...pinball is officially back from the dead.
But with the turn of the century, pinball’s popularity began to fade. Machines were too expensive, and too hard to maintain. A new generation of video gamers grew up with little knowledge of the mechanical machines that preceded them. Arcades across the world moved pinball machines into storage to make room for their pixelated counterparts. Pinball came close to flatlining, and for 12 years, only one company kept the game alive, Stern Pinball, creators of The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. But now, something is happening that hasn’t occurred in a long time. People are returning to arcades (and more adult-oriented bar arcades) again. Adults are seeking alternatives to their screen-based lives. Factories are coming alive as companies like Jersey Jack Pinball (The Hobbit, Dialed In!), Spooky (Rob Zombie's Spookshow International), and Dutch Pinball (The Big Lebowski) have arisen to compete with Stern. That mechanical ding (well, more of an electronic ding now that computers provide the sounds of modern machines) can be heard again in gaming bars and basements all over the world. With more advanced technology, cheaper mechanical parts, and a longing for the past, pinball is officially back from the dead. “
A Pillar of Pop Culture
It all started in Western Europe in the 19th century, when French billiards players introduced spring launchers and inclined tables to modify their pastime. Over the next century, pinball made its way to the U.S., undergoing numerous mechanical changes and innovations, until it was more than a game - it was big business. And then, in the 1970s, the introduction of microprocessors brought pinball into a new era, attracting customers with new sounds and digital displays. Pinball became so pervasive, in fact, that major cities banned it, threatened by what they felt was a form of gambling. Leagues sprang up across New York. The same happened in Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, and multifarious cities from coastline to U.S. coastline. Across the oceans, France, Sweden, Australia and Italy reflected the trend. As observed by the documentary Special When Lit, pinball made more money than American films from the 1950s to the 1970s. The 1980s video game boom should have hindered pinball’s popularity, but the pastime adapted and actually managed to thrive - at least initially. Pinball manufacturers like Gottlieb, Williams and Bally applied more complex rules to the traditional formula, reflecting the leaderboards and depth of video games.For a time, pinball was a cultural phenomenon...
Jeremy Saucier, the assistant director at the International Center for the History of Electronic Games in Rochester, N.Y., is a pinball historian, and curator of the museum’s pinball collection. He’s studied the game’s history, including its birth, evolution and initial decline. “When video games came along, pinball had to retract,” Saucier says. “Designers started trying to make blockbusters, these variants with two play fields, or multiple balls in play. They were taking cues from video games, looking at what the digital medium had to offer them.” In the 1990s, elaborate video dot matrix displays (DMD) and complex rulesets attracted fans of video games, along with many who had never entered an arcade before. Pinball companies capitalized on major licenses, leading to the creation of hugely successful tables like Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure, Twilight Zone, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Fans of the licenses found a new outlet for their admiration, while fans of pinball had more of what they already loved. And then came the best-selling table of all time: The Addams Family. It was the zenith of pinball’s boom. With 12 separate "mansion room"" modes to explore, speech recordings from stars of the namesake movie, and a plethora of rules that players spent months trying to master, The Addams Family sold more than 20,000 cabinets. The machine was a huge hit with casual players, hardcore pinheads, and arcade owners. “
The game had a tangible appeal, but machines were expensive, bulky...
The Addams Family’s release in 1992 was pinball’s peak. “We don’t see those kind of numbers anymore,” Saucier says. For a time, pinball was a cultural phenomenon, born from a mix of the past and future, with equal parts nostalgia and curiosity. But despite popularity surrounding tables like The Addams Family, pinball began losing momentum as the 90s drew to a close. The game had a tangible appeal, but machines were expensive, bulky, and required extensive maintenance to survive. Companies rarely sold more than 4,000 units of a table as the 1990s came to an end. The players who grew up with the game began moving on, and the next generation of young gamers gravitated towards cheaper and flashier video games. Williams, the manufacturer of the lauded The Addams Family, took one last shot with Pinball 2000, a platform with the body of a pinball machine and a full video display projected above the playfield. Revenge from Mars, the platform’s first game, sold almost 7,000 units. But Williams’ next release, Star Wars Episode I, sold only 3,500; Williams cut its pinball division, and focused production on casino slot machines, which offered a much larger return on investment. Gottlieb also closed. And SEGA sold its pinball division to Gary Stern, who rolled it into his existing Stern Pinball company. Stern would keep pinball alive for more than a decade, even as the game threatened to disappear entirely. “
The Lone Survivor
Chicago has long been the center of pinball. Since the 1930s, when competition fueled the game’s scene in the midwestern U.S., the city’s name has become synonymous with it. And come 2001, after every other company had ceased making pinball machines or transitioned into new markets, the game lived on, in a 35,000 square-foot warehouse in Melrose Park, Ill. For 12 years, Stern Pinball had a monopoly as the last manufacturer of original pinball machines in the world. It turned out dozens of new designs - roughly 1-2 Stern machines debuted each year. Tables ranged from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, to Spider-Man, to Pirates of the Caribbean. Stern didn’t have complete creative liberty, considering the smaller worldwide market that provided less profits, but it remained solvent when no other company could. “Around that time, entertainment options changed rapidly,” Jody Dankberg, Stern director of marketing and licensing, says. “Cable TV was more robust. Video game consoles were phenomenal. And of course there was the internet. Pinball just couldn’t keep up.”...much of the world thought pinball was gone, and it was Stern’s job to correct that...
