Wichita, KS
Quoted from TractorDoc:After a few plays on Indiana Jones and Dirty Harry I switched over for a few games on Flash (also of the Williams variety) and wondered what prompted pinball scoring to move from the hundred thousands up to the hundreds of millions or even billions. . . Did scoring follow along with the national debt? Did one game maker try to outdo the other by making higher scores an incentive to buy their machines? Did people get bored of "low" scores? I know the EM machines were probably only in the thousands or ten thousands. . .
I kinda appreciated the simple scoring in Flash where a good ball/long game can produce a nice score vs. hitting a few good shots in the other games/getting a jackpot can double or triple my average. Perhaps that thrill of the occasional super high score is one more thing that keeps you playing the newer games.
Still have not hit the billions in either IJ or DH but working on it. . . wish my bank account could grow at the same rate pin scores have over the years!
" Did scoring follow along with the national debt? "
Something like that. Look at those old wood rails with pop bumpers scoring 5 points and 10 points when lit. In those days, you could buy a candy bar for a nickel, a 6 ounce Coke for a nickel, and a 5 ball game of pinball for a nickel. Candy bars went to a dime, 8 oz. Cokes were the thing, and pinball went to a dime.
Pinball was just keeping up with the times. In the 60s I remember my mom coming home from the grocery store bitching about how "5 dollars won't even buy a sack of groceries!" And pinball went to 100/1000 point pops.
