[syntheweave]

It would be that hard to do. The state of the art is currently represented by Visual Pinball and Pinball FX.

The first is open source and relies all on homebrew content, and most are remakes of existing games as you would expect, with MAME software emulation for the digital games. The software package contains a painful, CAD-like tool to define the playfield - very precise but hard to work with. You can make a new playfield in probably a month of effort, and then tinker with the game's rules for much longer.

The second, Pinball FX(which dropped the numbered titles in its fourth version), has a mix of licenses and originals, and which it's definitely become more accurate, the goal is primarily a visual showcase. It already pressures a modern GPU reasonably well when you crank the settings.

Neither one is doing anything to push the physics simulation further. Visual Pinball's physics rely on analytic methods for each mechanism, and while it has little details like computing the movement of the skirt on the pops as the ball rolls over them, it does not simulate whole-table vibrations, which are actually essential to gameplay because control is achieved through nudging the entire cabinet. And there's a huge realm of details that emerge from that where thousands of physics objects, down to the individual screw, need to wake up and interact in very fine detail, and the force creates a directed wave across the playfield, the wood needs to be able to wobble a bit. Adding a force to the ball is not sufficient. And actually achieving that means you now have to model everything the game has, including the insides, which is far more work than a playfield and magic mechanisms.

Pinball FX is not open source but I already know it isn't trying to be that detailed either.

But when you ask the broader audience about pinball video games, they point at Demon's Tilt. Which is not even trying, as far as the simulation goes - it is a video game, through and through. The problem is that broad demographic isn't really there because people who don't play pinball don't know the difference, and the niche of people who do, go play real pinballs. Which leaves a tiny space for roughly three or four companies that are focused mostly on licenses.

Of those, the pinball video game I play the most is Pinball Deluxe Reloaded, which is all originals, but most importantly, it's intentionally 2D and ideal for phones. And the sim quality is decent. And just by doing those things, it's done something none of the competition achieved, even in their mobile ports, because they put the sim first and have a 3D camera and no way of getting a simple flat projection.