[PurelyApplied]

I don't know anything about markets or why things trend certain ways, but I am an avid pinball player. In fact, as I write this, I've traveled halfway across the country to attend the Chicago Pinball Expo with a buddy of mine.

I note that Full Tilt! released in what is often referred to as The Dark Ages of Pinball. There was a slump there in the 90s where every manufacturer of pinball tables folded, except for Stern, and they subsisted on making a pretty thin, bog standard sequence of tables. Pinball would resurge in the mid-to-late '00s.

I think the 90s was a moment where there was a group of people who enjoyed pinball, but it was hard to find venues that took care of tables. You certainly weren't getting very cool new tables every year. Full Tilt may have filled that gap.

Nowadays, you can just look up your area on pinballmap.com and find tables near you. That wasn't an option in the 90s. If you didn't know of an arcade with good tables, your only option was digital.

Stern releases a new, awesome, KME-designed table every year or two. Multiple other manufacturers have emerged to answer the increasing demand. A new company just announced a Labyrinth that I am so, so stoked to try.

Personally, I don't much care for digital pinball. The physical nature of the game is core to it. The simulated nudging doesn't do it for me. The consistent kickouts on many virtual pinball tables makes it a bit samey. I think they're great for learning and internalizing the rulesets of classic tables, and certainly there are things that a digital medium can do that the physical medium just can't. That's just my two cents.

[jxramos]

Neat website, what's your take on the virtual pinball cabinets that try to simulate some of the physical behavior of the real thing? Can you elaborate on the "samey" point?

stuff like this guy's build https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxilHoceiNo&list=PLrqlHbqP7F...