Right now the key is anything other than 40 year old male themes. That is all Stern makes.

How is this working out for them so far when it comes to attracting new children to play? If they were great kid themes then kids would be playing them.

Pinball isn't a kid's game. It's too complicated. Kids these days expect immediate gratification. That's why they will dump $10 into a redemption game with one button and a prize payout of $.35 in Tootsie Rolls.

It isn't redemption that is keeping kids away from pinball. It's the learning curve. Most nonpinhead adults aren't going to bother to figure out Avengers nevermind a kid.

You're right about that but the key there is that the theme is something they have chosen. It's Pokemon, it's Yu-Gi-Oh, it's Bakugan, it's Warhammer. It's their theme. It's not a rock band that ceased to be top forty 20 years before their birth. It's not a preexisting platform that starts out complex from the first ball. Their games start out simple and ramp up slowly as the kids age. Pokemon starts out as very simple point and click games, progresses into collecting cards, progresses into card games, progresses into complex video games. All along the way the kids are immersed in the TV show, the comic books, the toys. It's not like pinball where they are walking up cold, seeing something complex, and not getting it.

Combine that with the fact that the pin is simply too tall for a kid until they have already walked past it a million times. By the time the kid is tall enough to actually play pinball the pins are nothing more than background furniture. They may as well be a condom machine by that point.

I bet if Stern made a Facebook pin every woman in the place would be in line to try it.

Not only do I have kids but I have 15 years of experience as a youth coach and am married to a K/Pre-K teacher.

Monopoly is an awful game for new players. There are very few Roller Coaster Tycoons on location anymore that actually work. Kids don't care about daytime TV themes like Wheel of Fortune. I have only seen one Shrek machine ever and that's in the back of a beaten up arcade inside an amusement park with a billion better things to do. Never seen a Stern IJ or BDK anywhere. Ironman is a brutal game for new players, Avatar is almost as brutal, and kids didn't care much about Tron. Avengers and X-Men are both complex and a dollar a credit in a lot of places.

Keep in mind in there is an arcade in my area, that my son and I visit weekly for league play, that has over 90 games. There is another that is specifically high end LE Sterns. It's not like I live in a place desolate for location pinball.

If those games were good introduction games for new young players they would have performed as such. If they had done so we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

I don't think we can count kids with pins in their home as good examples. They aren't being asked to choose a pin over something else with their limited money. They aren't being attracted by 10 redemption machines. They aren't in a bowling alley or a movie theater. They know something about pinball before they walk up to the machine. The pins in a home are in good condition.

We can't forget that when we were kids pinball was A LOT SIMPLER. Somewhere in the mid to late 90s pinball became a much more complicated game with a much steeper learning curve. The learning curve alone is a major barrier for new players. How many kids will put their tokens into a pin, play one ball, and then walk away having not even finished their game? Not only are we not getting them interested in playing again they often don't even finish the first game.

Kids these days expect structured activities run by adults. They literally don't know what to do with themselves, other than watch TV or surf the web, if there is no structured activity. IMO the only way kids today are going to be pulled into pinball is via structured play that has a guide and a purpose. Kids now are different than we were.

I don't think women avoid pinball because of theme but the themes sure don't attract women. I think women avoid pinball because the arcade environment in general doesn't appeal to them. Women are emotionally social creatures. There is nothing emotionally social about an arcade. They like to have conversations and interact in ways that are difficult at best in a loud flashy environment. Men actively avoid these things and enjoy shiny things with flashy lights. Men like to be around each other, but not necessarily communicate with each other, except for a limited amount of generally agreed on common subjects (e.g. sports and movies). The arcade environment is perfect for men as it is designed to appeal to the way men like to socialize.

It's really not more complicated than that. If people want to open the arcade up to the average women they have to soften the environment and make it more emotionally social. Maybe the Barcade/coffee arcade concept is the way to accomplish this. Half arcade so women can get in some pin and then half pub so they can go sit and talk with their friends in between games.

Yeah, that's a whole lot of generalization, but it probably has a lot of truth to it.

We're definitely converging here. There are no such locations in this area of that type of which I am aware. Not in Boston, not in Providence, not in MA or RI. Not in NH. Here we have arcades, we have gamerooms in larger entertainment centers, and we have bars. I don't know of anything else open to the general public.

I think the intro curve here would shorten greatly when there are some older games in those combo type places. Games that give people the pinball feel without a burdensome Stern ruleset.

...and if you did the same thing with Pokemon you would attract kids.

Younger kids become older kids in the blink of an eye. That 6 year old Pokemon fan will be a foot taller before the pin is off route.

Hell, if you capture a 12 year old, he might be a foot taller before the game is even dirty. My older son grew about 10" from 12.5 years to 13.5 years.

