IE Pinball was robbed!

I seriously doubt the general public was watching last night. Or even in on the voting. Or would even know what they were voting for.

Made by pinball people. For pinball people. And pinball people do the voting.

Pinball is supposed to be fun. And TWIP adds to it.

LTG : )

I just made a quick reading of the winners.

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!

It’s a great time to be a pinball fan.

Awesome job loved the show

Stern's so called mod was I am sure a with-held game feature later released as the playfield had art to be exposed with the kit - the mod category should be about celebrating what the community creates not the pinball manufacturers.

As for homebrew: I think to be considered it should be:
- flipping
- good set of rules to play a full game,
- art
- sounds
- in a completed cabinet if not it waits to the following year.

Not dishing on Jack Dangers game that won last year as it looks to have a cool layout and the theme sounds real cool but it probably should not have made the voting cut for that year to be up for voting and should not have won - rather be between Spaceballs or Rotodave's Led Zep should of been considered

Also I don't agree with committee members able to fast track a machine / mod into the final category - if it is a vote by the public it should be just that.

voting (resized).png

all 3 of those words mean the exact same thing. but you already knew that, cuz you're clearly perfect.

What determines that a homebrew 'cannot be commercially made'? I assume the technically is 'as-is' - e.g. like it has a theme that would needs licensing? Let's not forget that homebrews can and have launched careers, with TNA and Archer / Iron Maiden.

Out of curiosity, why would you be worried about having too many categories?
I assume it’s so it doesn’t get “watered down”.
I would think more would be better, as long as they are legit well though out categories and didn’t turn into an “everybody gets a trophy” sort of scenario.

in regards to a pinball promoter who was part of the committee was able to vote for one of the categories and bring them straight into the final round of voting

as for the homebrew category - it is hard to define but it should be fair to those putting in the hard work creating these masterpieces - it should be at a point where it could go to a show, or play with a few mates and apart from programming tweaks is generally fun and finished - not a game that is still being made - sorry to say but I can't find video of Jack Dangers game from last years win and up to Dec 2019 was still a playfield in design and build progress... which is a kick in the guts to Space Balls and Rotodave's Led Zep

RE: Mod category - This should absolutely be two separate categories if pitting manufacturers against after market companies. Call the manufacturer category best accessory and the other best mod.

RE: music category - just like the Oscars, the award should be for best ORIGINAL music. If you must include a second category, then make it for best music (non-original). That’s the only fair way to do it.

Just my $0.02

Simply put... neither the UV kit nor shooter rod are 'mods' - They are simple OEM accessories. Just like we can buy roof racks, mud guards, diffusers, etc for your car from the manufacturer.

Mods as commonly referred to should be 3rd party modifications for something. If they called their category "Best Pinball Accessory" then it would make a lot more sense for what they have been encompassing. It could be a headphone jack, a blanket, a 3D printed something, etc.

The way 'mods' are commonly used, if they wanted to limit it to just that.. they could say
- Third party accessory or modification that is installed IN or ON a game

(That definition would keep it tight to eliminate the idea of something like a lift table, blanket, tool, etc)

Then they could have "Best New Pinball Accessory of the Year" - which could emcompass tools, OEM accessories, mods, or other crazy new ideas that improve or help your pinball ownership... and "Best New Pinball Mod of the Year" - which would be limited to the 3rd party accessories or modifications that people put into their actual games.

Agree. Perhaps...
Category 1: best after market mod.
Category 2: best manufacturer cash grab

Strangers Things wasn’t a mod period end of story. Why isn’t a mod? Okay.

The add on didn’t do anything that wasn’t already buried into the game. The mod didn’t create the blacklight illusion it was already part of the play field. The mod didn’t make that happen it was already planned as an upsale.

How can it be a mod when Stern planned it from the beginning? When Stern sells a limited edition that blacklight should have been a feature rather than paying for it later. It can’t be a mod when it was planned to be part of the game before the game was even boxed up. Hopefully you see the point.

The Elvira crypt was something someone saw could be a part of the game after the fact, something the manufacture didn’t see when designing the game.

