there is. The Pinball Wizard's got such a supple wrist. He's got crazy flipper fingers, never seen him fall. I also hear he plays by intuition.

Re:He's a Pinball Wizard

[todrules]

But how do you think he does it?

Re:He's a Pinball Wizard

[dfetter]

I don't know. What makes him so good?

Re:He's a Pinball Wizard

[Biff Stu]

Yes, that's the problem with winning that contest. There is a twist. Every time you go out in public Rodger Daltrey and Pete Townshend follow you around singing that damn song. At first you think it's pretty cool, but after a couple of weeks you want to kick their asses and smash Pete's guitar. Then you realize that you will never get a chance to smash the f***'in guitar because Pete always beats you to it and that's when you're really pissed.

Not at All

[maroberts]

Stuff that Matters :-)

Pictures? Video?

[Yuioup]

Are there any pictures or videos of the event?

Y

Re:Pictures? Video?

[Anonymous Coward]

I found this on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqSAYRs9nto not sure which day it was recorded. When I was there on Saturday it was a lot busier than this. I did horrible in division C...

Re:He's a pinball wizard . . .

[dangitman]

Did he get a crown?

I think that's a king. Wizards have fiery balls.

Woohoo! A fantastic for everyone who likes pinball

[sjonke]

I can't believe this got posted on Slashdot, and am thrilled that it was. Such a great, great event. If you like pinball in the slightest, you need to head to Pittsburgh next year for PAPA 14. The tournament is the emphasis, but the PAPA facility is huge and filled wall to wall with one of the largest and most amazing collections of pinball machines in the world. Everything from "bingos" to the newest pinball machines. You don't need to play in the tournament to enjoy this event, though it's even better if you do play in it. Also you can pick up essential skills just by watching the top tier players, and this year there were 3 HD video cameras that made it possible to actually see them play. Hopefully next year more cameras will be put in place so that all the games can be watched, or perhaps just more HD cameras, with the facility able to switch which are shown on the big screens. That would make it possible to keep the action showing on the screens during the finals without needing to fork out for more TVs.

It's to bad most games on site are beaten to death

[Joe The Dragon]

It's to bad most games on site are beaten to death and they don't get fixed as well.

At least a few places like game works try to keep them working and they even get new test games as well.

Re:It's to bad most games on site are beaten to de

[keytoe]

It's to bad most games on site are beaten to death and they don't get fixed as well.

I never really understood pinball or enjoyed it much up until a few years ago. In my mind, the premise of pinball was to bang the ball around, cross your fingers and hope it didn't go down the drain. Repeat for three balls, insert more coins.

Then, a few year ago I had a friend who worked at a bar where the manager was into pinball. This manager made sure that there were always a couple of well maintained pinball cabinets with good gameplay. The staff would finish a night shift and play pinball until dawn on many occasions, which hooked my friend.

He in turn explained to me that there was actually strategy to these things. You didn't just bang the ball around - you made sequences of shots to advance a game. You calculated your shots. You aimed. There was a process to gaining a multiball - and more importantly, there were times when triggering the multiball was much more advantageous in terms of your score.

Once enlightened, I was hooked. At one point, I used to be able to plop two bucks into The Lord of the Rings for the 5 credits and play for a couple of hours off the replays. Regrettably, that manager moved on and the cabinets fell into disrepair. Nothing kills a good game of pinball quite like a dead switch making it impossible to advance the story. I quit playing there, and they lost my beer money. There are currently zero places in town now where I can get a quality round of pinball.

This is the tragedy of pinball as I see it. The money required to manufacture and maintain these things is so large compared to the income derived that it's not surprising, to be honest. Even worse, your target market actually becomes less profitable as they improve and earn free games. Basically, you're hoping to capture the 'bang the ball around' crowd as your primary income source - which runs counter to making good, deep games.

My long term goal is to buy a cabinet for myself. I'm actually looking forward to the maintenance as a hobby!