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Bringing Everyone to the Playfield

Pintastic New England·video·58m 57s·analyzed·Feb 5, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Panel discusses strategies for growing pinball through inclusivity, local tournaments, and manufacturer support.

Summary

Alyssa Alshimer moderates a Pintastic New England panel discussion on making pinball more inclusive and approachable to new players. Panelists representing operators, tournament organizers, and Bells and Chimes leaders discuss barriers to entry, successful recruitment strategies, geographic challenges, tournament format impacts, and manufacturer support. Key themes include ambassador engagement, event formats that foster community over competition, WPPR point structures that differ between men's and women's play, and game design choices that appeal to casual players.

Key Claims

  • Women's tournaments in New England have a distinct social and supportive tenor compared to open tournaments, with different motivations and retention patterns.

    high confidence · Sharon Habenstreit and Jill Town discuss emotional safety and community aspects of women's events versus open tournaments

  • WPPR points for women's tournaments are not inflated to the same degree as open tournaments, making it possible to qualify for Women's World Championship through regional New England events.

    high confidence · Jody Stallman explains women can accumulate competitive ranking points through local events without traveling to major national tournaments

  • Stern leaderboards with CyberConnected integration at Tokens Taproom significantly increased casual player engagement and new player sign-ups.

    high confidence · Jill Town describes leaderboard rollout leading to obsessive engagement and new CyberConnected signups on the spot

  • Local monthly tournaments at bars (like Charlie O's in Vermont) successfully convert casual players into regular participants and feed into larger regional tournaments.

    high confidence · Jody Stallman cites four new Pinball Co-op members recruited from local Charlie O's events, demonstrates tournament funnel effect

  • Stern sponsored Foo Fighters launch parties with prize packs and IFPA double-point promotion to drive event attendance and accessibility.

    high confidence · Sharon Habenstreit details Stern's sponsorship strategy for Foo Fighters rollout

  • Godzilla game was explicitly designed with casual players in mind by manufacturers.

    medium confidence · Alyssa Alshimer references Godzilla as an example of manufacturer consideration for casual play design

  • Classic and classically-styled games (TNA) have lower perceived skill barriers compared to rule-heavy modern games, appealing more to new players.

    high confidence · Amber Dan Lee observes new players gravitating toward simpler rule-set games over complex modern titles

Notable Quotes

  • “I want to see more of that. We have so many little kids that come into Pizza J's and are googly-eyed at the machines.”

    Amber Dan Lee@ 12:48 — Identifies underserved demographic (children) and operator strategy for grassroots engagement

  • “People tend to go to the open tournaments to play some pinball... Whereas the women's events, there's very much a social aspect and the community aspects of it, the idea of having a room of one's own to be as good or as bad or to learn things about it.”

    Sharon Habenstreit@ 20:49 — Articulates fundamental difference between women's and open tournament cultures and psychological safety

  • “You can play in women's events all around New England and get quite far up the rankings. So if you're someone that wants to follow the points and wants to try to be invited to the Women's World Championship, which takes the top 32, it's actually possible for you to do that in New England.”

    Jody Stallman@ 24:28 — Explains competitive pathway accessibility for women's players versus open players

  • “I try to do is quarterly we do a different format for our monthly Bells and Chimes like we might do a group match play or group knockout for three months and then we'll switch to head to head then we'll switch to a target so that they get to experience different formats.”

    Amber Dan Lee@ 27:09 — Describes strategy for building player comfort with varied tournament formats to reduce geographic mobility barriers

  • “Once we set up the Stern leaderboards out back once we got everything inside connected and and put the leaderboards up people got obsessed with them like that's the new thing.”

    Jill Town@ 30:43 — Demonstrates technology-driven engagement strategy for casual and new players through gamification

Entities

Alyssa AlshimerpersonColin AlshimerpersonAmber Dan LeepersonJody StallmanpersonSharon HabenstreitpersonJill TownpersonKineticistorganizationBells and ChimesorganizationPinball Co-oporganization

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Kids represent underengaged demographic in competitive pinball despite demonstrated interest; barriers include busy parents and lack of dedicated kids' tournaments

    high · Amber Dan Lee: 'There's not a ton of kids... I would love to see kids' tournaments. And it's tough. Parents are busy'

  • ?

    community_signal: Local bar tournaments (Charlie O's monthly events) functioning as effective funnel converting casual players to regular participants and feeding into regional tournaments and co-ops

    high · Jody Stallman: 'We have four new members at the Pinball Co-op, which is 30 miles away from where we play out of, four new members this year that started at Charlie O's'

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern implementing leaderboard technology (CyberConnected) at location venues resulting in obsessive casual player engagement and new user sign-ups

    high · Jill Town: 'Once we set up the Stern leaderboards out back once we got everything inside connected and and put the leaderboards up people got obsessed with them... people just want to see their name up on the TV'

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern sponsoring Foo Fighters launch parties with prize packs and IFPA double-points promotion to drive new player entry and tournament participation

    high · Sharon Habenstreit: 'Stern sponsored launch parties for both open events and women events and gave a really good prize pack... they also, with that, the IFPA gave double points for those events'

  • ?

    event_signal: Massachusetts state championships tournament featured coverage by WBZ Boston/Matt Shearer social media, significantly increasing awareness and recruitment of women's pinball events

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.177

0:00
Thank you everyone for joining us. Yes, baby Kineticist is in the back, so if you hear crying, you know he's doing his best. He's nine weeks old. Thank you all for joining. I'm Alyssa Alshimer. I'm member of the team at Kineticist and as I've heard a few times today, what's a Kineticist? Kineticist is a website was started by my husband Colin. It's a website for pinball and arcade fans. It showcases the vibrancy of the community, engages new players, and gets more people involved with pinball, which is directly tied to what we're talking about today. I'm really excited to have some wonderful panelists representing different aspects of the pinball community to talk about how we can make this community feel more approachable and bring some new folks into the fold so we can grow it for the future because we all want a pinball community that's sustainable and I want one that my son can eventually play in. So we've got representation here and some thoughts on how we can do better with tournaments, on-site locations, being an ambassador at a tournament, being an ambassador in a bar and telling someone about how they can get involved in pinball. We're going to discuss what's worked, maybe some lessons we've learned and what hasn't and some ideas for the future. So going down here I'm going to have each of the panelists introduce themselves, talk about their role in the pinball community, and then maybe give us their current favorite game, although I know for Sharon this is a tough one. So Amber let's kick it off with you and then we'll go down the line. Sure. Amber Lee, I'm out of Providence. I run Providence Bells and Chimes. I run all of our open tournaments. I'm the IFPA rep for both women in open in Rhode Island. We're a tiny state. It's easy to cover everything.
1:56
And I'm also an operator. I operate out of Pizza J down in Providence, Rhode Island, right on Westminster Street on the west side. So right now, my goodness, I think right now my favorite game is the Deadpool that I just got because it's wonderful. But that does switch kind of weekly. My name is Jody Stallman. I play out of the pinball co-op in South Burlington, Vermont.

