IS PINBALL’S FUTURE IN THE PAST?

Pinball News Website·article·analyzed·Apr 8, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Why pinball's future is stuck in the past: licensing economics and digital asset requirements.

Summary

Martin Ayub's editorial examines why modern pinball manufacturers overwhelmingly choose themes based on decades-old media (classic films, TV shows, and bands from the 1960s-1970s) rather than contemporary subjects. He argues this stems from two factors: proven popularity and available digital assets required by modern pinball's sophisticated electronics. Ayub contends that pinball has become trapped in the same licensing cycle as Hollywood and proposes video game IP as a solution to break out of this pattern and appeal to younger players.

Key Claims

Stern Pinball's current title is based on a 53-year-old black-and-white TV series, and their previous release was themed on a band which dissolved 49 years ago
high confidence · Direct statement from article comparing Stern's recent releases to showcase industry reliance on old themes
Creating a new pinball title typically costs a million dollars or more, from design through licensing, manufacturing, and marketing
high confidence · Explicit statement in article explaining financial stakes of game development
Modern pinball games demand high-quality continuous animation throughout gameplay due to video monitor integration, unlike earlier eras
high confidence · Historical comparison of technology evolution from dot-matrix to video monitors
Video games now make more money than the whole movie and music industries combined
medium confidence · Statistic cited by Ayub to support argument for video game licensing in pinball
Jersey Jack Pinball is rumoured to be reimagining Data East's Guns N' Roses pinball for release later this year
medium confidence · Stated as rumor in article discussing indirect remakes strategy
Early pinball (woodrails/wedgeheads era) could be brought to market in weeks after theme selection due to looser licensing requirements
high confidence · Historical comparison explaining speed advantage of earlier manufacturing periods
Hollywood's 2018 top films were dominated by reboots and decades-old franchises (X-Men, Mission: Impossible, Queen), mirroring pinball's licensing strategy
high confidence · Explicit list of top 2018 movies provided in article
Chicago Gaming Company has created a 'remake' series of classic Williams/Bally games
high confidence · Referenced as established fact in industry trends

Notable Quotes

“With so much at stake, it makes sense to stick with a theme which has proven itself to be popular in many countries after many years, and which remains resilient to short-term knocks.”
Martin Ayub @ N/A — Core thesis explaining manufacturer risk aversion toward proven themes
“Get it wrong, and you have a flop with six zeros on the end and only tumbleweed rolling down the production line.”
Martin Ayub @ N/A — Vivid illustration of financial catastrophe from failed game release
“No matter how great your game design is, wrap a toxic theme around it and you're looking at a stock room full of boat anchors.”
Martin Ayub @ N/A — Emphasizes that theme selection is as critical as game design quality
“The movie tie-in has led to a downward spiralling where the incestuous gene pool of suitable licences gets smaller and smaller.”
Martin Ayub @ N/A — Articulates the core problem: exhaustion of premium classic licenses through repeated reuse
“If pinball is indeed to have a bright future, maybe it should stop looking for inspiration in the dim-and-distant past.”
Martin Ayub @ N/A — Closing statement encapsulating the article's title and central argument
“Video games also bring an existing worldwide hardcore fan-base skewed strongly towards younger players – just the type of free-spenders pinball needs to appeal to in bar/arcades and similar street locations.”
Martin Ayub @ N/A — Key argument for why video game licensing could solve demographic expansion problem

Entities

Martin AyubpersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinballcompany Chicago Gaming CompanycompanySpooky PinballcompanyTexas Pinball Festivalevent Pinball Newsorganization Williamscompany

Signals

?
business_signal: Pinball manufacturers are caught in a shrinking pool of premium classic licenses due to repeated remakes and 'indirect remakes' (new games with same theme as existing pinball), forcing them toward B- and C-list properties
high · 'The movie tie-in has led to a downward spiralling where the incestuous gene pool of suitable licences gets smaller and smaller' and examples of Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean remakes
?
competitive_signal: Pinball manufacturers are mirroring Hollywood's 2018 strategy of rebooting decades-old franchises rather than pursuing original or contemporary IP
high · Detailed comparison showing 2018 box office dominated by X-Men, Mission: Impossible, Queen reboots, concluding 'The same holds true for pinball'
?
design_philosophy: Modern pinball's reliance on continuous high-quality animation and video monitors has created voracious appetite for digital assets, making old licensed properties with extensive back-catalogs more attractive than contemporary subjects
high · 'Increased memory and faster processors meant... the introduction of the video monitor in pinball which brought with it a constant need to show 'something' on the display... Today, we now expect and demand continuous high-quality animation'
$
market_signal: Growing recognition within industry media that pinball's future viability depends on breaking from classic IP reliance and pursuing contemporary subjects, particularly video game properties
medium · Central thesis of editorial: 'If pinball is indeed to have a bright future, maybe it should stop looking for inspiration in the dim-and-distant past'
?

Topics

Licensing strategy and IP selectionprimaryRisk aversion in game developmentprimaryDigital asset requirements and modern electronicsprimaryVideo game IP as solution for contemporary themesprimaryIndustry reliance on classic/retro themesprimaryComparative analysis with Hollywood licensing trendssecondaryGame remakes and 'indirect remakes' strategysecondaryPinball's appeal to younger audiencessecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.35)— Article expresses concern about pinball's creative stagnation and reliance on aged IP while remaining constructive and solution-oriented. Tone is analytical rather than alarmist. The critique is implicit rather than hostile toward manufacturers, framing their choices as economically rational responses to risk.

Transcript

raw_text · $0.000

Once again this year, Pinball News’s Editor, Martin Ayub, was asked to write an article to be published in the Texas Pinball Festival’s show guide. As before, he was happy to oblige. With so many topics from which to pick, after much deliberation the subject of the article was chosen in the form of the question John Youssi above. It is one which, if feedback received at the show is any guide, readers of the guide enjoyed considering. We thought you might like to read it too. Here’s the article in full… These are exciting times for pinball. The number of pinball makers far exceeds our wildest dreams from back in 2000 when only Stern Pinball remained. Modern bars and arcades are springing up all over the world allowing younger players to discover the huge fun and excitement of the game for the first time. These millennials are streaming their gameplay online, tweeting their high scores to their friends and followers, and seeing the very real possibility of buying their own games to play at home. Pinball has a real future, so obviously, pinball manufacturers are falling over themselves to capitalize on fresh, modern and relevant themes designed to appeal to this new generation of players and buyers, right? Well…. actually, no! At the time of writing, the theme of the biggest pinball maker’s current title is based on a 53-year-old black-and-white TV series, while their previous release was themed on a band which dissolved 49 years ago. Well then, if not them, what about the other manufacturers? One began their business with a (now) 80-year-old movie as their launch game, and is widely expected to announce their next game as being based on a 48-year-old flick. Meanwhile a start-up pinball maker in Texas is believed to be working on a 33-year-old movie-themed game, another based in China launched with a mid-’60s puppet show title, while two European pinball companies which ran into severe (and possibly terminal) financial problems were building games based on 40-year old and 21-year-old movies. It’s not all old movies though. In Wisconsin the latest release from there is a band which peaked 46 years ago, while one of the failed European makers was about to announce their next title featuring a group from the exact same ‘70s era. Why is pinball so fixated on the past when looking for themes for the future? ![Recent titles used for modern pinball machines](https://www.pinballnews.com/site/wp-content/uploads/comment/pinballs-future-in-the-past/01-pinballs-future-in-the-past-1024x683.jpg) Recent titles used for modern pinball machines There are two key alliterative factors here – proven popularity and available assets. Building any new pinball is a big gamble. It takes typically a million dollars or more to create a new title, from coming up with the playfield and mechanical design, to the creation of the artwork, music speech and sound effects, to the development of the rules, the display and lighting effects, the design and manufacture of any custom toys and moulds, paying for the licence – or increasingly, multiple licences – needed for various actors’ likenesses, voices and songs, recruiting, scripting and recording the voice talent, and then actually building, marketing and selling the finished product. Get it wrong, and you have a flop with six zeros on the end and only tumbleweed rolling down the production line. While most manufacturers can rely on their design and production teams to create a solid product, the continued popularity of any theme can be a volatile factor. The next sure-fire hit movie can tank at the box office, while the king or queen of the download charts can be caught up in a damaging scandal or badly mis-judge their audience’s sensitivities. No matter how great your game design is, wrap a toxic theme around it and you’re looking at a stock room full of boat anchors. With so much at stake, it makes sense to stick with a theme which has proven itself to be popular in many countries after many years, and which remains resilient to short-term knocks. That means taking risks by trying to predict the next breakthrough act or drinking the Kool-Aid of pre-launch marketing hype. But it didn’t used to be that way. Pinball back in the days of woodrails and wedgeheads was far more responsive to popular culture, capturing the public mood and allowing both manufacturers and operators to cash in before the fickle mood of the players moved on to the next fad. Space flight, shopping, TV series, celebrities, Broadway shows, royalty, sports teams and even world wars were all fair game, and this was before licensing became a major part of pinball development. You could allude to a famous star, band or TV show without actually using their exact name. The key point here though was the speed with which a contemporary-themed pinball machine could be brought to market and have it appear on the street. With the subject only loosely – if at all – influencing the design of the game, once a theme was chosen it could be just a matter of weeks before the backglass and playfield art were completed, installed on a selected game design and the finished product was shipping from the factory. Identifying suitable popular subjects would have been easier in those days too. With limited entertainment outlets and finite, controlled access to them, a hot theme was easily spotted. Today we have such ready online access we can consume our media from a huge range of sources covering a massively diverse mix of genres on countless different devices. Spotting one which gels with the global pinball playing and buying audience is a much tougher job. If proven popularity is a difficult call to make, the need for available assets almost guarantees no new-kids-on-the-block (as opposed to New Kids on the Block) are going to be appearing on a pinball near you soon. As the electronics within pinball games have become more sophisticated, so their voracious appetite for consuming digital assets has grown. Before dot-matrix displays were