Its funny, when I was developing LEDs in China, Taiwan, and Malaysia, my contacts had no idea what a Pinball Machine
was.
I sent pictures, which was replied with, "OK" but no working knowledge.

For China, it took my rep around 3 months to find a friend that would give her access to US Internet. (illegaly)
She finally saw some videos!!
All of a sudden, many of the projects we were working on made more sense.

Playing a game for points, with keeping a ball active, and responding to mechs, lights and sounds, could not surpass
how they saw Pachinko, the advanced crazy versions, or one ball type Bingo.
The view was more to shoot, watch, reward.

The time spent playing pinball was confusing too.
This was accompanied by not understanding why their was no immediate financial or product reward.
Their games, constituted more "gambling" aspects.

This is the sad state of current arcades. The one in my local mall is 100% redemption, essentially teaching kids to develop the addictive response to gambling. This will likely end badly, at least in Europe and likely Canada, and it will give pinball a bad name because you can technically win free games. This has already caused issues for pinball via local bylaws.

Eh, that sort of blanket criticism was a lot more applicable 15-20 years ago. Chi-Fi has more than come into its own over the past decade, and many of the products DO in fact compete in performance, quality, and reliability with the USA/Euro/Japanese “big boys” (all of whom use at least some China sourced component parts, BTW). Of course there are still plenty of $300 amps for sale on Alibaba that crib 60s Mullard and RCA designs and are made with el cheapo parts, but I am referring to the genuine "high end" products.

I picked that Line Magnetic amp pic to use as they are a good example of a company that really can compete with the best (and at $6000 it really isn't THAT much cheaper to buy). Look closely, and you will see that there are no "cheap components" in that amp; in fact they actually use a good amount of expensive "audiophile" parts made in US/Europe/Japan, and certainly don’t skimp on the power supply design. (That particular amp weighs 85 lbs.) Also of note, the circuit design and topology (single-ended using 20s-era triode transmitting tubes with a modern power supply design) of this amp bears virtually nothing in common with the amp designs of the 60s.