Pinball by definition is a social game. Inner linking of games through wi fi with your friends around the country is only a matter of time. You could have a four player game and watch your friends game from across the country on the LCD screen while it was his turn with his score reflecting on your machine.

I think this is coming in the next few years. JJP has talked about it. The Predator boys even someone talked about it (not the LCD screen but using wi fi).

Quetzal Nemo will do this. Pin to be delivered this year.
http://quetzalpinball.com/
"Set up the wifi connection and you will be able to upload your high scores to Internet, download new updates or new rules"

Yes I am waiting for pinball to evolve and add new things. Skit pinball has some neat features on tracking shots and unlocking codes based on certain things completed.

Perhaps if they made a live stream requirement for each competition as you played this would eliminate some of the potential for cheating.

Watch the live stream on your own games LCD screen while the other player is playing. The two machines could communicate to make sure both are on the same rules. You could even install an extra speaker just for trash talking or encouragement (as the case may be) from the other player. Endless possibilities.

Would think there would be too many machine variants to consider to even think of having universal high scores.

So someone figured out to get data from the Stern motherboard using Raspberry Pi. He's currently using the integration to auto tweet scores. I can see that this could be easily enhanced so that there is a REST interface to pull a whole bunch of data more than just scores and a web based console to control wifi and social media integration. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/auto-tweeting-high-scores

Anyhow back on topic, you can then use twitter as the database and just query against that data. That way scores are optional.