Episode 39: Is there a lack on Innovation in modern pinball?

The Flipside Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·49m 1s·analyzed·Aug 16, 2025

bad4484c-e4a1-4937-b0a0-b167158ff59b

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Ralph questions whether pinball manufacturers are avoiding innovation due to market risk and community conservatism.

Summary

Retro Ralph examines whether modern pinball manufacturers are innovating sufficiently, arguing that companies like Stern and Jersey Jack may be risk-averse due to market pressures and community conservatism. He discusses specific innovations (Insider Connected, lighting systems, animatronics, modular platforms like P3) and contrasts them with traditionally-styled games, questioning whether fear of community backlash—exemplified by Turner's redesigned Ninja Eclipse cabinet—is stifling mechanical and software advancement. Ralph calls for bolder experimentation with augmented reality, modular serviceability, and deeper integration of LCD/lighting/sound mechanics.

Key Claims

Turner originally designed Ninja Eclipse with a lighter, condensed cabinet and innovative features like integrated lighting in the cover, but community feedback was so strong he redesigned it into a standard-size cabinet with a coin door, removing some innovations.
high confidence · Retro Ralph describing Turner/Merlin's Arcade design decisions at Pinball Expo
Stern's Jurassic Park home run at Costco performed very well commercially, and Stern designed it with the ability to add balls without removing the glass.
high confidence · Retro Ralph citing Stern's reported success and design changes for Costco release
Insider Connected has been available since 2021 and has evolved to include achievements, trinkets (e.g., in Dungeons & Dragons), and character progression (e.g., in Venom).
high confidence · Retro Ralph discussing Insider Connected features and timeline
P3 Multimorphic machines with their dynamic LCD system appear to have limited mainstream adoption and are rarely seen on location.
medium confidence · Retro Ralph speculating on P3 adoption after watching Jamie Burchill's podcast interview with Multimorphic
Jersey Jack Pinball light rail systems are more sophisticated than Stern's, though Stern has recently begun to follow suit but not on every game.
medium confidence · Retro Ralph's comparative analysis of lighting systems across manufacturers
Flipper return springs break frequently and pinball hasn't innovated a replacement mechanism in decades, creating unnecessary maintenance burden.
medium confidence · Retro Ralph discussing flipper maintenance and design stagnation
Turner implemented 'finesse flippers' in Merlin's Arcade to allow more precise control of game elements, but this feature 'got totally shot down' by the community.
medium confidence · Retro Ralph referencing finesse flippers and community reception
Barrels of Fun's sandworm mechanism in Dune has had some technical issues but represents genuine mechanical innovation.

Notable Quotes

“Do you think sometimes that pinball companies don't want to take, don't want to deviate too far from what's normal, like what we view a standard cabinet and the things that should be in it because they think it's too risky and the community could go against it or not adopt it?”
Retro Ralph @ ~12:00 — Core thesis—questioning whether community conservatism is chilling manufacturer innovation
“I can't believe that that spring even exists. Like we haven't figured out another way to return a flipper to its starting location.”
Retro Ralph @ ~22:30 — Highlighting decades of mechanical stagnation in flipper design
“If you're not going to give us innovation with mechanisms, then do cooler stuff with the lighting. Do cooler choreography between the lighting and the sound.”
Retro Ralph @ ~28:00 — Proposing alternative innovation vectors (audio-visual) when mechanical innovation is constrained
“I think when it first came out, it seemed like you were scanning it and there wasn't a whole lot to do. But now there's achievements, you got trinkets now on Dungeons & Dragons, you got the ability to level up your character in certain games like Venom.”
Retro Ralph @ ~36:00 — Documenting Insider Connected's iterative evolution and growing feature depth
“I would sure as shit want to try it. Like, what would hold people back from implementing some augmented reality into pinball?”
Retro Ralph @ ~52:00 — Explicitly proposing untested innovation (AR integration) as a forward-thinking experiment
“If someone did this, I would sure as shit want to try it... The other thing I thought of is the hologram topper and the UV reactive armor, that kind of stuff, like that's kind of cool on Avatar.”
Retro Ralph @ ~53:00 — Encouraging experimental features and citing Avatar as partial example
“Make it better. Like, make it better. That's what we do in technology in our job. And that also then puts pressure on Jersey Jack because imagine if they came out with something that made Jersey Jack Pinball look antiquated.”

