News Dump

Song of the Week

Going with something super fresh this week, Pause At You, from Liverpool’s Courting. This one dropped in late November and is off their upcoming album Lust for Life, Or: 'How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story'.

It caught my ear as a tribute of sorts to the kind of early-aughts indie rock I cut my teeth on (The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian) as I was discovering a world of music beyond the angsty nu-metal and emo punk rock that dominated MTV and radio stations as a youth. It’s raw and upbeat, with a catchy-as-anything drum beat and a chorus I can picture nodding my head to in some trendy clothes store targeting people way younger than me. Perfect track to throw on for a trip to the mall to wrap up your holiday shopping.

Sponsor of the Week

This Week in Pinball is gladly sponsored by our upcoming edition of The Pinball Community Awards, aka The TWIPYs! In case you missed the announcement last week, we’re running The TWIPYs live on February 22nd, 2025, at The Wormhole in Houston, TX.

Limited tickets are available now. 

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Pinball News of the Week

What’s New in Metallica?

Metallica Remastered games are hitting homes and arcades around the country, and launch parties are kicking off. If you’re about to get some plays in and want to have a better understanding of the changes between the original 2013 version of the game and today’s Remastered Edition, Noah Crable has you covered with a great breakdown of all the new code and gameplay features that you’ll want to understand. Rock on!

6 PinballFX Tables to Try Today

We don’t cover digital pinball as much as we should here, which is one of the reasons I’m happy that Noah pitched me on an article that could serve as a rundown of some of the interesting newer tables released on the popular digital pinball platform, Pinball FX. He spends a lot more time than I do playing digital tables between physical play sessions, so it was fun to read his detailed critiques of games like Goat Simulator and Crypt of the NecroDancer. So, if you get some downtime in the coming weeks and need a quick pinball fix, check out some of his recommended titles!

Stern’s Pinball Cup Begins

After a brief delay between the teaser and launch, Stern officially launched their Stern Pinball Cup competition through their Insider Connected app. Essentially, it’s a take on an objective-based pinball tournament with players engaging in a series of 6 week-long races, with each race coming with a series of in-game objectives that, when completed, earn the player points. Some challenges are easier than others, with the harder challenges earning the player more points. Qualifying starts today and runs through December 20th, with the first race starting December 21st.

Notes from the Australian Pinball Open

I received a dispatch from John Cosson (Dr. John of the Aussie Pinball Podcast) this week with a few notes from the recently completed Australian Pinball Open that I thought some might be interested in. I know this half-Aussie dude would love to go one day!

Here’s what he had to say about the event:

Strong Museum Adds to Collection with Steve Epstein Materials

I received a note from The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY, that they recently added a collection of donated materials from the family of Steve Epstein, the longtime owner of the famed Broadway Arcade in NYC and cofounder of the PAPA organization with Roger Sharpe.

According to the press release, donated materials include “correspondence related to publicizing the Broadway Arcade; a scrapbook with news clippings about the Broadway Arcade; photos of Steve and the arcade; proposals for new arcade-related businesses; business cards; PAPA reports and correspondence; promotional flyers, patches, pins, and other PAPA-related merchandise; copies of The Flipside pinball magazine he edited and published; proposals and design documents for unreleased games he worked on; 20 VHS and four audio cassette tapes with interviews and footage from the Broadway Arcade, pinball tournaments, and telethons; and two wooden bricks taken from the Williams Pinball factory floor and signed by former Williams pinball designer Steve Ritchie.”

That’s a lot of cool stuff! Some of these items are already on display, and others will be used in future exhibitions. Learn more here. 

American Confusion; New Layoffs & More

Slotting this story at the end of the news section of this newsletter because I’m not sure I have fully processed nor am I fully understanding everything that’s been going on at American Pinball lately. Up until a few days ago, it’s mostly been run-of-the-mill media confusion, with various podcasters and other outlets sharing and retracting published information about the company.

On the 9th, a lawsuit was filed against the company by former employee Paul Reno, who was on the design team for Galactic Tank Force. Details of the lawsuit are unknown at this time.

