My son was the one who told me “dad, you HAVE to buy Metallica”, when he was about 16. My wife was interested in Led Zep. I think Stern is making good theme decisions, even if they are in a bit of a rut with Marvel and classic rock. I’m looking forward to more sci-fi and horror-themed games from them; I love STH and TWD.

Out of all the games I own, the only one that my son says he wants and I can never sell is Time Fantasy. If you want an evergreen theme, it’s hard to beat marijuana and getting stoned. Personally, I’d like a microbrewery pin.

I don’t think we should be so quick to dismiss the online challenge idea. We’ve often had challenges in the Club threads, and I’d love to register my pin in a challenge (with my Pinside username) and have it post all my stats at the end of the game - maybe with an opt-out for bad games. These don’t even have to be score-based. It could be “most combos” or “highest mode score” or “best demogorgon multiball”. There are lots of creative possibilities.

“It’s less fun to compete”??

Clearly you’re not hip to the online dart scene (for example). Competing against someone in another country is hella fun. If you don’t see the point, I’d guess you don’t play in casual tournaments. IDGAF if someone else’s game is set up at a different angle, or is “easier”, it’s still fun to compete and trash talk.

We aren’t talking about “online play”. We’re talking about pushing scores and achievements online in real-time, so we can have a friendly competition. You guys can trash-talk the idea all you want; I think it’s going to happen and it will grow the player community.

Rarehero and Bublehead in 2002: “Why in the world would anybody want to record a show and watch it later?”

You’re rowing upstream, Greg. Things are changing, and they always will. How many pinball tournaments do you remember in the 90’s? Yeah, me neither.

Put down your tablets, Moses. Let other people enjoy things.

Absolutely nobody in this thread has said that. Ya’ll need to lighten up. It’s not going to destroy pinball if someone connects a pin to a server.

Let’s get back to talking about bad theme ideas, like Thomas the Tank Engine.

I disagree with the OP, and I knew this thread would turn into a dumpster fire. The thread turned into a discussion about how to make pinball more engaging for a more connected world. That’s not just “kids”, I’m in my 50’s and I’m much more online than I used to be. jwilson almost gets it - Scorebit wouldn’t exist, if there wasn’t a demand for the kinds of things Darscot and I are talking about. But it shouldn’t be necessary to bolt on a huge $300 board to make this happen. Stern could add Wi-Fi to the CPU node board for less than $20, and charge $50 to enable the functionality. That’s what I’m hoping will happen, and what I’m expecting will happen. Complaining about progress like that is just a pointless waste of time.

What bothers me most about this thread is that some of you think that pinball needs you to be the “gatekeepers” of what pinball should be. I get it, I didn’t like LEDs when they first came out (too bright, and there wasn’t a way to dim them early on). I don’t like having my picture taken by a game. I’m sure if you go back far enough in my posts, you can find me bitching about change. But at least I have the self-awareness to be embarrassed about them now.

It’s not for you, it’s for tournament players. Feel free to follow me to this thread if you want to keep debating it.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gary-stern-confirms-wi-fi-coming-tournament-play-through-the-cloud/page/3#post-6354051

OP, the whole premise of this thread is wrong. Most of us who’ve been here a while are hoping for a correction, at least for used games. The phrase “pinball depression” is ludicrous, especially right now.

We didn’t have tournaments here in GA until 2011. Guess what got me addicted to competition play?

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