[HN Gopher] Pinball is booming in America
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Pinball is booming in America
Author : pseudolus
Score : 213 points
Date : 2023-05-15 10:59 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| elijaht wrote:
| Recently went to a pinball museum. Was awesome. $20 got you play
| for the whole day, and they had a variety of machines from the
| early days of pinball to the present. Really helped you see the
| evolution of pinball from then to now, and because it was a flat
| payment, I could experiment and play around without feeling like
| I was burning money.
| pacoWebConsult wrote:
| The one in Asheville, NC? I'm glad it was a flat fee because
| some of those oldest pinball machines they have are just plain
| terrible game design. Very unforgiving if you make the
| slightest error, the ball is out of play.
|
| Really cool place and I'm glad they are keeping those artifacts
| running.
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| My tip is to find an arcade hall that is specialized in pinball
| and that have both new and old games.
|
| I have been to some of the museums that people talked about in
| this thread and I would avoid that. Better to ask around which
| games you may like and then find a place where you can play a set
| of them. Pay to play also assures you that the games are ok.
| user3939382 wrote:
| One of my long term dreams is a Star Wars pinball machine. Some
| day...
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| When you do find one to restore, look up these resources to
| swap the old processor for an Arduino, download the framework
| with all the rules for missions and points and so on, and still
| emulate the old hardware interface:
|
| https://missionpinball.org/
|
| https://github.com/AmokSolderer/APC
|
| There are a number of machines up for sale, priced at around
| $4,000:
|
| https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/star-wars
|
| https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/star-wars-trilogy
|
| Might want to start with a cheap, older Bally or Williams
| machine instead of the late-model licensed Star Wars machines,
| but they can be found for a lot less if not (yet) in working
| order!
| user3939382 wrote:
| Wow awesome, thanks man. I'll keep this as a reference.
| vikingerik wrote:
| If you want a Star Wars machine that is reliable and
| cheaper, the best bet is the Home Pin edition from Stern
| Pinball. You can get these brand new, and they use modern
| technology that is much more reliable than older machines.
| MSRP is $4,999 and you may be able to find one for slightly
| less.
|
| https://shop.sternpinball.com/collections/home-edition-
| colle...
| beznet wrote:
| Joined a pinball league last year after moving cities. Not only
| did I fall in love with pinball(didn't grow up with any machines
| in my hometown) its just a phenomenal community of people who get
| together each week. I highly recommend anyone reading this to
| look for any pinball leagues in your area. Its a mixture of all
| sorts of people from my experience and just a wonderful
| social/gaming environment.
| meesles wrote:
| My dad was gifted an old, defunct Globetrotters pinball machine
| in the 90s by a neighbor, and spent most of my childhood
| refurbishing it and fixing it up when it would break down. Lots
| of fond memories showing it off to my friends, and later pulling
| off the glass to get a perfect 99999 score!
| NickC25 wrote:
| That's neat! Wish there was more gaming themed bars around where
| I live (South Florida) but for wider amounts of games, not just
| pinball (which is awesome).
|
| I remember going to arcades growing up in the 90s and early 2000s
| and would jump at the chance to be able to relive that nostalgia.
|
| Themed bars are making a strong run here (there's a local mini-
| golf focused bar which is really fun, albeit expensive). Would
| love a bar with pinball machines, maybe some fighting games or
| 4-player co-op games, sports games and maybe even some
| rhythm/music games. Nothing too hardcore, but something easy
| enough for your average non-gamer to understand and still have
| fun participating.
| psychomugs wrote:
| John Wilson, the mastermind behind HBO's Nathan Fielder-produced
| "How To With John Wilson," shot some beautiful scenes of Vegas'
| Pinball Hall of Fame.
|
| https://vimeo.com/180067392 (~13:00)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Highly recommend the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda if
| you're in the Bay Area.
|
| https://www.pacificpinball.org
| pipnonsense wrote:
| I went to Vegas' Pinball Hall of Fame a few weeks ago and it's
| a great place to go. I had one free day in Vegas before a work-
| related conference, so I took the morning and spent around 4
| hours there.
|
| A lot of good, working machines, nice staff, no tricks to keep
| making you consuming unnecessary stuff or stay there more than
| you would want to. Just a fun place to be -- if you enjoy
| playing pinball of course. Cheap too.
| alcover wrote:
| Thank you, this video is a unique unassuming and hyptnotic
| jewel.
| psychomugs wrote:
| The HBO show is great, but his Vimeo is better IMO. I
| particularly like 'The Road To Magnasanti' and 'How To Remain
| Single.'
| oldandboring wrote:
| I went casually looking around a couple weeks ago to see what a
| used pinball machine might cost. Down the rabbit hole I went
| until I landed on a subreddit where I learned that pinball
| absolutely exploded during the pandemic and the prices for both
| used and new machines nearly doubled. I also learned that there's
| a nontrivial cost-of-ownership at play, since (especially for
| older machines) it can be difficult to find replacement parts,
| and you need to be handy enough to diagnose and fix problems.
| johnvanommen wrote:
| I worked in a video arcade in college, and pinball machines
| were the bane of my existence. They broke down easily 1000%
| more often than anything else. Data East pinballs were
| particularly shoddy.
| skeaker wrote:
| It's definitely never been a cheap hobby. A common folly that I
| heard from multiple people involved in the scene was that they
| would buy an old and broken game with the idea that they would
| repair it themselves, only to find that the cost for parts
| would greatly outweigh any resale value the machine would have.
| Fortunately some push through regardless simply because they
| enjoy the game itself.
| pizzaknife wrote:
| StreetFighter was meant to be played standing up
| hijinks wrote:
| as someone that has an arcade the prices for pinball games has
| skyrocketed since covid.
|
| It was probably a better bet to put your savings into pinball
| games in 2019 and selling them now then the market.
| asdff wrote:
| It's interesting how all it takes for something sometimes to boom
| is to just make it available at a venue with food and alcohol.
| People mentioned barcades. This also goes for things like
| throwing axes at a plywood board. Swinging a golf club for people
| who have good odds of sendign the club farther than the ball.
| Throwing a duckpin bowling ball like its 1905 again. Shuffleboard
| is a thing among millenials now, sleepy old person shuffleboard!
| All because you can get a nice IPA with friends over it or some
| food. It's too bad a lot of cities are so hard up with liquor
| licensing or even make a racket out of granting the licenses.
| Stuff like this should be easy.
| pseudolus wrote:
| On a bit of a tangent, pinball was banned in NYC until 1976 -
| ostensibly because it was viewed more as a form of gambling then
| skill. A movie - "Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game" was
| released last year and is based on the efforts of Roger Sharpe, a
| GQ editor, to overturn that ban. [0][1][2]
|
| [0] https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/did-you-know-
| pinbal...
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13365876/
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Sharpe_(pinball)
| vikingerik wrote:
| And to mythbust here: The common legend and shallow wikipedia
| blurb goes that Sharpe called out one shot in the courtroom and
| made it ("the shot that saved pinball"), which astonished the
| jury into ruling that pinballs are games of skill.
|
| The reality was that he did make the one shot (and later
| confessed that that one shot was half luck), but besides that
| also played for tens of minutes (and some accounts say on two
| different games), demonstrating all the things a skilled player
| can do, to such an extent that the outcome was beyond doubt.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| The article is pretty brief, and doesn't get into what has been
| (to me, at least) the biggest surprise in recent years: the
| proliferation of new pinball manufacturers.
|
| After a wave of consolidation in the 90s and and eventual pivot
| in the 2000s to the more profitable slots market, Stern was for
| years the only company still making new pinball machines. That
| started to change in the 2010s, however, and there are now half a
| dozen names you'll see at a contemporary barcade.
|
| More here: https://www.kineticist.co/post/who-makes-pinball-
| machines
| calsheimer wrote:
| wrote linked article, and it's truly been incredible to watch
| over the last few years. most times if a manufacturer can get a
| product to market (harder than you'd think), it sells pretty
| well.
| monkeydust wrote:
| Wonder if there is some lowres analogue revolution going on. I
| just brought a manual coffee grinder and a vinyl record
| player...loving them both for now.
| torunar wrote:
| https://archive.is/res43
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| A few years ago, I found an old electromechanical pinball machine
| out for the trash. At some point, the back box connector (the
| part that connects the square top part with the scoreboard to the
| table) was severed.
|
| I spent a couple of days tracing out the schematic and wiring
| everything up again, cleaning contacts and doing some basic
| repairs like changing lightbulbs and rubbers. By the end of the
| process, I had a playable pinball machine.
|
| What was really an eye-opener for me was how the game was
| "programmed". Timing was handled by flashing lightbulbs and game
| state was maintained by relays and wheels that triggered stacks
| of switches. Really a different way of thinking about how to
| build up a game.
|
| I didn't play game enough and want to spend the time to keep it
| running, so I donated it. It was really enjoyable to fix it up
| (once) and figure out how everything worked. I might do it again
| some time!
