I knew this technique but not by the term staging. At any rate, why would one not like staging? It’s an additional technique you can do if you want to, but totally optional.

On my games that will allow it I do have the flipper switches adjusted so it can be done. My no good gofers is a game where it’s seemingly not possible due to there being fixed optos instead of leaf switches.

Ps - I also think there are probably few operators that would ever care or pay attention to dialing in a game enough to consider staging. Maybe some real pinheads.

That argument is so right. If you added extra buttons for staging, you are vastly increasing the complexity of the game’s interface to accommodate a tiny fraction of the player base. Which is the opposite of the basic product design principle to make things as simple as possible for the largest number of people.

I was at Stranger Things Experience in NYC this weekend. I saw a lot of new people playing the ST pinball they had there on freeplay. Anyone that thinks 4 flipper buttons is a good idea should observe players in the wild. One family started the game and kept pressing the action button on the lockdown bar to activate the flippers. They were getting really frustrated, thought the game was broke. I showed them the flipper buttons on the side. Other people did not know how to start a game. Other people said "aw shucks" and walked away after the first drain not knowing they get more than 1 ball. Now, clearly, these people aren't necessarily the main target audience for all location pinball play, but they are much closer to the target audience than the 0.1% of the audience that wants to do stage flipping. 4 buttons is not just perceived as more difficult because we've all been trained on two. It's inherently more complex cognitively, by a factor of about 4x. Quadruple the complexity. To appeal to 0.1%. Some pins have four buttons. Because something has been done does not mean it's a good design. The world is full of bad design, more bad than good. Anyway, I will cease now. Hot button topic for me as a video game, software, and product designer of 20+ years

That’s a great question my friend. Certainly people can learn and play games with complex controls. Any product has to be considered in context of its goal and setting. Imagine a coin-op game in a public location that is as complex as a PC shooter. Would it rake it money? Does it appeal to a wide enough audience? Is it easily approachable and learnable? Now admittedly pinball is crossing over into the home space, potentially changing its goal and context, but thus far as a product it has remained firmly rooted in it’s coin op legacy. Surely there could be a pin made with 4 buttons or even an Xbox controller that has all kinds of features intended to be learned over time ina home setting. And some hardcore pinheads would love it. Including me, probably. Does that mean there’s a big enough market for a company to pursue that? I don’t know, maybe! You be the judge.