Great story about John Reuter and his massive collection of pinball machines.

GORHAM, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- The game of Pinball has a rich history, with it's origin dating back to the days of Louis XIV. It of course has evolved from the days of the 1600's, to the machines you're more familiar with. Like any sport, it's gone through its lulls, with the evolution of the internet changing the game. There is one Mainer, who's doing his best to keep it alive.

After playing his first game of pinball in 1964, John Reuter was hooked. He's been an avid player participating in competitions all across New England. After seeing the game die out after the 1980's, he decided to create an environment in his own home for others to be able to come play.

"I wanted a variety of machines and I didn't want to get bored with the ones I had so that's what I did what I did. I bought a bunch of them," said Reuter.

He now has around 95 pinball machines total in his Gorham home. Alot of sound and alot of options for other players to choose from like Mike Haycock. He took home first place in the 2014 Maine Pinball Championship, that was held at John's home.

"There's no slouchers," said Haycock. "Anybody can have a bad game at any time. That's how pinball is."

To find out more about John and his pinball tournaments, you can visit his Facebook page, New England Pinball.

Read more and watch the video here http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article/271568/50/Pinball-player-collects-95-pinball-machines-in-his-home

Guitarist Brian Setzer and his wife, Julie Reiten, felt right at home in their aptly named Rock Island Lofts. Setzer would have friends over and “rock the heck” out of the top-floor unit. He even posed with his signature Gretsch guitar in front of the downtown Minneapolis skyline on his rooftop patio for the cover of his 2009 album, “Songs From Lonely Avenue.”

“We leave the curtains open in the living room,” he said during a phone interview while on tour with the Brian Setzer Orchestra’s Christmas show, which included a gig last month at the Orpheum Theatre. “It’s the prettiest nightlight you could have.”

But after eight years there, Setzer and Reiten are selling their condo in the North Loop neighborhood, which is within walking distance of restaurants, nightlife haunts and Target Field. They’re moving to a western suburb where Reiten will have a yard for gardening and space for an art studio — and Setzer will have a three-car garage. “My hobby is working on hot rods and motorcycles,” he said.

Read more here

At Pinballz Arcade, people can hear the clanging of tokens in hands and the pinging of pinballs whizzing through machines — sounds of a seemingly bygone era that continues here
in Austin.

Darren Spohn and his wife Mikki opened Pinballz in 2010 and have provided Austin with its pinball fix ever since. Spohn has run tech and IT companies in town for 15 years, but his love for pinball machines began long before that. 

“I asked my wife ‘Do you mind if I get a pinball machine?’ and she said ‘Oh, that’s fine,’” Spohn said. “I bought it and I said ‘Well, I actually bought two,’ and then like a week later we’re out at lunch, and I said ‘Hey, I’ve got to tell you — I have seven of these now,’ and it just kind of blossomed from there.”

What began as a personal collection has now grown to more than 100 pinball machines and a cadre of old-school video and ticket-rewarding games. 

“We really felt that the town needed something different like that,” Spohn said. “It needed a kind of cool, ‘Cheers bar’ approach to running one of those. And we figured we’d give it a shot, and we opened it three years ago, and it’s been very successful.”

Pinballz is family-oriented during the day, but when the sun goes down, the atmosphere gets downright adult. Gamers stay late into the night on weekends, which may or may not be aided by the casual BYOB policy for those 21 and older.

A specialized arcade such as Pinballz did not exist in Austin outside of giant family entertainment centers. 

With more than 200 games, the biggest challenge facing the arcade is simply keeping everything running, from AC/DC pinball to Dance Dance Revolution and from the classic Skeeball to a custom-built big screen Street Fighter.
“We have over 100 games and things go constantly wrong on those,” Spohn said. “We don’t charge a lot of money for our games, so it’s a challenge with what we charge to keep everything running at 95 percent or higher.”

William “Billy” Renquen has worked on these games since the arcade opened. A certified master auto-mechanic by trade, Renquen keeps the flippers flipping at Pinballz in addition to running his own auto-shop.

“When we first opened three years ago, they were running maybe 60-70 percent, and I was fixing five to seven games a day,” Renquen said. “It took me about a year to catch up and have all of them running at once.”