Kids represent an underengaged demographic in pinball tournaments and competitive play despite visible interest.

high confidence · Amber Dan Lee advocates for more kid participation and mentions only knowing two kids who grew up in pinball tournaments

  • “People find it less intimidating than, like, you know, you've got to shoot. There's 15 skill shots on this game, and if you hit this button up here and then hit these three things right after it, you get another bonus.”

    Amber Dan Lee@ 32:14 — Identifies rule complexity and skill shot density as barriers to new player engagement

  • “We're not quite that savvy like we don't have a marketing team it's just a couple of us and one of them happens to be an illustrator Stephanie Pachelio is an amazing illustrator and designer so she made our logo, our bell.”

    Sharon Habenstreit@ 10:11 — Shows grassroots event marketing approach relying on volunteer creative skills

  • “The local events can really feed into that. They're casual enough that people get hooked, and then they just, what is this weird thing?”

    Jody Stallman@ 15:36 — Articulates funnel model: local bar tournaments as entry point to broader pinball community

    • Pizza J
    organization
    Tokens Taproomorganization
    Matt Shearerperson
    Mitch Chip Curtisperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Stephanie Pachelioperson
    Foo Fightersgame
    Godzillagame
    TNAgame
    Roxy's Arcadeorganization

    high · Sharon Habenstreit: 'He rolled in with his crew when we were doing the first ever Massachusetts state championships... everybody just loves his posts... instantly had, you know, a thousand people seeing what it is that we were doing'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Women's pinball tournaments in New England have become psychologically safer, more retention-focused community spaces with distinct social tenor compared to open tournaments

    high · Sharon Habenstreit describes women's events as safe space 'to be as good or as bad or to learn things about it in a way that you don't feel like, oh, that's the state champion. He's looking at my score'

  • ?

    community_signal: New England (Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire) established as strong regional pinball hub with coordinated women's tournament infrastructure and cross-state participation

    high · Panel includes representation from four states; Sharon mentions partnering with other Bells and Chimes groups to 'bring it all together' and cross-state tournaments

  • ?

    competitive_signal: WPPR point structure differs significantly between women's and open tournaments; women's players can achieve high rankings through regional New England play while open players must travel nationally

    high · Jody Stallman: 'You can play in women's events all around New England and get quite far up the rankings... The open points, it is not possible to do that'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Simpler, classically-styled games with lower rule complexity perceived by operators as less intimidating entry points for new players compared to rule-heavy modern titles

    high · Amber Dan Lee: 'Classics and games that emulate the classics like TNA... People find it less intimidating... People find it less intimidating than, like, you know, you've got to shoot. There's 15 skill shots on this game'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Manufacturers (Stern, Multimorphic) intentionally designing games with casual player accessibility in mind; Godzilla cited as example of manufacturer consideration for entry-level play

    high · Alyssa Alshimer: 'I know with the recent Godzilla game that they thought more about casual players and designing it. I know Multimorphic has a practice mode that allows you to practice shots'

  • $

    market_signal: Pandemic caused loss of multiple pinball venue locations in Rhode Island; geographic access to tournaments remains significant barrier to regional growth

    high · Amber Dan Lee: 'We used to have several more locations throughout the state and we lost a lot during the pandemic. I can think of at least two'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern deploying CyberConnected leaderboards with monthly high-score contests and achievement tracking at location venues as casual player engagement tool

    high · Jill Town: 'We did have a couple of ringers come through. But it's been huge for recruiting new people, the fact that you get the achievements, and it saves your progress'

