Consider a break from podcasts and echo chambers and explore what style you enjoy.
This hobby has a lot more to offer than influencers and game rankings.

True, True, & True.

But it's not all Williams with these jackwagons; they like Bally & Midway too!

if you're looking for a hug, you might want to add your location.

Day drinking again?

Haven’t listen to a single podcast in over a year…
Pretty happy with that decision.

Btw Alien Star rocks.

His Pinside name says it all !

Are you possibly interested in the job?

I give free hugs but you have to tip me after

Name checks out.

Did I do that right?

And in the spirit of your comment I add my sincere affection for Sinbad and Countdown, among others.

Peace be with you.

Gottilieb makes better... EM pinball machines. Most pinball people agree on that one.

I owned pins most of my life. EM's both Gottlieb and Williams. My favorite was Williams Cue-T for some reason. Then came SS into reality. First was a couple of Data East games, then a Williams Whitewater. When I got a Gottlieb Stargate, and began to work on it, I saw in many ways how it was well designed. Just my opinion.

just not in the tipping forum any longer....

Just wait I’ll be back for the hat trick

Well there’s the problem!

Yes,
Yes, yes, NO!
NO!

Sys80b is awesome, and Sys3 is probably the most reliable pinball boardset ever designed.

My System 3s are quite popular on location. Gottlieb had it right! Theming was their weakness; if they could be rethemed with the code tweaked accordingly, they’d probably give a B/W row a run for it’s money. Their layouts are very fun to shoot.

All you System One haters (& I see your points), you have to admit that with a new board set: Ni-Wumph or Pascal all in one, Joker Poker is a great pin.

how many other people looked at his collection expecting to see Gottlieb,,,lol

To the op - do yourself a favor, lay off the podcasts, play what you like, don't let other people's opinions affect your thoughts or behavior, because that's all they are. Opinions.

I used to care what others thought
I bought the 'A' list titles
I bought the NIB

But then I realized that i like older games, so that it what I collect
I am just glad there are plenty of games out there to choose from

After being in the hobby for 10 years, it's my opinion that Williams/Bally is FAR superior to Gottlieb in the 80s and 90s and it's not even close. Games were made with better quality, layouts are better, rules are better, feel is better, etc. I think the music was better on Gottlieb. I find myself humming Gottlieb tunes all the damn time.

If we're going back into the 70s and earlier, it's pretty much neck and neck imo. Joker Poker is one of my favorite games all time, a Gottlieb classic!

Eh, ignore the pinball snobs. Data East FTW!

Your profile says you own 1 game, a 1975 Williams.

I think all pinball machines are awesome, so let that be my vote.

You must see the irony though, right?

It's like going on a Chevy site and shitting all over Ford while driving a Focus....

Wait a minute. You give hugs? Why is this the first I am hearing about it?

I’ve been through some Gottliebs: Stargate, Victory, Count-Down. I still have some Gottlieb EMs: Centigrade 37, Quick-Draw, Abra-Ca-Dabra.

Selling Stargate is one of my biggest regrets. It was a near-perfect example. I got it for $1200, and sold it for $1200. Very fun game with satisfying shots. I only sold Count-Down because I wanted an EM, and it had a faded flaking backglass.

Let’s talk about system 80B (Gottlieb Premier). A lot of those games had photoshopped translites that faded badly over time. The cabinet heads are a different shape, so they stand out in a row of games. Some of these games had horribly imbalanced rulesets. But as I’m going through the list now on IPDB, I see a bunch of these that I’d be proud to own:

Robo-War
TX Sector
Spirit
Arena
Amazon Hunt (SS reskin of Quick Draw)
Bounty Hunter
Excalibur
Genesis
Hollywood Heat

I’d actually love to visit a collector who specialized in Gottlieb Premier. A lot of these games are rare, and I hardly ever get to play them.

You need to spend a little more time thinking about your subject line, though I admit “this hobby” made me click because I thought it might be a dumpster fire thread, and those are always fun.

You think now is bad.....this is NOTHING compared to 2012. Stern hadn't really "arrived" yet...their best games were LOTR and TSPP. JJP hadn't released WOZ yet. All other manufacturers were here yet.

B/W absolutely dominated the scene back then.

I havent listened to a single pinball podcast. Gottlieb made some good SS games but they aren't up to snuff with Bally/Williams IMO (System 3 I find pretty lackluster on the whole). People hopping on a bandwagon of hating on one particular thing is pretty common behavior. Play what you like

Mid 2000s stern is prob a lost cause but silverball covers why that is in one of their episodes.

I ageee these podcasts could get better at explaining some of the lesser known titles.

Nascar seems like it was a step in Stern trying to expand its reach into an untapped entertainment industry around racing. It has a lot going on and tries to call reference to a number of racing things and ties in PLD as the design group responsible. Does a making-of video even exist like how they made those for bw titles? Id be curious why they chose some elements and the concept for the race track.

Most importantly i want to know how they got such a basic dmd illustrator that looks like all they knew was mspaint and seemingly couldn't even draw a 3box sedan at any more than a gr3 level...

My first impression is always how much fun is a pin is to play, and many B/W pins have great combination of entertaining elements that add up to "B/W magic". Playing in tournaments in SC, GA, and FL I experience great collections of weirdo classic titles from every manufacturer and I would never come to love titles like Volley and Stars without tournaments.

