
Can This Man Save Pinball? - JacobAldridge
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/doers/2013/01/jersey_jack_pinball_wizard_of_oz_pinball_is_dying_can_arcade_entrepreneur.html
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dasil003
> _Even so, he intends to keep pressuring his rival: Jersey Jack’s next
> licensed game, The Hobbit, is scheduled for 2014, to coincide with the final
> movie in Peter Jackson’s trilogy._

This is quite interesting because Stern's Lord of the Rings is one of their
best (and most complex) games and would create a natural comparison, but it
will be quite hard to outdo compared to taking on more recent (read: cheaper)
Sterns.

On that topic I wish I could find a fully functional LoTR as I came late to it
and now everyone I find has critical flaws. There's one in the Minneapolis
airport that is broken, and I've played one in London that mostly works except
the ring sensor is broken so _you can't destroy the ring_ , which you only
discover after an epic game. Apparently there is a setting compensate for
this, but the operator won't turn it on. Incidentally, I almost beat Martin
Ayub's (he's mentioned in the article) high score of 350M on this machine, and
were it not for this fault I certainly would have. And of course without that
it is also impossible to reach what is reputed to be the most difficult-to-
reach wizard mode in the history of pinball: Valinor.

~~~
datr
Where in London? I'd love to give it a go.

~~~
dasil003
This one:
[http://www.pinformer.co.uk/details.pl?action=display&id=...](http://www.pinformer.co.uk/details.pl?action=display&id=808)

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cpeterso
If you like pinball and live in the Bay Area, I highly recommend visiting
Lucky Juju (aka the Pacific Pinball Museum) on Alameda. $15 admission for
unlimited free play on dozens of pinball machines, including many vintage
machines.

<http://www.pacificpinball.org/>

~~~
chiph
If you live in, or are passing through Austin, take a look at Pinballz Arcade.
They have over 100 machines.

<http://www.pinballzarcade.com/games-to-play/pinball-games>

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joshschreuder
Does anyone know of anything like this around Tokyo? I'm visiting in a few
weeks and would definitely like to see something like this, aside from regular
arcades.

I saw One More Time [1] but that's about 4.5 hours out from Tokyo if my
directions are correct.

[1] <http://www.one-more-time.jp/pinball/>

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minikomi
Searching as we speak!

Not pinball but there is this <http://dgm.hmc6.net/>

Dagashiya (local sweet shop) game museum

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mynameishere
I remember playing pinball when the state-of-the-art video games were such
Atari 2600 titles as Adventure and Yars' Revenge. Pinball, even then, could
not compete. They are as obsolete as 78 RPM gramophones.

~~~
dasil003
Incorrect. The high water mark of pinball was 1993's Twilight Zone. Aside from
the physicality of it which still hasn't been equaled by digital games, the
ruleset complexity of late 80s and early 90s pins started to explode. An order
of magnitude more complexity than any Atari 2600 game; several orders more
than Yars' Revenge (ugh that game was boring).

~~~
jgeorge
Pinball may have been more popular pre- (and during) the transition to arcade
games, but arguably the /best/ pinball came in the early 90s with the advent
of better processing power and more complicated electronics allowing more
complex gameplay. Twilight Zone is one of the most complex pinball rulesets
I've ever seen, and The Addams Family (from 1993 also I think) was and still
is the best-selling machine of all time.

I collect pinball machines; I have 11 of them crammed into a house not
designed to hold that many large machines. It's an interesting amalgamation of
physical and electronic skills to repair and restore them, it's possibly more
fun to restore them than it is to actually play them.

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inept
If you were a geek hanging out in arcades in the 1980's, you will probably
enjoy this. High Speed, Pinbot...

Python Anghelo <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up03zouCIvI>

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rjempson
Pinball rocks. I was an addict from an early age, around 7.

I always play a machine if I see one and have time on my hands. Although it is
a little frustrating to find most machines I come across have some problems,
or have been tampered with to make them more difficult.

I also love the Zen studios pinball game on xbox / windows 8. Ironically, I
think it is one of the best real world activity sims I have encountered.

~~~
lytfyre
If you haven't tried it, I'd also checkout the rather creatively titled
"Pinball Arcade" - ios, android, xbox, PS3, etc. They got the licenses for a
bunch of old tables, and are adding one or two a month. Very good physics
engine, and they're emulating the hardware so the gameplay is very accurate.

It's been a fun way to waste time.

~~~
voltagex_
They were having problems with their publisher so the tables stopped coming.

~~~
lytfyre
I think that was only Xbox?

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jdietrich
No. Pinball machines are phenomenally expensive to maintain, and don't yield
good revenues for operators. Most arcade operators have little interest in
buying new video game cabinets, because the new generation of Amusement With
Prizes/Skill With Prizes machines (Flamin' Finger, Barber Cut, Stacker etc)
are an order of magnitude more profitable.

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nasalgoat
I don't care for the theme, but then I learn he's targeting women on location
- I figured this was a home use only machine.

The big issue with pins on location is the maintenance - the number of people
left who can genuinely maintain pinball machines is pretty tiny. I wonder if
they've done anything to improve the maintainability, like reducing the amount
of dirt buildup. The LED lighting will certainly help!

~~~
jgeorge
There's a lot to be done - granted the majority of pinball failures are
mechanical, and they're hard to reduce simply by the fact that you're flinging
a heavy metal ball at a decent momentum against mechanical components.

Some of the actual mechanical designs haven't changed in decades (the flipper
mechanics are pretty simple and cheap and well-understood; the payoff in
"redesigning" the mechanism has almost no chance to pay off in the long run)
but there are improvements that can (and have) been made in overall
servicability. Modern machines are easier to access (in general), components
are easier to remove (in general) and the diagnostics built into the software
are light-years ahead of what used to be typical. While there's still a fair
amount of skill in being /good/ at repairing pins, modern pins seem to me to
be much easier to maintain by an owner-operator than they've ever been.

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lmm
It's always a pleasure to see a hard thing being done well by someone who
really cares about the craft.

But at the same time pinball is... not very fun. And expensive. I fully expect
it to go the way of the music hall, and on a larger scale I'm happy about
that.

But I'm also sad to see a craft disappear. Not sure what to think.

~~~
mattdeboard
We're very different people. I _love_ Pinball. That said there are some really
great pinball machines and some that are just super-boring. Maybe it's a
function of my age as I still played pinball in arcades and whatnot (I'm in my
early 30s). I'd really like to get a shot at this Wizard of Oz machine.

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borlak
HyperPin, from the guys who make HyperSpin (MAME frontend)

<http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/>

example: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCKLGL-HLUs>

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jpxxx
I want to play this like I want to continue breathing. Gimme!

~~~
ChuckMcM
I also found the description oddly compelling. There was a Terminator pinball
game in the break room at Sun that we used to play, I felt it provided a good
social nexus. There were also machines at Google but strangely if you played
them you could feel like you were touching the exhibits at a museum which I
found disconcerting. Mostly this came from the looks people would give you as
they walked by. Sad really.

~~~
jpxxx
Should you ever find yourself in Portland Oregon, please visit 'Ground
Kontrol'. An entire floor of nothing but pinball games, quite frequently at
capacity.

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fnordfnordfnord
Making the technical bits and machinery have never been easier or cheaper. I
hope he can find people to buy them and play them.

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chrisbennet
When we were young kids, my brother and I would play pinball. He'd play one
flipper (button) and I'd play the other.

