# Episode 106 - Ballsaves: Pinball's Biggest Mistake!

**Source:** Wedgehead Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-12-01  
**Duration:** 46m 9s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-18236513

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## Analysis

Alan and Alex from Wedgehead Pinball Podcast examine the history and criticism of ball saves in pinball, tracing their evolution from 1980's Firepower through modern games and arguing they represent pinball's biggest design mistake by coddling players, eliminating consequences, and turning strategy into exploiting safety nets rather than skill.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Playfield validation originated in the EM era as a safety mechanism to ensure proper ball serving, not as a modern ball save feature — _Alan explains the technical distinction between playfield validation and modern ball saves, providing historical context_
- [HIGH] Firepower (1980) was the first game with a physical ball-save kicker in the left outlane — _Alan states this directly with specific game and year_
- [HIGH] F-14 Tomcat (1987) by Steve Ritchie introduced the first modern ball save design as 'Flight Insurance,' available on ball three if the first two balls were bad — _Alan provides detailed description of the mechanic and attributes it to Steve Ritchie_
- [HIGH] Terminator 2 (1991) was the first game to guarantee a ball save at the start of every ball — _Alan explicitly states this milestone and credits Steve Ritchie_
- [HIGH] The Addams Family (1992), the best-selling flipper game ever, shipped without a factory ball save — _Alan references this as a counterargument to the necessity of ball saves, noting it sold more units than any other game and is still regarded as one of the greatest_
- [MEDIUM] Whitewater (1993) may be the last factory-released game without a ball save, though it has playfield activation validation — _Alan claims this but uses tentative language ('might be the last'), suggesting uncertainty_
- [HIGH] Ball saves have evolved from functional safety features into exploitable strategic elements that skilled players use to gain unfair advantages — _Alan and Alex extensively discuss how players deliberately use ball saves strategically rather than as intended safety mechanisms_
- [HIGH] Modern games like Ghostbusters have excessive ball saves with multiple outlane saves and scoop ejection saves that extend the safety window far beyond reasonable limits — _Alan and Alex discuss Ghostbusters specifically, noting 3-4 ball saves on initial plunge and additional scoop saves_
- [MEDIUM] Gottlieb in the 1990s as the third-place competitor regularly sold 2-3x the units that modern manufacturers like Spooky and Barrels of Fun sell today (400-900 units) — _Alan makes this comparison to argue pinball's historical vs. current market health_
- [MEDIUM] Williams sold 5,000-20,000+ units of games 30 years ago, demonstrating a much larger market when games had fewer ball saves — _Alan uses historical sales data as comparative evidence, though specific numbers are approximate_

### Notable Quotes

> "Filthy with them, you might say. They're mange-y. These things are fucking filthy with ball saves."
> — **Alex**, early in episode
> _Sets the tone for criticism of ball save prevalence in modern games_

> "I'm going to tell all the listeners about why ball saves are actually pinball's biggest mistake."
> — **Alan**, introduction
> _Establishes the episode's central thesis_

> "It's not dangerous anymore... I'm only playing that dangerously because I know I have a ball save."
> — **Alan**, mid-episode
> _Key argument that ball saves eliminate strategic risk and skill requirement_

> "A new player walks up and they go... 'I thought the rules were just keep the ball alive and don't lose it.' They immediately know when the ball goes down the center. That's bad. So when the ball kicks over... you have to tap them on the shoulder and go, 'No, no, no. There's a ball save.'"
> — **Alan**, mid-episode
> _Argues ball saves confuse new players rather than help them_

> "It's like soccer taking a dive to try to get a card... just because it's strategic doesn't make it cool. It's lame. It's lame as fuck."
> — **Alan**, strategy discussion
> _Compares exploiting ball saves to unsportsmanlike behavior in other games_

> "I would love five second ball saves... the problem is it's like 15 to 20 seconds and it's not inexperienced players using this. It's often become part of the strat."
> — **Alan**, later in episode
> _Identifies disconnect between intended and actual use of ball saves_

> "If you duff a shot in golf, it's still a stroke. If you shank a bowling ball into the gutter, there's no playfield activation ball save. Why do we gleefully cheer for this in pinball?"
> — **Alan**, mid-episode
> _Appeals to fairness and consequence in other sports/games_

> "No ball save, people like playing it, boom, we sold fucking 20,000 units."
> — **Alan**, late episode
> _Historical market evidence supporting the argument_

> "I don't think we need to be given balls back more than 45 seconds in a pinball game."
> — **Alex**, near end
> _Attempts to establish reasonable limits on total ball save time_

> "The biggest one for me is the fucking multi-ball ball saves... it's just stupid."
> — **Alan**, closing
> _Identifies multiball ball saves as particularly egregious example_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Alan | person | Host of Wedgehead Pinball Podcast, pinball bar owner in Portland, Oregon |
| Alex | person | Co-host of Wedgehead Pinball Podcast, referred to as 'the water boy' |
| Steve Ritchie | person | Legendary pinball designer credited with inventing/popularizing the modern ball save; designed Firepower, F-14 Tomcat, Terminator 2, High Speed 2 The Getaway |
| Harry Williams | person | Referenced as historical pinball inventor; Alan jokes that if you don't know who invented something in pinball, it was probably Harry Williams or Steve Ritchie |
| Wedgehead Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Alan and Alex from Portland, Oregon; has Discord community and Ko-fi supporter funding |
| Firepower | game | 1980 game that introduced the first physical ball-safe kicker in the left outlane; designed by Steve Ritchie |
| F-14 Tomcat | game | 1987 Steve Ritchie game with 'Flight Insurance' ball save mechanic, first modern ball save design |
| Terminator 2 | game | 1991 Steve Ritchie game; first to guarantee ball save at start of every ball |
| The Addams Family | game | 1992 game; best-selling flipper pinball game ever with 7,000-8,000 more units sold than High Speed 2; shipped without factory ball save but still hugely successful |
| Whitewater | game | 1993 game; may be the last factory-released game without a ball save (has playfield validation instead) |
| High Speed 2 The Getaway | game | Steve Ritchie game from 1992 with ball saves; sold fewer units than The Addams Family |
| Ghostbusters | game | Modern game criticized for excessive ball saves including multiple outlane saves and scoop ejection saves, with 3-4 ball saves possible on initial plunge |
| Black Knight Sword of Rage | game | Modern game with dangerous skill shots that are made safe by ball save availability; example of strategic ball save exploitation |
| Metallica Remastered | game | Modern game with ball saves lit on both outlanes; discussed as example of excessive ball save design |
| Iron Maiden | game | Game with playfield validation exploit allowing entry into Mummy mode without validating playfield |
| Sopranos | game | Game with problematic playfield validation allowing soft plunge exploits via drop targets |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Modern manufacturer lauded by community for selling 400-900 units per game |
| Barrels of Fun | company | Modern manufacturer lauded by community for selling 400-900 units per game |
| Gottlieb | company | Third-place competitor in the 1990s; regularly sold 2-3x the units that modern manufacturers sell |
| Williams | company | Historical pinball manufacturer that sold 5,000-20,000+ units of games 30 years ago |
| LaserCube | game | 1984 game; first to have guaranteed extra ball play time of 25 seconds with ball saves until threshold met |
| Colin | person | Community member who identified playfield validation exploit on Iron Maiden |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Ball save history and evolution, Game design philosophy and consequences, Player skill vs. safety mechanics, Historical vs. modern pinball market health, Strategic exploitation of safety mechanics
- **Secondary:** Playfield validation vs. ball saves, Location operator vs. home collector priorities, New player experience and learning curve

