Rising Tensions

Song of the Week

I’ve been massively digging the last two singles from Jacksonville artist Yuno, Blest (above), and True, both off Yuno’s forthcoming debut album, also called Blest. Even in a week chock full of economic doom and gloom, it’s impossible to play this song and not feel a heady, pleasing rush of dopamine and endorphins.

Yuno has been on the scene for far longer than a full-length debut may imply; his first big hit, 2018’s No Going Back, may be recognizable to some (it was to me). Blest is a refined and modern evolution of the soundcraft of No Going Back, which, 7 years later, feels very much of a place and time that no longer exists.

C'est la vie. At least, as we all navigate this new world of stupid, we can do so with a pleasant beat in our ears.

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Pinball News of the Week

Barrels vs Kong

News is starting to leak from various content creators, so we’ll be quick about this update, but it looks like we’re going to get a Barrels of Fun vs Stern Pinball showdown, with both companies scheduling media previews for new game releases the week of April 14th. I’m still finalizing my travel plans but hope to attend both events on behalf of Kineticist.

No one knows for sure what the next Barrels game will be (rumors are Dune and Goonies), but Stern is expected to have Keith Elwin’s King Kong queued up. It’s shaping up to be quite the David vs. Goliath (or perhaps David vs. Gorilla) moment for pinball!

THE SCORE CARD: Women’s World Championship & More

We return this week with the second edition of our competitive pinball roundup series, now dubbed THE SCORE CARD. In it, we cover a big month in the tournament circuit with the IFPA Women’s North American Championship, the Women’s World Championship, plus several major Stern Pro Circuit and festival tournaments.

New SEGA Batman Forever Tutorial

RIP Val Kilmer, arguably the best of the Batmen. In honor of his illustrious career, we’ve got a brand new tutorial live on the site, looking at the overlooked 1995 SEGA release, Batman Forever. Learn how to master this surprisingly deep, fully theme-integrated Joe Kaminkow classic, thanks to Kineticist rules master Noah Crable.

Stern Hires New VP of Marketing

Congrats to Stern Pinball and its new VP of Marketing, Matthew Geyer. Stern made the announcement of the hire on March 31st, but conversations in the community pointed to Matthew being on the job for at least a few weeks prior to the announcement, with appearances at several industry shows, like the Texas Pinball Festival. Matthew comes to Stern with an impressive resume with stops at WWE in their gaming division as well as high-profile entertainment organizations like Warner Bros. and Activision Blizzard. We’re looking forward to seeing what he can do alongside marketing mainstays Zach Sharpe and Joe Marchfield.

RIP Pinball Long Island

This was a bit of an interesting, if overlooked, pinball story this week. Pinball Long Island opened to some fanfare about 2 years ago with a dedicated selection of 100 pinball machines in a poorly served area of New York. Normally, a location closure like this might be the cause of some mourning in the broader pinball community. But this one is practically being celebrated by those in the know. Folks in the local scene that I’ve talked to note the owner’s antics (alleged sexual harassment, hostile customer service, and poor maintenance standards) as some of the reasons for the jump for joy.

Sneak Peak: The Hangover Trilogy Pinball

Keep an eye on Kineticist next week as we will be sharing the debut of The Hangover Trilogy pinball, the latest creation from the TWIPY award-winning team of Brian Soares and Reby Hardy (Happy Gilmore Pinball), ahead of its public debut at Pintastic New England. We’ll be sharing photos, an interview with the creative team, game details, and more.

Open Question: How Will Trump’s Tarriffs Impact the Pinball Industry?

Let’s end this section with a bit of a discussion point, as it’s an open question in my mind (see this week’s poll to weigh in with your thoughts). How will the Trump administration’s newly announced tariff policies impact the pinball industry? Despite knowing these have been in the works for some time, I’m slightly surprised by how quiet the industry has been. Given the size and scope of the announced tariffs, I’m hard-pressed to think of a single corner of the industry, from the manufacturers to distributors to operators, that will not be negatively affected moving forward, and to pretend otherwise is pure wishcasting.

Costs to manufacture games will go up. Sales will decrease as people spend less discretionary income on entertainment. New location openings will likely take a hit as tourism and travel recede and it becomes harder and more costly to open new businesses. Sales to international markets from US manufacturers will be negatively impacted, both from general cost increases and soft boycotts of American-produced goods and services.