Entities

Retro Ralphperson Turnerperson Merlin's ArcadecompanyStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinballcompany MultimorphiccompanySpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

?
design_philosophy: Retro Ralph argues that major manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack) are avoiding mechanical and cabinet innovations due to fear of community backlash and declining sales, citing Turner's Ninja Eclipse redesign as evidence that community conservatism can override designer vision.
high · Turner's feedback loop—original compact cabinet + integrated lighting cover rejected by community, resulting in redesign into standard cabinet with coin door and removed innovations
?
product_strategy: Manufacturers face conflicting design requirements: home collectors want serviceability and modular components; location operators prioritize reliability and traditional form factors. This tension may limit innovative approaches.
high · Ralph's discussion of modular flipper design trade-offs—easier home service vs. higher cost vs. location operator acceptance
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code_update: Insider Connected has evolved iteratively since 2021 launch: initial limited functionality → achievements → trinkets (Dungeons & Dragons) → character progression (Venom) → expected deeper integration in future titles (e.g., Pokemon speculation).
high · Ralph tracking feature rollout timeline and calling for more aggressive expansion of Insider Connected capabilities
?
design_innovation: Flipper return spring mechanism has remained unchanged for 15+ years despite frequent breakage; no manufacturer has innovated a replacement, representing a gap in modernization of fundamental pinball mechanics.
high · Ralph's extended critique: 'I can't believe that that spring even exists. Like we haven't figured out another way to return a flipper to its starting location.'
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Transcript

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0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the flipside podcast. I'm your host retro Ralph. This is episode number 39. 39. You were almost at 40, which is crazy in the podcast is now officially like a year and I'm two months old, so we're like old now, right? We're like podcast vets. But anyways, we're going to dive into some interesting topics today. Before we do, though, I got to address the elephant in the room. You're probably looking at me and you're like, something's weird. Dude looks weird. Well, I'm not proud of it, but I don't even want to look at you right now. I'm actually I'm too shy. I can't look at you right now because I know you're looking at me from here down and you're like, something's wrong. That's right. I'm an idiot. I went and did the thing again and I dyed my beard. Like who does that? And now I stayed off Zoom all day on calls because I'm embarrassed by it now. And my wife's like, what did you do? You look fine as gray. So I screwed myself up and now it looks blue in certain lights. It's messed up. So all right. All right. But hold on to that thought for a second because before we fully roll into the episode, I just want to give you a quick word from our sponsor, Flippin' Out Pinball. Are you looking for a new pinball machine, a used pinball machine, or to trade in your old pinball machine for something new? Look no further than Flippin' Out Pinball. They can handle all your pinball needs, they ship anywhere in the United States, and they will give you the best experience in the business. Check out the link to Flippin' Out Pinball in the video description for more information. Now, back to the video. I'm embarrassed by it. Anyways, if you're looking for pinball machines, new or used, go check out Zach, Zach, Nicole, Greg, and Ken over at Flippin' Out Pinball. They'll hook you up. Alright, so. Alright, if you didn't go to Expo, I don't know, it was like 50,000 years ago now, there's this thing that, I'll just, I'll give you a little sample, but we're gonna go into the main topic. I'm gonna give you this sample so you kinda know what's talking about. I'm gonna get you up to speed. And then at the end you'll be able to see the rest of what made all this, where this beard dying phenomenon came from.

