As already mentioned, The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas is probably the most well known collection on a national level. Pittsburgh has two good collections-- Pinball PA, with various solid states up to modern machines, and Pinball Perfection, with more old (wood rail) tables and rarer tables like Banzai Run and the often-broken Circus Voltaire.
There is a growing number of public collections of modern Stern/Jersey Jack/CGC/American/etc. typically in barcade or enthusiast collections made public environments-- like The Pinball Garage outside of Cincinnati (the owner builds/built vpin cabinets), The Pinball Museum of Corbin in rural KY (50 or so modern tables, mostly Stern) or The Asheville Pinball Museum. They will all vary in quantity and quality (both in games and maintenance)-- so use Pinball Map and see where your favorites (or rare tables) are actually at.
Visual Pinball X and Zen Pinball are probably the two most prominent emulators.
If anyone likes other coin operated esoterica, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum outside of Detroit is worth a visit. Lots of 19th-early 20th century rare mechanical attractions and maybe 10 new pinballs.
I wanted to add Modern Pinball, in NYC to the list, but sadly they closed due to COVID. While it was a small shop, they rotated machines frequently and had a number of historic machines available for play.
Also the legendary Steve Epstein was involved in the business. Steve ran Broadway Arcade, which at its height in the 80s had over 144 pins. It was my local arcade growing up and sat where the Times Square Church and McDonalds on 51st st now occupy today.
Palace Playland in Old Orchard Beach, Maine used to be a great location for pinball as well but has long since gone the Family Fun Center route instead. I think most of what they had moved to Maine Silverball Tavern in Saco.
I also hit the PHoF in Vegas every time I go. Great collection.
Yes Modern Pinball closed in 2020. It was fun to live a few blocks from there. I think we did two birthday events for my Son there. Always a nice rainy day event for me and my kid. Glad to see a list of these places. There used to be on in New Jersey near Philadelphia and it is now one of the mentioned Bay Area ones.
I am going to the PHoF in Vegas this weekend and hopefully you (or anyone who is reading) can help me with some doubts I have. Do I need to bring cash, so I can change into coins there to play? Would they accept international credit cards to buy coins? (I am not from the US)
No mention of maybe the best of all of them, Silverball in Asbury Park? They own over 600 machines, of which they'll have a few hundred on the floor at any given time. Games run the gamut from the latest licensed stuff to purely mechanical games from the 50s.
> As already mentioned, The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas is probably the most well known collection on a national level.
I've heard that a lot of their games have various maintenance issues, is this true? On the other hand, I've wanted to get over there and play the only remaining copy of The Pinball Circus!
I went there around 8 years ago at their old location, then last year at their new location. Many more machines were disabled last year. I get the impression that the guy running it is very old and maybe is unable to keep up on maintenance.
It's a shame, the place has many old games beyond pinball and is truly a museum of gaming. If you get the chance, support them. I hope someone takes up the torch.
Any routed machine will require maintenance, but I believe they have 2 or 3 part time techs based on what I have seen in my few visits. I don't recall experiencing any blatantly broken machines, but there were a number with weak flippers and worn/unwaxed playfields. Maybe <5 machines unplugged each visit?
I had a Visual Pinball cab in my living room for a few years and I would tweak the emulated machines to get close to gameplay on real games that I could play nearby. I could get it pretty close -- certainly enough to learn the ruleset and flow of a game. After a certain point every copy of a particular table plays differently and V-pins were sort of another variation of a table that you could find in the wild.
The big thing that was missing (at the time) was good nudge support. I did have an accelerometer in my cabinet but nudging never felt very realistic.
Since people are posting about big locations here. I help maintain Pinball Map. Here's a query of locations in the US, sorted by number of machines. Limited to places with 60+. Not sure how well this will be formatted...
name | city | state | country | count
-----+------+-------+---------+-------
Pinball Hall of Fame | Las Vegas | NV | US | 337
Pinball Perfection | Westview | PA | US | 311
Next Level Pinball Museum | Hillsboro | OR | US | 242
Pinball PA | Aliquippa | PA | US | 176
Game Galaxy | Smyrna | TN | US | 169
Wizard's World | Fort Wayne | IN | US | 144
District 82 Pinball | De Pere | WI | US | 114
Pacific Pinball Museum | Alameda | CA | US | 106
Game Terminal | Nashville | TN | US | 105
Silverball Retro Arcade | Asbury Park | NJ | US | 100
ElectroMagnetic Pinball Museum | Pawtucket | RI | US | 96
The Pinball Palace | Brunswick | GA | US | 92
Pocketeer Billiards and Bar | Buffalo | NY | US | 85
If you're nearby, I highly recommend going to California Extreme at least once in your life. There's a great collection of old Pinball and Arcade games you can play for a nominal weekend charge. It's always filled with knowledgeable folks that are excited to see their games in play. You'll find a larger selection from a variety of local hobbyists.