    • 2:24
    What was the rest of the question? And what's your favorite pinball machine right now? Oh, let's see. It's usually whatever one I'm playing. Rarely am I like, nope, not this one. Whatever I'm on.
    2:39
    Hey, I'm Sharon Habenstreit, and I organize the Boston Bells and Chimes. We play anywhere in Massachusetts. We kind of row. We don't have a home location. There are a lot of great spots both in the metro Boston area, central and western Mass, but love to play outside of the state whenever possible and partner with other bells and chimes groups to kind of bring it all together. My favorite game is, like Jody said, pretty much any game I'm playing. I love all pinball. I have ones that I always gravitate towards. There's the one that I play the minute I get home from work to blow off some steam.
    3:23
    But even that one is changing. It's not always the same game. There are some games that feel kind of like home because you know them really well. But then there's the excitement of playing new games. So it's always changing.
    3:36
    Hi, I'm Jill Town. I manage Tokens Taproom in Dover, New Hampshire. I also am the Bells and Chimes chapter leader for New Hampshire.
    3:45
    My favorite game right now, I go back and forth between Jurassic and 007. I think I'm going to go with 007 because that's my LE badge number.
    3:55
    Did you especially request that? I did not. It just happened. Magic. Awesome. Well, I got out of pronouncing Sharon's last name, So that's a win for me today as a moderator. So we're going to go ahead with some questions that we've prepared. We're going to leave some time at the end for questions or comments that anyone might have. And I hear this room has great acoustics, so we'll be able to hear everyone, which is wonderful. But I wanted to start by just grounding, like, why are we having this conversation? Why, when Dave and I were talking about this panel, is this what we gravitated toward in terms of the topic? Why should we care? Why should we want to and put effort into making pinball more approachable? So I think, Sharon, do you want to kick us off with kind of your thoughts around why this is an important topic for us to be discussing? Yeah, I think it's actually very simple pinball rules, and we want more people to play pinball. I think everybody probably in this room has gotten enjoyment out of playing pinball and had a moment where they're like, this is fun, and it's more than I ever thought it would be, and I kind of can't get enough. So I think it's just about letting other people experience that and providing spaces in which it's easy to bring that to life and have those experiences for others. Anyone want to piggyback on that? I was going to say just the more people that play, the better, the richer the whole community is. The more people that come out, those small local tournaments are really key in getting people in at the ground kind of level and starting from a level they're comfortable with. And, you know, you get that kind of built. So the more people that are comfortable playing on location and just play in places that have pinball machines, it's better for everybody. And what are some barriers that people are facing today? I like to think that this community is infinitely approachable and you could walk up to any machine anywhere and feel welcome, but I know that that's not a universal experience. So what are some barriers that exist today? Jolene, do you want to start us off? I know there's like sort of sometimes a stigma with like a casual player, whatever, and there's a tournament, you're trying to get them involved and they think, oh, I'm not good enough. Like, I'm not good enough to do well in a tournament. It's not about doing well in the tournament. It's about playing with other people and having fun learning a new game or just making some new friends. How do you do that at Tokens? What is your way of getting new people involved? Usually I start when I notice people are mostly playing pinball or whether or not they're doing well. I usually just start by introducing myself. I'm like, hey, we do a couple pinball nights this night or that night or we have an event coming up if you might be interested. but usually starting small and then, you know, people get hooked pretty quickly. I think we all are aware of that.
    6:44
    Amber, anything you want to add to that? Kind of that first one's free sort of approach. As an operator, if I see someone sort of, especially little kids, they're always eyeballing the games, right? It's bright, it's shiny, there's lights.
    7:03
    Even Ethan. Ethan loves a black and white. I'm very excited about the game. So one of the first things we'll do, or my husband will do, is we'll go over and we'll pop a couple credits on and invite them to play. Grab the milk crate from underneath the game, because we've got a bunch at our location, because it's a big kid's spot, and let them go to town.
    7:26
    Same sort of thing if I see someone who's, you know, someone who would be interested in our Bells and Chimes tournament,
    7:33
    and they're just playing games, I sort of sidle over and say, you know, oh, first Tuesday, everyone, bells and chimes, it's free. And I've gotten more than a few recruits that way, just trying to be friendly and not too weird as I tell them that they can come to our tournament. I love that.
    7:57
    Jodi, do you feel like that differs at all based on the role someone had? So I know you've got some games on location. Is there anything that might be different for someone who, like Jillian, who works at a location versus someone who has machines versus someone managing tournaments? Yeah, I do accost a lot of people.
    8:14
    And I remember when I started playing, different people did that to me, and I'm like, who are these people? What do you mean what's my favorite machine? Who are you?
    8:24
    So I try to go at it kind of gently. But a lot of it is just I started playing out of a bar, and if I see people eyeing the machines or we'll have things like 50 Cent November.
    8:40
    Everybody that plays out of Charlie O's is kind of trained to leave credits on the machine. So those green front lights, if somebody's wandering by, they just push in and then you kind of... And we put up Emily May, who's a great graphic designer. She does a lot of cool posters. So I find that the more people that know what you're doing and that know you play pinball. So I'm always wearing my swag out so they can see names of places I play,
    9:10
    leaving credits on the machine, telling a group of people sitting at a table, credits on Deadpool, go play him.
    9:18
    Everybody loves a deal. Yeah, stuff like that. Just being out there and playing and wanting to share it is huge. Got the cruise directors of pinball up on this panel. They're really good ambassadors. Sharon, kind of pivoting a little bit to inclusivity. We want Kinball to be representative of various and diverse groups. How have you worked to make Kinball more inclusive? A lot of what we do to promote is social media. We've been using Facebook and Instagram and really just trying to make fun, graphic, informative announcements about our events. you know just to show people like these things are going on and to try to reach a wider community and it's not that we've been working specifically to target any particular group I think we're not quite that savvy like we don't have a marketing team it's just a couple of us and one of them happens to be an illustrator Stephanie Pachelio is an amazing illustrator and designer so she made our logo, our bell, and we take turns making fun event posters and switching up locations, switching up format, kind of keeping it interesting. And from our friend Mitch Curtis, who's an area operator and IFPA rep, the thing that he suggested when we first started hosting women's tournaments is keeping it regular and reliable. So he said, do it monthly. Just keep it going. If you can't do weekly, then do monthly. And so that's what it's been sort of our model to do. And it's been pretty great to see people from different areas come, some different walks of life, and always providing,
    11:20
