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The future of pinball/kids and pinball
- Thread starter VeeMonroe
- Start date
Any ideas on delivery times ?
For my daughter, it's a novelty of something new that interests her for a short period of time and that's it. She'll not switch one on to play.
Being an arcade within a pub under 18s are supposed to be accompanied but the arcade is often to our dismay used as a creche. But they do play the video games sweet robot and air hockey
Its amazing how many general adult customers say it great we provide the pinball for the kids when we all know the player base now is 35 to 65
Steve Ritchie said when he was at his peak he designed games to appeal to a 15 year old boy as that was the average player demographic then.
Young adults (18 to 30) do play the pins often on a Friday night when a group will come in and play the band ones mainly.
Sunday was our busiest day in the main bar for since a wake in January 2020 of a popular local musician , due to a kids Halloween party but very few ventured past the grabber or sweet machine apart from as David pointed out messing about
A few younger ie 30 ish local guys have become firm pinball fans but id say 90% of our bar customers never go in there unless to access the disabled facilities. They think its for kids and the kids think the pins are for adults so there you have it
Its amazing how many general adult customers say it great we provide the pinball for the kids when we all know the player base now is 35 to 65
Steve Ritchie said when he was at his peak he designed games to appeal to a 15 year old boy as that was the average player demographic then.
Young adults (18 to 30) do play the pins often on a Friday night when a group will come in and play the band ones mainly.
Sunday was our busiest day in the main bar for since a wake in January 2020 of a popular local musician , due to a kids Halloween party but very few ventured past the grabber or sweet machine apart from as David pointed out messing about
A few younger ie 30 ish local guys have become firm pinball fans but id say 90% of our bar customers never go in there unless to access the disabled facilities. They think its for kids and the kids think the pins are for adults so there you have it
My kids are currently obsessed.
My four-year-old boy has VERY strong opinions on his favourite pinball machines. His favourite is currently, unfortunately, Godzilla Pro - I say, unfortunately, because much as I like Godzilla Pro, I don't want to pay for one and I'm not that interested in pins I can't repair/restore. He also likes Junkyard (shooting the dog with toast), Black Rose (pirates), Funhouse (Rudy's head), JP2 Premium (the T-Rex), MM (the castle), CV (the Ringmaster), Hurricane, Mando and TAF. He will happily play pinball at an arcade for an hour or two, without wandering off or getting bored, and probably plays our LoTR a couple of times a day - even on school days (he seems to have gone off Fish Tales). He routinely plays pinball on the iPad as well, with his favourites being Dr Dude, Junkyard, Black Rose, Roadshow, Funhouse, MM, Space Shuttle and Hurricane. He knows a lot of the callouts of 90s-era pinball machines and plays Hungry Hungry Hippos with 'multi-ball'. He also had a period of running around the school playground shouting "I am the King of Pain", which - out of context - was very disturbing.
My 20-month-old boy says "plu-nge" and "pin-bo". Every time he sees an iPad, he requests "Pin-Bo Please. More Pin-Bo". He also drags me over to our pins to play and, if someone is playing already, he will bring a small stool and climb onto it. He's recently learned to plunge ("plun-ge"), so he likes to create a four-player game and then run between pinball machines, plunging the ball, waiting for it to drain, and then running back. He's so keen, despite being twenty months old, that he gets nicknamed "The Pi-Bo Wizard".
Both boys are very interested in vehicles and mechanical objects/engineering, so I suspect that's some of the appeal for them. My 20 month old recently had a huge crying episode because he wasn't able to watch the edited highlights of a monster truck rally on YouTube.
2.5 year old quite obsessed here, but after a few minutes just like to watch me play
I currently have sited a Demoman and Getaway in a popup arcade where everything is on freeplay after you pay the cover charge. All I can say is the machines have been hammered and played more than any of the video games, dance machines etc in the whole place. The main demographic of people playing the pins are 8-13 year old boys I would say. Every time they need to be repaired there is always a huddle of them stood around the games waiting to play them again.
Which basically makes me think this. Pinball is hard and when money is limited they aren't going to play something that could be over in less than a minute, when they could play something and make the money last longer. Take the cost of playing the machine (and fear of instant failure and loss of money) out of the equation and there is definitely still a huge interest. The stumbling block is them learning what they need to do, when it feels so foreign in comparison to all the games they play on there phones.