Sadly, I've since moved from the area, but always think back on some great times there.
Oh dude, looks like they have Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure! This is the pinball machine! I've wanted to play it again for a long time. It had really crisp sound effects for its time, the plunger is a pistol grip you pull the trigger on (with gunshot sound effect!), and intermission games where you punch people. Pretty friggin' awesome. I'm so glad someone still has one running, and I think I'll be visiting this place rather soon.
One of my local spots has it! One feature I think is especially cool is there's a small upper playfield which, when you manage to get the ball up there, has you controlling the tilt with the flipper buttons. Getting to the end without dropping the ball through various holes scores a bonus. I thought it was really inventive- although there are several games with similarly inventive features, it's always cool to see a new idea.
I've been here numerous times. There's a lot to like. When you walk to the left side, there are some very old machines going back to the very beginning of pinball. They're interesting from a historical perspective, but not so entertaining to play. Still, it's neat to see how the art evolved and the fact that you CAN play the really old machines is really cool.
I do have a few complaints about the place.
1. The place is loud. And I guess that's not really their fault. If you get a bunch of machines that make noise all in the same room together, it's just going to be loud. However, one of the most wonderful things about these machines was the strange, unique, and beautiful noises they made. I was excited to find a couple of my favorites, but just couldn't hear them over the din of all the other machines. :-( It would be amazing if they could install a headphone jack on at least the digital machines so that if you wanted to play and really listen to the sounds, you could bring a pair of cans and immerse yourself. At the very least, they should disable attract mode on everything so that it only makes noise if someone's actually playing it. That might help a bit.
2. Weak coils. It's so frustrating to play a pinball machine knowing that you should be able to maneuver the ball to certain places but can't because the coil that's actuating the flipper is just shot. Williams' Black Knight was one of my favorites back in the early 80's and they have it. But once the ball falls to the lower field, it's pert-near impossible to get it back up there because the coil has just lost its oomph.
3. They purportedly have many more machines in storage and will swap certain ones out periodically, but I haven't seen that all the times I've gone over the last few years. It seems to be the same selection. I'm always hoping to see Xenon when I go, but I never do. When I ask about it, they tell me they have one in storage and that it may show up soon when they rotate machines, but it always seems like the same ones every time.
Anyway... I don't want it to seem like I'm bad-mouthing the place. It's great and a lot of fun. I would go more often if they could fix the annoyances. That's all.
Have you spoken to Michael about the coils on Black Knight? I took a pinball repair class from him once at the Crucible [it was awesome--highly recommended if it's ever offered again!] and he specifically covered how to juice up flipper solenoids. He cares a lot about play experience, but I'm sure he's also pretty busy with that many machines to maintain.
I didn't.... I was there with my family and just mentioned it to the person charging admission.
Unfortunately, Black Knight wasn't the only machine suffering from it. I went back a couple months later and there was no improvement unfortunately.
I have mixed emotions about it. On one hand, I feel like it's a shame to put these machines out there when they're not really working properly. On the other hand, I feel like I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth. Just having a chance to see some of these old friends again is really worth the price of admission. And I can't even imagine the herculean effort it must take to keep things working as well as they do. Heck, new flipper coils are like $15-$20 a pop. Not sure what the expected life span is, but these machines get a LOT of use so it's got to be just insane and expensive to keep things in tip-top shape. And I really do respect and appreciate that.
I got the impression when I visited that the flipper strength on many games had been dialed down specifically to reduce the maintenance load on the rest of the playfield. It wasn't the same as wild instances of weak flippers where they tend to just be flaky and not trap up correctly.
I don't mind, the goal is preservation after all, and a lot of the SS games can be played elsewhere.
I’m an occasional volunteer. Sometimes I show up and fix games (although it’s been a a long time since I’ve done it). Machine rotation is an issue. They do change them out but it is always trading out somebody’s favorite for somebody else’s favorite.
Weak flippers are probably not the result of weak coils, but of wear of flipper mechanisms. A complete flipper rebuild is hard to do on a budget. Some games (and BK is one of them) have flippers that haven’t worn well. (I think BK might still have 25V flippers, for instance.) But next time I’m there I will make sure to look. It’s important to be able to kick the ball upstairs on Black Knight.
I will say noise is always a problem, but the museum isn’t always crowded. I’ve been going a long time, and it’s been ten years since I could go early in the afternoon, but it is worth a shot.
Thanks for playing. Do mention any issues to the front desk. They will get attention, albeit triaged, and fixed on a budget.
There is also Next Level Pinball Museum > https://www.nextlevelpinballmuseum.com/ in Hillsboro, OR (30m outside Portland) and it boasts "One of the World's Largest Arcades with over 475+ pinball and arcade games on free play!".
