Pinball Special Pt.2, The Finale!

This is the second part of the Pinball Special, and just to recap where we left off, Pinball is now what we know of it today.

Modern Pinball

In the 1970's, digital displays were introduced to the pinball world. These digital displays allowed high scores to be stored digitally on micro-processors, as opposed to whatever the screen could fit on it. This would be one of the last developments in the pinball world, and probably the end of the Pinball craze.

The Death of Pinball

The video-game craze of the 1980's marked the end of the pinball craze. Pinball games were still in arcades, but they were mostly used by people who were alive during the craze, and were trying to re-live the time. I feel bad about the end of the pinball craze, but the games from the arcade craze of the 80's are great. But the question remains, why were these games so much more popular. I think I can answer. It was all about the ease of arcade games. The games made a lot more money, but also were much cheaper to maintain. It was very hard to fix a problem with a pinball machine, but most problems arcade cabinets had could be solved by unplugging and plugging the game back in.

The Pinball Plot Twist

So, I know I mentioned the death of pinball, but plot-twist: it wasn't dead! I guess it was just heavily sleeping. Or in a coma. It doesn't matter! The point is, Pinball made a comeback in the 90's after the collapse of coin-op games. Home video games had become popular enough that people didn't want to leave home for video games, and most kids at the time definitely didn't live through the pinball boom, so to them pinball was this fun new thing. There was a small pinball boom in the 90's, maybe more of a pinball bang, but eventually this boom would fizzle out entirely with more cutting edge home video games.

Pinball's Contribution To Video Games

Without question, pinball was a major contributor to the development of video-games. When pinball halls were a big deal, owners wanted to make more money, and wanted more variety, so they made quick-draw games, were you would put a laser pointing pistol on your hip, and would shoot it onto a wooden cowboy's sensors. Eventually, these game developers wanted to digitize, and knew that video games were a thing young people were into and said: "Hey, let's make some video games for my pinball hall", and the arcade was born.

My Experience With Pinball

I'll be totally honest, I don't think I've ever played an actual pinball game. I'm just really into the NES pinball game, and I know how important pinball is to video game history, so I decided it was worthy of a special.

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball