Michael Schiess is the founder of the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, California where he cares for nearly 2,000 pinball machines from across time. Schiess's mission in life? "To inspire an interest in science, art and history through pinball, and to preserve and promote this important part of American culture."
In this Vox video, pinball legend Roger Sharpe explains that playing the game isn't random and shares how players can manipulate the balls to their advantage.
Going into the video, I felt a little bit like, "What are things old people already knew, Alec?" but ended up learning some things. Never too old, I guess. Funny enough, I was just playing pinball last weekend (at the soon-to-be-closed Playland-Not-at-the-Beach... sniff) and totally could have used these pointers. Read the rest
The A. V. Club visited Stern Pinball, one of the the soldiers standing in a very old battle.
In the video above, we follow the pinball machine manufacturing process from start to finish, seeing just how much work goes into creating the “world’s friendliest game.”
A machine with 3500 parts—many of them still made in Chicago! Hand-assembled! Read the rest
Alex Q. Arbuckle of Retronaut published this gallery of 1968 photos of the Wonderland Arcade in Kansas City, Missouri.
Yes, pinball is illegal in Oakland, California. But this week, the 80-year-old law, tied to anti-gambling ordinances, will be reversed. Read the rest
Fantastic idea! Top shelf underground artists COOP, Frank Kozik, Alex Pardee, Sam Flores, and Jeremy Fish teamed up with pinball hackers Tilt Warning Customs to build a classic pinball arcade. They've launched a Kickstarter and if funding comes through, they'll open at the FIFTY24SF Gallery in San Francisco next year and either tour, expand to a larger venue, or both! "Bring Back the Arcade! Custom Pinball Art Show" Read the rest