I believe PinBallz in Texas has ~80 pinball machines at their main location. I was there a few years ago and the place is massive with a friendly vibe:
I was a regular at Pinballz for 5 or 6 years. I love it and it's one of the number one things I miss from Austin. They maintain a great selection of games and they route a lot of games around town as well. Pins at Pinballz get a lot of play and can be in rough shape or out of service at times.
What serendipity; my wife and I are visiting the area and looking for things to do, and recently developed an interest in pinball (via AtGames virtual pinball). Thank you for posting!
I have the Indiana Jones Pinball adventure and there are a few minor game design decisions that need modifying (partially due to the physical condition of my machine).
OP wants to change the software. That's probably easier if you do it with a different CPU board intended for you to mess with things, than with the original board.
I'm not so sure. There are lots of modded roms for older machines, typically to make them suitable for competition. Converting the boards to a new system is major surgery. It might be easier to write the software for a newer system but I'm not sure you save effort overall.
yeah, I feel likes its a huge amount of work to address issues that only appear in 2-10% of games. Also, re-sale value or 'authenticity' might be impacted, although I feel like this type of machine I'd keep forever.
I own five pins and wouldn’t consider any kind of major modification like that. Regular maintenance is plenty of work without making it one of a kind. Parts are still widely available so original condition is the easiest to support.
There are software-only bugs (game design decisions?) that I'd like to modify.
I found that source code, but they also have made modifications from the original and don't include the original assets. I emailed the creator asking for what hardware they are running for this.
I'm glad this exists but at $22 admission I don't think you're going to attract anyone but hardcore pinball lovers and maybe the odd person trying it out as a novelty once and then never returning. Pinball for most people is not an all day activity so an hourly rate seems like it would be a better fit.
They have a two for Tuesday special. I have gone a bunch of times, I took a friend and we played for 5 hours. Much cheaper than feeding quarters, and a LOT better variety. Yes, they could do both half days, and an hourly rate...
But its a Museum, and there is a bunch of overhead.
Silverball in Asbury park is $25/day and always packed out. If you play for even an hour or two you'll be well ahead of where you'd be paying a buck or game or whatever pinball in the wild goes for these days.
I went there maybe ten years ago and it was pretty full of people, not jam-packed but enough that you had to maneuver around them. (Only went there once because when we lived in the Bay Area it was an hour-plus drive)
1) They have a row of coin-op machines by the front door if you just want to swing by for a quick round or two.
2) That is how much an activity costs in Alameda. A game of bowling for two or a round of mini golf for two costs the same at nearby facilities.
3) Before I visited I thought it would only be interesting f for like an hour. I ended up staying for hours of entertainment and learning.
Yeah, I used to live a couple blocks from the museum and only went there once. The admission's a bit steep if you only want to play a couple of games and then leave.
If you haven't played pinball in a while, you'd burn through quarters pretty quickly. They're not a quarter per play anymore, it's usually 50¢ to 75¢ for older games and $1/play for anything from the 1990's or newer.
An hourly rate was tried and it was a pain in the ass for staff and now it’s gone. (Source: I am an irregular volunteer technician, and have been going there as a customer for 15 years.)
Really enjoyed this spot although we could only stay for an hour or so. The Asheville Pinball Museum (East Coast) is mentioned in the comments but I personally prefer the one in nearby Hendersonville NC (owned by the same folks from what I understand)
My partner who works in UI/UX was really fascinated by this place because it offers a neat timeline view of how people have interacted with machines through the decades.
Record Gallery kept going into the late 2010s; it moved across the street to 1451 Webster in 2008, though it had declined pretty steeply toward the end, and I think didn't make it out of the pandemic fully intact. 1451's now a vintage boutique (I think) with a few records left in it.
As already mentioned, The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas is probably the most well known collection on a national level. Pittsburgh has two good collections-- Pinball PA, with various solid states up to modern machines, and Pinball Perfection, with more old (wood rail) tables and rarer tables like Banzai Run and the often-broken Circus Voltaire.
There is a growing number of public collections of modern Stern/Jersey Jack/CGC/American/etc. typically in barcade or enthusiast collections made public environments-- like The Pinball Garage outside of Cincinnati (the owner builds/built vpin cabinets), The Pinball Museum of Corbin in rural KY (50 or so modern tables, mostly Stern) or The Asheville Pinball Museum. They will all vary in quantity and quality (both in games and maintenance)-- so use Pinball Map and see where your favorites (or rare tables) are actually at.
Visual Pinball X and Zen Pinball are probably the two most prominent emulators.
If anyone likes other coin operated esoterica, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum outside of Detroit is worth a visit. Lots of 19th-early 20th century rare mechanical attractions and maybe 10 new pinballs.