1128

There’s a bar not too far from here called The Last Great Watering Hole. It’s a dive. Mike and I went there with some others a couple years ago. I remember that they had a decently-setup stage area, some pool tables, and a Playboy pinball machine. We put a few bucks into it and played several miserable balls (probably my second time ever playing pinball, and the last time I played pinball before earlier this year). We got tired of draining balls and opted to play pool on their miserable tables. And then it turned into the twilight zone (not the pinball) when the bartender went a little crazy and we left.

Today I was refilling our grill’s propane tank at Handy Hardware which is practically next door, and decided to drop in and see what they had. (I/we do this more and more lately: spuriously visit establishments we’d never, ever go to, except that they might have pinball.) Imagine: tall white guy in khaki shorts, Flaming Lips t-shirt, and New Balance sneakers walking into a dark, dark bar at 6pm. If I’d had a polo on they might have pointed me to the nearest Golden Tee. Well, the Playboy was definitely not where I remembered it being. Instead, two or three video slot machine sort of kiosks with dancing fruit on their screens. A claw machine sat in the corner, full of brightly-colored stuffed animals. What the hell, people?!

I looked elsewhere, looking in corners. More video kiosks, and a big shuffleboard table. Well, at least there’s some kind of actual game in there. I left.

While I probably value pinball a lot more than, say, 99% of the Earth’s population, I still opine that it’s a sad state of affairs when a pinball machine has been replaced by a slew of pathetic boob tube gambling games. Yes, I have no doubt that those things bring in well more than double what the Playboy pinball machine did (although I find it hard to believe the claw game gets much play), and yes, I know that a pinball machine is designed to extract money from the player’s pockets, but at least it’s fun. And yes, certainly, there are many dim bulbs among the bar-going public that prefer games that remove all the skill and just leave the random number generator to do the playing.

A recent trip to Fuddruckers showed that their arcade games now consist of approximately three driving video games, two standard claw games, one horizontally-operating claw game, and one ’stop the spinner to earn points’ redemption game. Does anybody actually think this stuff is fun? Dave and Busters is pretty much exactly the same ratio, except they have an additional component of push-the-coins-off-the-precarious-shelf machines. Yawn.

Really, looking at what’s out there in arcades, it’s no wonder. The hot games these days are being made to be played in the home on PlayStation or PC. The cost barrier for top-of-the-line graphics is gone. When was the last time you heard of a great game you have to go to an arcade to play? The offerings are stale, and it’s easier and “safer” and more fun to stay at home and play Xbox with 12-year-olds over the internet.

I used to want to work on building amazing arcade games. The kind of games that would be so immersive (and thusly expensive) that you couldn’t possibly have them in the home. I’d still like to do it, but as I write this it seems hopeless. If VR ever matures, I think it will happen in the home. Beyond that, what do you have? Virtual vacations a la Total Recall? Perhaps I need to get a degree in neurology.

Reading back over what I’ve written, I saw in the first paragraph that I behaved similarly to the people I’m indirectly criticizing. I didn’t play video poker (I did once nearly get my arm stuck in a claw machine at Pizza Hut), but while I liked to look at pinball machines through the glass, I didn’t really like to put quarters in them. I wasn’t much good at them, and at the time I really disliked paying per-play in that fashion, in the same way I disliked purchasing deplete-able household items. Kindof a bizarre, “Why buy this dishwasher detergent when it’s just going to be gone in a few months?” logic. I know. I liked to spend money on things I could use over and over again without paying for them over and over again. That’s part of why we bought our first pinball machine. (Now I’ve changed, at least with respect to pinball: I plunk quarters in every chance I get.)

How amusing that what started as a criticism of the lack of bars with pinball machines has turned into full recognition that I’m part of the problem. A person sometimes feels (I sometimes feel) a little off-base when pining for things that are no more. I would love a local arcade that had a nice lineup of pins, but it doesn’t exist, and the reasons all make sense. That’s just the way it is: arcades don’t make money anymore, except in perfect conditions.

Still, I can’t leave it at that. I can’t accept defeat. So here’s my plan:

1. Profit. Greatly. From something. (Why didn’t I think of Google?)
2. Buy lots of pinball machines.
3. Open a pinball arcade that loses money like a sieve, but it doesn’t matter because there’s more where that came from.

You read this far! Amazing. Or you skipped down to read my genius plan. Either way, pat yourself on the back.

Posted: Saturday, October 7th, 2006 at 7:30 pm; Category: Pinball; Comments feed: RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.