| icoder wrote:
| Slightly related but I once got a 'behind the scenes' of a
| bowling alley, I was amazed to see (not sure if still the case,
| could very well be) how 'analog' the whole machinery was, with
| a big wheel and lots of mechanical entrapments to
| pick/collect/replace pins. I think the technical constraints
| demanded a lot of ingenuity back then.
|
| If I remember correctly they added digital score keeping as an
| afterthought using camera's (+ software + screens).
| bombcar wrote:
| I was watching a hacking video on elevators, and some of them
| are still run entirely analog with no real computers, it's
| all relays and miles and miles of wire.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| It was like this, right? https://youtu.be/-DKCFjm0DvE
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| If you're in the Bay Area, you take part in the boom for a flat
| admission fee (all machines are free) at the Pacific Pinball
| Museum in Alameda. It started as a one-room collection and has
| since grown to have a big collection of really well maintained
| machines. They're also affiliated with Free Gold Watch near
| Haight in SF, which has a good rotating collection of machines,
| both brand new movie tie-ins etc and a room of vintage
| electromechanical machines. It never gets old hearing the buzzing
| and bells from an old school machine...or putting a quarter into
| the Big Lebowski table and hearing "where's the money, Lebowski!"
|
| And, coming up in august, California Extreme will take over the
| Santa Clara convention center with a truly mind-bogglingly
| massive collection of hobbyist owned pinball machines, arcade
| machines, and vintage gaming electronics. It's a blast and always
| one of my favorite days of the whole year.
| nthitz wrote:
| Also this weekend there's a festival in Lodi not too far away!
| https://www.goldenstatepinball.org/
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| Oh wow, thank you! I just might be there on Saturday.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| There are similar pinball museums in Seattle, Las Vegas, and
| probably many other cities.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| Yes, I always love checking out a new one! I'll also
| recommend pinballmap.com as a good resource for finding
| pinball machine collections both large and small. I've used
| it traveling to find little arcades in old malls and great
| machines in laundromats.
| hackernoteng wrote:
| Neighbor down the street has 2 nice ones, in addition a basically
| full-on full size video arcade. During a block party, none of the
| kids cared about the video games. They were lined up to play the
| pinball.
| BashiBazouk wrote:
| Growing up in Santa Cruz during peak arcade, the casino at the
| boardwalk was one of the best. Not only did they have just about
| all the arcade video games but also an incredibly deep pinball
| collection for when you needed something else. My favorite was a
| pinball machine with a baseball theme that was from the 30's.
| Most the antique pinball are no longer on the floor but they used
| to have such a cool collection that you could play.
| danielodievich wrote:
| My family goes to Seattle Pinball Museum
| https://www.seattlepinballmuseum.com/ in International District.
| Play pinball for a while, then go out for Chinese or Sushi. All
| machines are marked with Fun/Grin factor on the scale from 1-10.
| First time I went there, they had this really unusual machine
| that emulated aircraft machine gun. It shot a neverending stream
| of pinballs at about 2-3 bps (balls per second) with hundreds of
| them flowing through the system at once and feeding back into the
| gun. You controlled it with two handles on left and right of the
| machine, like a gunner in the WW2 aircraft. You had to shoot out
| the target lights at the board to get the score. It was
| incredibly noisy, tactile and FUN. The label on it correctly
| stated that it was "14 out of 10" on the grin factor scale. The
| lady running that place told me they hardly ever turned it on
| because it was so incredibly loud, and it was gone next times I
| went there.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Who wrote this article? There isn't any mention of the marketing
| here past new IPs being licensed for machines. The headline
| doesn't mention the most surprising part of the article (that
| machines are now connected to the internet for global high
| scores). They call Rick and Morty a "bizarre cult cartoon". All
| this article does is talk about how pinball machine sales are up,
| concludes it's nostalgia, and then lets a guy who's interested in
| pinball serve as their anecdotal evidence for it being nostalgia.
| Then mentions some pinball history.
|
| I think there's a lot more that could have been said here, and a
| lot better people that could have answered a lot better
| questions. I doubt the average Economist reader even knows that
| pinball machines actually have objectives and games inside.
| te_234305 wrote:
| It's a little more than just pure nostalgia considering that
| new games are being made, notably by Stern
| (https://sternpinball.com/) and several other smaller
| companies.
|
| The history they highlight is a bit oddly framed. Based on some
| manufacturing numbers (https://pinballmag.fr/en/the-best-
| selling-pinball-machines-o...) it is true that the 1970s were
| probably pinball's peak decade, but there was also a smaller
| "bump" in pinball in the early-mid 1990s when the dot matrix
| display and increasing computer power transformed the
| complexity of the game (the best selling pinball of all time,
| Addams Family, was made in this period). My guess is if there
| is a nostalgia factor, it is probably driven more by those that
| discovered pinball then, instead of the 1970s.
|
| My understanding is that the current resurgence in pinball is
| due to a combination of the "arcade bar" phenomenon and
| especially the home collector's market. Apparently there was a
| huge surge of growth in the pinball market during the pandemic
| (https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/coronavirus-leads-
| to-s...), this of course due to everyone being cooped up at
| home.
| cocacola1 wrote:
| I think Economist articles are anonymous.
| glonq wrote:
| Compared to arcade games, pinballs require quite a bit of
| maintenance. Plenty of mechanical things to break or wear down,
| and tons of wiring.
|
| I had a 1976 Williams EM that was fun to play, but definitely
| kept me busy working on it.
| efields wrote:
| I'm 38 and I just learned that pinball machines have a script
| you're supposed to follow. Like it plainly tells you do this then
| this then this to "beat" the game. Of course it just loops back
| to the beginning when you do. A lot of these machines tell you
| this on a little white card sometimes in the lower left of the
| glass top.
|
| Also a lot of machines have midnight madness mode. If you're at
| an all night arcade and it hits midnight, multiball!
| epiccoleman wrote:
| At our local barcade, after years of visiting, I got really
| into Medieval Madness, and I got a good laugh at myself after
| reading that little card and thinking "oh, imagine that,
| there's actually useful information in the instructions."
|
| Who'd have guessed?!
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Love Medieval Madness. Great, great machine.
|
| One of my favorites as far as merging of the form and the
| story is Black Knight (and Black Knight 2000). The _machine
| itself_ is framed as your knightly opponent in this apparent
| duel (it even taunts you, LOL), and the table layout is such
| that you can be on offense--ball in the physically-elevated
| high part of the field, with scoring and mode-progress
| opportunities and basically no risk of losing the ball as
| long as you keep it up there--or defense, in the lower part
| of the field, where it 's _quite_ easy to lose a ball, and
| play 's alarmingly fast & reactive, but there are also some
| good bonus chances or ways to set up your next play in the
| top field.
|
| And that theme song on Black Knight 2000. Oh man. So good.
|
| [EDIT] Oh and I forgot that the "knight" taunts you _during
| that awesome song_ with "give me your money!" (among other
| taunts), which is another machine -> character connection.
| You are _dueling_ the machine. It 's basically a perfect
| fusion of story/motif and the form of the game.
| epiccoleman wrote:
| I haven't gotten into Black Knight so much, I need to give
| it a few more plays! All my quarters usually get pumped
| into Medieval Madness and (when it's _rarely_ working)
| Banzai Run. I 'm decent at MM, and just awful at Banzai Run
| - but the temptation of that upper (vertical!) playfield is
| too much to resist.
|
| Medieval Madness though just stands head and shoulders
| above every other table I've played. One of my favorite
| things about it is that in my opinion it's a really fair
| table - in that "Dark Souls" style, if I lose a ball, I
| almost never say "ah, bullshit" - it's almost always
| because I took a bad shot or whiffed on an easy save. I
| know these machines are designed to eat your quarters, but
| some of the Stern tables I've played seem to have a really
| high "that was bullshit" factor. (Although, of course, my
| own mediocre skill is more to blame than anything else).
| yamtaddle wrote:
| You've probably got similar taste to me--I like a table
| that's a bit _relaxing_ to play, at least once you 've
| got a feel for it. Black Knight (and 2000) are a lot more
| challenging than my usual sweet-spot, but do at least
| feel fair, which is why I still like them. Lots of
| alarmingly-fast losses when you're starting out or if you
| aren't really feeling it that day, but fun if I feel like
| being _very_ engaged (and after a couple dozen games to
| learn how to not lose within seconds, LOL)
|
| You might like Attack from Mars, which shares the "knock
| down the barrier on a high-central target, hit it, move
| on to the next" thing from Medieval Madness. It has less
| fun with its theme and of the two I'd say MM is
| unequivocally better, but if you're out and about and run
| into one, might give it a try. I'd especially look for
| Theater of Magic, if you haven't played that one. It's
| not quite as clean as Medieval Madness, but in roughly
| the same difficulty zone and has a lot of fun shots and
| gimmicks, and really runs with the theme. Might enjoy
| Whitewater, too--it's in the same ballpark, difficulty-
| wise, but with a more complex playfield than MM despite
| _looking_ fairly simple at a glance, but is still quite
| legible once you 've given it a look over and a couple
| plays. Theme's less obviously-fun but I find it really
| nails a kind of kitsch appeal that works for me, at
| least. Both the Elvira games I've played have been in
| that zone, too--one's better than the other, IMO, but I
| forget which.