Interesting experiment that has cost way more in repairs than it has brought in, but it was more about getting pinball out to the public and seeing how its received
Which basically makes me think this. Pinball is hard and when money is limited they aren't going to play something that could be over in less than a minute, when they could play something and make the money last longer. Take the cost of playing the machine (and fear of instant failure and loss of money) out of the equation and there is definitely still a huge interest. The stumbling block is them learning what they need to do, when it feels so foreign in comparison to all the games they play on there phones.
Interesting experiment that has cost way more in repairs than it has brought in, but it was more about getting pinball out to the public and seeing how its received
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As well as that. As many on here know I'm a teacher and at each of the schools I have worked in I have tried to bring pinball in. In my first school, I put a Black Rose, Dr Who, Getaway, White Water, STTNG and Shadow in each of the house areas in the school. I put them all on 20p a play. They were played pretty frequently again primarily by the 11 and 12 year old boys. By the time they got to Year 9 that interest wained.
At my current place I have put Shrek and Walking Dead in the Year 11 common room. They literally sat there completely untouched. They were on 50p a play. The only time they were ever played was when I ran a pinball club and put them on freeplay. In the end deputy head asked for them to be removed as they were taking up space and not being used, which was true
At my current place I have put Shrek and Walking Dead in the Year 11 common room. They literally sat there completely untouched. They were on 50p a play. The only time they were ever played was when I ran a pinball club and put them on freeplay. In the end deputy head asked for them to be removed as they were taking up space and not being used, which was true
Very jealous of having a Shrek in the common room!
Yeah, thinking about it... We played a lot of Williams pinball on the iOS app before we bought a physical Fish Tales. My four year old already enjoyed playing games on iPad and was interested to know what his parents were playing, so he started playing the Williams app too.
When the FT arrived, he was very excited because he knew a FT was coming into the house and he'd already played FT.
When he went to FlipOut, he only wanted to play the pins he'd already seen on the Williams app and it took a lot of convincing to get him to try TAF (or anything else). After he discovered he enjoyed TAF, he was open to playing other pins that weren't on the app, although - again - he needed a fair bit of convincing.
I showed him LoTR on a YouTube video before buying it, to check the animations weren't too scary, and - again - he was involved in the purchasing decision. So, again, he was really excited when the LoTR arrived.
He was interested in going to The Brunswick Arcade because I'd shown him the Stern trailer and sales videos for JP2 and GZ before he went. So, again, those were the first things he played and he only branched out after some encouragement.
So, I think he was eased into playing pinball (something he didn't understand) by extensive free play on an iPad app (something he did understand). And, once he did get interested in pinball, he still requires gentle encouragement to play something different. Not sure how representative of kids he is, however.
Itch
Registered
My 9 year old daughter enjoyed the first pin I had at home a Spider-Man with the centre post fitted, since then the pins have been harder with no centre post and she isn’t interested, I believe it’s a mixture of novelty from the first and ease of use, every pin she plays since, I’m told it’s not as good as SM, when her friends from school come around non of them have ever heard of pinball let alone played, and that maybe on the area as nothing much around here,
I heard 9 months
When pins are free of course kids love to have a go
At EGX queuing to play them
At EGX queuing to play them
It's the old football argument/problem.
A few years ago football looked at the demographic attending live games and realised that it had an issue. If the trend of over 40's attending continued then football would be looking at a future with empty stadiums.
They needed to get the youngsters hooked so every club introduced a 'kids for a quid' scheme and some allowed the kids to go free if a parent was a season ticket holder. My son has a season ticket which is £99 and that's incredibly good value for Premier League football at the Olympic Stadium.
Jersey Jack or Gary Stern might not give a damn what happens to pinball when they pop their clogs. Fortunately the Premier League clubs had the combined desire to do something about an aging audience when it probably would have been easier to keep selling all the tickets to grown-ups at £60 each.
I actually think the home-pin could have been a good idea but it's £6000 and not going on location so it will attracting the sum total of zero kids into the hobby.
A few years ago football looked at the demographic attending live games and realised that it had an issue. If the trend of over 40's attending continued then football would be looking at a future with empty stadiums.
They needed to get the youngsters hooked so every club introduced a 'kids for a quid' scheme and some allowed the kids to go free if a parent was a season ticket holder. My son has a season ticket which is £99 and that's incredibly good value for Premier League football at the Olympic Stadium.
Jersey Jack or Gary Stern might not give a damn what happens to pinball when they pop their clogs. Fortunately the Premier League clubs had the combined desire to do something about an aging audience when it probably would have been easier to keep selling all the tickets to grown-ups at £60 each.
