Will There Ever Be a True Pinball Renaissance? (M. Fanton)

It has been about two weeks since I switched topics and it has not evolved much since my last blog post. I posed many questions, but I still need to ask the big question to reveal what is driving this research in the first place. What purpose will it serve? Why is it important? Or, put a different way, "so what?"

I have an affinity for pinball, so I would like to see it thrive. I don't believe there is a single player that would disagree! From 2001 to 2013 Stern Pinball was the only major manufacturer producing new machines in the United States, so they steered the industry, shaping the content and artwork of all games produced in that time frame. In 2013, a new company with high visibility, Jersey Jack, released their first pinball game, The Wizard of Oz, introducing a new LCD backbox that had never been used commercially before. Perhaps more importantly, Jersey Jack also chose a well-loved property with wide appeal. While Stern continued to make games for a predominantly male audience, Jersey Jack's first game enticed entire families to play, and play together.

Once little more than a mono-colored surface with pins under glass, pinball machines have playfields and backglasses that bring illustrations to life, and even give the player the feeling of interacting with them. Although devoted pinball players may rank the game play highest in importance, content matters. The artwork is what sells the machine on paper and online before a person can launch a ball. Is it catering to a select audience, or inviting a wider audience? Does it have to be a niche market to remain successful?

Like the success of  Nintendo's Wii console, if a company can bring in a new demographic that had never even considered pinball before into the marketplace, perhaps the pinball industry can change from "surviving" to "thriving" once more. Pinball artwork and creative content is a crucial element in doing just that.


Other avenues to explore:

Virtual pinball machines replace most mechanical and electrical components with LCD screen playfields. With a virtual pinball machine, a player can choose to play a game from an entire library of games-- a library of new games with a wide variety themes and concepts, or even digital versions of their old favorites. The lower production costs in designing a single game for a virtual machine allows for more experimentation in artwork style and content, and can incorporate story elements that many video games capitalize on. (But is it still pinball as we know it?)