### Sentiment

**Negative** (-0.75) — Alan and Alex are sharply critical of ball save prevalence in modern pinball, viewing them as a fundamental design mistake that coddled players, eliminated consequences, and contributed to the hobby's niche market status. They use colorful language ('filthy,' 'lame as fuck') to express frustration. However, they acknowledge some historical functional purpose and debate nuances, preventing the score from being purely hostile.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Despite improvements in pinball quality and community enthusiasm, market penetration and unit sales remain far below historical levels, contradicting assumptions that modern design philosophy benefits the industry (confidence: medium) — Alan: 'pinball ain't exactly booming... Spooky and Barrels are loudly applauded... for selling 400 to 900 units' vs. historical thousands per title
- **[event_signal]** Wedgehead Pinball Podcast dedicates full episode to critical examination of ball save design, suggesting this is an active community debate topic (confidence: high) — Episode title and length dedicated to ball save criticism; hosts explicitly state this will be controversial
- **[design_philosophy]** Hosts draw parallels between ball saves in pinball and unsportsmanlike behavior in other games (diving in soccer, unfair advantages in video games), framing them as culturally unacceptable in other contexts (confidence: high) — Alan: 'It's like soccer taking a dive to try to get a card... just because it's strategic doesn't make it cool. It's lame.'
- **[competitive_signal]** Skilled players exploit ball saves as part of competitive strategy (e.g., deliberately triggering ball saves to gain add-a-balls, hitting skill shots with safety nets) (confidence: high) — Alan: 'people will exploit them to use it as progress towards a bash toy or a lock... oh i need to add a ball in my ball... so i have the safety so i can hit that'
- **[design_philosophy]** Specific games like Ghostbusters have excessive ball saves (3-4 on initial plunge, plus scoop saves, plus multiball saves) that extend play time without adding skill or strategy (confidence: high) — Alan and Alex discuss Ghostbusters ball saves in detail, noting they extend indefinitely through multiple plunges
- **[design_philosophy]** Playfield validation exploits on games like Sopranos and Iron Maiden demonstrate that intentional or lazy design of ball saves/validation can create unintended game-breaking exploits (confidence: medium) — Alan discusses Sopranos soft plunge drop target exploit and Iron Maiden Mummy mode validation exploit as examples of broken validation systems
- **[design_philosophy]** Ball saves have fundamentally altered pinball game balance and strategy, eliminating meaningful consequences and turning dangerous shots into safe exploits (confidence: high) — Alan: 'It's not dangerous anymore... I'm only playing that dangerously because I know I have a ball save.' Extended discussion of how ball saves enable risk-free strategy.
- **[design_philosophy]** Modern pinball has entered a 'slippery slope' of continuous ball save additions, from initial plunge saves to outlane saves to scoop saves to multiball saves, with no clear end point (confidence: high) — Extended metaphor using 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' and discussion of incremental expansion of ball saves from F-14 Tomcat onward
- **[market_signal]** Ball saves represent a broader trend of 'nanny devices' in modern pinball that protect player ego at the expense of challenge, consequence, and accessibility to new players (confidence: high) — Alan frames ball saves as ego protection devices and argues they make pinball worse despite intention to make it more welcoming
- **[market_signal]** Historical games without ball saves (The Addams Family, early games) sold significantly higher volumes (5,000-20,000+ units) than modern games (400-900 units), suggesting ball saves did not drive market success (confidence: medium) — Alan: 'Gottlieb the distant third place competitor in the 90s would regularly double or triple those numbers... Williams has sold 5 10 15 or 20 000 units of games yeah 30 years ago'
- **[personnel_signal]** Steve Ritchie is credited with inventing/popularizing the modern ball save through F-14 Tomcat and Terminator 2, establishing him as responsible for a design trend hosts view as problematic (confidence: high) — Alan repeatedly traces ball save evolution to Steve Ritchie and jokes: 'It all was a mistake... Steve is to blame for this'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Community perspective on ball saves has shifted from viewing them as safety features to viewing them as coddling mechanisms, with skepticism about whether they actually help new players (confidence: high) — Alan argues ball saves confuse new players rather than help them, create false entitlement, and only benefit experienced players who exploit them strategically

