Pinball is for boomers. Boomers, I have nothing against you. People of your generation and non-boomers who were influencing the height of Western boomer culture in the 60s and 70s brought the world amazing music and movies. Stanley Kubrick? Great stuff. The Beatles? Unbeatable, especially from Rubber Soul to Let It Be. It’s the best album run in history, and it’ll never be topped. Ever. Also, take comfort in the fact that you’re not part of my generation, which is the most hated generation in recent memory. I don’t even have to write it, but yes, I’m talking about Millennials. At least you’re not one of us.
Is pinball for boomers? No, pinball is for everybody, but I find the medium a strange one in that its identity is found in its preservation of other entertainment mediums, or at least that’s a big part of pinball’s identity nowadays. The big sellers take famous licenses and use them as themes (“motif” is the correct term, but pinball jargon uses “theme” in place of “motif”) for their pinball machines. Most of the time, these themes harken back to the 1960s (boomer heyday), 70s (still very boomery), 80s, and sometimes, the 90s. Where every other entertainment medium brings new experiences, intellectual properties, stories, and themes to their identities, pinball has largely traded its originality for filthy lucre, choosing instead to adopt the skin of major licenses to make money.
It is true that some companies such as American, Jersey Jack, and Spooky create pins that don’t have a major license connection. Even Stern released Black Knight: Sword of Rage in 2019, a third in a trilogy of original pinball themes. Sword of Rage is my favorite Stern machine in terms of “soul” and originality because it doesn’t lazily rely on TV show clips, movie clips, or the power of big names for its artistic identity. It’s a funny game with a killer, dark art package, a mean game that mocks you, as an original pinball character The Black Knight insults your failures. I wish Stern made more games like Sword of Rage for originality’s sake, even if it meant reaching back into pinball’s history and using a character or theme original to pinball and making a sequel for it.
What do you hear when a company such as American makes an Oktoberfest or a Galactic Tank Force? You get a smattering of praise, but mostly you hear rumblings of the company going “bankrupt” because the theme is “lacking.” Of the most recent reveals: The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Foo Fighters, Scooby-Doo, and Galactic Tank Force, it’s American Pinball's Galactic Tank Force that deserves the most praise for its risk in theme. It’s not even a very original theme either. Pinball has seen a lot of space aliens, but that’s okay, for the alien theme in pinball has been established with pinball’s artistic identity. The maligned promotional material coming out for Galactic Tank Force, as corny as it is, reminds us of when pinball games weren’t so serious. Attack from Mars is a brutally difficult game in most locations, but it’s about as goofy a game that you can find. It’s like comic relief for how badly it screws you over.
[Source: pinballnews.com]
Do I mean that licensing needs to go away in pinball, then? Definitely not. Licensing in pinball should continue. The idea of designing pinball machines around iconic bands that have actually made good music in their respective genres is a good idea and provides a uniquely pinball experience. Even with the band themes, though, a lot of them go too far back into the past with boomer bands (some of the best music ever, don’t get me wrong) and the 1990s at the latest. And when we do get a band as recent as the 90s, we get a disappointing band such as Foo Fighters.
I don’t care if you like Foo Fighters; they are objectively one of the least good bands to ever have their own pinball machine. They never made a truly classic album, and they rode the wave of the alternative rock boon of the late 90s and early 2000s under the premise of “Nirvana band member makes a band” without creating any music of impressive artistry or innovation (except for one song, “Everlong”). Their music stands nowhere near the behemoths of other pinball band games such as Metallica or Iron Maiden, bands that defined or revolutionized metal. By the way, I mean no slight against Foo Fighters’ designer Jack Danger, one of my favorite people in mainstream pinball, an original thinker and designer. I don’t fault him for Stern’s dull licenses. Even Jack Danger, however, as much as I respect him, said that "a Beastie Boys pinball machine would bring a lot of people to pinball." Beastie Boys were excellent musicians, but they were out of their prime thirty years ago.
You might ask, “Well, what are the pinball companies going to make a music pinball machine for then? Taylor Swift or Post Malone or something”? No, there are excellent bands and solo artists that have not broken the mainstream whose music is high quality and whose musical content could provide some rousing themes in combination with their songs in a pinball machine. But it won’t happen. Why? Because your taste in music sucks, and you won’t give an Animal Collective, Radiohead (mainstream, admittedly), Grimes, or The War on Drugs--to name a few personal favorites--a chance as pinball machines. The pinball manufacturers also would not want to take a risk on such a “niche” (by today’s standards) band or musician, and it’s understandable.
[Source: pinballrebel.com]
Ultimately, the licensing issue of today is a consumer issue. Consumers like what’s familiar, what brings them back to their childhoods, what gives them a nostalgia rush. For some people, it’s Sean Connery’s James Bond, for others, it’s old-school Godzilla or the bland sound of *gags a little* Foo Fighters. Until pinball players allow themselves to be open-minded to newer licensing ideas or altogether original themes, we will keep seeing boomer tv shows, boomer movies, and mediocre gen-x and millennial bands dominating pinball themes in the industry. That might seem fine to some of you, but it also might mean that the bell will begin tolling on pinball as the older generations and their nostalgia die off. And even if pinball continued to thrive, from an artistic integrity point of view, I’d like to see pinball reclaim its own identity. As hokey as those EM machines from the 60s and earlier look, their themes are original and allude to the culture in a modern, relevant way for their time periods. [See Gottlieb's Central Park above for an example]. Today, pinball’s identity borrows too much from big name licenses from decades ago. That’s not cool, boomer.
-Dan
Ann Arbor, MI
Werribee
London
BallyBallerton
Inactive member
7y 26,150 25 2
I have always thought that there should be a "genre" music pin with different artists on it. Such as, "Heavy Metal" with a selection of songs based around an original theme. It doesn't have to be just one band. Or "Dance Party" with a selection of songs like on "Dance Dance Revolution." You could have a lot of fun with that.