Pinball
Pinball is a popular type of arcade game, usually coin-operated, where a player attempts to score points by manipulating one or more
metal balls on a playfield inside a glass-covered case called a pinball machine. The primary objective of the game is to score as
many points as possible. Secondary objectives are to maximize the time spent playing (by earning extra balls and keeping the ball
in play as long as possible) and to earn free games (known as replays).
In France, during the reign of King Louis XIV, someone took a billiard table and narrowed it, placing pins at one end of the table
while making the player shoot balls with a stick or cue from the other end. Pins took too long to reset when knocked down, so the
pins eventually were fixed to the table and holes took the place of targets. Players could ricochet the ball off the pins to achieve
the harder scorable holes. The game was dubbed bagatelle by the brother of the king of France.
In 1869, a British inventor named Montague Redgrave settled in America and manufactured bagatelle tables out of his factory in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1871 Redgrave was granted US Patent #115,357 for his "Improvements in Bagatelle", which replaced the cue at the player's end of the table with a coiled spring and a plunger. The player shot balls up the inclined playfield using this plunger, a device that remains in pinball to this day. This innovation made the game friendlier to players. The game also shrank in size and began to fit on top of a bar or counter. The balls became marbles and the wickets became small "pins". Redgrave's innovations in game design are acknowledged as the birth of pinball in its modern form.
Pinball machines, like many other mechanical games, were sometimes used as gambling devices. Some pinball machines, such as Bally's "bingos", featured a grid on the backglass scoring area with spaces corresponding to targets or holes on the playfield. Free games could be won if the player was able to get the balls to land in a winning pattern, however, doing this was nearly random, and a common use for such machines was for gambling. Other machines allowed a player to win and accumulate large numbers of "free games" which could then be cashed out for money with the location owner. Later, this type of feature was discontinued in an effort to legitimize the machines, and to avoid legal problems in areas where awarding free games was considered illegal, some games — called Add-A-Ball games — did away with the free game feature, instead giving players extra balls to play (between 5 and 25 in most cases). These extra balls were indicated via lighted graphics in the backglass or by a ball count wheel, but in some areas even that was disallowed and so some games came with a sticker to cover over the counters.
One important and notable area where pinball games have been regulated or banned was in New York City, beginning in the 1940's and
continuing until 1976. The ban ended when Roger Sharpe (a star witness for the AMOA - Amusement and Music Operators Association)
testified in April 1976 before a committee in a Manhattan courtroom that pinball games had become games of skill and were no longer
games of chance (i.e. gambling). He began to play one of two games set up in the courtroom, and — in a move he compares to Babe Ruth's
home run in the 1932 World Series — called out precisely what he was going to shoot for, and then proceeded to do exactly so.
Astonished committee members reportedly then voted to remove the ban, a result which was then followed in many other cities.
Like New York, Los Angeles banned pinball machines in 1939. The ban was overturned by the Supreme Court of California in 1974 because (1) if pinball machines were games of chance, the ordinance was preempted by state law governing games of chance in general, and (2) if they were games of skill, the ordinance was unconstitutional as a denial of the equal protection of the laws.
The post-WWII era was dominated by Gottlieb. Game designer Wayne Neyens along with artist Leroy Parker turned out game after game that collectors consider some of the most classic pinball machines ever designed. The most famous were designed by James Rider, the man behind the epitomized catchphrase "I've got it", amongst others.
Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty, introduced in 1947, was the first game to add player-controlled flippers to keep the ball in play longer and added a skill factor to the game. The low power of the Humpty Dumpty flippers necessitated that three pairs be placed around the playfield in order to get the ball to the top. But the addition of a DC power supply enabled the flippers on Humpty Dumpty to become only two, more powerful ones at the bottom of the Triple Action playfield - one of many innovations by designer Steve Kordek, who is also credited with introducing the very first "drop target" (1962 on Vagabond) and "multiball" (1963 on Beat the Clock) concepts to the game.
The advent of the microprocessor brought another new age for pinball as it entered the realm of electronic gaming. The electromechanical relays and scoring reels that drove games in the 1950s and 1960s were replaced in the 1970's with circuit boards and digital displays. Williams introduced their first solid-state electronic game, Hot Tip, in 1977, and because of this new technology, they and Bally thrived in this era as they both sold large amounts of games with fancy sound effects, speech, and game features that only a computer could make possible.
The video game boom of the 1980's, however, signaled the end of the boom for pinball. Arcades quickly replaced rows of pinball machines with games like Asteroids and Pac-Man, which earned incredible amounts of money compared to the pinball machines of the day. Bally, Williams, and Gottlieb continued to quietly make pinball machines while they also manufactured video games in much higher numbers. Many of the larger companies were acquired by, or merged with, other companies. Chicago Coin was purchased by the Stern family who brought the company into the digital era as Stern Enterprises, which closed its doors in the mid-1980s. Bally exited the pinball business in 1988 and sold their assets to Williams, who subsequently used the Bally trademark on about half of their pinball releases from then on.