2:32

Todd Tuckney told him that he would get more views if he was just for men blacking that beard. What do you think? Should he do it? No chance! He said honestly my views would go up tenfold if I dye it. I would not do that! No, no, no. When are we gonna color his beard? Okay, so that's just a sample. So that was basically Pinball Expo 80 million years ago. I don't remember when it was. But basically Todd Tucky and I were sitting at an interior and he's like, we were talking about YouTube. We were kind of just joking around. And he's like, look, man, he was, he was joking. Todd's funny guy. He's like, look, man, the reason why your views are down is because you look old. He's like, you look old now and you're going to have to do something about it. No one wants to go see this old man. So I took it to heart. I was like, I guess we should dye my, what can I do? And he's like, we're going to dye your beard. So we did that. But if you've never seen the video, I'm going to run it at the end because we have other stuff to talk about. But in this, in this particular podcast episode, I wanted to talk about something. Want to keep it pretty brief today. Something that I think about a lot. You know, obviously, uh, I've been in and around pinball for a little while, but growing up pinball, wasn't what I really focused my time on. I focused it on, I grew up with like street fighter, you know, that kind of thing in the So, the arcade in the 90s would have been fighting games and things like that. But then obviously I took a path down arcade collecting and I did restorations and all that stuff. But, you know, pinball, I was thinking about it, I was like, you know, has pinball really changed that much? And have some of these companies sort of, you know, almost, they're afraid to do innovative things now because of maybe the way the community could react to it. And it made me think about something from Expo that year I think that that was filmed. It could have been that year or the year after. Turner Pinball shows up with Ninja Eclipse. Now this wasn't the first time he had showed it off, I don't think. I think it had been, it actually might have been. You know what, I think it actually was. He might have showed it like maybe in prototype form, but he came to Pinball Expo with a cabinet, full cabinet, and a little sign, and that was it. And I went and talked to him, but the thing is, as I'm walking up to the booth, I'm seeing this thing that looks like a pinball machine, and I'm like, oh man, that almost looks like a virtual pinball machine, because the cabinet was condensed. He wanted to reduce the weight, so he was doing some innovative things. He had like this interesting new cover that the lights were integrated into the cover, and when you put the cover down, it would go back on, but the cover was really light. It was really easy to maintenance your games because the side In幾 fiber jiyang, At 해야 Chaney, at Chdisplaystylei JioShuex, Chee-chee jungjhoang, I'm a fan of the pinball machine. I was a fan of the pinball machine when I walked up to it because the cabinet was so slim and different shape. And he's like, oh man, so many people have said that. And you know, what's interesting to me about that is, yes, it did not look nearly the size and shape of a regular cabinet, but it had some innovation in there and it was purposeful, right? His innovation was because he wanted the cabinet to be lighter. He wanted it to not have a coin door because he's like, well, we don't need that anymore. We can use like a some sort of card reader system. But the thing is the feedback was so strong from the community. He actually went back and put that game into a standard size cabinet, put a coin door on it, and he actually took out some of the innovation he put in. Now that product from Turner and his subsequent product with

medium confidence · Retro Ralph discussing Dune's sandworm and reported reliability concerns

Retro Ralph @ ~64:00 — Calling on Stern to leapfrog Jersey Jack via Spike 2 hardware innovation

“I truly believe if it never changes and the answer is always just learn the basics, learn how to fix it. We're not going to change any of these things to make it more easier to service at home or for the newbie coming in.”

Retro Ralph @ ~44:00 — Linking community gatekeeping culture to barriers to onboarding new players

Jamie Burchillperson

The Flipside Arcade Pinball Podcastevent

P3 (Multimorphic)product

sentiment_shift: Ralph observes that finesse flippers (Turner/Merlin's Arcade) and potentially P3's dynamic LCD approach faced community skepticism, suggesting adoption barriers for non-traditional features even when functionally innovative.

medium · Ralph stating finesse flippers 'got totally shot down' and speculating about P3 adoption: 'I don't know what that means really. Like, why is it that people don't care for Multimorphic?'

product_concern: Barrels of Fun's Dune sandworm animatronic reported to have technical issues; suggests risk of mechanical innovation is justified by durability challenges.

medium · Ralph: 'Now there's been some reports that that sandworm has had some technical issues, but I think they're starting to work those things out.'

market_signal: Stern reports strong Jurassic Park performance in Costco home releases; company responded with design modifications (ball insertion without glass removal), signaling that accessibility improvements drive retail adoption.

high · Ralph: 'Stern said they did really well with the Jurassic Park home, the last run they did at Costco, but they also made it so you can put those balls in without taking the glass off.'

competitive_signal: Ralph frames Spike 2 as Stern's opportunity to leapfrog Jersey Jack Pinball's hardware sophistication; competitive pressure could drive innovation if Stern commits to advanced lighting/sound in Spike 2.

medium · Ralph: 'Make it better. Like, make it better... And that also then puts pressure on Jersey Jack because imagine if they came out with something that made Jersey Jack Pinball look antiquated.'

community_signal: P3 Multimorphic platform—modular, innovative—has limited mainstream adoption and rarely appears on location despite technical merit; suggests community preference for established brands over platform innovation.

medium · Ralph: 'P3, although I'm sure Jerry has been fairly successful with the product, you know, it's not something you see on location typically and it doesn't have the footprint of like some other manufacturers.'

design_innovation: Ralph proposes untested innovation vector: augmented reality integration in pinball, noting homebrew scene has experimented with this; mainstream manufacturers haven't adopted despite potential.

low · Ralph: 'What would hold people back from implementing some augmented reality into pinball? That could be kind of cool... They're saying they've already mixed in some augmented reality in the homebrew scene.'

operational_signal: Flipper springs represent unresolved maintenance burden for home owners; manufacturer innovation in modular, user-replaceable flipper design could lower friction for new collectors.

high · Ralph proposing field-replaceable flipper units as innovation that would improve adoption: 'If your flipper is done and it needs a new something... could it possibly be a modular component?'