Machines no longer lined arcades. People stayed home, choosing instead to play virtual pinball on a variety of platforms. Even pinball enthusiasts could remain in their house, maintaining their private collections. At the beginning of the 21st century, pinball became a collector’s market. Stern managed to survive as the last pinball company standing, propped up by individual enthusiasts and hobbyists. People ordered its machines from across the world. Pinball fans in Eastern Europe, Australia and South America kept the company afloat, devoid of any other options if they wanted original tables. By and large, these were all adults with disposable incomes - people who had witnessed pinball at the top of its game in the 20th century. Machines were $5-8,000 now, and customers needed ample basement space for the bulky contraptions. In 2007, international orders slowly increased. Commercial buyers started to build their collections again, perhaps preparing to stock their arcades with pinball. After 12 years as the only remaining pinball manufacturer, it looked as if Stern had survived the worst of the decline. But just when Stern saw blue skies, illuminating the possibility of another pinball boom, the Great Recession hit. It was 2008, the U.S. housing bubble had just burst, the stock market was plummeting, and suddenly, pinball customers had other concerns. “
By using existing licenses, Stern trudged through the recession...
“There were even less people willing to buy machines then,” Dankberg says. “We weren’t necessarily worried about going under, but it wasn’t the best time for the market.” Stern is a private company, and doesn’t share its exact sales numbers. But Dankberg says the sales decreased significantly, even given the fact that it was the only remaining pinball manufacturer to buy from. So the company focused its strategy, honing in on the collectors, coordinating with other partners to integrate the manufacturing process. Chicago Gaming, a supplier based in the same city as Stern, provided parts for Stern to assemble and apply to its designs. The company manufactured Batman (The Dark Knight), a machine based on the Christopher Nolan films; it made 24, based on the adventures of Jack Bauer; it created NBA, Wheel of Fortune, Shrek and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. By using existing licenses, Stern trudged through the recession, staying afloat as it supplied collectors and the occasional arcade with machines. Stern’s machines are now segmented into three sections: pro, premium and limited edition. Each of these targets a specific type of buyer. Pro machines, which usually go to arcades and rec room buyers, and are more likely to take a beating, cost about $5,500. Premium and limited edition tables, on the other hand, are geared toward collectors with selective tastes and higher incomes. A premium table can go for about $7,500 while limited editions can sell for over $10,000. “
While the rest of the world’s pinball manufacturers were extinct, Stern evolved...