    you know, making our intention clear that we are welcoming and positive and fun and just a good time. So even though it's within the context of competitive pinball, it's all tournaments, we put the fun and the camaraderie above really anything else. And the competitive is just sort of the foundation for it. And the bonus is like seeing yourself grow and evolve and play better. And as we kind of think about what groups to engage more, when you think about inclusivity, you try to think about intersectionality, you try to think about different groups of people and how they're represented. Amber, it feels like a lot of bells and chimes representation. Sharon's even rocking the shirt on today's panel. Beyond engaging more women-identified players, what are some other groups that we, in various capacities within pinball, could do a better job engaging?
    12:12
    One that is kind of surprising, but I feel like is oft neglected by either locations that are 21+, but other things, are just kids.
    12:25
    There's not a ton of kids, like we've got our, we've got like, I can think of two kids that I know that like grew up in pinball that play in tournaments now of different ages. Like everybody here probably knows like the meters and you probably know, you know, Max and Ed and Max has played since he could be in a carrier.
    12:48
    I want to see more of that. We have so many little kids that come into Pizza J's and are googly-eyed at the machines. I will hustle over that machine so fast and give that kid a free game or two because I would love to see kids' tournaments. And it's tough. Parents are busy. If they're not already in pinball, it's hard to get them into that space. But that's a place that I see and that I would just love to see more engagement and more participation.
    13:19
    I'm a little biased that I love that. You can't quite hit both flippers yet. We're working on it. He's only nine weeks old. By 11 weeks I fully expect him to be setting GCs.
    13:33
    He set a high standard. So events. They're a great entry point. They pull people over. I was just at an event at Behr Mousse in the Boston area, and we had a guy come up and just say, like, how do I get involved with this? It just looks like you're having so much fun. So as someone in marketing, it's like the best advertisement you could have. So there's tournaments, there's theme events, there's even company parties. What are some events that you've seen successfully bring new people to pinball? I know, Dave, we talked a little bit about Comic-Cons as a way to get someone who may be predisposed to nerddom to engage at pinball. But beyond that, Jody, I know you run a lot of events. What's been successful in getting that aha moment?
    14:15
    Very much the small local tournaments we do at Atacharlios. We've got three machines. We do a monthly Monday night, five rounds. It's always the same. There's lots of hooting and hollering because it's a bar.
    14:29
    And it introduces people, number one, to the rules. Don't play out of turn. Take care of each other. The etiquette, standing behind the line of sight. But like you said people see us having a good time and they be like what is that And it because it small and it unintimidating and they can be like well maybe I a lot of them say maybe I try it next time but most of them, if we can get them to do it once, I'll catch them back there playing on the machines at least once a week from then on out. And it also, we also plug other events and other places to play at our event. so the people that come, it's like if you like playing these machines, you need to try this. And I think, you know, it can't be overstated enough, just that the more people that know what you're doing, and to use local, you know, the local folks to spread the word and bring a friend. We have four new members at the Pinball Co-op, which is 30 miles away from where we play out of, four new members this year that started in Charlie O's. So we get, you know, the small events can really feed into that.
    15:42
    They're casual enough that people get hooked, and then they just, what is this weird thing? I know this is pandering, but our weigh-in was fantastic. I don't know if Dave knows this, but we had a Joker poker that my dad gave to us, and we came to check out the pinball community, and it all spiraled from there, and here we are. Jillian, I know you guys do a lot at Tokens, especially on weekends. Do you want to add on to that? Yeah, we just wrapped up a summer league that we, me and Brian, kind of tried to gear specifically towards newer players to try to get them kind of, you know, into the competitive pinball play. It's a little different. We also, you know, scheduled weekly high score contests alongside our league so that it was like, that's like an individual play type of, you know, style tournament format and then you have your league where you're playing in a group so you kind of have that side thing to do in between rounds or if you come early you get to you know play by yourself just two dollar buy-in and then we did like a you know a sort of different kind of league each round you were getting new groups so it was like you basically get to play with everybody each week just kind of getting people to know each other and like playing with different players always helps you learn the rules or maybe you'll see you know somebody you know nudging the game and they'll give you some tips on how to do that still afraid to nudge the game nightmares of my dad yelling at me for tilting and growing up um in terms of tournaments you know some of us don't have eight hours to spend at a tournament and i think sharon the bells have done a great job of first of all getting the word out i don't know if everyone has seen it but there was a wonderful spotlight on WBZ Boston, one of my favorite TikTok accounts. Definitely check that out.
    17:26
    Matt Shearer. Yes, Matt Shearer. I think that got a lot of people aware of the Bells and then brought people in. Do you want to talk a little bit about that process and how that all worked out?
    17:38
    Yeah, I think Mitch Curtis, who operates at Roxy's Arcade in Cambridge, had connected with Matt and said that he might be coming and sure enough he he rolled in with his crew when we were doing the first ever Massachusetts state championships It'll be happening again this coming January super excited hoping to post it at the same venue
    18:06
    They actually that venue is not open on Sunday, so we were able to do it as like a private party so we had the space to ourselves and it was fun to certainly have them and to have him share it. I mean, everybody just loves his posts. He's super funny and quirky and instantly had, you know, a thousand people seeing what it is that we were doing that day.
    18:33
    So hopefully that tradition of doing women's states will continue. We've actually shaped a lot of our tournaments around that, encouraging women players to play in both open and women's divisions to qualify for that event in January.
    18:53
    And we used to play at Roxy's quite a bit, so it's kind of like going home. It's a great spot. And following that, we had a tournament in the evening, which I think worked out really well for people time-wise. And I think, Jodi, we've talked about different tournament formats as well. you've done PR, you did a press release around your state championships and that worked out well. Yeah, the IFPA really pushes for you to plug your state championships. They really want you to get the word out and get press releases and do the work.
    19:25
    And that was kind of my first foray into it. But there are a lot of people out there that are just like, what pinball is a thing? And some of them will never quite get it, but there are a lot of them that you want to bring in because they support the sport. They bring more money to the prize pools, they can bring machines to games. It just, you know, in terms of format, we tried pin golf once, which I thought would be good, because it turned out not to be very inclusive, because you're with the same two people for the whole tournament. So of all the women's tournaments, you know, the flipper frenzies and the max match play are great, because you play a lot of different people. pin golf not so much it was kind of a slog for folks because you just you don't interact with anyone else yeah but you're you become bonded with your group by the end of it trauma bonded with your group depending on how well but maybe more if you're in three or four player groups it would be better than just the two oh no we were in three and four groups but i think it has more to do with um there's something different about a women's tournament uh there are people go to it for different reasons. People tend to go to the open tournaments to play some pinball. They're there to play pinball and they're there to do the things. And yeah, they're there to