Quoted from o-din:I cut my teeth playing EMS in the 70s and it was obvious to me Bally was starting to overtake the competition with the general look and feel of their games.
As they went solid state there weren't too many of their now popular titles in my area to play. Seemed most were Williams. History now shows Bally was at the top of their game in the early solid state era.
Spot-on, o-din. After restoring a dozen or so machines spanning the decades, it became quite clear to me how Bally began to take the lead in the early 70's. Backglasses got larger, playfields got DC rectification, the mechs were more robust and easier to service, etc... whereas Gottlieb was content to coast on their wave of previous successes. And boy did it eventually cost them.
If I had to pick a year, I'd say 1974 was the turning point. Gottlieb was still releasing quaint themes ("Out Of Sight/Far Out") while Bally was busy recruiting Norm Clark who was already playing with solid state tech. You can see the shift with Bow & Arrow... the huge backglass, fast gameplay, etc. which set the stage for the early Bally SS classic era (Harlem, Future Spa, Paragon) and then the Class Of '81 peak.
Sadly, '82 was pretty much a disaster with Bally being forced to take wild creative swings in every direction to fend off the video game craze and just couldn't do it except, ironically, by licensing a video game title - Mr. & Ms. Pac Man.
Williams didn't get their SS act together until Space Shuttle. Sure, they were cranking out huge numbers of games in the early days... but the artwork and overall execution was nowhere near as polished as Bally. I cringe every time I see a Flash backglass... geez.
Bally is my favorite manufacturer all things considered. Even after the WMS acquisition the brand still cranked out hits like the Elvira games, Mousin' Around, and Revenge From Mars. Gone but not forgotten *sniff*