widespread, it was a combination of artwork and sound samples which tied a game to a theme or licence. You knew Bally’s Kiss, Evel Knievel and Dolly Parton were based on the band, stunt bike rider and singer almost entirely from the backglass and playfield artwork. You might press the start button and get a few notes from a Kiss or Dolly song, but that was just the icing on a licence-rich cake. Sound quality improved – even if some operators would turn it down or off – and it wasn’t too long before recognisable and relevant speech and music clips were being synced-up with gameplay as the licence became more integrated. Then DMDs arrived and a little monochromatic movie magic could be added, initially mostly with still images but later with simplistic video clips. Increased memory and faster processors meant slightly more shades and higher frame-rates could be achieved, but it was the introduction of the video monitor in pinball which brought with it a constant need to show ‘something’ on the display. Simply displaying the score wouldn’t cut it any longer, nor would static images. Today, we now expect and demand continuous high-quality animation throughout our gameplay, even if players end up missing most of it. Most licences give access to a range of graphical assets – logo designs, static and animated clips or renderings of popular characters, villains and weapons – along with a world where these all exist. Developers also get storylines, scripts and dialogue with smart one-liners, plus a lengthy style guide showing what you can and can’t do with these assets. Not that getting a licence means it’s all plain sailing. These days pretty much any given theme is made up from numerous sub-licences. You might buy the rights to make a movie-themed pinball, but if you want to use any of the movie’s music, that might be a different licence. If the movie’s soundtrack contains songs by different artists, those probably all require licensing separately. Want the lead actors’ likenesses in the artwork? That’s more licences – maybe one for each actor. It’s the same with their voices. Meanwhile you are going to need some custom speech for pinball-related call-outs such as “Jackpot”, “Extra Ball”, “Shoot Again” and so on. If you’re lucky you might be able to pay one of the movie’s actors to record these for you, otherwise you either use an authorised sound-alike or go with a more generic, non-themed voice and accept the opprobrium of players and critics alike. Then you have the seemingly never-ending approval process; referring everything you make back to the licensor and the performers to make sure you are on-message and presenting their brand in a positive light. Despite these struggles, pinball manufacturers have largely found it preferable to use a licenced theme for their games rather than developing with one from scratch and then having to explain the whole concept and get emotional buy-in in just three minutes of gameplay. So, where can we look for the next generation of pinball licences? What about contemporary movies? As we have seen, pinball often looks to popular movies for inspiration. Might they bring some of those fresh, contemporary subjects we spoke about at the start of this article? Of the top movies of 2018, four were Disney-owned Marvel X-Men franchises, the fifth was a different Disney cartoon, another was a DC Comics theme. Then there was the latest in the Jurassic Park series, another Mission: Impossible, with the Queen-based Bohemian Raphsody movie wrapping up the selection. Notice anything there? Yes, Hollywood has just the same obsession as pinball with rebooting older characters, shows and themes. The X-Men characters were originated in comic book form decades ago, Mission:Impossible was from the ‘60s, Queen from the ‘70s. Even Jurassic Park began some 26 years ago. These movies are made because they still resonate with a section of the public and create excitement even before their opening weekend. The original outings for the characters or concepts were successful and, as the saying goes, nothing succeeds like success. The same holds true for pinball, with the most obvious example being the ‘remake’ series of classic Williams/Bally games from Chicago Gaming. But are we running out of those ‘classic’ licences? Have all the ‘good’ bands been done, all the ‘great’ movie series covered? Are we way beyond the A-list titles, and deep into the B- or C-lists? From some recent releases it’s certainly starting to feel like it. To try to squeeze more life out of a licence pinball has developed a recent tendency to create indirect remakes – new games with the same theme as an existing pinball. Stern made Indiana Hilton Jones when Williams had already employed that title. Jersey Jack Pinball brought out a Pirates of the Caribbean pinball when Stern had released one twelve years earlier, and are rumoured to be reimagining Data East’s Guns N’ Roses pinball for release later this year. That’s not even counting the numerous Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman and Spider-Man variants, with the potential for more to come. The movie tie-in has led to a downward spiralling where the incestuous gene pool of suitable licences gets smaller and smaller. Pinball needs to break out of this spiral and start looking elsewhere for themes which appeal to a younger audience. The film industry is no longer where the money is. Movies are dwarfed in terms of revenue by video games. In fact, video games now make more money than the whole movie and music industries combined. So, will we be seeing Fortnite, Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Minecraft or Resident Evil pinballs any time soon? Why not? They all provide ready-made and proven-popular worlds, characters and storylines, and boast tons of developers producing video and audio assets ideal for use in a pinball. With CGI characters you need never worry about your star doing something embarrassing or awkward like being arrested or dying unexpectedly, and you can get them to voice any number of pinball-related call outs. Video games also bring an existing worldwide hardcore fan-base skewed strongly towards younger players – just the type of free-spenders pinball needs to appeal to in bar/arcades and similar street locations. Video games are globally popular and could help pinball break into geographic markets it has yet to penetrate. Just as important, with movie licensing becoming more long-winded, complicated and expensive process, working closely with game studios could bring a much shorter development cycle, allowing new pinball to be released while the theme is still relevant, not some fifty years later. If pinball is indeed to have a bright future, maybe it should stop looking for inspiration in the dim-and-distant past.