I REALLY enjoy system 1 games. When I think classic rules and classic design, I think system 1. Id love to aquire more (with pascal boards)

maybe you should consider it as a new hobby. weed works wonders too.

Whatever nonsense is spewed on a podcast has zero bearing on “this hobby”. This hobby IS exactly and only what YOU choose to make of it. I like a lot of games for a lot of different reasons… you do you.

Podcasts. Pfffffffffttttt.

I've never listened to a podcast about anything. I like music.

If you think everyone is hanging off B/w nuts these days and hating on gottliebs then you haven't been in this hobby for very long. It was way way way way worse back in the day. All the new Sterns were cheap junk and couldn't hold a candle to the mighty B/W games (well the good ones at least). There was no JJP or AP or Spooky or anyone else. Gottliebs were for really broke people and weirdos or people with massive collections. Still, it was probably half or less of the B/W games that were loved (particularly in the DMD era). You had your A titles- MM,AFM, CC (just because it was rare), CV, TOTAN, TZ, Addams, IJPA ect. B titles: HS2, STTNG, BSD, and so on. Then you had games like Gilligans island, junkyard, hurricane, and a few others that people just HATED. Those were the gams getting parted out all the time to keep peoples Addams Families going. Some of those titles are still fairly disliked, and others have softened and become more liked in recent years (particularly junkyard which is baffling to me). DE's and Sega's were all considered junk other than maybe GNR too and thats certainly softened up a LOT these days, particularly for DE games.

As far as Gottliebs being hated, I don't know, theres so many noobs and casusals in the hobby these days that even those games are unusually loved. Games like Street Fighter 2 which are absolutely horrific have people simping for them all the time. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of system 3's still suck. This is mostly due to Gottlieb's shitty code due to how they cranked games out of the factory in those days. Also the weird flippers don't help. They have oddball layouts a lot of the time that actually have some nice potential if the code was ever good. Yes and they are built like tanks and some of them earn very well on location with noobs and casuals.

System 80's of all generations got a bad reputation back in the day that they still to this day have a hard time recovering from. Theres only a handful of truly good ones. Some other ones are neat just because they are so weird and wacky but overall aren't great games.

Basically, this is a long way of saying, yeah...the love and hate for certain games/eras is still true but softened these days, but theres a lot of validity to why people felt/feel this way.

Ya'll need some Zacarria tables in your lives

There is a lot to unpack in the stylings and usage here. I have no opinions on the content, just hypnotized by the capitalization choices of William/bally and bally Williams and the poetic indentation choices. Consider me a fan.

I’m a weirdo, here’s the last machine I picked up.

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Genie is a great game! Simple but addictive rules. With all those flippers lined up, you would think you could never lose. That is definitely not the case!

Phenomenal

I like Genie! Key word in my meandering rant was "were". Back in the day people just didn't want the gottliebs. They are much more appreciated now.

You're missing the point you just made.

Everyone loving Bally/Williams means that Gottliebs are cheaper

I love my sys1 Countdown, but I've had it 3 months and it's already going. It's too simple to be an only game.

I've always loved Gottlieb's flippers.

Such a different play style.

I wouldn't try to put them on a Bally/Williams game, but whenever I get a chance to play a well-dialed-in Gottlieb I really enjoy myself.

On their own merits, outside of the historical context that they were produced in, Gottlieb pinballs can be quite remarkable.

I still find Cue Ball Wizard a fun game to play. I think that Rescue 911 is the best Gottlieb ever made. I know a lot of people are looking at Stargate, but I haven't put any time playing it for the last decade (all the examples I had in front of me were in too poor a condition for me to consider playing) I'm willing to be convinced that Stargate is superior to Rescue 911, I just haven't played it enough.

On it's own merits, Goldwing is a fine playing pinball.

There are two things that have always held me back from recommending / actively pursuing Gottliebs.

One is build quality. Gottliebs were not made to be easily serviced relative to what Bally / Williams was offering at the same time.

The second is no bulb saver technology. On my showroom, I might have a game for a year or two before I sell it. Williams/Bally have a Zero-cross circuit that SIGNIFICANTLY extends the life of the approximately 160 light bulbs in the game.

About every 9 months my Street Fighter II pinball would need every 'bulb has turned black but still burning' and 'bulb is burnt out and mirrored', bulb replaced.

It's not THAT big a deal, but it's more work to keep the Gottlieb's in great presentation condition relative to any pinball with bulb saver technology.

Now, I was coming around.

I was thinking that 'OK, now that Bally / Williams are getting quite a bit older, and starting to take quite a bit more work to keep 100% than they used to, I'm prepared to say that Gottliebs and Bally / Williams are about equal in reliability'.

Then I had a rash of six Gottlieb service calls in one month, and I just can't say that. They might be equal in reliability, but the serviceability advantage of Bally / Williams gives them the edge.

If I had room for ten pinballs, Countdown would be one. So I'm not against Gottliebs... but I generally don't sell them. Just a bit harder to service, and they aren't as generally desirable.

Currently on the Pinside top 100, there isn't a single Gottlieb machine in the top 100.

There are only 9 represented in the 100-200 listings.

Flat out - customers don't like them as much. They aren't winning the popularity contests.