In France, during the reign of King Louis XIV, someone took a billiard table and narrowed it, placing pins at one end of the table
while making the player shoot balls with a stick or cue from the other end. Pins took too long to reset when knocked down, so the
pins eventually were fixed to the table and holes took the place of targets. Players could ricochet the ball off the pins to achieve
the harder scorable holes. The game was dubbed bagatelle by the brother of the king of France.
In 1869, a British inventor named Montague Redgrave settled in America and manufactured bagatelle tables out of his factory in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1871 Redgrave was granted US Patent #115,357 for his "Improvements in Bagatelle", which replaced the cue at the player's end of the table with a coiled spring and a plunger. The player shot balls up the inclined playfield using this plunger, a device that remains in pinball to this day. This innovation made the game friendlier to players. The game also shrank in size and began to fit on top of a bar or counter. The balls became marbles and the wickets became small "pins". Redgrave's innovations in game design are acknowledged as the birth of pinball in its modern form.
Pinball machines, like many other mechanical games, were sometimes used as gambling devices. Some pinball machines, such as Bally's "bingos", featured a grid on the backglass scoring area with spaces corresponding to targets or holes on the playfield. Free games could be won if the player was able to get the balls to land in a winning pattern, however, doing this was nearly random, and a common use for such machines was for gambling. Other machines allowed a player to win and accumulate large numbers of "free games" which could then be cashed out for money with the location owner. Later, this type of feature was discontinued in an effort to legitimize the machines, and to avoid legal problems in areas where awarding free games was considered illegal, some games — called Add-A-Ball games — did away with the free game feature, instead giving players extra balls to play (between 5 and 25 in most cases). These extra balls were indicated via lighted graphics in the backglass or by a ball count wheel, but in some areas even that was disallowed and so some games came with a sticker to cover over the counters.
One important and notable area where pinball games have been regulated or banned was in New York City, beginning in the 1940's and
continuing until 1976. The ban ended when Roger Sharpe (a star witness for the AMOA - Amusement and Music Operators Association)
testified in April 1976 before a committee in a Manhattan courtroom that pinball games had become games of skill and were no longer
games of chance (i.e. gambling). He began to play one of two games set up in the courtroom, and — in a move he compares to Babe Ruth's
home run in the 1932 World Series — called out precisely what he was going to shoot for, and then proceeded to do exactly so.
Astonished committee members reportedly then voted to remove the ban, a result which was then followed in many other cities.
Like New York, Los Angeles banned pinball machines in 1939. The ban was overturned by the Supreme Court of California in 1974 because (1) if pinball machines were games of chance, the ordinance was preempted by state law governing games of chance in general, and (2) if they were games of skill, the ordinance was unconstitutional as a denial of the equal protection of the laws.
The post-WWII era was dominated by Gottlieb. Game designer Wayne Neyens along with artist Leroy Parker turned out game after game that collectors consider some of the most classic pinball machines ever designed. The most famous were designed by James Rider, the man behind the epitomized catchphrase "I've got it", amongst others.
Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty, introduced in 1947, was the first game to add player-controlled flippers to keep the ball in play longer and added a skill factor to the game. The low power of the Humpty Dumpty flippers necessitated that three pairs be placed around the playfield in order to get the ball to the top. But the addition of a DC power supply enabled the flippers on Humpty Dumpty to become only two, more powerful ones at the bottom of the Triple Action playfield - one of many innovations by designer Steve Kordek, who is also credited with introducing the very first "drop target" (1962 on Vagabond) and "multiball" (1963 on Beat the Clock) concepts to the game.
The advent of the microprocessor brought another new age for pinball as it entered the realm of electronic gaming. The electromechanical relays and scoring reels that drove games in the 1950s and 1960s were replaced in the 1970's with circuit boards and digital displays. Williams introduced their first solid-state electronic game, Hot Tip, in 1977, and because of this new technology, they and Bally thrived in this era as they both sold large amounts of games with fancy sound effects, speech, and game features that only a computer could make possible.
The video game boom of the 1980's, however, signaled the end of the boom for pinball. Arcades quickly replaced rows of pinball machines with games like Asteroids and Pac-Man, which earned incredible amounts of money compared to the pinball machines of the day. Bally, Williams, and Gottlieb continued to quietly make pinball machines while they also manufactured video games in much higher numbers. Many of the larger companies were acquired by, or merged with, other companies. Chicago Coin was purchased by the Stern family who brought the company into the digital era as Stern Enterprises, which closed its doors in the mid-1980s. Bally exited the pinball business in 1988 and sold their assets to Williams, who subsequently used the Bally trademark on about half of their pinball releases from then on.