|
| Oh, and find Monster Bash. Learn it. Get good at it.
| There are few things better in mid-difficulty pinball
| than finally getting the whole monster band together so
| they can _rock_ :-) Fun, goofy theme like Medieval
| Madness.
|
| A step up the difficulty level, I like Addams Family
| (doesn't everyone?) and Junkyard a lot. Everyone seems to
| love Twilight Zone but I can't get into the damn thing.
| It's got the same thing Addams Family does where if you
| don't have precise and well-planned shot control (looking
| a move ahead, if possible) you'll end up with lots of
| drains down the sides, but is _just_ enough harder to
| learn that I 've not managed to enjoy it yet.
|
| There's another level that's _easier_ than the ones I
| like, that I really despise. Like Mary Shelley 's
| Frankenstein. I practically have to _try_ to lose that
| one, to get the game to end. It 's just boring and feels
| like it's patronizing me.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| One of the blogs that gets posted here a lot (I don't recall
| which) is someone who teaches some sort of history of video
| games. One of the things he has to convince his students of
| is just how impossible it is to figure out certain old PC
| games without reading the instructions (IIRC Ultima IV is one
| where students would just be 100% confused).
| epiccoleman wrote:
| Even now, a little reading goes a long way. I have to
| constantly heckle my son while playing the new Zelda game -
| "hey, maybe that person is telling you something you want
| to know!"
|
| I used to drive my own father crazy when doing computer
| stuff back in the day, though - clicking through menus at
| lightspeed and such. Guess it's karma. ;)
| taylodl wrote:
| That card is relatively new. Back in the old days, I wrote in
| another comment here I started playing pinball before The Who
| penned the song Pinball Wizard, there was no card. You had to
| figure out the rules of the game by playing the game. Pay
| attention to the lights, they direct you to what you need to
| do. They don't always make it clear, but they give you an idea.
| Generally speaking, a solid light means you've already achieved
| that goal, and a flashing can mean many things but most often
| it indicates a goal that's available for you to achieve in a
| set timeframe, usually until you've lost the ball.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| One of the biggest steps on my pinball journey was an older
| player explaining to me that most machines (the ones that
| weren't super-ancient, anyway) had one or more "stories" or
| progressions of play, and that playing well required
| understanding those. From there, you kinda learn to "read" a
| table before you try it, between LED screen directions and
| printed directions under the glass and looking over the table
| layout & elements. Gives you a big advantage. I'd poked at
| pinball machines every chance I got (which wasn't _that_ many)
| as a kid, but that part had somehow never clicked.
|
| Another surprise was that about 50% of playing well is in the
| hips, not the fingers.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I learned about that from the game Pokemon Pinball!
|
| I never usually last long enough in real games to learn what
| I'm supposed to do to make progress.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Pinball on computers is thriving too.
|
| Visual Pinball X ("VPX", see
| https://www.vpforums.org/index.php?app=downloads&showcat=51) runs
| community authored recreated tables with ROMs dumped from the
| hardware. The physics engine has good performance and
| authenticity.
|
| Another project, Visual Pinball Engine, ported the C++-based
| physics engine to Unity
| (https://github.com/freezy/VisualPinball.Engine) through its DOTS
| & "HPC#" (C# with manual memory management extensions) approach.
| Unity adoption means you can play high fidelity tables right in
| your browser (https://appmana.com/watch/pinball).
|
| Then there's commercial platforms like Pinball FX and people
| building VPX rendering in VR.
|
| It's maybe the biggest simulation scene I know of. The community
| fills many niches. Rigs of Rods & Beam.ng for the idea,
| "Microsoft Flight Simulator, but for cars." XMage & Spellsource
| for "Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone but you write your own
| cards." Unreal Engine for Fortnite is a big entry for the open
| world community authored content dominated by Minecraft, with
| submarine stuff like Facepunch's S&box (think Garry's Mod 2.0)
| coming up.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Any decent virtual pinball machines out there? I was looking at
| a Legend one once but it seemed really shoddy.
| wincy wrote:
| Not exactly what your asking for, but VR pinball games are
| excellent. They also sell pinball controllers so you can
| simulate the same hand positions as a real pinball machine,
| so while you're wearing a headset you're looking down at the
| right angle and get the feel of real pinball.
| splonk wrote:
| I just saw this video of Ronnie O'Sullivan falling over due
| to trying to lean on a virtual snooker table, and I'm
| almost certain exactly the same thing would happen to me
| the first time I tried to nudge a VR pinball machine.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMceVbo3Tm4
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| The Legend is well supported by the community. There are
| 3/4th replicas mass produced that I believe can be modded to
| run anything. Also produced with official licenses (Arcade
| 1UP).
| rideontime wrote:
| The neat thing IMO about virtual pinball and real pinball is
| how they complement each other. I've yet to find a virtual
| pinball with really satisfying physics simulation, but that's
| ok, because for me the real benefit is being able to learn the
| rules without the pressure of dropping quarters. Thanks to the
| tutorials in Pinball Arcade (RIP), I was able to reach Final
| Frontier on TNG the first time I played a real one.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Been meaning to try to build one of these.
|
| Example: https://www.instructables.com/Virtual-Pinball-
| Machine-1/
| chippytea wrote:
| There is an excellet pinball museum in Budapest where you can
| play original restored machines all night for an entry fee.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I think more broadly, arcades have been coming back in US. Part
| of it is the nostalgia aspect but I think more so, they have
| finally figured out a sustainable business model: become a bar.
|
| For example I live in Denver and here we have a chain of popular
| Arcade bars called '1up'. I always find it a great place to go
| with friends or on a date because there's always something for
| everyone, machines of all types, photo booths, and if you just
| don't like arcade games they have a full bar as well. And as a
| result they attract a varied crowd and always seem to be making
| money one way or the other.
|
| I wish game bars all the best, as a 90's kid I never really got
| to experience arcades like they had them back in the 80's, so
| it's awesome to see arcade bars make a comeback now.
|
| Also it is just me or do pinball games just never seem to get the
| physics of the ball right? Every pinball game I've ever played
| always seemed way easier than playing "real" pinball.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I am on the East Coast and there are probably at least a half
| dozen places places to play in my area that have ten or more
| machines. Many bars now have at least a few machines. I'd say
| there is a large technical community here and pinball does
| really feel at home in nerd/tech culture.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Yes, it's an idea, but in the 1980s when arcade games were
| common, many "normal" bars had video games and pinball machines
| in them. These days they seem absent except in those dedicated
| barcades.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Yes, the barcade business model works. Mostly as a bar. Most
| often the machines are owned and operated by an outside
| contractor or dedicated hobbyist (who knows how to fix them.)
| The games make it a destination for families with kids, and the
| adults play some but really spend on food and drink. Same as
| how a tabletop game store is really making money on the food
| items, not the trading cards.
|
| And as for your last, yes, virtual pinball games don't come
| close on ball physics. Real ball motion is so much more than a
| pair of X-Y coordinates and velocities. A real ball slides and
| spins and scrapes across the playfield and the objects in all
| sorts of ways. A ball's motion is very 3d even on a 2d
| playfield - it can have a spin axis aligned anywhere on its
| sphere.
|
| Flippers too. It's much more than one object moving at one
| velocity. There are really subtle details in the interactions
| with the rubber on the flippers - a real ball will sink into
| the rubber by a fraction of a millimeter and rebound in ways
| that depend on that. Flippers accelerate and decelerate on a
| time scale of single-digit milliseconds, with all sorts of
| subtleties that an experienced player can feel. Response time
| matters too - a computer platform is usually limited to 1/60
| second input resolution by the host hardware and OS, while a
| real machine responds hard real time instantly.
|
| And of course nudging - no virtual controller comes anywhere
| close to all the things you can do to a real machine, shoves
| and pushes and slaps. No game physics engine comes anywhere
| close to all that detail in all these areas.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > the machines are owned and operated by an outside
| contractor
|
| The OP mentioned 1-Up chain in metro Denver. Their games are
| owned and serviced personally by the owner. He had the
| experience operating arcades and partnered with someone who
| had the restaurant/bar experience to make a very successful,
| multi-location business.
| sdfghswe wrote:
| If we're able to simulate airplanes before they fly, I'm
| pretty sure we can simulate a sphere.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Sure, for enough money and with enough horsepower we could
| simulate just about anything you want.
|
| For a freeware pinball game? Maybe not.
|
| It's always a question of money and time.
| zamnos wrote:
| On the other hand, Dwarf Fortress was free for how long?
| musictubes wrote:
| DF is still free directly from Bay12.
| vikingerik wrote:
| It's way more than just the sphere, it's simulating all the
| surfaces and materials that the sphere interacts with.
| Particularly the mechanical pieces with their own movement
| as well.