have fun, but it's more directed. Any more about their personal performance? I think so. A little bit? Yeah. Whereas the women's events, there's very much a social aspect and the community the aspects of it, the idea of having a room of one's own to be as good or as bad or to learn things about it in a way that you don't feel like, oh, that's the state champion. He's looking at my score. I'm doing so bad. There's none of that angst that some of us who learned watching men play, there's none of that that goes along with it. It's just, it's um we had a tournament where a woman had just lost someone she'd lost a student had died and that was a space if that had been an open tournament i doubt she would have showed but that was a place where she showed and she cried almost all day long and it was somewhat disruptive for a group but we were all there for her and she felt really good about it it's just a different tenor and that's a good way to bring people into the sport and build it and go from there. There's something about women's events too. I feel like we're always cheering for each other and we're also supportive and even if I'm knocked out of the tournament, good job for you beating me. Good luck the rest of the tournament. I did cheer Julianne on when she delivered single-handedly the worst beatdown of my life in the New Hampshire State Championships on Halloween. I did cry afterwards, but during it I wasn't cheering her on. I still can't play Halloween. I do see at women's tournaments, at the end of the, when you play in open tournaments, after a certain point, they go away. The players go away if they're out. And especially some of the high-ranked players. If they're out, they're out of there. Whereas at the women's tournaments, we stick around. We want to see who won. people are involved in the photos. It's just a different thing.
    22:47
    So tournaments is a hot topic right now. I would be remiss if I didn't touch on the much discussed topic of walker points. We know that right now women are separate from the general open tournaments and I think we've touched on this a little bit as it pertains to women's tournaments. But even outside of that, how do you balance the need for points, which we're all competitive, we all want to do well. How do you balance that with the need for fun? As you run or participate in an open tournament, what's been something that's worked or hasn't worked for you?
    23:20
    I think for us we've had to reduce the possible number of points that we might get for the purpose of keeping the tournament's shorter time frame and also not feeling the need to push and cram as many people into the tournaments as possible. We've kept the numbers a little bit low, which makes it a little bit more casual. It's just more laid back, and that's okay. I really agree with that. We are not driven to hold high tournament points.
    23:57
    It's about what season is it? Oh, it's spring. What can we do? What haven't we done? and how might we bring more people. But also in terms of the Whoppers,
    24:09
    the women's points are still not inflated to the point where the open points are, where you have to go to D82 and Indisc. You can play in women's events all around New England and get quite far up the rankings. So if you're someone that wants to follow the points and wants to try to be invited to the Women's World Championship, which takes the top 32, it's actually possible for you to do that in New England. The open points, it is not possible to do that. I will never be able to go to a huge event like that and feel, because the sport is so new and because we're all developing our talents at a similar rate, you know, we don't necessarily have those, you know, what was it, Escher-Lefkoff was the mover and shaker with like 720 points last month. You know, we don't have to deal in economies of scale. We will never, we will never, we are not at the point like that where nationally our women's points are very reasonable and you can grow them. So if you get hooked, you can really get hooked and make some moves. I think you bring up something really interesting, which is the geographic limitation. So we think about all different types of groups, but one of those groups, if we think about younger folks or folks who maybe live in a major city or even a more rural environment, and it's three hours to a tournament. We've got representation literally from four states on this panel. I lived in Texas for a while. This would blow any Texan's mind that we've got this much state diversity on a panel. But when you're expected or if you want to kind of level up your interest in this hobby, and it takes your whole weekend, and you have to book a flight, you have to book a hotel. There's certain economic limitations and time limitations that people have. So I know, Jodi, you mentioned that you've got machines on location, you've got the co-op. I know, Amber, you have the community in Providence, which builds over in the community in Boston. How are you all thinking about creating a more geographically dispersed opportunity for people to engage with pinball? Yeah, it's tough in Rhode Island. We used to have several more locations throughout the state and we lost a lot during the pandemic. I can think of at least two. I definitely try to encourage our Bells to go explore other locations and things, but as is the nature of Rhode Island, it's one of those states where people are like, I have to leave the state for something?
    26:50
    And there's a little bit of suspicion. Also just a lot of rebels have families or academic responsibilities or jobs that take them on a lot of travel and can't take a weekend day to go somewhere else and do something. So one of the things I try to do is quarterly we do a different format for our monthly bells and chimes like we might do a group match play or group knockout for three months and then we'll switch to head to head then we'll switch to a target so that they get to experience different tournament formats and if they see something that's outside of the state and they see that format they know they've done it before they know they can do it again and they feel more comfortable maybe planning that day and taking that little bit of a risk going outside of their comfort zone. So that's something that I try to do from that growth and nurturing side of things. Would I also like to open a couple more locations in Rhode Island? Yes, I would. Find Amber after if you're interested in also opening locations in Rhode Island. Jodi, anything you want to add to that? I mean, in Vermont it's tough, too. Everything's three hours away. And we've really just got one. And there are only two locations in Vermont that hold tournaments. The small charlieos, once a month, 12 people. And the, where if you win, did you get a point? Whoa!
    28:22
    And then the pinball co-op, which is great. So often, you know, stuff out of the pinball co-op, I'll invite if I'm going down to a women's tournament or if the people from the pinball co-op are going out to a certain tournament, they'll put it on their website, they'll put it in the newsletter. you know, if you're interested in playing pinball, come here this weekend. But yeah, it's a day commitment. It is always a day. Let's talk for some folks. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about manufacturers. So we talked a little bit about leaving credits on games, which I love as an approach for getting people into pinball. But pinball can be a little bit intimidating, especially if you walk up to a game, you put in a dollar, and thirty seconds later you've drained three consecutive balls and it's gone. You know there's been some moves from manufacturers I know with the recent Godzilla game that they thought more about casual players and designing it. I know multi morphic has a practice mode that allows you to practice shots. Sharon I know that the bells were involved in the Foo Fighters rollout to get people familiar with that game So do you want to talk a bit about how that worked Yeah Stern sponsored launch parties for both open events and women events and gave a really good prize pack that saved me having to make custom trophies. One left Michael's trip, and they were good prizes. It was a plaque, a trans light, and that made it really fun to promote who doesn't love the Foo Fighters, who doesn't love the Foo Fighters pinball game, and that was a great way to make the most of a sponsorship to host an event. They also, with that, the IFPA gave double points for those events. So if you were a woman that plays for points, if you're a person that plays for points, that also boosted the attractiveness there. I'm pretty sure they did. I don't know. We're all very concerned with Whoppers up here. Clearly. Jillian, I know you have a wide breadth of games at Token that's really fun. do you see casual players new players gravitating towards when they come in so well actually once we set up the stern leaderboards out back once we got everything insider connected and and put the leaderboards up people got obsessed with them like that's the new thing we do a monthly leaderboard a high score contest i run and beat the bartender if you guys want to come try to beat me on some games with tokens that's me yeah if you beat tokens jill you get a ten dollar gift card to tokens per leader board that you're at the top of. And if you're the second to me, you get $5 still. Good luck with that. I was going to say that.