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## Transcript

 We Can Dance Hello everybody and welcome back to another fine episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Alan, one of the owners of Wedgehead, a pinball bar in Portland, Oregon. Joined in the basement studio once again, my trusty co-host, Alex, the water boy. How you doing? I'm doing great, Alan. You know why? Why? Because it's my turn to do the coffee. Oh, yes it is. That's right. If you want to support the show, if you're listening to this and you like us and you want to support the show, you can go throw us a few bucks on our coffee fundraiser account where we take your money and we use it to go play pinball, which is the most honest use of money. That's true. If I knew like my public officials were using my tax money to play pinball, I'd be like, that's good. That's as good as money could be spent. It's money well spent. Yeah. And we do do it to make content for the show and stuff, you know? Yeah. It's all research. to make fantastic episodes of the show. I could argue that in court if need be. If I was a government official, it's necessary. So yeah, if you want to support us and all of our pinball shenanigans, you can go to ko-fi.com slash Wedgehead Podcast. Throw us a few bucks. We really appreciate it, first and foremost. But second of all, you also get an invite to our Discord where we're in there chopping it up with the gang, arguing over what's a center ramp and such things. And, you know, good stuff. It's always kind of fun in there. Always good stuff in the Discord. But today's episode is all about the history of a feature that I'm sure most of you don't even think about nowadays. But it permeates every aspect of the machines that we play. And that is the ball safe. They rose to prominence in the 1990s. And today's games are absolutely riddled with them. Filthy with them, you might say. Yeah. You plunge the ball, you get a ball safe. You hit a scoop, it's a ball safe. You start a multiball, you guessed it. Ball save. Yeah, man, like mange. Mange. That's how I describe it. They're mange-y. These things are fucking filthy with ball saves. This is going to be one of those episodes where people are absolutely going to hate what I have to say about this subject, but I got plenty of ammunition, and I'm ready to tell all the listeners about why ball saves are actually pinball's biggest mistake. So without further ado, let's kill some sacred cows. Yeah. Okay, but first, before we get into that, history? Yeah, well, okay, so we got to talk about some people might not know what a ball safe is, or they want to know the lineage of the ball safe, right? How did we get to this situation? How do we fuck this world up so badly? Playfield validation started all the way back in the EM era. If a ball is plunged and it hits zero scoring switches on the way down to the drain, after the plunge, the game will pop a ball back in the shooter lane for another go. This was called playfield validation and was deliberately intended to make sure that the ball was properly served to the shooter lane and didn't get hung up in the trough somehow and kind of counted as a dead ball. Yeah, this isn't really like a ball save. This is like something that malfunction device. Exactly. It was just something they did. So you weren't getting shorted if the game somehow fucked up. Yeah. Like sometimes it might need to hit the ball twice in the trough to get it into the shooter lane. So I didn't want to count that as a ball. Yep. But, you know, but play field validation goes up into the modern era. One of the worst examples of it is on Sopranos where you soft plunge, you hit the drop target in front of the Stugats and you can hit the locks. It doesn't register. It doesn't. Basically, none of those switches score. Yep. So you can get into that multiball just by soft plunging and not hitting something else. And it's just horrible. It's horrific to watch people do that. And we just recently learned about one of those exploits on Iron Maiden. Right. Yeah. That's what Colin was saying. There's something similar where it's like, oh, you can get into Mummy without validating the playfield. So you're doing the whole thing with a safety net. Yeah, and it's trash. Yeah, that's not – I mean, with Iron Maiden, you have to think that it is probably intentional. It's got to be. It's got to be like an intentional Easter egg. Yeah, it's like a mini game, I think, probably, for them at that point. But, you know, the first game with a physical ball-safe kicker was 1980's Firepower, and it marked the first time that Steve Ritchie would add his famous kind of physical ball-safe kickback mech into the left out lane, which quickly became a staple of his games. He put on a lot of his games. Prior to that, they already had the little gates that would, like, swing open in the right out lane. Yeah. Right? I mean, you saw gates on other games, I guess, prior to that to do various shit. Yeah, like a little diverter. Yeah, a little diverter. Like on Harlem, Globetrotters has one. Some other games have them. Yeah. But yeah, this is where you actually get a ball that's like in the drain. You think it's drained. It's in the left out lane. It's rolling down the apron, but kicks right back in. In 1984, LaserCube becomes the first game to have a guaranteed extra ball play time of 25 seconds. And you will get ball saves until that threshold is met. It's only on the extra ball. But if you get the extra ball, it's guaranteed 25 seconds. So like you plunge the ball, bink, bink, bink. Interesting. dead gives you the other ball i don't like it i don't like it either ideally i i foresee confusion amongst location players exactly that's why it doesn't catch on for a while but three years later steve adds the first modern look at this Steve Ritchie again dude his grubby little fingers and everything king of making easy games steve added the first modern ball save on his game f14 tomcat as a compensatory safety out of the Yagoff kickback shot. It was called Flight Insurance Theme Integration. Yeah. And it didn't happen at the start of every ball like it does now, but it would be available on ball three, provided your first two balls were bad enough as an additional ball save feature. Both are adjustable settings, though. Mm-hmm. You know, they're not standard, but if you hit the Yagoff kickback, it fires the ball right back at you, and there is an optional ball save on that. Gotcha. and then on ball three on ball three you just get a ball save if you're playing shitty yes straight up ball save straight up ball that is like the first time we see that like what you think of now that's crazy that was in 1987 i guess i would have expected it earlier right yeah isn't it funny though how it's like people can't imagine games without ball saves now but there was a lot of great games that people still love without ball saves and even games with like multiball and ramps and stuff most of pinball's life it hasn't had ball saves even still with their last time has eclipsed since this since people were playing flipper pinball yeah without it so i'm like hmm interesting and then in 1991 a game we just covered in our hindsight award Steve Ritchie's terminator 2 comes up again it's the first game to have a small ball saver at the beginning of each and every ball much like how players expect all games today to have interesting so really steve is to blame remember when you said on that episode you're like this is when games start to feel modern this feels like the bridge dude that's why it all was a mistake it was all a mistake i see clearly now oh my god dude i didn't realize steve was to blame for this that's Just like everything, everything in pinball was invented by Harry Williams or Steve Ritchie. We bring this up a lot with one exception, the flipper. Yep. And it rings true time and time again. If you don't know who invented something, it was probably Harry Williams or Steve Ritchie. Yeah. It's kind of funny. Even when it's shit, you're like, I don't associate nanny devices with Steve. And you're like, yeah, but