During the live announcement today the second toy inducted into the hall of fame was Pinball. After the announcement Stern gave some comments about the industry for the gathered media.

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Photo credit: Martin Reinhardt live stream

This years 2018 finalists were:
* American Girl Dolls
* chalk
* Chutes and Ladders
* Fisher-Price Corn Popper
* Magic 8 Ball
* Masters of the Universe
* pinball
* the sled
* tac-tac-toe
* Tickle Me Elmo
* Uno
*Tudor Electric Football.

This years new inductees into the Hall of Fame:

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Complete list of Toy Hall of Fame inductees:

1.Barbie
2.Crayola Crayon
3.Erector Set
4.Etch A Sketch
5.Frisbee
6.Hula hoop
7.Lego
8.Lincoln Logs
9.Marbles
10.Monopoly
11.Play-Doh
12.Radio Flyer wagon
13.Roller Skates
14.Teddy Bear
15.Tinkertoy
16.View-Master
17.Duncan Yo-Yo
18.Bicycle
19.Jacks
20.Jump rope
21.Mr. Potato Head
22.Slinky
23.Silly Putty
24.Tonka Trucks
25.Jigsaw Puzzles
26.Raggedy Ann
27.Alphabet Blocks
28.Checkers
29.GI Joe
30.Rocking horse
31.Scrabble
32.Candy Land
33.Cardboard box
34.Jack-in-the-box
35.Easy-Bake Oven
36.Lionel Trains
37.Atari 2600
38.Kite
39.Raggedy Andy
40.Stick
41.Baby doll
42.Skateboard
43.Ball
44.Game Boy
45.Big Wheel
46.Game of Life
47.Playing cards
48.Hot Wheels
49.Dollhouse
50.Blanket
51.Star Wars action figures
52.Dominoes
53.Chess
54.Rubber Duck
55.Army men
56.Bubbles
57.Rubik's Cube
58.Puppet
59.Twister
60.Super Soaker
61.D&D
62.Little People
63.Swing
64.Clue
65.Wiffle Ball
66.Paper Airplane
67.Uno
68.Pinball
69.Magic Eight Ball

Text from the induction:

Pinball traces its roots to bagatelle, an 18th-century French parlor table game that challenged players to use a stick to shoot balls across a table filled with pins and scoring holes. But modern coin-operated pinball machines originated in 1931 as American manufacturers separated players from the bagatelle board (or “playfield”) with a piece of glass, incorporated mechanical systems to remove balls from the playfield, and added a coin mechanism to monetize game play. Later that year, David Gottlieb’s Baffle Ball helped ignite the pinball craze of the 1930s as the games entertained millions of people during the Great Depression.

During the 1930s and 1940s pinball designers and manufacturers introduced new features such as electrified scoring bumpers, chimes, and bells to add excitement. Playfields and “backglasses” positioned at the back of the playfield provided pinball manufacturers and artists with blank canvases for vibrant visuals often centering on popular trends, industry, fairy tales, and young women meant to appeal to mostly male players. The addition of electromechanical flippers on Gottlieb’s 1947 game Humpty Dumpty gave players the ability to control, aim, and fire a pinball across the game’s playfield. Flippers transformed pinball from a mostly static game of chance derided by social reformers who made it illegal in some parts of the United States to a dynamic game of skill that encouraged players to transfer the skills they acquired playing one game to another game.

By the end of the 20th century, electronic pinball machines offered players not only the opportunity to sharpen their eye-hand coordination by shooting a steel ball through a miniature playground of ramps, pop bumpers, and interactive toys, but also the challenge of following, analyzing, and mastering complex rules.

Today’s games often combine these elements with popular licensed media properties such as Marvel’s Deadpool comic book series or Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, which translate novel, comic book, film, and television narratives into dazzling and unique game experiences that saturate players’ senses with thundering sounds and spectacular light shows.

Thank you for the live stream! I tuned in right before the announcement!

Anyone know the three machines they had staged for the reveal? Looks like Stern Star Wars on the far right.