I actually think the home-pin could have been a good idea but it's £6000 and not going on location so it will attracting the sum total of zero kids into the hobby.
My 6 year old has also developed a recent obsession with Godzilla and has demanded I buy him a Godzilla pinball machine immediately. I can only guess that Dan TDM mentions Godzilla a lot lately.
My 4 year old has actually played the Godzilla (Pro) currently at The Brunswick Arcade. He says he likes it because there is a city and he can knock down buildings in it
My boy (8 tomorrow) watches YouTube - Dan TDM, and others, mainly, he likes Dialed In and a few others.
He knows I like Starwars and deliberately says I should sell it as it’s crap!.. must have been speaking with Neil..
He knows I like Starwars and deliberately says I should sell it as it’s crap!.. must have been speaking with Neil..
Ant-H
Site Supporter
My 4 year old daughter loves playing pinball and my arcade cabs, apart from when I switch on Freddy, then she runs a mile 
On the flip side my 14 year old daughter has no interest in them at all. When we go to an arcade she is on the 2p pushers straight away.
Similar to my 20 year boy, however he will play when a new game arrives, but that’s about it. He is more interested in his PS5, pc, car and going to the pub.
On the flip side my 14 year old daughter has no interest in them at all. When we go to an arcade she is on the 2p pushers straight away.
Similar to my 20 year boy, however he will play when a new game arrives, but that’s about it. He is more interested in his PS5, pc, car and going to the pub.
The price of pinball machines will limit the amount of younger / older/any age potential players. So few out on site and so few affordable to buy new or second hand. The whole thing is so very lopsided in favour of those who are prepared to chuck silly amounts of money at whatever the latest machine/theme comes out no matter what.
I don`t know the answer to what is best as many years ago i honestly thought pinball machines were brilliant value for money yet very few folk were interested in them. Seems as if there is still that small limited amount of the general public that pay pinball any attention but they are prepared to spend BIG money on whatever is available,
My son who is now 26 just shakes his head at what we pay for pinball machines and cannot quite understand why the hell we put up with the hassles that come with them. He may have a point !
I don`t know the answer to what is best as many years ago i honestly thought pinball machines were brilliant value for money yet very few folk were interested in them. Seems as if there is still that small limited amount of the general public that pay pinball any attention but they are prepared to spend BIG money on whatever is available,
My son who is now 26 just shakes his head at what we pay for pinball machines and cannot quite understand why the hell we put up with the hassles that come with them. He may have a point !
My boy grew out of playing (probably when he was about 13)
Becca still plays occasionally but neither of them really ever go into my games room
Becca still plays occasionally but neither of them really ever go into my games room
D
Deleted member 181
My boy was slapping the flipper buttons from day dot , went through a few glory years of liking a few new games that came in and subsequently went . Only two games I think he genuinely enjoyed was Deapool and AFM
Since he discovered fortnite at 8 he is now 9 nothing else interests him anymore , he had a look at Rick and Morty today as fortnite had a Rick skin so that was exciting for a minute .
Actually considering using the space where the pins are and setting up a gaming area and YouTube green screen set up so he can stream and pretend to be an American and be shocked at everything that happens at all times.
I have given up fighting against it and I play fortnite and roblox more than pins and find myself editing YouTube videos for him more than playing
Hate YouTube and hate stupid Americans shouting at rocks
Since he discovered fortnite at 8 he is now 9 nothing else interests him anymore , he had a look at Rick and Morty today as fortnite had a Rick skin so that was exciting for a minute .
Actually considering using the space where the pins are and setting up a gaming area and YouTube green screen set up so he can stream and pretend to be an American and be shocked at everything that happens at all times.
I have given up fighting against it and I play fortnite and roblox more than pins and find myself editing YouTube videos for him more than playing
Hate YouTube and hate stupid Americans shouting at rocks
D
Deleted member 2463
this is why stern, JJP, CGC, American and spooky are putting games online for the youngest demographic.
pre-covid I had a dozen or so 10-14 year olds from NAS come round and play pinball at the Domino Arcade every three months.
but the UK is a broken market for pinball with a long way back to get even close to the US and the craze thats happening over there
pre-covid I had a dozen or so 10-14 year olds from NAS come round and play pinball at the Domino Arcade every three months.
but the UK is a broken market for pinball with a long way back to get even close to the US and the craze thats happening over there
On my last trip to ArcadeClub a load of the kids would rather be playing COD, FPS's & Mario Kart on massive TV's. 80's video games? They couldn't care less. Pinball, much the same.