|
| The comparable level of detail to get pinball right would
| be something like simulating all the rubber gaskets and
| surfaces in the ailerons and elevators, all the fluid
| dynamics in the hydraulics, and so on.
|
| If you invested something like the $100 million that Boeing
| or Lockheed must have done in their simulators, you
| probably could. Video pinball isn't exactly that big
| economically, though.
| mywittyname wrote:
| It is absolutely possible to model a pinball machine very
| accurately with existing CAD software, and for much less
| money than that.
|
| With GPU-powered physics, it might be possible to model
| this in real time. But if not, one could definitely run
| the simulations in CAD and export the results to a table
| (or fit to an equation) and use those in the game.
|
| The limitation isn't technology.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Is your CAD software simulating the increase in
| temperature as the coil fires frequently throughout a
| game, with the ensuing changes in coil strength and
| rubber resilience?
|
| Is your GPU accounting for millisecond-level fluctuations
| in power as more lights and flashers are on at any given
| instant so any coil receives a tiny bit less power?
|
| Are you accounting for a tiny bit of residual magnetism
| left in the balls after they departed from recent contact
| with a magnet?
|
| You are correct that the limitation isn't technology. All
| this is doable with enough specialized computation - but
| the reality is that it's vast avenues of effort that
| nobody has done or likely will.
| jwagenet wrote:
| I don't doubt that these interactions have some minuscule
| effect on pinball performance, but I'm skeptical that you
| couldn't get close enough with some relatively simple
| models. Eg count the lights on and model a draw in
| remaining power available to solenoids.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Is your CAD software simulating the increase in
| temperature as the coil fires frequently throughout a
| game, with the ensuing changes in coil strength and
| rubber resilience?
|
| Yes. That's a basic feature a professional CAE package.
| And the materials library includes a few hundred
| different rubber compounds and metals to model with as
| well.
|
| Modern CAD is amazing. Back when I worked in the
| industry, we'd have customers whose simulations for jet
| turbine engines match the the sensor readings on the
| prototype almost exactly.
| badpun wrote:
| Are plane simulators really simulating fluid dynamics in
| hydraulics, during real-time simulation? Is that even
| doable (assuming the simulation wants to be realistic).
| bluGill wrote:
| Boeing is likely doing that in their CAD - but these are
| tests they they can throw at a super computer of some
| sort and let run for a week.
|
| Flight simulators that are used to train pilots are
| unlikely to have this level of detail. There is enough
| variation in things like wind turbulence that they can
| ignore a lot of the other effects as if you can handle
| turbulence you can handle smaller errors as well.
| 40four wrote:
| Of course we can simulate a sphere, but to the point of the
| well written comment you a responding to, the simulation
| models in pinball video games don't even come close the the
| complexity of the physics of a real world pinball. I played
| a lot of pinball as a kid, and I've played many pinball
| video games since. I was recently at one of these 'barcade'
| venues and tried my hand at pinball thinking I would be
| good at it. I couldn't have been more wrong. I lost all 3
| balls immediately just about every game. It's incredibly
| difficult and unpredictable. Go to your local barcade and
| try for yourself :)
| birdyrooster wrote:
| I am pretty sure local game stores make money when they sell
| booster packs to a kid at full price, kid sells them the best
| cards at a 30% discount and then the store resells it for
| market value. Sure there is risk here but they make it very
| hard to lose. Running the store lets them have options to
| purchase cards at a discount every time the sell a booster
| pack.
| cdchn wrote:
| >Most often the machines are owned and operated by an outside
| contractor
|
| This has been the model for bars for a long time I think
| everything from those bartop entertainment systems,
| jukeboxes, electronic dart boards, etc.
| echelon wrote:
| Massive opportunity in Atlanta for any barentrepreneur.
|
| The main arcade on Edgewood ("Joystick") is super popular,
| but only has 8 or so machines. They're not in good shape
| either. People want to play, but it's too crowded.
|
| The similar "adult dog park / bar" concept has been
| absolutely exploding. "Fetch" bar started just across the
| street from me a few years ago and they've since expanded to
| over ten locations in three different states. It's huge. And
| it's always packed to the brim with over a hundred people.
|
| Plus you get to charge membership fees per dog in a
| subscription model.
|
| People want to drink and bring their dogs.
|
| If the west coast doesn't already have this, get on it. I
| can't imagine there's much moat apart from branding, but it's
| got huge growth opportunity.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Like all things I worry about it being a fad. It's big
| _now_ but what's to say these trends last? It can hard to
| maximize the investment it takes to make a great repeat
| experience.
|
| I know that's always the risk for sure, but I'd bet in a
| longer run of the barcade market than dog bars, but I've
| been wrong before
| bluGill wrote:
| The good part is if the fad dies - you still have a bar.
| one of those businesses proven to make money for hundreds
| of years (thousands? - I'm not up on my ancient history,
| but I suspect it was a good way to make money even in BC
| days). If the dog part fails, just remodel to whatever
| bar type will make money next. If you are running a
| business you should have a budget to do a significant
| remodel every 10 years anyway, 10 years from now you will
| know if the fad is still going strong to dieing.
| tomtheelder wrote:
| The dog bar thing is absolutely here to stay, and it's
| actually sort of crazy that it took this long. The one
| near us is more like a dog park that also happens to have
| a bar and a food truck and good wifi, but it's just such
| a big win as a dog owner. You get to hang out somewhere
| actually pleasant while your dog plays in a controlled
| space with folks watching and breaking up any major
| scuffles. For a reasonably well off- especially younger-
| dog owner it's kind of a no brainer.
|
| I guess if dog ownership crashes that would be a problem,
| but I really don't see that happening any time soon.
| samsolomon wrote:
| Fetch is fantastic! For a long time my partner would
| bring our dog there on weekday mornings--when it is less
| crowded--and grab a coffee and work. They have bark
| rangers or whatever they're called to make sure nobody
| gets in a fight so owners can actually get work done.
|
| I hadn't ever considered whether the place was a fad or
| not, but they are definitely benefiting from the trend
| towards WFH.
| debatem1 wrote:
| Super popular here in Seattle. I was talking with a friend
| the other day about how to start a small metal venue in the
| area and their advice was to teach dogs to like metal
| because there's no way you compete with a dog lounge on
| revenue.
| zamnos wrote:
| If the dog lounge makes more money than you, do you lose
| some sort of competition?
| adfm wrote:
| When real money is in the line, physics and real touch
| matter. They had to change roulette because certain players
| learned minor flaws delivered an advantage.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-how-to-beat-
| roulette...
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Yes, the barcade business model works. Mostly as a bar.
|
| In my city, there is one that is not only popular but has
| been in operation for 20 years or so. It has a couple hundred
| arcade machines, mostly pinball, and looks like that's their
| main business.
|
| But the reality of the economics is proven by one aspect of
| how they operate: if you buy a drink at the bar, you get to
| play all the games for free. If not, they're 25 cents per
| play.
| m463 wrote:
| alcohol might help balance out the "pinball wizard hogging
| the machine all night" issue. :)
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| i like that bar freeplay approach, havent seen that around
| here and that's probably a good thing
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Another good model is pay-by-the-hour using a reloadable
| card. This allows kids to get good at a game without
| having to invest hundreds of dollars.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Please name the city and bar so I can visit it.
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| > And of course nudging - no virtual controller comes
| anywhere close to all the things you can do to a real
| machine, shoves and pushes and slaps. No game physics engine
| comes anywhere close to all that detail in all these areas.
|
| "Anywhere close" might actually be a little closer than you
| think. Ever take a peak down the virtual pinball rabbit hole?
| The KL25Z microcontroller board at the heart of many visual
| pinball builds has an accelerometer to measure nudges etc.
| Most builds also have a real tilt bob if you get a little
| over exuberant. Then there are real shaker motors, surround
| sound feedback, multiple displays for the backglass and DMD
| etc.
|
| Way of the Wrench on YouTube has the best set of videos I
| know of on the topic of building your own cab. It would
| really be a blast to build something like this.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrqlHbqP7FIO5P8e8HtrB.
| ..
| Tao3300 wrote:
| @ 1:15
|
| > There's nothing better than real pinball and I would have
| to agree.
| wahern wrote:
| > Yes, the barcade business model works.
|
| Does Dave & Busters fit into this category, or would you say
| they have the wrong focus? I've never been to a Dave &
| Busters, but they're a fairly large chain that long-preceded
| the current wave. Is Dave & Busters too much like an adult
| Showbiz/Chuck E. Cheese, rather than a more casual bar you
| can pop into?
| wizardofthetoa wrote:
| Dave & Busters' arcade games are not real arcade games;
| they are more like casino games. There's no Galaga, no
| anything that has levels or characters, it's all giant
| wheels that you spin or darts that you throw or bags that
| you punch. It lacks all intellectual appeal, and honestly
| seems more like a gym than an arcade.
| weaksauce wrote:
| it does too much. it's like 3 bars in one/a restaurant/over
| the top huge style arcade games/meeting room venue/pool
| hall/darts/shuffleboard
|
| probably missing something but yeah it's everything and
| nothing at the same time.