Machines go down daily at Pinballz, and it’s up to Renquen and his team to get them back up.

“The machines are high maintenance,” Renquen said. “They vibrate a lot. There’s a lot of movement going on, so they fail pretty constantly — some more than others. You just work as fast as you can and as hard as you can … It’s a pride thing for me to keep them all running.”

Pinballz harkens to the early days of arcade gaming. It’s not merely the games that bring back nostalgia for an era the college generation missed.

“To us it’s rewarding that we brought in a place like that — that really ramps up Austin,” Spohn said. “It’s that really cool feeling that we brought something unique to Austin.” 

via www.dailytexanonline.com/2013/11/03/pinballz-arcade-provides-a-nostalgic-gaming-experience

NORTH HILLS- Stephen Scohy's North Hills basement is a step back in time.

The walls are adorned with late 1970s, early 1980s memorabilia including glass placards advertising arcade games, candy and gum machines.

There's also a soundtrack. Scohy bought recordings of the 1980s American Top 40, complete with advertisements.

And then there's the games, more than two dozen vintage pinball and arcade machines. The machines in the basement are only part of Scohy's collection, most of which date between 1976 and 1984.

"It's a crazy hobby that keeps me sane," he said.

Scohy has acquired and repaired about 60 pinball machines and close to 25 video arcade games; most were games he played as a kid at the Escape Hatch, the Corner Pocket and FunLand. His Dig Dug machine used to sit at Skate County in south Parkersburg.

He started collecting pinball machines in 1999 when he rediscovered his love for the games.

He bought his first pinball machine, Rock.

"Growing up in Vienna there wasn't much to do," he said.

As a kid, Scohy would mow lawns and shovel snow to earn money to go to the arcade.

"Pinball was the first game I was good at," he said. "I had a crowd that would watch me play."

It wasn't long after he started purchasing the machines that Scohy got into repairing them.

"The second game I got broke," he said.

Scohy learned how to fix it from the Internet and from a friend in Boaz, William McCormick. He has learned to repair the machines and now prefers to purchase ones that no longer work.

"It's more fun to play detective and fix them," he said.

In the 14 years he's been collecting, Scohy also has amassed a collection of parts and play fields. Scohy will scout the Internet and want ads for machines he can repair.

His favorites are people who call him offering to sell machines that used to work.


Read more via newsandsentinel.com

Craig Snelling learned how to repair arcade games out of necessity. It was the summer of 1984 and he was 14 years old, living with his parents in Glendale, Calif., when his favorite game, Mario Bros., broke.The video game scene already had exploded with the introduction of the Commodore 64 home computer and Atari console, but the science behind the games was a mystery to most. Repair manuals were rare. Google didn't exist.

That didn't matter to Snelling. He wanted to play.

“So I locked myself in the garage and figured it out,” he said.

Soon, Snelling had accumulated a couple machines in his garage. A friend suggested he sell them. He did and has been ever since.

Today, the 42-year-old lifelong gamer owns Billiards 'N More, an arcade repair shop, game room and store with two locations in Las Vegas and plenty of business.

"The hobby is huge," Snelling said the day before heading to Hawaii for a weeklong vacation, his first in more than 20 years. He always feared going crazy being away from the office too long.

Snelling likes his job. He makes good money, too.

He earns enough repairing and selling arcade games to employ 14 workers and pay $3,000 a month for commercials on the CW network. He stars in one, sinking an eight ball in the corner pocket of a pool table.

Despite the prevalence of console and smartphone gaming, there's still strong local demand for retro pinball machines and arcade games.

There's the Pinball Hall of Fame on East Tropicana Avenue and a small arcade at the Riviera, where the Pinball Hall of Fame once stood. The Cosmopolitan’s Secret Pizza houses two pinball machines and an arcade game, which Snelling supplied.

Then there's Insert Coin(s), the "barcade" on East Fremont Street. Snelling sold the bar's owner, Chris LaPorte, more than 40 machines from his personal collection for more than $30,000.