The museum has released the official induction text on their website:

Pinheads (or pinball enthusiasts, to the uninformed) rejoice! On November 8, 2018, pinball joined the 67 other iconic toys and games inducted into The Strong’s National Toy Hall of Fame. At its most basic level, pinball challenges players to use plastic flippers to control, aim, and fire a 1 1/16-inch stainless steel ball around a wooden playfield covered with objects and obstacles. It’s no surprise then, that pinball descended from centuries-old bowling, marble, billiard, and bagatelle games that all required players to roll (or forcefully strike) a ball into objects across a playing field. The first modern pinball machines originated during the Great Depression of the 1930s. These glass-covered, countertop “pin games,” which often featured fixed pins and scoring holes, were simple by today’s standards. But these games nevertheless entertained millions of people and paved the way for today’s dynamic, sensory-saturating pinball machines. But why does pinball deserve a place in the pantheon of playthings?

The Addams Family Pinball, 1992 Pinball is iconic. A product of America’s industrial past, pinball symbolizes the nation’s technological ingenuity. In 1930s and 1940s pinball machines were mechanical marvels. Today, their thousands of individual mechanical and electronic parts work together in a symphony of physical and digital play. Even if you’ve never played pinball, the game’s rectangular cabinet, sloped playfield, flippers, and metal balls are instantly recognizable. And to generations of people who grew up playing pinball, the sight of a game’s eye-catching vertical “backglass”—often decorated with beloved superheroes, celebrities, or monsters—or the sound of a familiar “call out” (or sound clip) such as Gomez’s voice from The Addams Family (1992) pinball shouting “Keep the ball I have a whole bucket full!” are invitations to play.

Pinball has enjoyed popularity over time and in various forms. Over the past nine decades, Americans played pinball in bars, amusement parks, arcades, restaurants, family fun centers, and other public places. Although, beginning in the 1930s, moral guardians fearing the spread of gambling and juvenile delinquency instituted pinball bans in major United States cities and the video game revolution of the 1970s and 1980s nudged pinball out of the public eye, the game never entirely disappeared. In fact, in the economic boom years following World War II, pinball machines remained staples of college dorms, bars, and home game rooms. Today, “barcades” run local and regional pinball leagues and tournaments and the International Pinball Flipper Association (IPFA) attracts more than 100,000 people to its events. But pinball has also thrived in other forms as nearly every home video game console since the 1970s has included a digital pinball game and one of the first computer games to allow players to create and customize their own in-game content was Bill Budge’s Pinball Construction Set (1983). Child-sized pinball games made to fit into tiny hands or on tabletops also remain popular toys for licensers.

Pinball fosters learning and discovery. The game offers players the opportunity to enhance spatial awareness and sharpen their eye-hand coordination by shooting and tracking a steel ball through a miniature playground of ramps, pop bumpers, and interactive toys. Playing pinball requires quick thinking and reflexes, but it also rewards patience, persistence, and following and analyzing sophisticated rules and complex orders of operation. Although many players are happy to just keep the ball in play, the most skilled players strive to master an individual pinball machine, attempting to experience all the modes, levels, mini-games, and novelties the game has to offer. The Cardboard Teck Institute’s PinBox 3000 has even turned designing, building, and customizing a cardboard tabletop pinball games into a fun way to learn math, science, engineering, and physics.

Pinball at the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show, 2016, Photo courtesy of Flickr user Kirk & Barb Nelson Pinball changed the way we play. There’s no doubt that pinball offered people new and exciting ways to play, but it also helped lay a foundation for video games. Steve Russell, a co-creator of Spacewar! (1962), one of the earliest computer games, described the dueling spaceship shooter game as “the most advanced, imaginative, expensive pinball machine the world has seen.” Many early arcade video games such as Pong (1972), Pin Pong (1974), TV Flipper (1975), Breakout (1976), and Video Pinball (1978) asked players to hit digital balls with virtual paddles or flippers, much like pinball. Video game designers even borrowed from pinball’s basic game structure of three balls and accumulating extra balls, translating it to “three lives” and “extra lives.”

Today pinball enjoys renewed interest as a new generation of digital natives appreciates the physical, tactile, and kinetic game play that’s easy to learn but difficult to master. In a digital age, Americans are just as likely to play pinball on their mobile phones or tablets as they are on a full-sized, mechanical-action machine that delights and immerses players with thundering sounds, electrifying light shows, and fast-paced play.

Source: http://www.museumofplay.org/blog/2018/11/pinball-flips-thumps-and-pops-into-the-national-toy-hall-of-fame?fbclid=IwAR0W6q4cnGYtT2PCV_faJKWnYCfiaOIXgXTr909RDcAWEFVAC7zjiUgBtwE