he actually invented the modern ball save. And I think part of it was that. guys on software did under his direction or whatever yeah well and a lot of it was that they were playing steve's games and i think people got to realize that when steve was making these games like f14 tomcat when that game came out felt like the craziest fastest hardest game ever made be like insane i mean it's still like when you play it like if you play one that has like the kickback just ripping and it has like fucking like fast flippers and everything that game is insane it's insane so he was getting pushback on he's making these games that players like but they were considered brutal yep at the time so yeah he gets the he gets the nanny interesting yeah these uh placating devices yeah become on steve games which i think is very interesting but to finish up this history we have a very few high profile games the year after in 1992 including The Addams Family, which is the all-time best-selling game. Yep. This is a year after T2. Famously ships without a ball save. So a game that sells more than any game ever and is still widely regarded as one of the greatest games of all time. No ball save. I feel like I've played Addams Family with ball saves. Those are hacked versions. No. People don't respect the designer's original intention when it comes to making games easier. They will do whatever it takes to make a game easier, Alex. so they will do whatever it takes this is the argument when you put lightning flippers on something you take away that 16th of an inch on a flipper and you're like this isn't how the game was supposed to be set up they never intended for the game to be at 6.9 degrees it's supposed to be 6.7 and then when people are fucking like immediately like changing software and doing bullshit and adding extra thick rubbers and dumb shit that was never intended from the designer to make their game easy not a peep not a peep and you're like it's fine like i'm not saying you can't do that shit but you can't have it both ways it's very funny it's just funny you know steve of course also makes high speed getaway the next year in 1992 it has ball saves again so steve never goes back he goes right into it we call him and uh in 1993 my favorite game of all time whitewater still doesn't have a ball save and i think it might be the last game without a factory ball save it does have an old school playfield activation ball save though if you full plunge and it goes all the way around the ramp and then drains down the center yeah it'll pop it into the shooter lane oh but if it hits a sling then you're fucked no dice but it doesn't have like an actual ball save like you think yeah it doesn't have like a timed one yeah normal one And it's better because of it. Yeah, I mean, people get pretty fucking mad at that. Well, play better. So what's the functional point of a ball save? What would you describe as the MO, the main operative of a ball save? What is it? I think it's to make pinball less frustrating and protect the ego of the player. I think the ego of the player is very fragile, and I think it's gotten more fragile over time. Some would say it's so you don't get ripped off. Yeah I think it I think it so it like as especially as it moved into the modern era where they stopped becoming like on location i was near one had some time to waste i put some quarters in yeah now these guys are buying them for 10k and they're putting in their house they need to be coddled so it's like the ball saves like grow exponentially like i i mean i agree the the right the the functional purpose of a ball save is to like right if it's like a like a red light is supposed to tell you to stop the car kind of thing it doesn't actually stop like you know what it what it's actually supposed to do is just or what it does is just gives the ball back to you if you lose the ball right away yeah and then they started doing something else somewhere along the way and i guess it started from the start with the kickback uh the kickback and the optional flight insurance on uh yeah i got off kickback yeah because that's where i think we've fucked up and i don't mean to like jump ahead and oh yeah your Your next section is a slippery slope. Okay. Because the slippery slope is what I, because it's like up to this. It's like, yeah, I think like, I don't think there's anything too earth shattering about like, oh, if you fuck up, like someone doesn't know where feet is on a new game. You have a location game. It's nice. Let a player have the ball. If they lose it back in the first five seconds or whatever, you paid a buck to play a game. You deserve to have more than 15 seconds. Yeah. That's one thing. But then we get a slippery slope. Okay. So you go ahead and do your slip. I've seen a big slippery slope section on the out. Well, much like the classic cautionary tale disguised as a cute little children's book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie from 1985, Pinball Ball Save started innocently enough. A cute little mouse wanted a cookie. What's the big deal with that, Alex? Nothing. Just give the mouse its cookie. Before you know it, you're a young boy stuck playing Casey Butler to an annoying little rodent and his endless demands for more and more comfort. That's what. It never stops at just one little cookie. Those are the pinball players. That's right. And that's what happened with pinball. It's just one little outlaying kickback. What could it hurt? Just one extra ball save off of a dangerous shot. What could that hurt? I didn't even touch the ball with my flippers. Please, sir, may I have some more ball save? It's not fair. It's kind of like Giving Tree-esque, where it's like we're just giving a little ball save back for, like, this gets a ball save and that gets a ball save and this gets a ball save, and pretty soon you're playing a five-minute game of pinball with a ball save the entire time. It's how it starts feeling, man. That's the problem is like, like, I understand the original intention of all of it. But this is a textbook definition of slippery slope. Yeah. Like, like, it's just like every single time you're like, oh, man, playing, playing F-14 had to feel like the craziest thing. And you hit that shot and then you lose the ball off of it. And you're like, fuck. But he gives you a ball save. You're like, OK. Yeah. That makes this game fun. Yeah. And, you know, like. It's like a feature. It was novel. Helps it for sure. But it serves like a very, like, clear cut purpose on that. And much like everyone's played a game of pinball where you've plunged the ball, you don't hit anything, you don't even get to touch the ball with your flippers, and you drain, you lose the ball. It happens on classics all the time, but it can still happen on modern games too. But I would argue, like, that's annoying. That pisses players off, pisses me off included. But also, I just play my next ball, and then I play my next ball. That's just part of pinball. You get better at reading the game. It's just sort of like, again, it's like one of those things that's like we're solving for something, but we're creating more problems down the line. You know what doesn't make you better at playing the game is when you go to play Ghostbusters and you plunge and you get like just an out lane, just a normal drain. You know, you flip, you break a shot and goes an out lane, you get the ball back. And then you do that like three more times in the factory default ball save is just like, here's another, here's another, here's another. Ghostbusters, I know it's a frustrating layout for people. So they countered that by giving it the most overly friendly, like, initial ball. I mean, we can talk about Ghostbusters ball saves specifically all day. Yeah, good example of it. Just the initial ball save off the plunge is fucking insane. Because most of the time you would get one, and then the time you plunge your second ball. And even on most modern games, you really only get one on a lot of them. But it is something that they change from game to game. in Ghostbusters I'm pretty sure you can