    31:12
    Sounds doable, and it is not. This game is rigged. We did have a couple of ringers come through. But it's been huge for recruiting new people, the fact that you get the achievements, and it saves your progress, and people just want to see their name up on the TV in the back. Do you see new people signing up for Stern and CyberConnected on the spot? Yeah, absolutely.
    31:36
    It really just started with one game, too, and then once we saw how excited people were and how many people were signing up, we bought kits for everything. Amber, I know you're looking to do more classics at Pizza J. You've got kind of a mix of machines. When people come in, are they flashing Godzilla's machine, or are they going for some of those classics? It's funny. Again, the kids like the blinking lights. But I find the classics and games that emulate the classics, like TNA, is a street-level game. It doesn't have a super complex rule set. People find it less intimidating than, like, you know, you've got to shoot. There's 15 skill shots on this game, and if you hit this button up here and then hit these three things right after it, you get another bonus. and like people are first playing they want like I want to hit I want to see the lights I want to hit the things I want to get the points and I maybe want to do that for more than 30 seconds so with classics I find our classics we charge half the price for they're all our new games are a dollar to play all our classics are 50 cents which is one token for us and I find that people just feel that's a lot more approachable. They get a little more play for their game. They get in there and it's a little less intimidating. So like little kids love the blinky flashies. The adults who are getting into it definitely jam on the classics. So I'm really glad that we were able to get more classics in because we used to just have a stable of like the shiniest and the newest and that was cool. But I like my classic babies in the back. I think that's similar to the Boston area in that we had a lot of modern sterns lined up in multiple locations for a long time. And that was what we all had exposure to. And that's kind of what it felt like competitive pinball was all about.
    33:40
    So I've been into it, but getting a chance to play some older games has been, I have found my love for sure in older games. and part of it is we've got some friends in the audience that have venues in the Boston area with a really cool mix of all eras of games.
    34:02
    Our Lady of Pinball and Three Knocks Pinball are right over there. And well represented in the audience as well. Three locations. We've got Bear Moose up in Everett, Pops in Somerville, and also the Silhouette in Alston. And I just learned today that the Silhouette hosts an introduction to pinball workshop or class. So that is, like, perfect for this topic of approachability. And Deep Cut in Medford. I see Daniel. Oh, nice.
    34:38
    Yeah, and I actually, Sharon, I know we had talked about this as well. Do you want to talk a little bit about the tournaments that they're running as well? I feel like that's a good way to get people involved. Yeah. They're doing NEPA League, so kind of our staple competitive community in the area, but they're doing all different kinds of very fun and casual formats all of the time. And I think the goal is to make them as weird as possible.
    35:10
    And thus ends our sponsored spot for the Popskin Ball Crew. Go weird or go home. So for people who can't get involved in person, maybe they live far away from a location, maybe they're just getting involved with pinball, there are ways that you can do that virtually. I will plug here Kineticist, Kineticist.co for all of your virtual pinball needs. However, there's streaming. There's a lot of different ways that people can learn about a game or can just watch a tournament that maybe they can't participate in themselves. Do you feel like that's something that people are doing as an entry point into pinball or Or is it as they get more involved along the way? Jillian? Yeah, I've made a habit of putting on a Twitch stream of pinball, whatever tournament or thing is happening at the bar all the time, and at least piques people's interest and gets them to ask questions. Like, why are we watching these people play pinball in Wisconsin?
    36:05
    Just something to kind of start a conversation. I can neither confirm nor deny that pinball streaming was on in the hospital room all year. we started real early Jodi anything to add to that? I have found it's something that I recommend once people are kind of playing and there are enough if people are playing out at competitions you tend to forget that the camera's there if you're playing on stream but to be able to watch different things and once people get into it if a newbie's coming with me down to the double bowl to play I'll be like, oh, you should watch this one, really, or, you know, really explains that well, or watch those things, but it's a little later for our area. Yeah, to take that kind of to the extreme, if you're a newer person that's in a place that really doesn't even have pinball nearby, I know it's a bit of a polarizing issue, but virtual tables, you know, on your Switch, on your phone, on your computer. I know so many really excellent players now that started out and got interested in pinball, playing virtual games on their computer. And they're rules experts on any of those tables. Oh my gosh, rules experts. That's a very nice way of putting it.
    37:32
    So getting to that extreme, there are places where you still would have to drive two, three hours to get to pinball still. And that is a great way to start if you literally don't have that access. and then I found that I got into streaming after I'd been playing for a while, after I'd been playing in tournaments, and I wanted to see how other people played or just kind of virtually cheer on a friend who might be in Chicago, in Wisconsin, and kind of let them know that I'm there and cheering them on. There are definitely people here who I have parasocial relationships with because I've seen them streaming a lot, but I've not actually met them in person. Yeah, oh, totally. It's fun. I watch the streams with my mother. That's awesome. At holidays, she really makes me. Who's that?
    38:28
    That's this person. Oh, they're real. Watch this. And does she play pinball at all? No, no, no. She cannot play pinball at all. My whole family was watching from their perspective. That's really fun. That's how you can get your families involved over the holidays, throw on a pinball stream, get them in. My mom texts me once. She goes, do you know there's a Rush pinball machine? And I was like, oh, my gosh. Stop the presses. This is news to me. She chose Rush over Cactus Canyon, which in and of itself is a really interesting choice.
    39:01
    Let's kind of wrap up some of the questions here. I want to allow for questions from the audience. We've got some core audiences, and I want to hold up the sign here. Ooh, Dana White down in front, although I think she retired. So I think, Gillian, you're in this model. Sure. You're on games and Jodi, you're placing games on location like this. Yep. As am I. Yep. That's the terminology we haven't talked about. Perfect. So we'll give you a second to digest all that. But these are some different audiences and we'll pull this down because I think it's in front of Amber's face and it definitely doesn't want that to happen. It's great. I actually matched the operator on location. You're an operator who operates on location. It's like a magic key. It's perfect. So, love to leave with a couple of messages for different groups in the audience. So I don't know if there's anyone here representing manufacturers, but if you had a message, or maybe they're watching this on demand, for people who are designing the next generation of games or choosing the next generation of themes, What would you say that you want them to keep in mind as they think about building the next generation of FinVol?