| splonk wrote:
| > Yes, the barcade business model works. Mostly as a bar.
| Most often the machines are owned and operated by an outside
| contractor or dedicated hobbyist (who knows how to fix them.)
|
| To expand on this a bit, the actual maintainer of the machine
| is probably the most important factor of the quality of the
| barcade, at least if you're the type of person who cares
| about rulesets for games and will be irritated if something
| doesn't work because of a broken sensor. I like enthusiast
| owned/operated places because the owner who's actually
| playing the games will notice problems and fix them, as
| opposed to bars where any problems with the machine will
| either be broken until the maintainer gets around to it on
| their scheduled route, or possibly the problems never get
| reported at all. One possibly useful proxy for this is seeing
| where your local leagues play - in general they're more
| likely to be in places with well-maintained machines.
|
| For San Francisco:
|
| - Outer Orbit is my favorite place, even though they've
| recently removed a couple machines for more seating (more
| evidence that the bar/restaurant is the money maker). The
| owners met playing pinball, are heavily involved in the local
| scene, and do the maintenance themselves, so the machines
| tend to be in great shape. Decent Hawaiian food and a quite
| good beer list.
|
| - Free Gold Watch is the place everyone always recommends
| because it has the most machines. My feeling is that they
| don't keep up on maintenance well enough because I always
| have trouble with tables always having enough small things
| broken about it that it's impossible to advance some modes.
| (On pretty much any modern machine every lane/ramp/hole is
| probably going to be required for some mode or another, so a
| single broken sensor breaks the entire game if you're trying
| for wizard mode.) It's definitely the place to go for the
| arcade experience with a lot of machines to choose from.
|
| - the Alamo theater actually has a reasonably decent room
| upstairs from the bar, across the hall from the theaters.
| Doesn't seem to get rotated much and I'm not convinced it's
| maintained regularly, but it doesn't get much traffic so it
| doesn't seem like stuff breaks quickly there. A lot of people
| seem surprised when I mention it's there.
|
| - Gestalt always has machines in decent shape, but the bar
| itself might close any month now.
|
| - Emporium/Musee Mecanique - I don't go to them often, but
| they're both more generalist arcades, so they'll have a few
| machines at varying maintenance levels.
|
| I'm not sure how often https://pinballmap.com/ gets updated
| or how its coverage is outside the SF Bay Area, but it looks
| pretty accurate for me.
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| Which ones have you tried? My understanding is that the VPX
| physics engine is the closest to the real thing at this point
| in time.
|
| I'm really tempted to build a virtual pinball machine. It would
| be awfully nice if the display of choice (42" LG C2 OLED) would
| come down in price a bit more first.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I think more broadly, arcades have been coming back in US.
| Part of it is the nostalgia aspect_
|
| For it to be nostalgia, 30+ year olds must be going there.
| Anybody below that would have been like 10 when arcades were on
| their last legs, and wouldn't have been allowed to go there as
| a kid, right?
| pupppet wrote:
| Does anyone actually make new arcade machines/games anymore?
| Like real 80's/90's style arcade games, not the ticket
| dispensers.
| throwaway_75369 wrote:
| Some indies still make arcade games - Killer Queens comes to
| mind, and I'm pretty sure Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
| Shredder's Revenge got a full on coinop release. Of course,
| Japan still puts out all manner of new machines with all
| kinds of creative gimmicks (especially music-based, or arena
| fighters), but they're rarely available stateside and they
| might not always be the vibe you're looking for, if you're
| trying to scratch a 90's nostalgia itch.
|
| https://sternpinball.com/ continues to make modern (awesome)
| pinball machines - I'm fortunate enough to work for a company
| that stocks a couple in breakrooms. They also usually have a
| big presence in the floor of California Extreme
| (https://caextreme.org/) which is totally worth checking out
| if you're in the Bay Area in August.
|
| Edit: For a little bit more to search on in terms of Japanese
| stuff - https://arcadeheroes.com/2023/02/10/new-arcade-games-
| for-jap...
| toast0 wrote:
| Yes, but there's not nearly the variety. Mostly new arcade
| machines are either retro stuff, or real pinball, driving
| games or other large cabinet experiences, or fighting games.
| Not a lot of new standard sized standup arcades that aren't
| fighting games (or at least, I'm not aware of them). The
| reality is all these machines are basically PCs now, and
| where's the excitement from playing a PC based arcade game on
| a ~25" screen for 50 cents to a dollar when you could play it
| at home on your PC or your PC based console.
| pupppet wrote:
| See this is what confuses me, are Arcades not still fairly
| big in Japan? What do they play there? Old machines?
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Arcades are unfortunately slowly dying in Japan, but it's
| still a much bigger business there than in the states.
| Most new arcade machines since the late 2000s are off-
| the-shelf PCs with (already for its time) outdated
| graphics cards.
| throwaway_75369 wrote:
| Depends on the location, many of the best arcades in
| Japan are multiple floors, and each floor usually has a
| theme, so like the ground floor is crane games, and then
| a floor for shooters/shmups, then a floor or two for
| fighting games, and then a floor or two for music games.
| Maybe a floor with card games or those giant horse racing
| games...
|
| I was fortunate enough to go like 5 years ago, but I
| really fondly remember Taito Hey had a whole row of like
| 8 Super Sweet Fighter 2 Turbo machines which were
| basically continuously occupied, and then a floor down I
| watched somebody basically one credit perfect one of
| those Capcom Dungeons and Dragons side scrolling
| brawlers, and then on another floor was a widescreen
| Darius machine (which I'd never seen in the US).
|
| In other locations there were floors of like card-based
| army formation strategy games, music games with circular
| screens, etc.
|
| Pachinko is like its own thing, almost always in
| different buildings, usually like 3 times as loud as the
| arcades, and full of smoking. Strangely I don't recall
| seeing any western style pinball machines anywhere,
| though.
|
| Basically, it was arcade nirvana for someone like me
| (born in the early 80's) I heard things got pretty bad
| during Covid, though, so I don't know how much it's
| regressed. I do have a friend who just got back from
| visiting the first time though, and he mentioned he could
| still find tons of competition in old fighting games and
| stuff. (Man I wanna go back, especially since the
| exchange rate is so good now)
|
| Edit: typos
| johnvanommen wrote:
| > The reality is all these machines are basically PCs now,
| and where's the excitement from playing a PC based arcade
| game on a ~25" screen for 50 cents to a dollar when you
| could play it at home on your PC or your PC based console.
|
| This is something that Michael Abrash hasn't really
| received proper credit for: he basically invented the model
| of using off-the-shelf PC components for videogames, which
| then spread to consoles and arcade games.
|
| If it wasn't for Abrash's "mode x" we wouldn't have
| DirectX, then Direct3D, then XBox, then arcade games that
| are nothing more than personal computers.
|
| At the time that Abrash came up with "mode x", there were
| basically two ways to play games on a PC. The first method
| was to use a PC that included a great graphics chip (like
| the Amiga), the second method was to add aftermarket cards.
| Neither method was ideal, because there weren't many Amigas
| in existence, and software developers couldn't maximize
| sales while selling software that required aftermarket
| hardware.
| batty_alex wrote:
| > The reality is all these machines are basically PCs now
|
| You could make the opposite argument back in the day.
| Arcade hardware was what home PCs, and consoles, tried to
| emulate. The truth is, these still use specialized hardware
| even if they end up targeting embedded Linux or embedded
| Windows (or a combination of the two). They are also
| incredibly efficient with their use of hardware
| ohhnoodont wrote:
| Killer Queen definitely managed to capture something
| unique.
| batty_alex wrote:
| Yes. Raw Thrills, Sega, and Taito are still in the business
| of arcade machines. Pinball similarly has quite a few
| developers
| nkozyra wrote:
| The thing that baffles me is we're still stuck in these form
| factors that are mostly made for
|
| a) standing b) in a group of 1 or 2
|
| The cabinets don't have to look like this anymore. We don't
| need a CRT, we don't need the full size cabinets.
|
| Seems like a real opportunity to design a more bar-friendly
| option, tables with multiple monitors that operate like the
| old desktop/seated machines or similarly.
|
| Standing is fine but after awhile people don't want to smoosh
| next to each other and stand in front of a crappy screen. But
| most of these places are too attached to the retro aspect,
| imo.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Video games have had a format like that, intended
| specifically for bars and restaurants, since pretty close
| to the beginning. They're called "cocktail cabinets".
| [deleted]
| nkozyra wrote:
| > Video games have had a format like that, intended
| specifically for bars and restaurants, since pretty close
| to the beginning. They're called "cocktail cabinets".
|
| I referenced them above (but gave them a different name,
| "old desktop/seated machines"). They're still archaic and
| don't fit well with modern bar seating nor gaming.
|
| Playing on one screen split in half was sort of a
| necessity at the time but it never really worked that
| well.