And yet it's still extremely popular with kids in 2nd grade. You have a cross section of people from age 5 all the way up to college stuudents. Sounds like a winner to me. I know a whole bunch of elementary school kids that are obsessed with Pokemon. Most of them aren't old enough to know a thing about Marvel but they can tell you the entire history of Pokemon from well before they were born up to release dates for things months into the future.

Seriously, Pokemon is one of the biggest and longest living cash cows out there. It's heading into its second generation of American kids and still going strong.

Yep. My kids have all of the original Gameboy Pokemon games. They've played them so much they wore out the 2032s inside the cartridges and have been bugging me to swap them out. Games won't save anymore.

Here's a good example!

Saturday was the New England Pinball League spring session finals in Pelham, NH. 40 or so people in all split up into three divisions that had been determined by league standings. A/B/C divisions with equal prizes in all divisions. Also a Z division for those who either didn't post enough scores to qualify or wanted to try the concept out for the first time. Entrant quality ranges literally from past PAPA World Champion to newbie player.

A 13 year old ties for first place in B division and loses the tiebreak to end up in second place. C division is won by a ~14 year old and third goes to a ~14 year old. There are a couple of kids in Z as well.

This is a wonderful example of kids not only interested in pinball but succeeding in truly competitive play. Granted, I'm pretty sure all of these kids have pins at home so it's not a typical example, but these kids are playing in the adult pool and winning.

It's not as if only one thing is the issue. Of course access is the #1 issue. Doesn't matter if the game is "Wedding Prep" if there aren't any on location to be played.

Once you get access, though, theme does become important. You're not going to see women waiting to pay Big Buck Hunter.

(Does anyone line up to play Big Buck Hunter? I've never seen one anywhere.)

But are they the ones playing pinball? It's pretty easy to think the arcade full of kids means kids are playing pinball when they are really cramming fistfuls of tokens into redemption machines.

If you would not buy them then how are they going to end up in your game room?

Moms have secrets too.

I'd love to see a source on that.

That's an indirect quote of an offhand comment with no numbers behind it. Gary Stern is known to flip comments out like that because they sound good at the time. Maybe it's true but it sure doesn't pass a sniff test.

It's not straight from the horse's mouth. It's not even a quote. It's a mention of something that was said. There is probably a reason he didn't use a real quote.

Burden of proof is on the presenter of a fact... I'm not saying it's wrong... I'm just saying we have no reliable evidence proving it.

News outlets that are any good are super resistant to making changes once something is published online. Once it's past the editors, and pushed out as "published" it's usually not going to change unless there is a litigation threat. Even if it's wrong they just don't care once it's out there.

I don't think themes need to be aimed at kids and women. I'd like to see some that are a little less "46 year old white male" centric, though, when it's not a superhero movie.

It does change the equation pretty dramatically to have everything on freeplay. It takes away the limits of how many tokens are in someone's pocket. They are more likely to try something they ordinarily would not if they aren't paying per credit.

Maybe that's the best way to get nontraditional players to try new things. Freeplay with an entrance fee.

$70 for 5 people in an arcade for 6 hours is a decent deal. I would bring my kids to a high quality $14 arcade all the time. Hell I bring them to places where the pins are .50 to 1.50 for 5-6 hours at a stretch. It's spendy for sure.

I own a really nice Ep1 and I like it. I concede that it really misses the mark in terms of potential and I'm a bit of a Pin2k fanboy.

Usually a "museum" has to have a certain amount of antique games in order to get that type of license. Does this place have a website? I'd love to see more.

The Teenage metalheads I know don't enjoy ACDC and Metallica. They can't be bothered with grandpa's music.

You guys who want to see pinball on TV should check out PAPA.org. They are working on that, and IMO, they are getting close. They are getting closer than anyone else ever has. They have videos of world championships complete with commentary and analysis, they have straight gameplay vids, and they have ~25 min game tutorials with a world class player. The first PAPA Circuit Final of 2013 (which is *tomorrow*, BTW) will be streamed live over the internet on Ustream and GGTV.com.

I agree completely that TV will change everything and these guys have been working their asses off for years to get us there. They are close. I'm surprised more people here aren't aware of this stuff. Maybe if the awareness becomes more comprehensive among us then it will be that much closer to spreading outwards.

I don't know where they "officially" announced it but details can be found here:

http://papa.org/blog/2013/04/pinburgh-one-week-away/

It's possible they are keeping this one a little bit low key since it is a first attempt.

Most games have original music so it wouldn't be too hard to stick to games that do not have third party licensed music. It would really only be an issue for that set of old white rock band games.

http://www.ustream.tv/geekgamertv

PAPA Circuit Finals happening LIVE *right now*. Streaming video with excellent color commentary. Very cool.

Yep, I am especially impressed with the quality of the commentary. Bowen is great.