The Economics of Pinball (2009)(cheaptalk.org) |
The Economics of Pinball (2009)(cheaptalk.org) |
If you’re ever at a pinball arcade and you hear a loud wooden CLONK sound, that’s the “replay knocker”. It’s literally a solenoid that drives a piston into the case of the machine, and it’s intention is to let the entire arcade know “this guy/gal is really good”. Very satisfying sound! And no equivalent in video games.
Actually, Q*bert has this but the opposite. In stand-up cabinets, when Qbert falls off the board, one of these knockers simulates the sound of him falling on the ground. So it's a signal of failure, not of epic goodness.
There's never been a better time for pinball.
Stern has been able to do what Gottleib could never do-- make a good table using 3P IP (Haunted House was neat). Do they have any first party IP tables, or only licensed? Williams had tons of great tables (obvious ones like Medieval Madness, High Speed/2, Monster Bash, Hurricane series as a modern throwback) that were of their own creation, but could also do good knockoffs (No Good Gophers, Attack from Mars) and 3P IP (Creature, TNG).
Even Stern has done the occasional original, e.g. Whoa Nellie, Striker Extreme. But it's very clear that they have a formula and don't deviate much from it - the experiments are left to competitors like Jersey Jack and Spooky. Pinball in the past decade has been defined by collector's market dynamics, a generation that, like with retro gaming, wants to buy for the home. So the new games are built more like home games than operator games - lighter builds with less serviceability, price discrimination features (different models with minor elements added or removed) and more of a focus on sheer quantity of elements - ramps, lights, toys - than one or two "centerpieces". It's only going to last as long as that collector's demographic does, after that pinball may go dormant again or find a new way of expressing itself.
Also, Williams' Attack From Mars wasn't a knockoff, it predated the Mars Attacks movie by a year, it was just coincidence that the two industries parodied the same thing around the same time.
Stern made the pinball market work because it has gone extremely commercial, with licensed themes to attract casual players and layered game rules to attract advanced players.
That is the only way to survive in the pinball business, it’s a difficult, risky business with high upfront costs and short production runs to recoup the costs. You can only afford a few flops before you’re bust.
I have yet to encounter one of these in the wild, but these look to combine a digital playfield with modular physical components. It is pricier than regular tables, too-- $15k for the base table and 3 modules. It does have new features like real time competitions and the whole electronic playfield.
How Pinball Ate itself: The Economics of Pinball - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=947417 - Nov 2009 (27 comments)
wizard-goes-to-the-cinema problem?
a strange name though, how does a wizard going to a cinema reflect novices playing a pinball game?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/CEO-in-the-news/SoftBank-Ma...
When I walk up to a pinball machine and put a buck in (or thereabout at my local pinball place) and the game is over in 15 seconds because I suck, I don't put another buck in. So the minimum skill level is too high to attract new players.
I'm pretty sure that they can make pinball incrementally more difficult simply by raising/lowering bumpers in critical places, but I only vaguely remember seeing that at some point in the past.
Since these novices are not very good the replay score will be automatically tuned down on those machines. Which causes a problem if a "Wizard" starts playing on them since he will easily reach the replay score. Thus the machines need to be programmed to react quickly to a sudden increase in player skill level.
Since the replay score is set based on the top percentage of scores, if the majority of players in the movie theater (novices) lower the average score, a good player (wizard) is more easily at the high end of the score distribution, earning free plays consistently.
I never get the different edition value props besides market segmentation. Obviously the Pro/Premium/LE may have different shaker motors, speakers, buttons, but some of the price difference seems excessive. Even more so with Jersey Jack-- especially on the 2nd hand market. Do red rails and legs and a topper make the playing experience worth that much more, or will it be that much more valuable in the future? (Is it like the collectible market, where things made specifically to be collected like modern Star Wars figures, won't ever be as valuable as the originals? Or is it just a bubble where prices revert in another 5 years?) If games like Circus Voltaire have consistent issues with the main feature, how will the home versions with multiples hold up over x,xxx plays?
Addams supports ball saver in software, but it's not on by default factory settings, as it is for almost all later games, so you only get it if the operator enables it in the menu. Designer Pat Lawlor didn't like the ball saver crutch and also tried to minimize its use in Twilight Zone (1993), though after that it became fully standard.
Addams does have a different form of ball saver like this, though. Almost all games dating back to the early 80's will give you the ball back if it drains without ever hitting any playfield switch at all. This happens because the machine can't distinguish between this case and the ball failing to eject out of the trough to the plunger in the first place, so it errs on the side of letting you play again.
For Addams (and other games but most notable for Addams), exploiting that no-switch-drain became a strategic point: deliberately plunge softly so the ball will get to the flippers without hitting any switch, and if you fail to trap and gain control at the flipper, you'll get it back.
What you mention for Bride is called a "pity extra ball", lighting one for you if you did very badly before starting ball 3 (usually determined by score, not play time.) A fair number of Williams machines had that in some form, and occasionally later Sterns do too. It's functionally the same as an extra ball awarded by any other means, and nothing to do with any kickback or ball saver.
Kickback at the bottom of an outlane dates back to at least Firepower (1980), which has target banks at an angle that will often rebound the ball into the left outlane. I'm not sure if anything earlier than Firepower had that.
Pinbot isn't exactly easy either.