get like three or four yeah like you can just keep fucking up and just keep plunging and it just keeps giving the ball back it's like it's extending the ball save every time you plunge your next one and so it's like you can do that and you're like I'm like no one's learning they're just waiting for a lucky bounce to like a nice feed or whatever yeah it's bad it's very bad that's the problem is almost every game has a ball save almost every game also has at least one if not two outlane ball saves oh god we haven't even talked about that yet and then every multiball has a nice long fat juicy ball save attached to it they moved away from the physical kickback like on firepower and they realized they can just in software award a ball save via the outlanes so there'll be a light lit and people like getting more balls back so now both like you start a game of metallica remastered and you got like ball saves lit on both outlanes which is essentially just giving you a free ball, an extra ball. It's extra balls. So all we're doing, ball saves are just like giving extra balls for free. Yes. That's my point of this whole episode, which we will discuss further. But it's like, you know, games deemed too hard might even have ball saves added to scoop ejects like Ghostbusters. Yeah. Ghostbusters has two scoops. I've said on the show before, scoops are terrible mechs. They're erratic. So what do they do on this game? They add ball saves to it. Yep. And you're like, again, guys, I wish somebody would sit there as they're designing the games going, what are you doing with this scoop? You know this is trash. Like, do something else. You're like, literally anything besides a scoop. And they're like, no, we're not just going to add a ball save. It's going to deliver the ball nicely to the left flipper. It's like, sometimes, until it doesn't. They're like, it's going to shoot across the play field. It'll be very cool. You're like, dude, stop. Stop shooting scoops across the play field. It's not cool even when it works. Nobody's like, damn, how cool was that? Everyone's like, oh, what a fucking rad mech. You're like, just stop the ball of the post somewhere, please. Yeah, please. So, you know, I think about it like in the integrity of the game, right? If you duff a shot in golf, it's still a stroke. Yeah. Right? If you shank a bowling ball into the gutter, there's no play field activation ball save. Right? Like, why do we gleefully cheer for this in pinball? Like new players who the ball save is supposed to be for, which I think it's fucking not. It's fucking not for the new player. Okay. It's not for the new player because here's the thing. A new player walks up and they go, this happens all the time. I thought the rules were just keep the ball alive and don't lose it. To them, pinball is balls on the play field. Don't lose the ball. They immediately know when the ball goes down the center. That's it. That's bad. They know that's the end. They know that's death. So when the ball kicks over and then auto launches out, you have to tap them on the shoulder and go, oh, no, no, no, no. There's a ball safe. Get back there. It's already drained by then. It kicks another one out, and then they play it, and they drain quickly after that. And then you have to remind them over the course of that first evening what a ball save is. And then the second they lose a ball without the ball save on, they're like, well, where's my ball save? They went from not knowing to now being entitled in one session. They come to expect this coddling ball save. It's remarkable how fast it infects the brain. So I would argue, though, start of ball, ball saves serve a functional purpose to me. Because if you're playing with someone that's worse than you, which, you know, if you've been playing in this hobby for a while, you're in that situation a lot. just in general, modern pinball machines, by far the hardest part is gaining control if you miss a shot. Most of the time, if you have decent shot accuracy, you're hitting shots, modern games deliver the pinball back to your flippers very nicely. So a lot of the time, a lot of players, one of the only times they're really fighting for control is off that initial plunge, because a lot of plunges don't deliver the ball to you nicely. Some of them do, which is funny that they even give you a ball save if the ball's delivered to your flipper why is there a ball save but if if you're fighting for control and it's like okay my friend doesn't play pinball often they might not get it under control here or whatever then i'm gonna be able to stop the ball but they know how it works they know how pinball works they're able to cradle or something but they're not good at it you know that's the argument for it in my head is that it's like okay there's someone it kind of is just like it is giving them extra balls because they were so bad that they lost in the first five seconds i would love five second ball saves the problem see this is where it goes is that it's like it's not five seconds not five seconds it's like 15 to 20 seconds and it's not inexperienced players using this it's it's often become part of like the strat of like oh go for the skill shot of danger like what's supposed to be a dangerous skill shot on something like black knight sword of rage for example has you do the super skill shot it's the three blocked mace shield shield whatever they're all three dangerous shots right i go for it every time because if you miss you get a ball save yeah it's not dangerous anymore yeah and that's and that's i'm not the type of player that they shouldn't be giving me a ball save i know no i'm not good but i'm not bad enough that i need a fucking like i'm only playing that dangerously because i know i have a ball save my goal yeah because again people will good players will exploit them to use it as progress towards a bash toy or a lock like yeah like on metallica it's like bash sparky a bunch right now yeah or like or like try to hit these inline drops strat is becomes like a big part of the game becomes lighting your ball save at opportune times you're like oh i need to add a ball in my ball people because i know when i add a ball i get an extra ball save and you're like why you're already in a multiball balls are flying everywhere functionally there's no like no purpose for a ball save but you're like it's not about the ball alex it's about the ball save a ball's an add a ball to a skilled pinball player means nothing more than 15 seconds of safety nobody wants four balls in a multiball it's just fucking worse than three the only reason you do that shit when you're playing like black knight is because you're like oh fuck i need to hit the mace and it's down i better get my add a ball now so i have the safety so i can hit that i don't have to worry about recovering the ball i have a ball you know that's that's the little thing and it's like we because the game has turned into fucking like it's like soccer taking a dive to try to get a card yeah and i know it's strategic i know soccer guys football fans will be mad when i say this shit it's not just because it's strategic doesn't make it cool it's lame it's lame it's lame as fuck doing doing shit playing a game to get a safety net is lame as fuck if you told anybody else in any other like that's that's the thing about soccer that's why soccer catches shit yep that's what they're like if you told other people in games you're like oh no the strategy like can you imagine if you're like oh no i play like a fucking one of those like battle royale shooters like apex legends and you're like yeah but i actually i go into the game and then like i back out quick and it puts me in the lobby for 30 seconds and then i rejoin the same match and it puts me back in but that way it's 30 seconds that i don't have to worry about dying shot yeah i feel like that's the lamest shit i've ever heard i hope that by the end of this episode we start to look at this as wearing floaties to a pool or having training wheels on your bike it fine for children but it should be considered lame and uncool Yeah