    40:18
    I think they don't have to be licensed, number one. You know, like I think we can come up with some good themes.
    40:26
    I like it. How about those who are organizing tournaments, organizing leagues, who are kind of setting the schedule? Sharon, I think you had some great advice before. maybe worth even reiterating. In terms of setting schedules? Yeah, just having it be regular. Yeah, monthly. Yep. Or even seasonally, you know, for groups that are just starting out. I've talked to a lot of female players in our Bells and Chimes Clubroom this year, which we have for the first year ever, and it's so fun and exciting.
    41:00
    And tiresome bringing the game. For my husband more so than me. but it has been a lot of work to get them ready to play and bring them here, but it has given us a place to really talk to a lot of people who are interested and curious.
    41:15
    Some players who are in a state that doesn't have a lot of pinball doesn't really even know what the interest would be in their community, so I said just start small. A venue that just has a handful of games, maybe you have a few friends that might just come and say, I'm trying to do a thing and make it a one-off to start, maybe just make it four times a year and call it a spring seasonal or something quarterly or seasonally structured to, again, promote that there's the potential to continue on and to do more and build something. Yeah, I was going to add, too, as somebody who works nights and weekends, I do like to try to run events, too, sometimes on different days during the week. I mean, we do our NEPL on Wednesdays. I often will run women's, like, Bell's tournaments on Mondays. I'll just book tokens and reserve it for just us. But it's, you know, it's hard for some people. Lots of people work weekends. Lots of people work nights. So sometimes, you know, doing an event on a Thursday can be good. You'll get just as many people as you would on a weekend. Folks who couldn't normally attend. And Amber, I know that we had talked a little bit about how we advertise those events and whether they're on the third Thursday and how that map works. Yeah, it's funny. Everybody absorbs information differently, and so I was marking stuff on saying, like, second Tuesday, blah, blah, blah, like first. And people are like, yeah, but what day? Like, what is that? So I started trying to do, like, a new thing I'm doing, and I'm getting set up with, like, little placards for at Pizza Day that actually say the date for the next few months. So like you can put it on your phone and you're not looking at a calendar and being like, what is the second, third Thursday, second Tuesday, whatever. So that's, you know, just be mindful. Everybody absorbs information differently and they may think better in dates and times than third, you know, third Thursday, second Tuesday. The other thing I wanted to mention is a beginner is going to be super excited to just win like 20 bucks.
    43:30
    I've seen a lot of really high buy-in tournaments lately, and that's super cool if it's a longer format and you get to play long. But, like, if you're a newer person and you don't know formats well, it can be really intimidating to be like, like, am I going to play three rounds for, like, 40 bucks or, like, so just different tournaments for different people. Like, you can totally have a tournament where you're like, I know I'm going to be getting a lot of high-level people and they're going to think this buy-in is worth it and that's awesome and it's going to be a whole day. But like I do and for my Sunday tournaments that are open And I do make trophies But like people are super excited to win like to, like, pay their bar tab. Like, that's all they want. Like, help them pay their bar tab. I have the first $10 bill I won taped to my Joker poker at home. The only time I've won money playing it. I go even less. I figure a dollar. That's awesome. I love it.
    44:32
    Mostly because when I started playing, I'd be like, really, I'm giving Joe Lemire 40 bucks again? And Joe is not in the room, but we'll find this video. But I would. I mean, I loved pinball, so I was traveling out like once a month and spending $30 or $40 playing with, say, the same New England people in New Hampshire, in Massachusetts, in Maine. And you do kind of get the feeling.
    45:01
    And at Charlie O's, I was like, you know, it's a tournament I happen to win a lot at because it's my home machine. I don't want to take your $5 every, I don't want to, I just don't want to do it. Yeah, when I started, I did $1 because when I was a new tournament, I was a new person running tournaments, and I really didn't want people to get mad at me if I screwed up because it was like my first few tournaments. I was like, just give me the dollar for the IFBA. Like, I don't need anything else. And then we went to $5, and now we do $10 because I feel more confident. We're getting a slightly broader range of players, and my local players have been playing for long enough that they feel confident with new people coming in that I'm attracting with those slightly higher entry rates. But I still don't. One, the restaurants only open certain hours. I can't have a 12-hour tournament or anything like that. And secondly, I want to keep it approachable.
    45:57
    The last question I have, and then we'll go to the audience, is owners. A lot of people in this room just have pinball machines in their basement, in their living room, wherever you can fit it. How can owners get people involved in pinball? I feel like, Jodi, your holiday example is kind of a good jumping-off point. If you own your own pinball machine, what opportunities does that present to you? I was going to say, it's hilarious. I have my own pinball machine, but nobody ever comes to my house to play with it. So that's not ever, that's rarely an entry point for me. Same here. So maybe a lesson we could all take from this as owners is use that as a low stress way. Well, I don't know. I mean, there are a lot of different factors, but it's so much.
    46:41
    Making pinball inclusive is so much about sharing the pinball. It's not about the points. It's not about being cutthroat. And it needs to be not a private. When you walk in to play pinball somewhere, you don't want to feel like you're walking into somebody's private club and that you don't belong there or that you have to know certain things to fit in or, oh, there are five people back there already. I'll just wait until later. You don't want that kind of thing. So like Jillian having the pinball at the bar playing. Love it. You know, if you have people in your area playing that are excited about it and want to share it, that all comes through. We've been to the tournaments where that's what it feels like. Everybody's sharing and we're all there. We're all on the same team. And we've all been to tournaments where we're kind of like, you know, I'm having trouble getting all the machines to warm up because people are posting up. and you know maybe it's just a different it's just sharing I love that I feel like that's oh no um I was gonna say kind of on the flip side of that like I know we have a lot of people who have really impressive collections at their homes and they have tournaments and I think that's really great that people open up their homes something I'd love to see more of um in general is even though it is kind of a private club is co-op we have so many of us who live in different geographic areas who have a few games and we've got some great models for having a co-op. And I think that bringing the games together can allow for more accessibility overall for people to share with others. It comes with its own complications, but definitely if you're like a group of friends who knows that you have like 10 or 12 games together, like, give it a thought. I'm kind of an idiot for not thinking that, because that's what the pinball co-op is and how it started. The local place closed down, and the four guys, the three guys that had pinball machines between them, said, let's rent a place. And now it's been in our eighth year, and we have different owners, but it's still very much that same, and you don't really feel like you're in a private club, I hope. It always feels okay. It's a cool space, for sure. I'm fact checking with Mike Havens back there. Eight years? Cool. Awesome. Well I will turn it over to you all now. Does anyone have any questions for our panelists? We will start down front. Oh we have a roving microphone. A lot of talk about tournaments which I think that's probably a barrier into itself like Am I the type of person who wants to defeat another person or something like that?
