I grew up with EM and early SS games, and while I liked the occasional short DMD animations, for me the hires video is absolutely unnecessary. I want to play pinball, not a video game.

You have to keep in mind that one of the goals of a pinball company is to stay in business. One way to do that is to keep creating fans of their product in a time when all of the younger people have a hand held device which contains an infinite amount of competition. They have to do something that draws new people in and competes against the phone. Once they're drawn in, pinball itself can hold its own against any app on a phone, but they still need something to create that initial draw.

I took my 3 boys (8,11,13) to a pool hall that has 79 pinball machines. When we walked in, where did they immediately go to? The row of Jersey Jack machines. They've grown up with colorful apps, so for them, this was familiar. After the initial draw, they moved around to most other machines, hitting plenty of the new sterns, wpc or system 11 machines. They really didn't have any interest in things older than that.

So, if large screens are what it take to keep the business going, I'm all for it.

I like games with dmd’s not because they have dmd’s, but because they’re more complex games with deeper rules compared to SS or EM games. The dmd is the most useless part of dmd games. A bit tv screen probably doesn’t add enough new gameplay to make it worth it.

That makes no sense. It's like saying a flip phone is better than a smart phone. The display is important to not only give your score but instructions and animations. Animations are unnecessary but so are light shows, art, and sounds. These all add up to improve the whole experience. JJP games would look completely inadequate and difficult to understand if you took out the large gorgeous displays and replaced with a simple numeric display for score

I like some of the games with the lcd display, but overall I'm not a fan of the display itself. Some games are better than others for this, but I often find myself trying to search the screen for a piece of info. Unless the ball is stopped somewhere, you have a second or two to try and find this info on a screen full of animations and craziness before your ball drains. I'd much prefer a game tell you what you're trying to do with the light show and call outs. I get that they look cool, and might draw in players who wouldn't otherwise be interested, but for me the screen is just a big distraction.

Personally I've always preferred dots over the LCD. Often times it seems like most companies who use the LCD don't have the resources to make it look great. JJP is probably the only exception. Stern is getting there, but some of their animations look pretty meh, and American Pinball really should have stuck with DMD... That is if DMD was still commercially viable. Unfortunately it seems like we've reached a point where most pinheads would ridicule a new game if it used a DMD, even if the animations were to look better that way. I think the choice between DMD and LCD should be up to the creative team on each game, not something that you *have* to use now.

I will say I do like that LCDs can show more info so I don't have to use "instant" info as much as on older games.

My only issue with screens are a lot of them are poorly designed from both an aesthetic point of view and from a design point of view where the information it is trying to convey to the player isn't well executed. LCD's enhance the game, they certainly don't take anything away from the game. It's just how well is it implemented. (Plus the screen can be fun for other people watching someone else play)

I have to admit, the displayed video when you kill Smaug in JJP Hobbit is very satisfying.

Plasma DMDs are more than obsolete and LED DMDs are still niche and expensive to manufacture. 27" LCD panels have much more market penetration and as a result are more cost effective to make.

BM66 is a game where the lcd video really adds to the game.

Rob

If people don't like the LCD for whatever reason fair enough . But what I don't get is that people can't look up and down , you have so many opportunities to look up during a game , when you hit an orbit , when you shoot a ramp , when you lock a ball , there's lots of opportunities to quickly look up . The only time I don't look up is during a multiball when I concentrate on the bottom third of the Playfield . When done right like the Hobbit and Batman it adds a lot to the game experience .