| batty_alex wrote:
| > a) standing b) in a group of 1 or 2
|
| You just need to find an arcade with some candy cabinets,
| those are seated. Also, most of them are set up for one
| player per cab with your opponent sitting on the other side
| of you
| [deleted]
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Well one of the reasons that a pinball video game is always
| going to be easier is that by their digital nature they're
| significantly more deterministic from a Newtonian physics
| perspective.
|
| The "virtual solenoids" that control the paddles in a computer
| game are always going to exert the exact same amount of impulse
| on the ball each and every time they're activated. Contrast
| that with your average Addams family pinball machine that has
| been bruised and beaten have to death, and the flippers are
| practically flaccid.
|
| The analog nature makes the game less predictable and therefore
| more difficult for players.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| I think you're spot on. Where I live there is a _huge_ arcade
| in what 's effectively an old millhouse in a suburb, over 3
| floors, and has been selling beer for a while. It's so popular
| it's spawned a bunch of smaller arcade bars in the city centre.
|
| I think another part of it is that as the highstreet moves away
| from appliance shops there'll have to be things to fill these
| places instead, such as these kind of entertainment venues.
|
| I love arcades, so I'm hoping that they're here to stay :D
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| >they have finally figured out a sustainable business model:
| become a bar.
|
| There used to be a bar in my town that I always thought was a
| great idea, but this particular bar was not in the greatest of
| locations. It was called Bar of Soap, and it was a bar in the
| front, but a laundromat in the back. I think this would be much
| better located in a college town, but this one was no where
| near a college, and not really near any kind of residential to
| speak of.
| m463 wrote:
| > Also it is just me or do pinball games just never seem to get
| the physics of the ball right?
|
| There are plenty of "real" pinball machines out there, seems
| that they keep making them.
| gausswho wrote:
| The most realistic game of pinball physics-wise for me is
| Zaccaria. Its selection is of uneven quality. I recommend
| sticking to the historical solid state and electro mechanical
| tables, over the deluxe or remakes. My favorite table is
| probably Farfalla. VR mode is quite immersive. It has a free
| time limited mode for any table, and tables are quite cheap on
| sale.
| ravenstine wrote:
| I think it's also a subtle reaction to the false promise that
| we can wear an Oculus, live in a pod, and be happy. Turns out
| that just going out and doing things IRL is more consistently
| interesting and has fewer bugs than your typical AAA video game
| in 2023. Better yet if you can drink while you're at it.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Also it is just me or do pinball games just never seem to get
| the physics of the ball right?
|
| It sure seems that way, but I think it's more nuanced. With a
| top-notch video version of pinball, I don't they get the
| physics wrong enough to notice. But what they are is
| _incomplete_.
|
| The physicality of playing a pinball game is an integral part
| of the experience. Standing at the machine, pressing the
| flipper buttons, feeling the vibrations of the ball and
| mechanisms, etc. If you don't have that stuff, then the game is
| going to feel wrong even if the physics of the playfield are
| 100% accurate.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| There's also just the fundamental difference in motives-- PC
| pinball is designed to be fun, while arcade pinball, at least
| historically, was designed to eat your money.
| the_af wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| But let me add the caveat that a lot of arcade videogames
| were designed to eat your money as well, something I always
| found infuriating as a teenager. Some were fair -- things
| like Golden Axe, TMNT or Sunset Riders can be won with a
| single coin if you know what you're doing. But plenty of
| arcades are unwinnable (or require unreasonable expertise)
| for you to have a good time without spending lots of coins.
|
| Which is why I always ended up playing Double Dragon, TMNT
| or Sunset Riders ;)
| mywittyname wrote:
| Mortal Kombat was designed to be Pay to Win. Someone
| reverse engineered the arcade version and later-stage
| opponents were programmed to strike you like 2 frames
| before you would have hit them, and there was a decay
| each time you put a quarter into the machine.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I liked the Fighting Game PvP model, where if you won,
| you play your next game for free. You could go to the
| machine with one quarter and play all night if you were
| skilled.
| autoexec wrote:
| supposedly gauntlet was too.
| https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/back-in-the-days-
| we-h...
|
| The games where your HP constantly dropped over time and
| was replenished by inserting more coins were the worst!
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Pinball's great at eating the money of casuals, while
| letting even moderately-experience players have a pretty
| good time for very little money :-)
|
| Machines I was good at, I used to not-infrequently leave
| with a credit on them, after paying for one game and
| playing two. And I _am not_ a very good pinball player.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| > while arcade pinball, at least historically, was designed
| to eat your money.
|
| It is a nuanced tradeoff. You need to make it entertaining
| enough so that players will continue to play, but also
| difficult enough that they regularly lose and put in more
| quarters. Getting that balance right is hard.
| zamnos wrote:
| Instead of getting the balance right, the obvious answer
| is this is a business proposition, so cheat. Instead of
| having a fixed difficulty, you decide on a minimum coins-
| per-hour revenue, and tilt the table ever so subtley
| against the player if it looks like that revenue target
| isn't going to be hit.
| dasil003 wrote:
| I've played pinball for most of my life, and definitely agree
| with this. At a certain point the physicality is not
| reproducible--there are too many layers to it. No two
| machines are identical, and they change over time. The state
| of the playfield, including when it was cleaned/waxed, the
| strength of the flippers, and everything else about the
| machine impact play in ways which good players can and do
| account for. For instance, it's possible to anticipate how
| much english is on the ball when it comes off a rubber at an
| angle and how it will react when it hits the next surface,
| but it won't be consistent between machines, so you need to
| play enough to get a read on it. Great players can do this
| quickly, and then adjust their play accordingly. It's bit
| like rebounding in basketball in that you have to anticipate
| where the ball is going to bounce based on very small
| trajectory deltas, but the advantage is you can move the
| machine.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| There is also a barcade near me that has a model I like (and is
| probably advantageous to them for staffing). It is a pour-your-
| own beer/wine/cider bar, so it isn't a full bar. But the RFID
| wristbands they give you for the pour-your-own also work on the
| arcade machines which is pretty slick.
| JeremyHerrman wrote:
| I've been building my own pinball machine from scratch on and off
| for the last several years. What I love about pinball design is
| that it combines so many disciplines: woodworking, metalworking,
| CAD, electronics, low level & high level software, game design,
| storytelling, blinking lights, and competitive fast action play.
|
| I've got some old photos of my build progress here:
| https://jherrman.com/gravity-pinball-public-build-log
| whitej125 wrote:
| I grew up on pinball. My dad would buy/fix/sell pinball machines
| and jukeboxes as a side hobby - and of course we'd keep some for
| ourselves. I absolutely LOVED learning how these machines worked.
| Being able to go from a beautifully designed playing field to
| then flipping that up and seeing how it all worked on the
| underbelly. That trait of learning how things worked under hood
| has carried with me ever since (and as a SWE - I use it
| everyday!).
|
| To this day - myself and my sibs each have one of our childhood
| pinballs at our homes. For me its 1980 Black Knight by Williams
| (one of the early pinballs to have "voice" sounds). It's in our
| garage now. It's pretty cool to watch my kids and their friends
| play it. A refreshing alternative to screens IMO.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Back around 2004 when we built the FlockBots, a small army of
| differential-drive robots, we needed a microswitch with an extra-
| long, 4-5", actuator arm that we could bend to form a bump
| sensor. There's exactly one place to get such a thing: the
| pinball machine repair industry. Pinball machines have
| microswitches with long actuators bent into all sorts of odd
| shapes to stick up out of the little divots in which balls fall
| and be triggered when they do so. There are so many obscure
| shapes that the industry just supplies long straight arms
| designed to be bent as needed into whatever shape you need for
| your unit. It's essentially a microswitch with a straightened-out
| paper clip welded onto the switch actuator.
|
| https://www.pinballlife.com/sub-microswitch-with-4-straight-...
| chefandy wrote:
| My gut says we're going to see a bit of a meat space backlash to
| the world of automation, remoteness, anonymity, and modern
| conveniences. The hipsters of the mid-aughts already did to some
| extent, but I think this will be far more mainstream than even
| the re-emergence of vinyl records.
|
| There's no doubt that AI and such will bring great benefit to our
| society in many ways, but I think people are already becoming a
| bit anxious about the cost, especially culturally. It's not _new_
| -- it's one step in a long trend of many things becoming more
| impersonal by design: Buying things from anonymous companies made
| in anonymous overseas factories delivered by a huge anonymous
| workforce. "Art" that was "made" by computers. Automated customer
| "service." Automated "therapy." Transportation hailed by, paid
| for with, and in many instances used for the entirety of
| communication with an anonymous contractor. Groceries, delivery
| food, and anonymously assembled meal kits dropped on your
| doorstep without the inefficiencies and possible tension of
| human-to-human interaction.
|
| I don't think many people will forget the benefits we reap from
| modern technology or reject it outright, but I do think many of
| us will be less enthused to be a cog in our increasingly
| automated, anonymous, and efficiency-obsessed consumerist
| machine. I foresee many of us being much more interested in
| having in-person experiences and interacting with mechanical
| objects in many parts of our lives. Don't have a crystal ball or
| anything, but that's my prediction.
|
| *Edit: I don't mean to be too negative about the tech. Many
| effects attributable to tech were because this tech made most of
| our lives more livable during the pandemic. I just think a lot of
| people are ready to shed a lot of that. Other random thought:
| it's quite possible, if not likely, that engaging in this
| lifestyle shift will be a luxury, at least initially, and involve
| some significant class tension.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I think people want real, tangible things. They want to hold
| them and feel them and interact with them. They want real
| relationships in real places doing real things. The virtual
| world dominates many of our lives from how we interact with
| people, work with people, and socialize (like this forum). As
| the virtual world has replaced more and more of our time it
| makes sense that we crave a physical, tactile space.
| chefandy wrote:
| While I agree that people generally want these things, not
| everybody values them equally, and aren't willing or able to
| expend the same amount of resources and effort to get them.
| Most people value local stores which sell damn near
| everything they need and are staffed by their neighbors...
| but for many, the resource and effort savings afforded by
| Amazon are more valuable to some extent. I think that these
| things, to some extent, have become a luxury.
| martyvis wrote:
| Roman Mars just released an excellent podcast looking at the
| state of play with pinball champions and designers at
| https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/for-amusement-only-fr...