In the newest podcast with LoserKids (released today), Dave Fix revealed they had recently laid off long-time team members Steven Bowden and Jack Haeger, and are doing a mandatory shutdown between Christmas and New Years (the way Fix phrases this part is confusing, but my interpretation is that it’s an unpaid shutdown, where employees are using vacation time to cover it).

He also says that Barry O’s BBQ might come back as a white-label game (similar to Stern’s approach with some of their home model pins). And says that the American Pinball business unit is still “in the red” approaching the close of 2024. Through all of this, though, if you take Fix’s words at face value, it sounds like they are still pushing towards an upcoming release of their next title, rumored to be Cuphead.

I get the sense this story hasn’t completely played out yet, so it’s something I’ll be keeping an eye on at least.

Pinball Map Location of the Week

Ryan and Scott from Pinball Map run a regular series that highlights one new pinball location each week. This week, Ryan writes about Electric Dreams Arcade.

If you’re a pinball spot, and thus not a human, trying to make a name for yourself in Pennsylvania, you might be faced with an uphill battle. PA has three hundred and seventy-five locations with pinball and, get this, two thousand two hundred and sixty-three pinball machines. Over on the west there’s Pittsburgh with a whole smorgasbord of famous places to play, and over east’r there’s the great metropolis slamming into the banks of the Delaware River, called Philadelphia. In between is a wide swath known colloquially as “Central Pennsylvania,” peppered with locations nestled in the folds of the Appalachians.

If I were a pinball spot on the brink of being born in Pennsylvania, faced with the choice of where exactly I would like to plant my foundation and live out the rest of my days, immobile and desperate for attention, I might do what Electric Dreams Arcade has done and choose an unassuming burgh like Perkasie. Here at Pinball Map, we have indexed knowledge of every town that has a pinball machine, and so Perkasie was indeed on our radar. But it had only one location, named Crossroads, which kind of evokes a “you’re driving through and might go straight or turn left or right in this place, but whatever the case you’re probably not stopping” vibe.

But now, traveler, it’s time to stop. It’s time to settle in. Electric Dreams Arcade has 31 machines. They span the decades, starting with some spinner-friendly early Stern Electronics machines. Electric Dreams is family-friendly, is encased in classic brick walls, and I’m not sure if it has food or drinks because their only website is facebook and facebook keeps slapping me with a big “login” banner that prevents me from seeing anything. But the place looks nice, the line-up looks great, and I am proud of the owners for putting it all together and am thankful they submitted it to the map so we can share it with you all.

Electric Dreams Arcade
520 W Walnut St. Perkasie, PA 18944
Facebook

Links of the Week

• Cool article in this month’s InterGame magazine about Hamish Guthrey of Ye Olde Pinball Shoppe in New Zealand. You’ll need to click on the link on the article page to view the full magazine article, but it sounds like he’s spearheading some really cool pinball initiatives in New Zealand.

• Appreciate all the coverage of our TWIPY Awards announcement from Retro Ralph, Pinball Nerds Podcast, Knapp Arcade, and Pinball Junk Drawer. We’re working overtime to put on a great event!

• Related to the TWIPY coverage, In Before the Lock had a great segment this past week discussing some of their favorite mod releases of 2024 as committee chair Rob Rath works to build the official nominee list.

• Speaking of podcasts, I’m not saying we’ve launched a podcast because we haven’t, but we (myself and Rob Rath) did record a recent live chat with Don Garrison from Don’s Pinball Podcast as part of our weekly Pinball Power Hour live chats in the Pinball Media & Creators Discord server. It’s a bit of a meta-discussion on creating content for the pinball community and what it takes to build positive relationships with others in the industry. Check it out!

• Nudge Magazine is looking for your pinball videos! Don’t send them anything weird, OK?

• We did a slight visual refresh on Kineticist this week, so you may notice a few changes as you enjoy some of our articles. If there are bugs, they aren’t my fault. 😜

Poll of the Week

Last Week’s Poll Results

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