If we’re going to let manufactures win best mod, then you might as well throw sterns light up shooter rods, or their art blades, or their cool side armor.

A mod has to be something someone created after the fact not something that was already dreamed up prior to selling the first game. I’ll bet you any amount of money that feature was on the game day 1 and Stern came in and said you know we could break that off and up sell it. Tell me I’m wrong. That isn’t a mod its a great idea but not a mod.

Just my two cents.

To me if you’re going to have best mods for 2020 should have been the SHIP for POTC, Casket Mod for Elvira, and Twlight Zone back screen.

Granted the Stranger Things ‘lighting mod’ was very cool but it should have come with the game out of the box at least on the LE.

100% this.

Manufacturers release (and sell) accessories for their pins, they do not, by definition, release mods, which are after-market modifications of the manufacturer products. And I'm not sure encouraging MORE breaking out/charging extra for things that manufacturers should have included WITH the pins is a good idea to encourage anyway, so a "best accessory" category is probably better left on the scrap heap and just tighten the mod rules, IMO.

IMO, Medisinyl got robbed on that mod category. Those Elvira mods he did were ridiculously good thematically. Without Stern at the top of the mods category for their accessory, he would have had a chance of being recognized for that work.

If it allowed for broader recognition, you could do like the emmys do and have the broadcast and non-broadcast awards. Broadcast the topline categories on the live show and just have one segment that reads the winners only from the non-broadcast segment. It'd allow you to give out 6-8 or so more awards at the cost of only one segment's time, basically as long as it takes to read the winners over a video montage of what they did, 3-4 minutes max.

Logan Arcade in Chicago is the TWIPy Favorite Pinball Location for the third straight year.

2410 West Fullerton. Not far from the expressway. Not a bad part of Chicago. If you're ever here, make that a stop. Optimistic that it will be properly open to the public in the summer sometime, after we can get some more shots into arms around here.

Honestly ... I could give two shits about these popularity contests, but I’ve been asked many times about this so here’s my bit.

My Led Zeppelin wasn’t even considered for last years “home brew”

I get that mine was more of a retheme, although I added new playfield features etc, it was mostly still a Freedom machine.

As such, maybe a “retheme” category would be appropriate.

There is a lot more work goes into programming a machine from scratch, creating rules etc etc, which is what I’d consider a “home brew” as per the current award.

However - the fact that last year a machine that was nowhere close to being finished won this category was a real slap to the guys who had spent 100s of hours making *completed” machines. And just showed that the awards are just a popularity contest.

That’s my 10c.

rd

Biting my tongue off.

A "best retheme" would be a great category, for sure.

I agree with the slap to the face for others

I approached Jeff a few years ago to have this category added as a recognition for the awesome work done by you and the many others - a retheme is still alot of work as well and at least should of been listed for the public to vote for.

The Sonic win this year is a cool game and good to see the dutch game Haunted Mansion got second. Last years was disappointing.

Speaking of home brew... I think the only games that should be considered are games that are FINISHED! I give all the home brew guys much credit much credit however that Sonic game isn't done is it? I would imagine he's adding artwork to the playfield, cabinet art, all the final lighting, bells and whistles. Maybe I'm wrong because I don't follow a lot of the home brew stuff but the winning game doesn't look done. It appears he's still working on the game thru this thread.

I want to vote on a finished product! I want to compare an apple to an apple, meaning no matter what the designer of the home brew declares FINISHED! Then and only then can you judge one against another. If they don't plan on printing artwork on the playfield I'm okay with that as long as the designer says the game is DONE no more updates to their thread. If the sonic game is 110% done great and that would go for all the games. Lets vote on games that the designer declares are 110% done!

Just my two cents don't want to vote EARLY on a game in progress.

Speaking of adding new categories let me make a few suggestions. Considering the TWIPY votes have only been an event the past few years we need to look back to the future.

When you're adding a lifetime achievement award I think its fair to say we need to look back and add some other options.

Game of the Decade: 1970 - 1980 - 1990 - 2000 - 2010 why not honor those decades and declare the best of that decade. How about nominating a pinball from the past to win a lifetime achievement award just as we would a designer or company CEO.