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| https://pinside.com/pinball/map
|
| https://pinballmap.com/map
| bena wrote:
| Pinball always seems like something that is just below the
| threshold of pop culture at any given moment.
|
| Every now and then it pops up over, but for the most part, it's
| just under the radar.
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| Pinball is the best game. I used to play the Lord of the Rings
| machine when I was a kid. You had to collect the Fellowship to
| get multiball, although there were also a couple other ways you
| could trigger multiball (with a smaller number of balls though).
| I always considered controlling multiball as long as possible to
| be the "goal" of pinball, and of course getting as many free
| games from two quarters as possible.
|
| Recently I learned (through hn I think) that there's an arcade in
| Chicago that offers a relatively cheap play-all-day pinball
| arcade room, I'm thinking of trying to go down there some day.
|
| Unfortunately I also remember that I got a lot of wrist pain from
| playing, and I'm a bit concerned about re-triggering that; it
| would be catastrophic if my typing were impacted, so unless I had
| some prolonged time off work I don't think I'd ever play for more
| than maybe an hour at a time, spread out over several months.
| splonk wrote:
| (I used to own a LotR)
|
| LotR has three different "main" multiball modes (one for each
| movie), as well as the Gollum multiball (just 2 balls,
| normally). The Fellowship multiball is the one that requires
| hitting essentially every shot on the table.
|
| The particular thing about LotR is that the multiballs can be
| stacked with the "story" modes (from shooting the center ring).
| Depending on how flaily you are, this can make the story modes
| easier or harder, but generally I find that it makes them safer
| if you have enough ball control. When my overarching goal was
| to reach Valinor (which requires beating a certain number of
| story modes, as well as all the multiballs), the general
| strategy was to spam Two Towers multiball as much as possible
| on top of a story mode.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Yes, and when you complete all three movie multiballs, you
| can then destroy the ring, which requires that you hit the
| ring to start the mode, make four shots and then get a
| perfect ring shot (which is way harder than just hitting the
| ring) to destroy the ring.
|
| I've had my LotR pin for a year now and still haven't managed
| to pull off destroy the ring, but perhaps tonight will be the
| night!
| RheingoldRiver wrote:
| Oh the dialogue line for that is, "You must destroy the
| Ring" spoken very urgently right? I think I remember
| getting to that a few times although yeah I NEVER managed
| to actually destroy it.
| koz1000 wrote:
| That's the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield. They now have
| the largest collection of arcade videogames under one roof, and
| they're growing their pinball collection.
|
| https://www.gallopingghostarcade.com/
| taylodl wrote:
| I've been playing pinball since before The Who penned the song
| Pinball Wizard. A couple of things pop out. One, the game was
| $0.25 back then. It's a bit surprising to hear it's still $0.25.
| It should be roughly $1 per play to keep pace with inflation.
| Related to that is they were expensive to operate. It got to the
| point it was rare to find a machine that was 100% operating - and
| that was in the 70's! Once of the reasons they quickly went away
| in the 80's (to my dismay), was due to their expense in
| comparison to the digital arcade games. The kids were pumping
| quarters into both, but the digital arcade games required far
| less maintenance. So they made more money.
|
| There are a few barcades in my city. Every single one is setup
| where digital arcade games are free with the purchase of beer.
| Pinball costs money. Many of them are $0.50 per game. A few are
| $1 per game. They're _not_ free. Interesting to hear that 's not
| the case elsewhere. Not sure how they're making the economics
| work.
| mhink wrote:
| > It's a bit surprising to hear it's still $0.25. It should be
| roughly $1 per play to keep pace with inflation.
|
| Where are you playing?! Most places I go to are $0.75, except
| for one which is a bargain at $0.50. I probably wouldn't play a
| $1 game unless it's a game I know well.
| User23 wrote:
| In an increasingly digital world it's just fun to play a physics
| based electromechanical game for the change of pace.
| jxramos wrote:
| it's stimulating in a whole different dimension. Hearing that
| steel ball smack the glass gives the thrill of being hit.
| Feeling real vibrations in the hands, lights hitting you from
| different angles, sound. Something akin to a hunters instinct
| using neural circuitry chasing and hunting and shooting things
| puts you in a deep in the zone mode at times.
| slipperlobster wrote:
| All of what you said is absolutely why ePinball won't ever
| feel the same. It's a shame - with the price of a "real"
| machine being 5 digits (USD), I can't ever see myself owning
| one.. but damn, I want to.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| 5 digits? There are lots for 4 figures, going rate seems to
| be around $5k. And if you're willing to fix one up, they
| can be had for 3 figures instead of 5:
|
| https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds?s=1&keywords
| =...
| slipperlobster wrote:
| Sure, but everything I've seen in the 4 figures range is
| MUCH older than I'm looking for or needs MUCH more work
| than I would like to put in for my first table.
|
| Every year, I go to an annual pinball convention in my
| area. The tables that are 4 figures are the old 70s and
| 80s tables. Hell, one I've had my eye on (Fish Tales [1]
| from 1992) is averaging about $5,700USD on Pinside.
|
| [1] https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/fish-tales
| jxramos wrote:
| there's an interesting middle ground virtual pinball case
| that's an approximation. This fella built his own case and
| everything in between. It was a fascinating project to
| watch
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxilHoceiNo&list=PLrqlHbqP7
| F...
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| Question, I played a pinball video game a while back (Demon
| Tilt). It was largely just a pinball machine. But it also let you
| nudge the ball and this was pretty critical to doing well. Are
| physical machines supposed to have this tilting mechanic? Because
| I'm vaguely aware that TILT is a thing you can be punished for.
| And I'm wondering how it is possible to avoid unlucky deaths
| otherwise.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| Nudging (without triggering a TILT) is generally considered a
| legitimate part of the game play.
|
| https://digitalpinballfans.com/threads/was-nudging-always-co...
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Are physical machines supposed to have this tilting mechanic?
|
| Yes, and "tilt" sensitivity can be adjusted. When I was a kid
| we called the machines that would tilt at the slightest
| movement "tight" and the ones you couldn't tilt without pushing
| them over "loose." The looser the machine, the fewer quarters
| you have to feed it.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Real pinball absolutely allows nudging. There is a sensor in
| the machine, a pendulum hanging within a ring so that it makes
| contact if you move the machine too far. The game software will
| assess you with a warning at first, and then if you go too far
| the penalty is to shut down and lose the ball in play.
|
| Nudging just enough so you don't trip the sensor, or
| deliberately going too far to incur the warning when you need
| to save a ball, is absolutely a component of skilled play.
| fauxpause_ wrote:
| Dumb question but how do you do this? Are you gripping the
| machine with your hands and literally lifting it from
| different sides?
| vikingerik wrote:
| Not lifting, but you can push the machine horizontally from
| your normal position with your hands on the buttons. With
| your hands at the front corners, you can push north-south
| or east-west or on any such axis. The machines are designed
| to allow this; the legs and feet have some flex.
|
| What's different from people's experience of virtual
| pinball is that you're moving the machine underneath the
| ball, not the ball itself. The computer games like Space
| Cadet let you deflect the ball in open space anywhere on
| the playfield... that's not really how it works, Microsoft
| got that wrong, what you're really doing is pushing objects
| on the playfield either into or away from the ball.
| mcnnowak wrote:
| You can slap the buttons hard to get the table to wobble a
| bit, you can tap the cabinet with your wrists, you can grab
| the table tightly and move a leg or a hip in the opposite
| direction while keeping your body rigid, you can even slide
| the whole table if you're feeling desperate and want to
| burn a warning.
|
| It's a super physical game if you're taking risky shots and
| having to recover from bad situations constantly, and the
| pros make it look like they're barely nudging at all by
| taking safe shots and making minor corrections with nudges.