Like I just like this is embarrassing But, you know, and to compensate, right? Like, pinball changed a lot with ball saves. But it's like, we went from the little flippers. We used to get five balls. Yep. Right? To compensate on, because you would have a lot of plunges where you wouldn't touch the ball with a flipper. Yeah. So we would have five balls. then we went to big flippers and then we went to three balls yeah right and for a while there for well a brief window it seemed almost perfect the balance was similar for the three inch flippers with three balls as compared to smaller flippers with five balls but unfortunately as we kept making games safer and safer they inevitably start to play longer and longer and for some players this isn't an issue after all playing longer for the same money means that you're receiving added value for your quarters but i argue that this does affect you even if you are this type of person or player explain well i'm glad you asked alex because some people are just genuinely they're like hey the longer i play like a lot of people like game scene game set up easy because they like playing longer that's what they say i'm gonna tell you about it you may have noticed that pinball ain't exactly booming it's doing okay yeah well that's a nice way to say it um despite what some folks might like to say companies like spooky and barrels are fun are loudly applauded by the community for selling 400 to 900 units of a game today in this brand new golden era right right can you confirm that yeah that's okay loudly celebrated yeah people are amazed i mean we are killing it we are in awe that it happens so gottlieb the distant third place competitor in the 90s would regularly double or triple those numbers yeah they're just dogged on and they're dogged on now let alone when you get to williams has sold 5 10 15 or 20 000 units of games yeah 30 years ago okay and that's before we even go further back in the 70s where men and women played much more evenly than they do today and pins were everywhere the games were accessible they were affordable no ball saves games were short operators made money manufacturers moved units it's true it's true for some reason the people back then could wrap their heads around it it's funny to me that we're getting in this situation where pinball is becoming more and more niche but we as the niche hobbyist in the hobby go it's getting better and better and you're Like, well, because they're catering to us. I do think looking historically, I always think it's hard to look back at historical numbers and try to replicate. Right. We talk about this a lot. And it's hard to be like, OK, if something that worked in the past might not work now. But I do like the fact that Adam's family didn't ship with a ball safe. That's why I included it. And it's the best selling flipper game of all time. It sold like I think it sold like 7000 or 8000 more units than High Speed 2, The Getaway from Steve Ritchie. dude and it's like in the same year it's a pretty good argument and like people still like that and people played the shit out of it on location people still play the shit out of what it is and two if you go back on those old play meters that game earned like a crazy motherfucker yeah so all the ops wanted more yes that's the because that that's the other thing to always remember when we look at historical things it's not like all the players were clamoring for this their quarters were whether they wanted to say they were or not all of that was driven by how much the games earned is essentially the only thing that affected the market back in the day because ops were the only ones buying games and they just bought what earned and so you're like no ball save people like playing it boom we sold fucking 20 000 units yep it is crazy i i just think that there's not there's you know like corralization is not causation yeah and i think that there's a certain thing we're like no everyone likes ball saves and here's the thing if you ask somebody if you're like hey if you pull the plunger and then the ball drains right away do you think it'd be cooler if it gave the ball back to you or if it didn't everyone's gonna say yes of course but again it's a slippery slope thing it is because you're like what if it did that for you're like how long should i go and you're like five seconds and you're like yeah that seems fair and you're like 10 seconds and you're like yeah 10 seconds seems pretty quick and then you're like okay now let's stop and count out 10 seconds and then you keep doing you know and then it's like 15 seconds 30 seconds where like this is stupid slippery slope like fallacy argument but like literally where does it end where does it end what would satisfy people because do we have some number that's in everybody's head they're like now now 15 seconds don't go longer than 15 seconds you're like do you i would say 15 seconds of ball save per ball would be like a hard limit for me i don't think we need to be given balls back more than 45 seconds in a pinball game and then the problem is if you actually measure the amount of time you're in a ball save on like a modern like a modern stern or just any modern pinball machine i don't mean to call out sterns but you just you know what i mean locate any game you see on location is going to just keep feeding you ball saves because the biggest one for me is the fucking multiball ball saves i don't like how multiball when you got a multiball on firepower a game that kind of invented one of one type of ball save you get a multiball on firepower it does not feel like a nice relaxing moment so why have multi-balls gone from that like the scariest thing in your entire life getting a multiball and firepower to what they are now which is literally like three points in a safety net yeah multi-balls are no longer it's crazy because a multiball is exciting to like someone that's playing pinball for the first time ever and they're like holy shit there's three balls on the table you know that's fun it's fun when you see people get that reaction and that's how they're supposed to be they are supposed to be like we're all supposed to think like that they didn't i don't think they intentionally were like you know what let's take a really cool and exciting feature in a pinball machine and just make it fucking like dumb shit that you do to milk points out of a game it's just over time it got eroded they completely lost the effect when you do it and it's like there's all these ways because it's like you get into like a ghostbusters multiball and i like that one because it's the most just offensive fucking ball saves and you can get a ghostbusters multiball and it'll be feeding you the ball save if you shoot the scoop you know multiball in a multiball yeah and it's like feeding and then you're like adding balls just by fucking cracking the captive ball or just shit i don't even know what i'm doing on that game it just keeps and you're like dude i have had so you're like i've been in a multiball for a minute in like 50 seconds of it i've had a ball save that's crazy that's where i'm at i'm like i can concede i'm like i don't mind a ball save multiball in theory there needs to be some limit on that or like i'm sorry uh uh god i don't mind a plunge ball save in theory there has to be some limit on that it is a slippery slope introducing that at all but i don't mind that in theory i really don't like ball saves on multi balls i think that is a very inherent i feel like whoever started in like adding ball saves to multi balls didn't fucking get it but people were just so excited to play multi balls longer that they like took that enthusiasm and ran with it you know who started it who i mean i don't know who started it but it was or what game it was sega that started it yeah that makes sense man maybe it was down at east still but it was it was gary a lot of the shit was implemented because they couldn't compete with the good games so they they made their shit easier to try to appeal to like children much like gottlieb with their flippers that can catch anything