Snelling still has plenty of machines left over. He keeps them in storage units around the valley but a small collection fills an 800-square-foot game room in his 1,600-square-foot Henderson home. The room is outfitted with pinball machines, arcade cabinets, big-screen TVs and beanbag chairs. It is a favorite spot for Snelling's 16-year-old son, a Call of Duty enthusiast.

Snelling's customers are mostly collectors who know what they're looking for before they call. Sometimes, however, a customer comes in looking for a billiards table and ends up taking home a pinball machine.

The shop's titles include Rocky and Bullwinkle, the Addams Family, the Sopranos, Star Wars, Attack from Mars and Jurassic Park. Prices range from $1,600 to $13,000.

Snelling recently sold a Monster Bash pinball machine populated by the Wolfman, Frankenstein and Dracula for $12,900. His Attack From Mars game, which pits players against aliens trying to take over the world, goes for $12,000. A Twilight Zone machine, one of the most popular in the pinball community, runs $8,000.

"It's a roller coaster," Snelling said of the arcade business. "There will be three days when you don't sell anything, and then you have a $40,000 week."

Snelling makes a good portion of his profits doing repairs and modifications.

Most of his machines have been updated with new graphics and LED bulbs. Original pinball machines used yellow incandescent bulbs under their boards, leaving their features flat.

For $500 in parts and labor, Snelling cracks open the machines and installs colored LEDs. If there are water graphics in the game, Snelling installs blue lights to make the features pop. Green lights go under trees and grass, red under red images.

The Attack from Mars machine, one of Snelling's favorites, originally had gray spaceships. Snelling made them pink and added blinking red eyes to the game's four-armed aliens.

"Modding is huge," Snelling said. "Why would you want to keep it original? I don't know. It looks 10 times better."

Installing LEDs takes about five hours. Because the machines are so heavy and difficult to move, Snelling often goes to clients’ homes and works there. Other common repairs include replacing burned connecters and changing out flippers.

Snelling's toolbox isn't very big. He relies primarily on two pieces of equipment: a multimeter that checks voltage and a circuit scope that monitors computer chips.

And while Snelling admits he’ll always be a gamer, he said his favorite part of the job is the reaction he gets to a job well done.

“Some people almost get teary-eyed: ‘Oh my God, I never thought it would work again,’" he said. "It’s a feel-good moment.”

Snelling can relate. It’s the same feeling he got in 1984, when he finally heard again the music from his Mario Bros. game.



Via vegasinc.com

When John Greatwich recently closed up the Great Pinball Store on Quinpool Road, he was left with about 20 machines and nowhere to put them but back in his home.

"I was open for about eight months, but because of zoning I couldn't open a (full blown) arcade," he says of the store's demise.

But he won't let that get him down. Greatwich is as passionate as ever about pinball, and he definitely doesn't want to keep the fun all to himself.

For the past year, Greatwich has hosted monthly pinball parties at his home. The most recent took place on Aug. 31, and provides pinball owners and players the opportunity to enjoy their hobby with like-minded people. He charges a fee to those who don't own machines, and is still selling machines to interested buyers.

"We get up to 15 people who show up. Some are other collectors, some own their own machines, others just want to play," he explains. "Pinball machines are like campers, RVs and boats. There's a select market getting into it. It's good family entertainment, and people my age (49) or older remember the heyday of arcades when they came out."

Like anyone with a passion for their hobby, Greatwich knows the ins and outs of pinball. He became intrigued with the mechanics of the machines at a young age, and has never looked back.

"I think the reason people enjoy it is that it's more of a mechanical type of game, not a person against a computer. It's not rigged to a pattern, it's random and requires some skill," Greatwich says. "You see the balls in play, and you are still in control...A computer can cheat you with an algorithm."

He is more than happy to share his vast knowledge of the history of pinball and how it allowed the video game industry to develop. His voice takes on a melancholic tone as he describes how legalizing slot machines led to a dip in pinball manufacturing.

"WMS used to be Williams Pinball, and they were losing money for years on gambling and the pinball part of the business kept them alive," Greatwich says. "Slots took off, pinball was on the decline, so they closed it all down and walked away. Also, a lot of pinball designers and artists moved into the slot industry."

