While reading many of the user stories here on Pinside, I was struck by the number of them that state that they fell in love with pinball as a kid. It was a different era when pinball was everywhere and arcades were plentiful so it was not that hard to find tables to play but then I started to wonder how kids are getting exposed to pinball these days.
Earlier this year I was playing Pinball Arcade on my Xbox One with my kids when my nine-year old made an off hand comment about the rules and why the drain hole was always at the bottom of the screen and why would they could not mix it up. This caught me off guard and then I realized that she had never played a real pinball machine before and had probably never even seen one in person. She did not even know the table was slanted on an incline so the ball had to drain towards the bottom, she thought it was just a video game genre like endless runners or match-three games. As I explained real pinball to her I could see it really wasn't clicking for her so we took the three hour drive up to Funspot so she could get some hands on time along with my son. After that we looked for local places to play pinball in Rhode Island and there just are not any locations for kids to get the exposure to pinball; we have 21+ Arcade Bars and private clubs but no real places to spend time playing with the kids.
This got me thinking and I would like to know what it is like in your area. Are there places to play pinball with the kids? Do kids even know what pinball is? Has anybody done a kids only league (outside of the tournaments at conventions)? We have been to many all ages pinball places like Pinball Wizard in NH, Silverball Museum in NJ, The Strong Museum in NY and there have always been plenty of kids playing with the machines which is great for kids in that area but how is it in your neck of the woods? Are kids even important to the future of pinball or will this be a hobby that shrinks with time as the players who were introduced early die off? What do your children/nieces/nephews/grandkids/neighbors kids think about pinball and the tables you own?
Thank you in advance for any thoughts on the matter!