The Rise And Fall Of Pinball

Having survived a couple of World Wars, countless recessions, the indignation of lifestyle police, and most recently the video game phenomenon it appeared that pinball was just too tough to kill. That’s why it was a surprise when WMS Industries, the dominant player in the industry for the past decade and the maker of Williams and Bally machines, announced that it was getting out of the business several years ago. WMS wasn’t in any sort of financial peril, but rather they wanted to focus on their more lucrative slot machine and video poker business.

Until the 1980′s, pinball dominated the arcade. In the late 1970′s and on the heels of the film adaptation of The Who’s pinball themed rock opera ‘Tommy’ arcades featured row after row of new machines from over a half dozen US based manufacturers. Countless other machines were made worldwide. The first shot of the video game industry didn’t make much of a dent–’Pong’ was revolutionary, but its gameplay was downright dull compared to pinball. It also required two players, another downside in the often solitary isolation of the arcade. The first real challenge to pinball was the second generation of video games, including ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’.

Pinball hung in there, however, and through the early eighties continued to make some solid games. The ones that come immediately to mind are games like Firepower (which helped launched the now ubiquitous multi-ball feature), Black Knight (offering an early version of the looping ramps found on many modern machines) and a couple of fun machines from Bally Paragon and Flash Gordon. For awhile, the choice between pinball and video games was similar to the choice between Pepsi and Coke: both were equally pervasive and it was simply a matter of personal preference.

In the late 1980′s, however, pinball began to lose its way. Gottlieb and others made simple, traditional games that just couldnt compete with their video counterparts. Bally and other manufacturers went the opposite route”by cramming so much onto a playfield that the game hardly resembled traditional pinball. Some of Ballys late 1980s games”with so much playfield gimmickry going on”were nearly unplayable. By this point video games had taken over the arcade. Some larger arcades continued to offer a few pinball machines to placate hardcores, while some eliminated pinball altogether.

Pinball began to experience a bit of a comeback in the 1990′s driven by well designed, enjoyable games that finally got the balance between traditional gameplay and modern technology right. Williams and Bally (whom WMS later acquired), along with Data East, were making the majority of new games and some would become classics. Pin-Bot, Earthshaker The Adams Family and Diner are among my favorites of this era. Articles started to appear in the traditional media about the durability and timelessness of pinball, about how the average pinball machine received much more repeat business than the average video game and about the devotion of the pinball player.

With the century drawing to a close, it seemed that the Williams/Bally outfit had found a niche and would be able to grind out pinball machines for the aficionados forever. The final nail in the coffin, however, was a lot of societal changes beyond their control. For one, video games and video arcades became less profitable as companies like Sony and Nintendo were able to transform a lot of the high end gameplay to the home platform. Meanwhile, trends like new urbanism,which saw a return to downtown storefronts and the growth of online shopping combined to hurt traditional shopping malls. Fewer people were going to malls, and they werent staying as long when they did. Mega-malls like the Mall of America and the Forum Shops at Caesar’s were the exception to this, but there just werent enough to these to sustain demand. As the century ended, the WMS corporate braintrust decided to pull the plug on pinball and concentrate on their highly profitable gambling machine business. From a business standpoint, it probably made sense but that didnt make it any easier for lifelong pinball enthusiasts to reconcile with.

So what now? Stern Pinball”recently spun off by Sega”is still committed to building new games, but their track record is spotty and certainly not in the league with Williams/Bally. Theyll have a harder time marketing the games, and as a result theyre not a company that will be able to bring the industry roaring back. At this point, it appears that the only hope for pinball players is that some effort will be made to preserve the machines that already exist. With the capital investment required for a new company to get into the business, its hard to envision any new manufacturers popping up.

Ross Everett is a freelance writer and noted authority on NFL football betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sportsbooks and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Northern Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.