Wouldn't it be fun to honor the best game of each decade?

You can only vote on that award ONCE every TEN years! You could add in each decade one per year rather than all in one year. By the time you got all the way to 2010 you'd be giving the award for 2020-2029.

When you FINALLY get to 2010 you could have the TWIPY winner from each year so you'd have 10 Twipy winners... that's how you'd get nominated. So if we did 2010's you'd take all the twipy winners then simply choose year by year the rest. You'd have 10 nominations the best pinball from every year of that decade. You want to talk about prestigious award that would be the biggest of all!!!

I'd have to say Wizard of Oz would have to win best pinball of the 2010's because that game changed EVERYTHING... first color screen, movie clips, led's, tons of toys and mechs, amazing artwork but more than anything else it inspired the next generation of pinball games and gave birth to a new renaissance to pinball. That game made it possible for all these new pinball start up companies. WOZ had a huge impact.

Just a thought.

I got like 170 votes for my Homebrew and was so stinking excited that 170 people thought my machine was good enough to vote for. I took it to a show (pre-COVID) and met some cool folks there that introduced me to the TWIP. I am blown away. Its cool to have something like the TWIPYs to aspire for my little basement hobby. Great community. I can’t wait to show off my next build.

1070? I mean, I guess that was pizza invention timeframe, so maybe TMNT connection?

What did people think of all the Cameo appearances? I thought they were fun but I don’t think they needed quite so many. I’d almost prefer to see actual pinball people that are excited to be a part of the show rather than mildly famous people making paid appearances. And did anyone actually remember that Stranger Things guy? If only they could have gotten Barb

That small criticism aside I really enjoyed the show. Congrats to all the winners!

Cameos were really bad ass. A lot of surprises to me, loved how each one was pinball related in some way shape or form. Really an amazing highlight to the show to be honest.

I like the Shaq quote! We had over 5500 votes this year, voting is open to everyone and anyone. You make a good argument on Stern winning the mod category, should a manufacturer be allowed to win favorite mod? Last year they won as well, with the Jurassic Park amber shooter rod. We could do something where we do a separate mod category for manufacturers and another one for after-market creators? Worried about having too many categories though. Anyway, that is on the list to discuss for 2021.
Homebrew is one of my favorite categories but one of the toughest to define, because when is a game "finished"? The TWIPY Committee has spent HOURS talking about eligibility requirements for home-brews. Right now they are:
- Must be flipping
- Cannot be commercially made
- Home Brew machines can only be eligible for one year
- Creators will be contacted to help determine eligibility
So we reach out to all the homebrew nominees to make sure their game is flipping, and to let them know they can only be eligible for one year, and would do they want it to be this year. We've done that the last two years and it has worked pretty well.
Full eligibility document can be found here: https://twipys.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2020-Eligibility-Document-Updated-1_6_2021.pdf

don't listen to me man! I dunno why is even ranting. mostly all of the winners were deserving in my meaningless opinion.. like LTG says..pinball is for fun..and you definitely bring that.. great job!

I was a bit mystified (and I questioned) when I was contacted to enter Mad Max into home brew as it was a retheme but was assured that is what you wanted.
Sort of feel like the rethemes were thrown in as fillers for the category due to lack of available options. I agree there is a distinct difference.
Would have been nice I admit to have a pic or vid of my finished product I supplied you guys - not the empty cab pic you put up.

Anyway thanks for the effort and opportunity to be involved the amount of work that went into the project was incredible not just by me but by friends as well so thankyou again to all involved. My vote actually was with Steamboat Willy...amazing job there mate...loved it and the attention to the art was fantastic. Also in retrospect Dave your Led Zep build is amazing imo as well ....sublime.....hope we get to meet up one day.

I'm working through my next retheme right now, Jaws, but won't be involved next year.
I'll just keep it to a build and show thread on this awesome place we call Pinside and our local forum Aussie Arcade

A> Do we REALLY want to encourage Stern to leave more DESIGNED and ready parts of pins out and force people to buy them separately as accessories by giving them an award category?
B> Consolidate some of the lesser awards to non-broadcast and just summarize the winners of those categories on the broadcast

A> Homebrew should be a discrete category from retheme.
B> Homebrew should at least have playfield and cabinet art and a basic GUI working to be considered qualified. Higher bar than a whitewood with almost nothing happening on-screen. But, it should be.

