Tasked with looking deeper into three things related to pinball history, there were three things that stood out to me. First, was Williams, and the fate of the company after they closed their pinball division after the failure of the Star Wars: Episode I Pinball 2000 cabinet. What happened to the former giant once the turned their backs on pinball for good? Where did they go? I also looked into where they came from, when the company was originally founded.
Second, I was curious about one of the core selling points of the Pinball 2000 machines, the optical illusion of Pepper’s Ghost. Pinball 2000 was the first and last machine to use the Pepper’s Ghost illusion, and I happen to like optics.
Finally, above all else, I wanted to know more about advanced techniques to playing pinball. I wanted to know more about what set the good players apart from the rest of the world, who could unlock all of the secrets the game held.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/WMS_Industries_logo.png
First up is WMS Industries, formerly pinball giant Williams Manufacturing Company, today is a slot machine and gambling manufacturer and developer. A sad end to the tale of their now defunct pinball division. We all knew it closed in 1999, when Jar-Jar killed pinball. In class, that was the end of the story. And as far as pinball is concerned, it is. Of course, I wanted to know what happened to Williams after the death of pinball. If anything out of a general curiosity, since it’s been 20 years since WMS left pinball for good. It certainly is no small amount of time, given the fact that accounts for 95.23% of my entire life at time of writing.
To answer that question, we actually have to look at what Williams was up to before 1999. Early into the 90s, pinball sales were declining as machines had a long lifespan, and buyers didn’t see a need to replace them with the new machines being made by the pinball giants, including Williams. Their video game subsidiary Midway Games was enjoying the profits of arcade cabinets such as Mortal Kombat. As we know already, the Pinball 2000 project was created as pinball’s final chance at Williams. So we can take away the fact that Williams had diversified into hotels and video games to supplement the dwindling pinball sales. In fact, WMS doubled down into gaming, by getting into gambling with slot machines in 1994. In fact, as a company, WMS was doing great into the 2000s with their video games and gambling-especially as they introduced digital gambling games.
The latest leg of their story began in 2013 when they were bought and soon after merged into a larger conglomerate, Scientific Games. Today, as I said at the beginning, WMS makes their money off slot machines and gambling. Ultimately, I find the story to be ironic, and a little tragic. When pinball was labelled as a form of gambling, WMS and the other pinball manufacturers were forced to skirt around making games that were considered gambling. And today, WMS wholly embraces gambling as their main income via actual gambling games and machines, and distancing themselves from what used to be their pride and joy. Their business is completely unrecognizable to the one built by Harry Williams. It’s almost as though the company has been losing its soul over the decades, one cabinet at a time.
That got a little heavy, sorry about that. Let’s move onto the next topic: the backbone of the Pinball 2000 project. That is to say, Pepper’s Ghost. It’s an optical illusion where you can combine two images into a single view. Apparently the illusion isn’t the second image, as that exists in reality, but in the audience not seeing the glass in most cases.
Of course, in the context of Pinball 2000 Pepper’s Ghost is used in lieu of true hologram technologies, as that didn’t truly exist in the 90s, when Pinball 2000 was in development. At least, not in a form small enough to be practical in a pinball machine. We do have to remember why such measures were being taken in the first place. If Williams was to stay in the pinball business going into the 21st century, Pinball 2000 had to set itself apart from every other pinball machine that had been created before it. They needed something new, something eye catching to get their old customers back in the door. Without true holograms viable for large scale use in a pinball cabinet, this old illusion could achieve the desired effect. Certainly much cheaper than hologram technology as well. Overall it was fun looking into an optical illusion that made waves in the pinball industry. Even if Jar Jar was too powerful for Pepper’s Ghost in the end.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Peppers_ghost_low_angle.jpg
Lastly, and more directly connected to pinball and its history, are the advanced techniques to playing the game. The talk last Thursday about the kinds of things highly skilled players can do with the leaf switches that pinball machines have always used made me want to know more about the kinds of techniques these players know. I decided to look them up, as I am not even close to being anything more than a pinball novice. I’ll mention specific techniques that are the most interesting to me, and then talk about the kinds of choices and knowledge a player needs to have to pull off advanced techniques as a whole.
First of the advanced techniques is the Bounce Pass, where you have to flick the ball from one flipper to the other. It only works on balls moving up to moderate speed, and if they’re close to the middle of the flipper that’ll be performing the pass. If the ball is moving too fast, it’ll bounce off the flipper too hard and fast, and likely go down the drain. If the ball comes in too far from middle, it’ll just follow the flipper straight down the middle and into the drain.
Second, is the Chill Maneuver, is reliant on there being a center post between the flippers. It’s called the Chill Maneuver, because you’ve got to keep your cool as the ball goes straight down the middle and bounces back up onto the flippers. If you flip too soon you’ll miss the ball and it’ll sink into the drain. It requires a large degree of trust that the ball will bounce back, especially since it has to hit close enough to the center to bounce back up instead of ricocheting off to a side and going down the drain for sure.
Third, is shaking and nudging. Unlike an arcade cabinet for a video game, physical contact with the pinball machine will affect gameplay. In fact, it’s within the rules that there’s a certain amount of tilt and shake that can be done and remain legal. My favorite way to determine levels of tilt are the plumb bob tilt detectors but other exist as well. It takes a certain amount of knowledge to know to nudge with the ball instead of against it, since you can only nudge so hard without tilting your ball out.
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To sum up the advanced techniques, they require a certain level of knowledge and split second judgments. Is the ball going too fast? Is it going to the right part of the flipper? Will it bounce back if I let it go or do I try to stop it now? It’s shown me an amount of depth I’d never have known with my current skill level.
That’s all I have time for today. First we started with where Williams went after pinball, becoming the very thing it swore it wasn’t (the slot machines had the high ground after all). Next, was optical illusions and why Pinball 2000 relied on not real holograms. Finally, I decided that I do not have enough cool to pull off a Chill Maneuver, even as someone who plays airsoft for fun; which is to say someone who gets shot at for fun. See you all next time.