Can Pinball Survive?
The dimly lit arcade buzzes with noise. Bells from the pinballs, voices laughing and talking and the strains of "Do you Feel like I do" all combined to make a symphony only found in the 1970's. Games were played, hearts were broken, and your first kiss all wrapped up in one place. Ours was not that big. Fifteen to twenty Pinball Machines, a few electro-mechanical gun games and yes, the beginnings of the video revolution. It was located in the local mall sandwiched between the cities first mini-screened multi theatre, an ice skating rink and the usual stores. Kids of all ages roamed in and out of the arcade and the other stores. This was long before the days of food courts. We were all dressed in our coolest clothes. I had one of those fake silk shirts with the Star Wars deep space gunfight on it. And yes, those awful bell bottoms. The arcade was the social focal point of Saturday Nights. Outside the mall were all of the big kids. The lights from bumper to bumper cars circled the mall like christmas tree lights. The line moved as one. Starting and stopping with the latest social visit out of the window. I am sure that there were plenty of things being done that were not supposed to be. However, it was an atmosphere that my parents as well as those of my friends had no problems leaving us in for the night.
I clearly remember the night we got cable for the first time. Do you remember those sliding channel selectors attached to the television by a fifteen foot cord. No such thing as a remote control. At least not in our house. Good riddance to fuzzy screens and one football game a week. Technology had arrived! Late nights sneaking out of bed to turn on the first cable movie channel with friends hoping to catch a glimpse of a partially dressed woman. Before cable, we had to climb on the roof of our house with a telescope to watch r-rated movies at the drive-in on Burnet Road. My best friend and I used walkie-talkies to converse after bed time. Our houses were just a hundred yards or so apart. There weren't any cordless phones to sneak into your room!
Weekdays after school, we would head to the local corner store. Ours was just a block from my middle school. For a couple of bucks, you could get a drink, eat some microwaved pizza and play some Pinball. You could not go anywhere without seeing Pins. Our store had five pinballs and a couple of tables to eat at. It was always full of kids after school. We tried to go in one time during school hours and were sent back to school. I never skipped again! The store manager knew our names along with everyone else that came in. It was to weekdays what the mall was to saturday nights. I got turned down for the first time in front of a game of pinball. It took me weeks to get the courage up to ask her to a movie and was nuked in a matter of seconds.
By the time I was old enough to drive, the arcade and the local store were no longer places to hangout. Our corner store had closed and we went to the one by my high school. There was not a pin in sight! The invasion had begun and Video won the first battle. I have to admit, I did get pretty good on Pac Man and Asteroids. There was one huge difference though. The social aspect of playing games was on the out. You went in and played a few games with your buddy but there were not people hanging around everywhere in the store. We were adults and had places to go and people to see. At least in our minds. CB radios were the thing. We all had our handles. On Friday and Saturday nights, you just turned it on and talked to your friends. After a bit of gossip a place to hang out for the night was picked and off you went. There were no cell phones. If your CB went out, your social life was over! We generally picked a cove in one of the neighborhoods under construction and pulled out our KISS 8-tracks. All the Police knew who we were by name and in fact, some even came and spent time with us on those nights.
1981 came and went. Gone were high school, Trans Ams and a whole bunch of my friends. It was off to The University of Texas. What a change that was! There were three arcades on the Drag at that time. Pinball was still around but not in the numbers of just a few years ago. Video had been around for several years and the manufacturers were taking a financial hit. R & D was at an all time low and so was the play of new games. Defender, Asteroids Deluxe, Robotron and a host of others ruled the coin-op world. If you looked hard, you could find a few electro-mechanical pins but for the most part, they were gone. No one socialized at the arcade. They got their video fix and left in time to get some studying done. I spent a lot of time in the student union. You could rent pool tables by the hour. It also had a medium sized bowling alley, a bar and a small arcade room. We used to sneak large magnets in and gather around 8-Ball Deluxe. We could use the magnet to manipulate the ball for a ton of free games. There were only a few pins.
By the time I was a junior, we spent very little social time on campus. Our fraternity house had one pinball and a pool table. However, we spent most of our time in the bars. One, which I shall not name, had the cheapest drinks and the best games. Then it arrived! Williams Space Shuttle. I remember looking at that game for the first time. A Ramp, a cool model of the Space Shuttle and multi-ball play. Someone really put some effort into this one. It paid off. It didn't happen overnight but slowly. Pinballs began to creep back into the arcades. Maybe the war was not over. I have to admit that I took my time in college. I don't know how many majors I went through. My parents knew I wasn't in a hurry. By the time I graduated, games like Space Shuttle and Comet were once again common and were everywhere there was a video or a pool table. It was the social event of the weekend!
A lot has happened between then and now. We graduated, got jobs, wives and kids. Pinball continued it's slow growth. It never recaptured it's popularity of the 70's but it sure got close. I remember one arcade down by campus as late as 1990 that had no fewer than 20 pinballs. The games were great and packed with player appeal. Rules continued to get more complex and playfields more cluttered with the latest pinball trick. Pinball was truly a pulse pounding adrenaline rush.
Recently, I took my twin boys to the local arcade. It had one Pinball that was sitting in the corner. My boys and I walked up and inserted $1 so that we could all play. Unfortunately, the game had weak flippers and was not worth playing. My boys had a great time though. The playfield was dirty and half the lights were out. The rest of the arcade was filled with the latest video games. I am spoiled because my kids play video games at home in their game console. My wife and I are the ones who buy or rent the games for them so we know exactly what they are playing. No teen games in this house. We walked around the arcade looking for something to play. One son was happy playing a motorcycle race game while the other played a tank game. We walked around some more and began to play a basketball game and then a football game. After walking through the place twice, It was time to go. An arcade that large and only a handful of games I would let them play. In fact, there were games I would not even let them watch let alone play. Gun games, fight games, terrorist games, etc...
With the internet and modern technology, there isn't the need to leave the house for entertainment that there used to be. Big screen televisions and home theatres along with your home computer bring it all to you. There are many reasons why Pinball is in the state it is. For starters, the games don't play well in the field. They are not maintained and are too complex for the average operator to repair. The cost has risen to the point of 50 cent play. Most people walk away feeling cheated. If the game is functional, the settings have been made so difficult that even a great player can't win a game or have a game that is longer than a few minutes. Something will need to change. As you know, three of the major four players are out of the Pinball business. Gottlieb left in 1996 and Bally/Williams left in October of 1999. The main reason is lack of profit. These games just require too much maintenance and cost too much money for commercial operators to justify buying them. The cashboxes are smaller and smaller as well. The few operators that I do know running clean. properly maintained games are still seeing small revenues. One local told me that his gross is less than half of what it was even three years ago. I know it is easy to preach from the outside looking in but it seems the solution is simple. Produce less fancy, costly games. Lower the cost, lower the maintenance and bring back 25 cent play. As a dealer, the demand that I see for Pinballs in the home is greater than ever. The players are out there. They are just looking for a good perceived value for their money.
I might be a bit older than I was in those Pinball Days. I know my life is much different now. The bottom line is everything has changed. Can Pinball make the successful leap to modern times. Pinball, at least for me, was a social part of life. It was more than just the games we played. It bonded us to our friends, those places and those times. Today's Arcades just are not the same. The social aspect is gone. I am not saying that folks both young and old don't go with each other to the arcade. What I am saying is that it is not the place to be with everyone playing games while learning the lessons of life. I am sure this is more of a reflection of the times and not the game. I do know that my twin boys will not have the freedom to roam those places that I did when I was their age. In that enviornment, who knows?
Steve Bronson