By gearing these variants toward specific customer groups, Stern ensured it wasn’t wasting money on unnecessary parts and unneeded features. And during pinball’s dark ages, Dankberg says Stern also increased its focus on publicity and press –– much of the world thought pinball was gone, and it was Stern’s job to correct that notion. Stern’s name became synonymous with pinball, and the brand garnered international recognition within the pinball world. This confidence in Stern’s products, along with the adjustments the company made during its uncontested reign, proved fruitful. While the rest of the world’s pinball manufacturers were extinct, Stern evolved, and weathered the storm. And in 2009, when the recession started to lift, things finally turned around. Since then, Dankberg says business has quadrupled. There are 350 employees at the company’s warehouse in Illinois, with 3,000 - 4,000 in Stern’s extended network of distributors, publicists and marketing specialists. It’s moved to a bigger, 110,000 square-foot facility in Chicago, where Dankberg says over 100 machines emerge every day. Stern survived, and now it’s closing in on turning out 500 machines a week. And that twenty-something demographic that Stern always aimed for is starting to take an interest in pinball. “The average buyer used to be 45, married with kids,” Dankberg says. “But what’s old is new again. Some people are sick of their iPads, and iPhones. We’re seeing more pinball in the streets. There are eight places in Chicago with location play, and we think it’s only going to get bigger.” And Stern is no longer the only company making pinball machines. Spooky Pinball is working from Wisconsin. Dutch Pinball is creating machines out of The Netherlands. Multimorphic operates out of Austin, Tex. And Jersey Jack, the first company to break Stern’s 12-year monopoly, is almost ready to release Dialed In!, the a rare machine not based on a licensed property these days. Dialed In! is designed by one of pinball's great designers, Pat Lawlor, who created The Addams Family. “Competition is great,” Dankberg says. “Pinball awareness is what we tried to focus on when we were the only company, and this is only going to help it. The more people involved, the better off we’re going to be in the long run.” “
The Renaissance
Pinball has always been a part of Jack Guarnieri’s life. The founder of pinball company Jersey Jack recalls his early days with the game. He repaired machines across New York City, at colleges and universities in the 70s, before moving across the Hudson River to New Jersey. In 1999, he created PinballSales.com, becoming one of the first people dedicated to selling machines for the home market. “Gary Stern told me I’d be out of business in a month or two, and that no one wanted machines at home, and that the internet wouldn’t amount to anything,” Guarnieri says of the Stern Pinball president. “And it’s had a few booms and busts, but I don’t think pinball every really went away.”The new pinball scene is only a shadow of its former self – but it’s growing.
When the recession hit, Guarnieri went from selling 1,000 machines per year, to less than 200. As with the rest of the pinball industry, the decline hit him hard. He coped by designing games, developing amusement centers, restoring old machines – anything that kept his passion burning for the next five years. With the end of the recession came the beginning of new possibilities. Advanced technology allowed for more creative pinball tables with more complex rules. Higher incomes meant more customers. A recovering economy meant ample opportunity for small a startup in New Jersey, and Guarnieri, being the businessman that he is, capitalized by founding Jersey Jack. It would be the first manufacturer to challenge Stern’s 12-year monopoly. Guarnieri wanted to “bring pinball into the 21st century,” he says. His plan involved LED lights capable of changing to any color of the rainbow, a 26-inch LCD screen, and flying monkeys. The Wizard of Oz machine was released in 2013 and cemented Jersey Jack as a new competitor in the pinball arena. The Hobbit was next, and like the company’s first machine, is based on a timeless franchise that almost guarantees high sales for the budding startup. “A lot of the people that grew up with pinball are returning to it,” Guarnieri says. “It’s a game you can’t really master. It’s a mechanical game, it’s a game of skill. You might be good, but there’s always somebody else ready to beat you. And now that Stern has more competition, it’s making even better games.” 700 miles away from Jersey Jack’s factory, arcade owner Jim Zespy guides his van through the city of Chicago, where pinball held out for 12 years. Behind the driver seat is WWE Wrestlemania, a recent Stern Pinball. While Stern kept pinball alive from its warehouse, Zespy toiled away in the streets. Logan Arcade, Zespy’s company, has long attracted the city’s pinball enthusiasts, even when the pastime seemed all but gone. And with 88 games – 33 of which are pinball machines – Logan now houses Chicago’s largest arcade collection in the city. “
...pinball tables offer something tangible, something kinetic, that other interactive media can’t.
“Pinball is a physical thing,” he says, “and no one can get it any other way. There’s an entire world under the glass that you get to interact with.” Zespy has maintained a close relationship with Stern throughout its tenure, and the company recognized his importance in the Chicago game scene long ago. Zespy hosts a pinball league at Logan, and every night, he says 40 people come out – not just veterans familiar with the rules, both technical and cultural, but newcomers as well. They’re eager to learn the game, he says, and they’re learning from people who witnessed pinball at its height. “These younger people are coming in, and there are more locations, and better games, and it’s all very nostalgic, but also exciting,” Zespy says. “I’m about to try out Wrestlemania. I love getting new tables. The pinball world is doing really well now.” Pinball machines are a product of the industrial age. Both as pieces of art and machinery, pinball tables offer something tangible, something kinetic, that other interactive media can’t. Pinball undoubtedly has more obstacles ahead of it. But as Stern and Jersey Jack have proven, new technology doesn’t always lead to extinction. Every challenge is an opportunity, and the game of pinball now has an opportunity to capture the hearts of an entirely new generation of players. “
