What do you think killed pinball machines?
Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 5:44 am
Let's face it, pinball as a form of entertainment has all but died. With only one manufacturer in the world - Stern - continuing to make them, it pretty much indicates that the pinball market is essentially a specialized niche interest class as opposed to what it used to be, something practically anyone could spend time playing on in public, as they were in lots of places.
I suspect most of the interest (to the extent there is any) remaining (except for die-hard or hardcore enthusiasts such as some of the members of this BBS) is in hard-to-reach and not-wealthy countries, mostly in Africa where most people can't afford expensive entertainment such as personal computers and video game consoles.
I believe that pinball tends to be an entertainment medium that speaks to a less-affluent audience, or to the older audiences of the past where there were fewer choices of entertainment available.
The ready, easy and inexpensive access to very high quality video games with strongly immersive interactive capability has made lesser entertainment choices such as physical devices passe and dated. I can remember the arcade games of my youth, most of which are nowhere to be found except in specialized "retro" arcades or museums.
Remember baseball? It was a two player model, you had two people, one throwing pinballs at the other who was trying to press the button to have your "bat" strike the ball and hit it into the outfield, and if you did your mechanical man popped up out of the board and circled to one or more bases. If your man reached home it disappeared back into the board and you got one point. Clearly, you didn't have 1,000,000 or even 1,000 point games in that.
Remember the helicopter on a wand? You moved a helicopter around a circle where you had the side mounted cat's whisker strike specific metal posts by flying up and down to make an electrical connection and get points.
I think it's like what has happened in the gaming world, while you can still find old fashioned mechanical "one armed bandit" slot machines, the newer machines provide more choices and more functionality such as video slots including more complicated games such as poker have become much more popular (and more lucrative for the device owner.)
Some older games, like Ski-ball, are still around because of the "greed" factor, if you got high points you got tickets you could redeem for prizes.
But most of the mechanicals and similar devices have faded, replaced by video games in many (if not all) cases. A lot of these, including most pinball machines, essentially became obsolete as much more intense entertainments became available for people to play, especially at home where they bought the item once and didn't have to go out to play nor throw quarters in the machine on a near-constant basis.
I suspect most of the interest (to the extent there is any) remaining (except for die-hard or hardcore enthusiasts such as some of the members of this BBS) is in hard-to-reach and not-wealthy countries, mostly in Africa where most people can't afford expensive entertainment such as personal computers and video game consoles.
I believe that pinball tends to be an entertainment medium that speaks to a less-affluent audience, or to the older audiences of the past where there were fewer choices of entertainment available.
The ready, easy and inexpensive access to very high quality video games with strongly immersive interactive capability has made lesser entertainment choices such as physical devices passe and dated. I can remember the arcade games of my youth, most of which are nowhere to be found except in specialized "retro" arcades or museums.
Remember baseball? It was a two player model, you had two people, one throwing pinballs at the other who was trying to press the button to have your "bat" strike the ball and hit it into the outfield, and if you did your mechanical man popped up out of the board and circled to one or more bases. If your man reached home it disappeared back into the board and you got one point. Clearly, you didn't have 1,000,000 or even 1,000 point games in that.
Remember the helicopter on a wand? You moved a helicopter around a circle where you had the side mounted cat's whisker strike specific metal posts by flying up and down to make an electrical connection and get points.
I think it's like what has happened in the gaming world, while you can still find old fashioned mechanical "one armed bandit" slot machines, the newer machines provide more choices and more functionality such as video slots including more complicated games such as poker have become much more popular (and more lucrative for the device owner.)
Some older games, like Ski-ball, are still around because of the "greed" factor, if you got high points you got tickets you could redeem for prizes.
But most of the mechanicals and similar devices have faded, replaced by video games in many (if not all) cases. A lot of these, including most pinball machines, essentially became obsolete as much more intense entertainments became available for people to play, especially at home where they bought the item once and didn't have to go out to play nor throw quarters in the machine on a near-constant basis.