and are super easy a lot of the stuff that those other companies were doing to sell their paltry 3 000 units like three times more than you know a boutique company has ever made but a lot of things to sell their paltry 3k units they were just like trying they're swinging for the fences they're doing stupid shit to try to get quarters from kids and now we've let that permeate into a hobby that is at this point not very casual it's mostly i mean you're listening to this podcast you're pretty hardcore by uh like pinball standards. Most of the people that know you still are like, you're into pinball. They still make those things. Like it's, that's what I mean. Like when people are like, it's booming, it ain't booming. Yeah. And you're like, it is, but we still have implemented these like nanny systems, these training wheels. It doesn't make sense. And it doesn't make sense because you go back and you look at the games where data East games light the multiball on ball three on their games. nobody thinks those are better than the williams games where they don't do that yeah gotley flippers you can catch anything in system three nobody thinks those games are better because they're easier and yet in the modern era we make games easier and yet we still think there's this like disconnect with people's brains and that's what i mean is like we're all guilty of it is like in a vacuum a ball save off a cheap feeling drain feels good and sensible until you get to the point you're like the only thing that's exciting about pinball is the fact that the ball is always in danger the second you take away the danger of losing the ball pinball becomes boring 100 as soon as you remove the danger it's like gambling if you can never lose and you're like so you're like okay if you're just like playing for nothing i mean because that's the thing it's not gambling you'd win something i guess never losing this maybe isn't the best fucking uh analogy but it just it's like when you remove that it's no longer interesting you remove any danger and you're like that's all the ball save is is like the literal removal of danger from pinball and you're like what makes it fun the danger so what did we do we got rid of it yeah and you're like why the same reason why it's the same reason why uh upper playfields or lower playfields suck it's because it or or video modes suck it's because the ball is not in danger everything we complain about on this show it is kind of funny it's just it's some it's a gimmick that was added to extend the play time of people that don't really want to be playing pinball in the first place that's my point and it's kind of it's just interesting how so much of the design decisions that we complain about harp about on this show come back to that and then look around you straight up for real how many people with all these nanny systems are playing pinball for the first time and then going yeah i love this shit it's still not happening it's not happening in large numbers you're like no matt no number of nanny systems is really doing what they're supposed to do anyway yeah it's just coddling like you said okay but going back i don't think i ever finished my my full thought i was gonna say off the off the plunge ball save this is my official alex uh because it came up in the in the discord a while ago aj was talking about it like and i'm like oh i have i have thoughts on ball saves but like always there's like asterisk and i'm like i don't think a plunge ball save is not inherently bad i think it's an okay thing for when you're playing with newer players like you said new new players have no fucking idea what's going on but like newer players when you're just playing someone that's worse than you and they have a hard time fighting for control that's that's the one that i can see an argument for multiball ball saves always a mistake in my opinion i agree it completely ruins what is supposed to be a good pinball stressful moment and it just makes it fucking it come it just it offends me on a deep level that we've gotten to this point because i'm like you guys don't get it you're like if you think we should have ball saves and multi-balls i'm like why do you think we're playing pinball at all it bugs me It really bugs me that people are like arguing for that. You know what interesting too is that you always have an add a ball and then add a ball has its own ball safe But shouldn wouldn it be better if you start with a three ball but no ball save but you can get an add a ball which the only safety that giving you is one more is one more ball to lose yeah but you don't get it back just from draining it that would be way better right like it like the answer is so obvious it's almost offensive that's why that one annoys me and then as i say the third type of ball save that we regularly see is like a scoop scoop eject ball save and those ones are particularly interesting because it means the designer fucked up yes those are like what we like to call like a band-aid oopsies yeah and you're like uh that means that they uh they realize this one don't work so good in reality and the answer for that is just like guys could like like alan just keeps going off about but it's like just fucking don't do this quit with the scoops quit this scoop bullshit if you do a scoop make it kick into some pops or something do something you're gonna do a scoop you gotta fucking like stop it stop trying to aim scoops down the playfield have you noticed what gomez and brian eddy did recently where they're doing scoops that shoot up the playfield rather than down yeah and you notice how like all of a sudden if the ball shoots up wherever it kind of bounces off because it doesn't always go to the exact same spot it touches something else and then it changes the perception of the player yep you know and so All you need is one opportunity for player input, and it no longer feels cheap. And so it can just glance off of any piece of rubber. That's why it blows my fucking mind that so many scoops over the years have been aimed at like a flipper in a precarious position where any wild eject from that scoop can go straight down the middle. That's not good. They need to not do that. That's bad design. Bad design. They've got to stop it. It's just remarkable because, again, you're like, that's what – so that's not really like a common problem. i would say we i'm trying to think when we've seen one like that recently bad scoop feed on a modern game i mean deadpool does it yeah yeah deadpool does it's from fucking george yeah george come on you know does it yeah i mean that's a good that's a good enough example it does it on dune yeah does it yeah again i love that game but damn they fuck that up yeah like like again if i would have been in that building i would have been like nope like this is fucked up don't do this make it like any other kind of mech that you could do to do the same thing or just eliminate that shot entirely like make it a fuck dude that's what i always say like make it a fuck it's the same mech make it a fuck because then it goes on the in lane return and then and then no one's going to complain it's not going to fucking break constantly and create headaches for everybody yep yeah like i said man for pinball to truly boom it needs to be commercially viable en route that's a big part of this whole show it's the our most listened to episode is the pinball economics episode i did Kind of rude of people to listen to that episode without me, by the way. I'm just a surprise because that is not my favorite episode. But, I mean, I put a lot of fucking work into it. But it's weird talking to yourself. Ball saves are a major factor in why it's hard to even make money running pins today. And I think if, you know, mistakes are given, repeated mulligans or safeties, it's hard to get the turnover necessary to earn the return on investment, even if you're high demand. experienced players and this is crazy but they always like to say how long they could stretch a couple dollars and they love to brag about it they love to but this that's like a major problem they don't