Stuff on the their phones, PS4's & 5's seems all they want.
Pinball (retro video games) and kids? There is no interest, the heyday is long gone.
Stuff on the their phones, PS4's & 5's seems all they want.
Pinball (retro video games) and kids? There is no interest, the heyday is long gone.
Arcade club suffers from kids doing the seal on the pinballs . Problem we have a public events. Long term especially in the US its doesn't take a large number of young people to catch the silverball bug to sustain Stern and others for home sales.
Just to clarify - they are not 'putting games online'. They are connecting physical pinball machines to the internet so you can upload your score and get silly 'benefits' (like how my watch gives me a little badge for walking for 20 minutes on International Women's Day
).It is not possible to play any JPP, CGC, American and Spooky pinball games on my iPad and Stern's digitisation efforts only cover such classics as Whoa Nellie! Juicy Melons.
It would be nice if they would put pinball games online, for the youngest demographic (or just people who can't access a physical machine), because they don't compete with actual physical pins and they introduce new players to pinball. There is a reason why my four year old is a huge fan of Funhouse, Black Hole and Hurricane - none of which he's ever played in real life. It's very obvious Stern would sell more pins for home use if they digitised their existing and back catalogue. As it is, they lose new buyers to vintage machines because there is not a snowball's chance in Hades that my first pin would have been something I hadn't played.
Just to clarify - they are not 'putting games online'. They are connecting physical pinball machines to the internet so you can upload your score and get silly 'benefits' (like how my watch gives me a little badge for walking for 20 minutes on International Women's Day
It is not possible to play any JPP, CGC, American and Spooky pinball games on my iPad and Stern's digitisation efforts only cover such classics as Whoa Nellie! Juicy Melons.
It would be nice if they would put pinball games online, for the youngest demographic (or just people who can't access a physical machine), because they don't compete with actual physical pins and they introduce new players to pinball. There is a reason why my four year old is a huge fan of Funhouse, Black Hole and Hurricane - none of which he's ever played in real life. It's very obvious Stern would sell more pins for home use if they digitised their existing and back catalogue. As it is, they lose new buyers to vintage machines because there is not a snowball's chance in Hades that my first pin would have been something I hadn't played.
There is this https://store.steampowered.com/app/564010/Stern_Pinball_Arcade/
Yeah, I've got that, as well. I was being trite - it has Star Trek and Ghostbusters, but no Deadpool, Batman '66, Metallica, Game of Thrones, etc.
I agree - SPA is pretty average unfortunately (although I did buy it for my N Switch, which is currently gathering dust, as i wanted to play Ghostbusters at the time). The lighting on SPA looks very poor, even compared to Visual Pinball X, which I think has a lot of baked in lighting. Physics are also a little off and there's no cabinet support on pc (without a hack)
I really do think Stern and other manufacturers are missing a trick by not having someone like Zen recreate their recent pins (if done well) - surely more people would be more inspired to seek out real machines if they played a virtual version (as I did after a few years of playing Visual pinball+Pinball FX) and I doubt being able to play a virtual version of say Godzilla would stop any prospective buyers from buying the real thing if they'd already planned on getting one. (If anything they should use Stern Insider Connected to let you earn credits or something on a real machine - that'd likely get people out to play a real machine if they had a free credit to give it a go).
There are likely licensing reasons why Stern wouldn't be able to release digital versions unless they renew (probably no longer have the Metallica right for example), but imagine the marketing possibilities if Stern released a new app to play their games digitally; they could market directly to a lot of people re; new games/tournaments etc, etc
I really do think Stern and other manufacturers are missing a trick by not having someone like Zen recreate their recent pins (if done well) - surely more people would be more inspired to seek out real machines if they played a virtual version (as I did after a few years of playing Visual pinball+Pinball FX) and I doubt being able to play a virtual version of say Godzilla would stop any prospective buyers from buying the real thing if they'd already planned on getting one. (If anything they should use Stern Insider Connected to let you earn credits or something on a real machine - that'd likely get people out to play a real machine if they had a free credit to give it a go).
There are likely licensing reasons why Stern wouldn't be able to release digital versions unless they renew (probably no longer have the Metallica right for example), but imagine the marketing possibilities if Stern released a new app to play their games digitally; they could market directly to a lot of people re; new games/tournaments etc, etc
That is actually a really great idea. I definitely choose which pins to play in real life based on whether I've already played them on an app - and so does my son.