Other related industries are loudly sounding the alarm, as tabletop game publisher Stonemaier Games pointed out in a recent update. One of their industry groups, The Game Manufacturers Association, also came out strongly against the move.

But pinball is mostly silent, save for a brief update from an AAMA (American Amusement Machine Association) trip to Capitol Hill in February, where representatives of the coin-op industry expressed the following concerns about Trump’s tarrif policy, “While AAMA acknowledges the importance of strategically imposed tariffs to support American-made products, broad tariff applications have had unintended consequences. Many critical components essential to the amusement industry—such as plush and prizes, computer boards, chips, and display monitors—are exclusively manufactured in China. As a result, tariffs have led to increased costs, with some suppliers imposing a 10% price hike on existing orders. These added expenses place significant strain on small businesses, limiting their ability to grow and compete effectively.”

Instead, these discussions are mostly happening in the deep corners of the pinball community in places like the DPX Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Hype thread.

What I’d love to see (and maybe that can happen in this space) are representatives from pinball manufacturers, suppliers, mod makers, distributors, location owners, and operators weighing in publicly on the tariffs and their honest assessment of how the industry will be affected moving forward. If that’s you, and you have thoughts, send me a note!

Pinball Map Location of the Week

Ryan and Scott from Pinball Map run a regular series that highlights one new or interesting pinball location each week. This week, Ryan writes about Finney’s Arcade & Parlor. 

In this weekly column, we celebrate new and exciting places where you can play pinball. But I’m going to take a moment to highlight that not only do places come, but they also go. Every week we Pinball Map administrators are witness to dozens of locations being literally wiped off the map. And it’s kind of sad - it kind of takes a toll. Although it’s not safe to assume that all these cases are businesses shutting their doors, to us, they may as well be since I, for one, would never enter a business if it didn’t have a pinball machine, and I would expect the same from you. Also, while net growth of pinball locations on Earth is still the trend, this goes to show that “having pinball” alone may not guarantee your business’s success. You also might have to sell other things, like notepads and staplers, in order to add your contribution to the roster in this new and exciting world.

Another slice of harsh reality that we get sneak peaks of are the long and bumpy road that new businesses traverse in order to gain their permits. So often do we get “coming really soon!!” location submissions to the map, only for those optimistic opening days to slide right by. This week’s LOTW is one that was submitted months ago, and is finally opening perhaps today (it’s hard to tell because their website says “Coming Fall 2024” and their Facebook - which appears updated - is inaccessible to me). But we’re pretty sure.

Finney’s Arcade & Parlor, in Canton, Ohio, gloats that they have 14 pinball machines. I was able to scroll their Instagram for about 3 seconds before a popup froze me out, but I saw tubs of candy. Scott and I have a spoken understanding that we probably shouldn’t feature LOTWeeks that strictly use these Meta sites for communication because they are black boxes. Convenient for many? Yes. Popular? Yes! But alack, not open to the wider web. This will be the last time we breach the above understanding, and it will serve as an example of what it reduces us to. I honestly can’t say anything else about this place. I hope it’s good. I hope they really do have candy. I hope they really are open today. I wonder what’s in the parlor. I do have confidence that there are 14 machines and that they’re in Canton, at least.

Finney’s Arcade & Parlor
417 Market Ave N, Canton, OH 44702
Website

Links of the Week

• Dude, Where’s My Code interviewed Orin Day.

• Bowen Kerins released a new tutorial for Spanish Eyes.

• Fans of woodrails and wedgeheads should peruse this epic new auction from the collection of Shay Assad (Shay Arcade Group).

• Congrats to Stern’s George Gomez for his induction into the Amusement Industry Hall of Fame!

• Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Podcast featured a couple of interviews in their latest update, first with Jack Guarnieri, then with Steve Ritchie and Bill Grupp. Jack provided the most notable news of the conversation, where he confirmed the three trim levels for Harry Potter (Arcade Edition, Wizard Edition, Collectors Edition) where the Arcade Edition would be a stripped down sub-$10k version of the game targeted to operators.

• Stern Pinball released a big 1.0 code update for Metallica Remastered and streamed some gameplay from it.

• Enjoyed the convo on the latest Retro Ralph Live podcast between Ralph and Jamie Burchell.

Poll of the Week

Last Week’s Poll Results

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