    49:40
    So picking up on a couple little threads that have come out so far, what about something like, if not a formal Stern-approved launch party, an unboxing party, which could be any brand-new game from any manufacturer, keeping with the birth theme that we have going today, is there something that's where competition is just not there? Like you're all brand new to this game because it just came out of the box.
    50:09
    And so nobody knows anything about how to play it or anything. There are also casual meets. You know, our organization doesn't do so many casual meetups. But I know that there are other Bells chapters who have done that in other states As well as workshops, you know, people have done game repair or maintenance workshops. We've kind of toyed with the notion of that, just haven't really had the opportunity. And also with tournaments, you have this idea that you can, you know, be a ranked player and track your progress, which that really does have draw to a lot of players kind of once they get over that hurdle. so actually um back when i first started playing shortly after tokens first opened jim ferris ran a women's clinic um for all the ladies from tokens at his house and uh you know he came up with a little skill golf challenge for us at the end but he like you know took us through the basics gave us some like terminology and like he opened up a game and showed us like where the tilt bob is and you know, at least gave us some, like, insider information we wouldn't have gotten otherwise, you know, just playing on location. And I did run, like, a Bells meetup that, like, I basically mirrored that, like, women's clinic, where I, like, opened up a game and showed everyone the tilt bob and, you know, these are the skill shots on Iron Maiden. And, like, just, you know, some introductory things, like, to get people started.
    51:45
    Yeah. I think that one of the biggest things about women's tournaments that I want to emphasize is We don't really look at it as beating each other. We actually tend to compare our performance to our performance previously and lifting each other up. So that's not really how we end up thinking about it to begin with, even though it's a tournament. The one casual night we tried to do with the Queen City Bells up in Burlington, nobody came.
    52:14
    There were three people there. Whereas we ran a tournament for a Christmas thing and really plugged it, and we had nine brand new players who had never either played in a tournament or hadn't played since they were kids.
    52:30
    And so I think it kind of depends on your area, and if you can do casual things regularly, you can build it. If you're only doing them sporadically, it's real easy for folks to say, oh, well, it doesn't really matter because it's not a... Amber, for your idea you just said, you could, everyone who comes in at the beginning is given a handful of poker chips. And they give them to anything that they think they should reward for the people they're watching. And then you see poker chips going to people that you feel were accomplishing something important to them. So it would be totally away from whatever the game is giving out. Just woman to woman or whatever.
    53:19
    You did good. Here's your chip. I think we had a couple more questions. Hi. So I have observed enough Bells events as a three blocks away from where the Bells events happen, living. But I've definitely noticed that the sort of the energy difference between the open events and the Bells events. and selfishly, how do we get more of that energy into the open events? Because the open events can be just so heavy and oppressive and just brutal in that way.
    53:56
    I feel like leading by example is like a good start. Just like congratulate another player when they do well or saying nice ball after somebody has a nice ball or good save. Just little things. Things like cutting down on outbursts. In Vermont we've in the past had a culture where it feels often when you play in these open tournaments there's kind of a storm and you're waiting for a big blow up. And we all know people that we play with, that when you're playing with them or next to them, it's kind of a bummer.
    54:31
    And, yeah, we've kind of changed an attitude a little bit up there about that certain things just don't fly. And those people are talked to and try to figure out how to dial it back. and that's huge is getting whoever's holding the tournament to take on a more welcoming, supportive, let's keep that kind of stuff over there more is huge.
    55:02
    I think we have, oh, you have to run all the way. I know that. Freeway. Hey, so we've talked a lot about what we can do to improve inclusivity, but I think we've done a lot already also to celebrate our accomplishments. So can you just talk a little bit about what progress you've made compared to the days, like five years ago, or like ten years ago? I definitely feel like we can do better too.
    55:37
    I'll actually admit that I only started playing competitive pinball after the pandemic, so I don't know what it was like before. I will really admit that. What I will say is kind of what we were just talking about with Jodi and how some stuff just doesn't fly. I've heard anecdotally from a lot of people that people are really being a lot more emphatic about better behavior. And that feels like it's something overall that's helping the entire environment of pinball. Just not letting people misbehave and kind of calling them out on that stuff. Etiquette and sportsmanship. Yeah. And also, we all know each other better now than we did five years ago. So the more we build together, it's just better. everything gets a little more. That's a great point, celebrating how far we've come. Thank you. I want to make sure, I think we had a couple more questions. I just wanted to throw out there that I love, there's a few games that have cooperative modes of play. And I was just thinking in general about like team based events. There's an opportunity for cooperation as well as competition. thinking about the difference between individual events and team events.
    57:05
    But I love everything that you're talking about and sort of developing this community that is supportive and collaborative.
    57:14
    It's great. So I'd love to see more of that as well. Yeah, great point. That's a good note for the manufacturers, you know, having settings that have cooperative play. I just learned about a cooperative tournament that is tonight at midnight in the Southern New Hampshire Pinball Club. It's a two-flip tournament where you have a team, each player two flips and hands it to the next player. So it's a lot like stall ball, but you only get two flips. There is a judge standing over you. If you flip an extra time, you're out. We did this a few weeks ago. It was absolute chaos. It's so much fun if you're here. You just have to stay up until midnight and be on.
    57:53
    I think we have one more question. And then we'll wrap it up. I just think it would be really awesome at Future Pintastics if we had a newcomers tournament because I think there's a lot of barriers to these new people that like, oh, I think it sounds cool but I'd be throwing my money away, I'm going to get placed against forward. I'm going to get eliminated immediately if we made it free with show entry, a short format that nobody gets eliminated in, we IFPA lock in at 10,000 and no pre-registration. I think people would be like, yeah, you know, like, yeah, let's do it. And I think that could get a lot of people in at a show that, like, a lot of people that come to the show are not competitive players that would love to do something like that. I love that. I will volunteer. You can hold me to that.
    58:39
    Well, thank you all for the excellent ideas, feedback for your time. I know that there are a lot of really good games out there, and you took time out to attend this, so thank you. Thank you to our wonderful panelists for sharing all of your insights and knowledge.
    58:54
    Thank you.