get that yeah but the problem is and this is why i'm saying to the players that love that they're like oh i stretched my money i could play all night and this and that that's why there's not pins on location near you that's why when pins are on location near you they fall into disrepair and don't get repaired because it's not fucking worth it. It's not financially viable. Yeah, that's why I break the opposite. I break about how much money I can burn through. Well, that's the thing is like it should be like rappers, dude. Look at how much money I spent. Yeah, it should be flossing. Like it should be like I was like, I don't care. I spent $50 last night. Biggest flex is driving the hobby that you enjoy out of business. That's not a good thing. That should be very evident to people. I mean, it's like constantly it'd be like if you're going to your favorite restaurant all the time and you're like oh dude i found out that like i can use the the self-check kiosk and i can get like my food for free because i like figured out like a hack and you'd be like cool man they're gonna go out of business do you like that place yeah then don't do that yeah but like it's not like i can't blame people for playing good but you shouldn't that shouldn't be your number one priority that's what i mean one priority shouldn't you shouldn't constantly be complaining if you have to spend more than five dollars for four hours of entertainment yeah that's what i mean is like there's there's a fundamental problem and i think ball saves are the one thing that if we if these were reasonable ball saves we wouldn't be in this fucking predicament i think we'd be in a different pinball like you'd have a different mindset about this stuff i really do i'm just like i just want to see a game come out with no ball saves on a multiball and i would be fucking happy because when's the last time that happened like 1991 like realistically it's been so fucking long since we had a game with a ball save with no with or adam's family yeah that's right uh or probably whitewater yeah whitewater does white water have a ball save no it doesn't have a physical kicker so that's the thing when games didn't have when games didn't have the auto launch what i like about those games too is you start the multiball if you lose your balls and you don't hit a jackpot you get a chance to relight see That's the perfect way to do it. Yeah. It's a skill-based ball save. Why have we strayed so far from the light of God, dude? Because auto launch, man. Fucking Joe Kamikow, I swear to God. I know he's your personal hero, but... He is my personal hero. I love the man. I hate what he did to pinball. But I'm sure listeners are asking themselves, but okay, all of this aside, is it really the biggest mistake in pinball? As I said at the top. Well, I'm going to leave you with this. Ball saves are essentially pinball Pandora's box. We have unleashed a curse unto ourselves that we will never be able to overcome. We cannot unring the bell. Players are so coddled now that the mere thought of eliminating ball saves leaves them angry and fearful at the thought of such a notion. Listeners, check your increased blood pressure as I say this right now. I'm sure you're steaming. Hearing it, you're fearful and angry. It is a terrifying thing. My point is, it didn't have to be this way. Weekly tournament or league nights didn't need to extend way past midnight. We didn't need to have to make our multiballs last forever. We didn't have to plunge our extra balls in competition. We didn't have to wait in line to play the hot new game at a show or arcade for hours on end. And shit, if the average game time wasn't four or five minutes, maybe you wouldn't even need to pay a dollar a game today. If I had two-minute game audits, I could charge you 50 cents a game even in 2025. But no, you didn't want that beautiful world, did you? Instead of earning an extra ball to play it, why not just get a whole bunch of them handed to you as a safety guarantee instead? A little pat on the handsome child's head, protected from the real world, shielded by your arrogance and privilege. Instead, we have broken the covenant of pinball, the sacred oath that says the ball must drain. It must die. And by playing God, we have created the Antichrist instead. It's just like spy kids. It's a good time to remind everyone that if you passionately disagree with me, then you can donate to the coffee account at ko-fi.com slash Wedgehead podcast. You'll receive a link automatically to join our private discord and you can say your piece to me there. I will ignore your emails. So that's what you get. Yeah, the only place to argue is in the Discord. Come at me. But again, this is, I think, a fun episode. It's something we argued about, and I do want to give a longtime contributor of the show, Greg Dunlap, when asked in our Discord about ball saves, Greg's response, I think, like a day later as he caught up on the Discord was, fuck ball saves. I agree with him. It should be that energy. That's the energy I want. Fuck ball saves. we got rid of extra balls dude we got rid of like doing something on a game to earn an extra ball now we're like hey hey just get rid of those and then we're just gonna give them to everybody yeah we're doing nothing we we've given up so much it's crazy it's just crazy how things shift and how what becomes the expectation is just carried out and there's nothing we could do about it i do want listeners you're right it's like a pandora's box like i think it's gonna be Like you have to fucking fight and claw. It won't happen. It's like I like on our games. I don't turn off the ball saves. The ball saves are there. Yeah. Even on free play. Yeah. People lose their fucking lose their fucking minds, dude. First of all, you can't turn off the ball saves on a lot of modern games. You can't do it on Godzilla. It's crazy. Like for some reason, they're just like, nope, which is wild to me that they they let that fucking adjustment go down to zero. Come on. I know. But hey, this is where we're at. So we want you to go out like you do every time. And the end of this episode, find a buddy, go play some pinball on location, find something near you, play a game with a ball save and then think about think about how much that game didn't fucking matter because there was never any danger in the first place. And go play a game without a ball. Say, go rip 20 games of cheetah with your buddy and tell me that that isn't fucking fun. Yeah, it's because every second counts, dude. You're always on a razor's edge. You're always on that tight rope wire. Anything could go bad at any time. People that don't watch car racing, they're going, oh, it's boring. It's just them going 500 laps in a circle. And you're like, yeah, inches from death. Yeah, the danger is what makes everything interesting. It makes so many things in life interesting. And pinball is one of those. There's fake danger. The ball's in danger. You're not. In the moment you take away the ball being in danger, you lose the entire point. it's kind of like riding a roller coaster with a screen like where you're in those dark rides and you're like sitting there and you're like watching a screen like this isn't the same shit yeah like this is goofy shit like this isn't like i'm not like you know what i mean like simulation box yeah the mall yeah it's it's just not the same like that's exactly that's it dude it's just the facade of danger yeah it's not even you know like and even like a roller coaster you're safe just like when you play pinball, you are physically safe, but like you actually care and you can feel the rush. Yeah. Because it feels dangerous. But we want you to go out and play some pinball like we always do. We hope you enjoyed another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. And until next time, good luck. Don't suck. We can act if we want to. If we don't, nobody will. And you can act real rude and totally removed. And I can act like an imbecile. Let's see. Thank you.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 39a9a8df-c423-4d73-a49f-2060d9ec5e9e*