| syntheweave wrote:
| Imagine you're gripping the handlebars of a bike - you can
| push it a little bit laterally, but much more by leaning
| into a turn. Gripping the side of the machine to nudge
| works in the same way - you can slap it a little bit to get
| the ball going off its designed trajectory, but you have to
| use your legs and core to get it to move a lot, and if the
| game is set tight that will usually set off the tilt
| warnings.
| [deleted]
| larrik wrote:
| About a year and a half ago I bought 3 pinball machines along
| with a bunch of arcade boxes (and a shuffle bowler) as a lot.
| Price-wise it was a pretty good deal on the pinballs with
| everything else thrown in free.
|
| The pros:
|
| * Pinball is very good at keeping the baby awake until bedtime,
| lol. I would sit him on the glass and he would be enamored by the
| sights and sounds. Screens don't catch his eyes, so the
| physicality was great. * Having pinball in the house is fun, and
| it makes parties better.
|
| The cons:
|
| * Turns out I'm not good at pinball! * My machines are older (mid
| 90's) and they are a TON of work. The arcades too. * One worked
| the morning I bought it and never again. Still working on it here
| and there. * The others have all sorts of gremlins big and small.
| * I have yet to find someone local who can repair them.
|
| But, I've learned a ton about them and electronics in the
| meanwhile, so I _no longer_ entirely regret jumping into this.
|
| BTW, they sell new-in-box pinballs for almost as much as I paid
| for my whole 9 machine arcade, and you have to wait many months
| sometimes to get them. There's limited editions that are 2x-3x
| that, even.
| xahrepap wrote:
| Do you know a good place to shop for new-in-box pinball
| machines?
|
| A few weeks ago I poked around on eBay and Google. And mostly
| found cheap digital ones or other cabinets similar to the
| arcades you can get at Walmart.
| Symbiote wrote:
| A local-ish distributor [1] of American pinball machines
| lists these: American Pinball, Bitronic, Chicago Gaming,
| Jersey Jack Pinball, Pinball Brothers, Stern Pinball.
|
| EUR5,000-EUR10,000 (plus taxes) seems the going rate, up to
| EUR20,000 if you want some sort of "limited edition" (but
| aren't they all limited now?).
|
| [1] https://www.shop.freddys-pinball-
| paradise.de/index.php?n=99&...
| lief79 wrote:
| Posted above:
|
| https://pinballmap.com/
|
| Has a dealer near me, no idea how good they are, but the 81
| machines caught my attention.
| larrik wrote:
| You would want a dealer, and there are only a handful of
| machines in production at a time.
|
| Stern is the main one since Williams gave up. There are
| others, but Stern is the one people consider the most lately.
| chorsestudios wrote:
| Stern Pinball still manufactures new pinball machines with
| new table designs.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Everyone is mentioning Stern in the comments, but Jersey
| Jack pinball is superior in many ways (and costs more).
| Don't ignore them if you're looking to buy.
| pfarrell wrote:
| I considered buying a pinball machine in my 20's. An older,
| wiser guy I knew told me, "Do you like working
| on small gadgets and tinkering with lots of rubber bands and
| motors and solenoids?" "Not really, but I love playing
| pinball." "Don't buy a pinball machine."
|
| Now that I've got a basement and am reasonably stable, the itch
| is coming back.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| The trick is to find a local repair person and vet them. If
| you buy a new modern pin by a company still around, you won't
| have many issues with a home use only pin.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I've had the itch for over two decades at this point, but the
| prices of the machines I want keep inflating faster than my
| stomach/budget for spending money on pinball machines :-(
|
| Guess I should have picked one up back in high school. Would
| have been a lot of money for me at the time, but it'd be
| worth like 4-5x that now if it I'd kept it in decent shape.
| Moving it several times would have sucked, though.
| mmetzger wrote:
| Various manufacturers have been listed, but there are actually
| several different companies building them currently:
|
| - Stern Pinball (sternpinball.com) - Great, modern themes,
| biggest manufacturer. Recently released The Mandalorian,
| Godzilla, Foo Fighters, etc. Easiest by far to find to play and /
| or purchase via distributors.
|
| - Jersey Jack Pinball (jerseyjackpinball.com) - Tend to be more
| collector quality machines. Recently released Guns n' Roses
| (developed with Slash), Toy Story 4, and the Godfather.
|
| - Spooky Pinball (spookypinball.com) - Initially home brew
| pinball, built into much larger company. Releases include things
| like Rick & Morty, Halloween, Ultraman, and Scooby Doo.
|
| - Chicago Gaming Company (chicago-gaming.com) - Involved in many
| things, but from a pinball standpoint, mostly have made remakes
| of popular 90's games with more modern hardware (Medieval
| Madness, Attack From Mars, Monster Bash, Cactus Canyon).
|
| - Multimorphic (multimorphic.com) - Advanced pinball system,
| designed to allow changing of games in the cabinet (ie partial
| playfield swaps). Large screen built into playfield, ball
| tracking, etc. Games have been mostly original themes.
|
| There are other smaller manufacturers as well
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pinball_manufacturer...)
| that have made games of various types.
|
| Typically each manufacturer will release a given title, at
| typically 2-3 "trim" levels (ie, Stern calls these Pro / Premium
| / LE, Jersey Jack has called them Standard Edition, Limited
| Edition, Collectors Edition). Price and features go up with the
| trim level.
| koz1000 wrote:
| Chicago Gaming just announced a non-remake, Pulp Fiction. The
| designer and programmer are veterans from the Williams days
| (Mark Ritchie and George Petro)
|
| https://www.chicago-gaming.com/coinop/pulp-fiction
|
| The old System 11 look and feel...is kind of neat.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Ah, I was recently shocked to see that a local arcade had a
| Mandalorian pinball machine. I couldn't believe something that
| new was being pinballified. It sits across from the old
| Simpsons arcade brawler that kids can't get enough of.
| skeaker wrote:
| Pinball has had a pretty interesting hacker-y sort of space for
| years, so I'm glad to hear this.
|
| I remember going to a few conventions pre-covid where enthusiasts
| would bring out their machines, often so old that they had to be
| completely restored under the hood, and there's a surprising
| amount of complexity that goes into them. Even simple games need
| each and every bumper to be wired up without obstructing the
| other parts and maintained such that they work every time. A
| player will notice when a bumper doesn't go off even once. More
| complex games that do fancier things with the ball need all kinds
| of interesting physical mechanisms to do so. Many games have
| multiball mechanics and there are multiple novel ways to tuck
| those balls into the board and route them back up after they fall
| out of play.
|
| I suppose it's sort of a weird middle ground between watchmaking
| and car repair. Would love to see more novel ideas enter this
| space if it really is picking up again as the article says.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I remember dropping in on a place that specialized in restoring
| old pinball machines oh say 10 years ago? They were just REALLY
| starting to pick up back then and already were swamped with
| work they were telling me. Some of their restorations were
| going for like 10k+$... They were also restoring one of those
| electromechanical dog racing games for a casino. Honestly if
| anyone wanted a job in working with these things there's
| probably really good demand for skills.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Something had to fill the void after Microsoft deprecated 3D
| Pinball for Windows.
| swagtricker wrote:
| Seattle area is blessed with a wealth of all ages and 21+
| barcades. There's a great one less than 5 miles from my house.
| I've been a pinball fan for years and still play weekly, playing
| in a local league pre-COVID. About 2 years ago, I saw a machine
| with my childhood hero that I couldn't pass up buying. A year ago
| it finally got delivered. I play at home a few times a week. No
| big issues with the machine other than one dead "flashy" servo
| that doesn't work and a stuck target that doesn't impact
| gameplay. I'll get around to fixing them at some point. FWIW -
| Here's some info on my big toy:
|
| https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/spooky-announces-ultraman-...
| cpeterso wrote:
| If you live in the Bay Area, check out the Pacific Pinball Museum
| in Alameda. You pay an admission fee and then all the games are
| free play. https://www.pacificpinball.org/
|
| Discussed on HN two months ago: https://www.pacificpinball.org/
| axiomdata316 wrote:
| Previous post.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35954776
| freedomben wrote:
| > _Even now, in South Carolina, fans are still lobbying the state
| to lift a decades-old ban on people under 18 playing._
|
| Fascinating. I had no idea the history behind pinball and
| gambling. Nevertheless that seems like the classic "ban the
| legitimate thing to stop illegitimate use cases."
| foobarian wrote:
| My favorite pinball implementation was a PC game that was one of
| the first to use hacked VGA modes to get a better resolution. I
| don't know what I found more interesting, the game itself, or the
| mode tweaks :-). I'll need to dig deeper to find the exact
| name...
| vikingerik wrote:
| This would have been either Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies,
| or Epic Pinball. All of them used the 256kb of VGA video memory
| to display a playfield several times taller than the screen (a
| 64kb bitmap), and could scroll instantly just by setting the
| start-position register each frame.
|
| What table themes do you remember? If it was Android, that's
| Epic Pinball; if it was Party Land (an amusement park theme),
| that's Pinball Fantasies.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| Pinbot Circuits Activated
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