However, the climate is now changing and Greatwich believes pinball machines are on the verge of experiencing a major comeback.

"I think there's going to be a resurgence...There are builders coming on to compete against Stern Pinball, who were the world's only," he says. "Now there's Jersey Jack Pinball and other plants around the world starting up."

In addition, younger generations are being exposed to virtual pinball on their computers and portable devices. Greatwich said many now want a chance to play the "real McCoy."

They can do that during HalCon from Nov. 8 to 10, when Greatwich once again hosts the Eastlink free pinball arcade room.

"It draws huge interest, and this year I'm promoting new games I sell by having tournament play," he says.

Interested pinball owners or players can contact Greatwich via email,greatwichjohn@hotmail.com.

ydentremont@hfxnews.ca


Via halifaxnewsnet.ca

The gang over at cubed3spoke to Barnstorm Games on the Pro Pinball revival as well a working with Nintendo and Kickstarter.

Read the interview here cubed3.com

Infinity Amusements is ramping up its push to produce digital pinball machines.  The size, buttons and feel of a traditional cabinet, but with a huge video screen laid where the pinball once rolled.

We first saw the Digital Pinball machine at PAX AUS a couple of months back.  Since then the team at – the newly formed – Infinity Amusements has been hard at work attempting to get to market.

A number of variations of Digital Pinball Cabinets are in the works with the team dubbing them as Infinity Pinball Entertainment Systems.  Surely they will become known as iPES.

The team has announced a crowd funding campaign to help:

Instead of playing on your mobile, tablet or game console you will now be able to experience Digital Pinball the way it's meant to be played... In an authentic pinball cabinet. 

In less than 24 hours from now we will launch our crowd funding campaign on IndieGoGo. Our goal is to raise just $7,000. This will allow us to manufacture the two prototypes required as well as build an initial line up for those early backers.

We will be offering a limited amount of specials during this campaign such as $500 down and get $500 off the final product. There are many more perks starting from as little as $2. So even if you are simply interested in supporting us that would be very much appreciated. 

“I honestly had no idea that when I started this initial project that there would be so much support and interest from the general community.” Said Mark Libman, company head  “This is a very exciting time for those interested in Pinball that have fond memories from their youth. More importantly a new generation is about to enjoy this in ways that were never thought possible.”


Read more via www.itwire.com

On a rainy Wednesday night in Novi, a select few of Clay Harrell’s friends are ensconced in some of his more than 100 pinball machines dating as far back as the 1930s.

Nearby, Eric VanDommelen is eagerly repairing and polishing a 1995 “Jack Bot” pinball machine.

The identical scene will soon play out in Green Oak Township, where Harrell next month will start moving his massive pinball collection to the vacant Hamburg Veterans of Foreign Wars hall, which he recently purchased.

His project is labeled a “private museum” for local zoning purposes — it is located in a residential district — but will basically be a self-funded hangout for Harrell and his friends willing to pony up a small donation to help offset costs of running the place.

“Nobody’s paid, especially me,” Harrell, 52, said at his Novi rental space.

“A lot of guys buy like ’70s, ’80s cars and they fix them up, or even ’60s cars. This is all a much cleaner hobby,” he added.

At his Novi rental space, whizzing, whirring and ringing sounds, along with the snap of wrist-fueled pinball shots, bounce off the walls.

Harrell occupied the roughly 3,000-square-foot storage area two years ago. It is about half the size of the 6,600-square-foot VFW building in Green Oak, which is located on 10 acres just west of U.S. 23 and south of Winans Lake Road.



Read the rest of the story here

Our friend Jeremy Wilson shows off his latest pinball product 'Airfield' to the folks at Technabob.com and demonstrates how the system is used to create beautiful pinball art come to life. Check out the video and this cool new product that will have you wanting to light up all of your playfield wall art.

Thanks to videogames, pinball has been relegated to a niche. But it still has its fans, some so addicted to the machines that they hang entire pinball playfields on their walls as decoration. Jeremy Williams and his friend invented Airfield, an LED kit that makes mounted or hung playfields come alive.


Read more and check out the video interview via technabob.com