I thought the cameos were very good. Some of them seemed really into the pinball vibe too.

Rob

Overall thoughts I gotta hand to TWIPY they did a fantastic job. The hosts did awesome as well. The cameo’s just awesome and shows at the end of the day there are a lot of pinball fans out there. There is only ONE award show in my opinion that matters and that is this one. Great job.

No one really touched the elephant in the room Kaneda podcast winning for the 100th time in a row. I actually didn’t think he would win again considering how they changed the voting, and the fact he’s shut down his podcast multiple times over the past year. But Kaneda did it again... I think he won because pinball podcast listens prefer a totally unbiased view good or bad rather than pinball sales pitches. Controversy sells its everywhere these days, just talking about pinball won’t be enough to secure the votes. So like him or hate him people want the drama and entertainment when listening to a podcast.

It’s going to be interesting to see if Super Awesome which has some edgy content can beat him out next year. The race is on... I wish they would announce who came in second because I would bet anything it was Super Awesome podcast.

They did announce the voting percentages:

https://twipys.com/2020-twipy-results-percentages/?fbclid=IwAR2DkIarYWg3wIg5MbrDYTEmRsPWF2OfApvqQkjzYp1HTSYRajdzdIP3TZU

SAPS was almost literally half as many votes as Kaneda. Wasn't even close. No, I don't get it, either. But I'm not really a podcast guy, so...

I have found myself not looking up and listening to the Pinball Network - not intentional just how I like to select just a show on itunes and download to a phone - maybe that is the case with other listeners

I liked it and watched the whole show to my surprise!
Don't agree with a few of the awards that GnR received though(as it's maybe a little overhyped)...

Liked all the cameo's a lot!
Great to see people like Elijah Wood promoting his LOTR machine, Hodor talking about the cool GoT machine etc!
That was a personal highlight for me to see them excited for the games they star in!
Especially to hints towards a BTTF and HP game were funny!

A job very well done to everyone involved!
Imoto and Jack did a good job of hosting it too.

Basically what Im reading is I can retheme my dragonballz and re enter it next year both in homebrew category and a new retheme category? Lol. I feel I would've got more votes if folks saw my game in action, maybe next year let the participants give you some YouTube links? DBZ is legit fun. And maybe some peeps couldve been swayed It's a shitload of work to ACTUALLY make a game from scratch and have it run correctly so having fleshed out art shouldn't be a requirement as suggested otherwise the homebrew field would be barren next year, if art is a requirement then having the game work flawlessly should be requirment too, just sayin'. I'm doing another EM homebrew and hope to put it in next year.

Fix #1 should still be to stop considering unfinished games.

I like sonic, but the game isn't finished.

I'm just looking forward to winning "Best Hollywood Heat Repro Ramp" once the number of categories are expanded to 300 or so.

All joking aside...this production is a pretty massive undertaking, and I don't know how Jeff and his crew find the time to pull it off. The show is meant to be entertaining and fun, and I think it fulfills both of these subjects quite well.

I was fortunate enough to play Dragonball Z while set up for free play at a local tournament.
This game played strong and was a BLAST to play. I witnessed DBZ being played by all without incident
for over 8 hours, outside, under a tent in the Florida heat.
Great Job Wisefwumyogwave.

I dont like that homebrew and retheme were lumped together.

I was looking through the voting and did not understand why Brazil did not win. They got the most votes.

EB44AB77-2AE4-48F8-A715-E818C6006CF5 (resized).png

Agree, something is very off here. Hoping it was a website typo, and not a vote-counting typo.

Do we REALLY think any such fan award thing has anything to do with their business decision to get into the accessories market?

Deleted

They got more first place votes - but not more points.

The voting is a ranked voting system - read the link at the top of the page

Of course not, but why encourage the behavior?