More images and Stern Press Release after the break.
It looks like the crew at Stern pinball is going to keep everyone guessing as they announce the release of yet another new version of AC/DC pinball with new hand drawn artwork. Apparently Stern got the message when pinball fans rejoiced over the hand drawn artwork of Metallica as they have responded with this new edition game.
More images and Stern Press Release after the break.
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Modern Pinball NYC Opens For Business In Manhattan; IFPA Moves In, Hosts Nov. 16-17 Tournament11/13/2013 PHOTOS: At left, Steve Epstein (l.) and Steve Zahler look over the interactive showroom during a private party held in late October, a few weeks before the official opening on Nov. 16. At right, pinball collector and operator Al Cihak shows off some of his machinery. Cihak is providing many of the games for Modern Pinball NYC.
NEW YORK CITY -- If they can make it here, they can make it anywhere. Pinball guru Steve Epstein is bringing the classic coin-op game back to Manhattan, but not in an arcade. Modern Pinball NYC on 3rd Ave. between 26th and 27th Streets is an interactive showroom featuring brand-new pinballs and refurbished models, dating back to the early solid-state era (late 1980s). The retail showroom, where every game is for sale, is only 1,450 square feet, but it tidily packs up to 35 games. Small quarters in the back can be used for parties or as a staging area for events. Modern Pinball NYC is an official distributor for Jersey Jack Pinball, which began shipping its Wizard of Oz flipper game earlier this year. New games from Stern Pinball are also for sale, and are supplied and shipped by Modern Pinball's allied resellers, including Tilt Amusements (Ostrander, OH).
The pinball venue is roughly the same size of Epstein's former Broadway Arcade, (the second one at 52nd St.), which closed in 1996. Its clientele comprised local coin-op fans, Broadway cast members and celebrities like Roberta Flack, Matthew Broderick and Paul Simon. Lou Reed held his wedding reception -- with 50 guests, cake and gifts -- at the Broadway Arcade. The musician and songwriter died on Oct. 27, the same day Modern Pinball NYC "unofficially" opened for a private party to celebrate the second birthday of Epstein's twin grandsons. Nostalgia aside, Modern Pinball NYC is about a coin-op institution that has been struggling to find a place in a digital society. Since the Broadway Arcade shut down almost 20 years ago, Epstein has been a go-to guy for collectors, promoters, tournament organizers and manufacturers, and a spiritual figure to soul seekers searching for the meaning of pinball. At Modern Pinball NYC, Epstein's business partner is Steve Zahler, a 44-year-old Web developer from New Jersey, and a serious pinball collector and competitive player. "We're going to offer white-glove service," Zahler reported. "Every machine must pass a thorough checklist. And taking care of customers is the top priority." VT recently toured the facility and found every game in it to be in excellent working order and in pristine condition. The Addams Family (Bally/1992), Fun House (Williams/1990) and Flipper Football (Capcom/1996), along with Dr. Dude (Williams/1990), Bram Stoker's Dracula (Williams/1993) and Punchy the Clown (Alvin G. & Co./1993) are some of the solid-state games on display. Stern's Star Trek and Metallica pins, among other new titles, are also in the showroom. Zahler grew up in New Rochelle, NY, where he spent his youth playing pinball at Nathan's. He hopes Modern Pinball NYC will introduce the classic game to kids and teens, and perhaps make it a family experience. Games on display, all set on free play, can also be played after paying a small admission fee. With the devoted assistance of pinball enthusiasts Francesco LaRocca, Al Cihak and Eddie Cramer, among others, support for Modern Pinball NYC is growing. LaRocca is an experienced pinball tournament organizer; Cihak is a collector who has become one of the biggest pinball machine operators in the Big Apple; and Cramer is an expert at restoring games. In addition to showcasing pinball machines and hosting special events, Epstein and Zahler are planning outreach programs to provide exposure to pinball to a much broader audience. Epstein is a founder and co-chairman of the International Flipper Pinball Association, which is moving its official headquarters to the Modern Pinball site. The official opening of the venue will be celebrated this weekend, Nov.16 and 17, in conjunction with an IFPA tournament, the proceeds of benefiting the city's Food Bank. Going forward, Epstein and Zahler, who is a top-ranking IFPA player in New Jersey, say tournaments will be a big part of their enterprise. Video footage of tournaments and player interviews will run on TV displays located throughout the store. TVs will also show high-score leaderboards. The IFPA was created with the express purpose of encouraging, supporting and endorsing competitive pinball throughout the world. The organization provides oversight and assistance in establishing pinball leagues and organizing tournaments. At present, more than 450 IFPA events are staged annually. The association endorses the World Pinball Tour events, which now boasts more than $500,000 in cash and prizes awarded each year. With 25 country directors around the world, the IFPA has created the first official player ranking system, which awards points based upon player performance. The World Pinball Player Rankings (WPPR) includes over 21,000 players from 40 different countries. And these numbers keep increasing, as people of all ages from all parts of the globe respond to the timeless appeal of the pinball machine's harnessing of Newtonian mechanics to human ingenuity to present an intriguing challenge to skill and quick reflexes. "The staggering, explosive growth of the entire worldwide community of pinball players and enthusiasts has been nothing short of remarkable since we re-launched the IFPA just a few years ago," said association cofounder and co-chairman Roger Sharpe. "And the future has never looked brighter for pinball, with tournaments and leagues taking place around the world on an almost weekly basis. I know Modern Pinball NYC is going to become the must-visit place for everyone in the tri-state area." For Epstein, creating a physical presence in New York City dedicated to pinball has been a long time coming. "Modern Pinball NYC will showcase the best that is pinball," the amusement industry veteran said. "And to have the IFPA headquarters based here is icing on the cake." Modern Pinball NYC is located at 362 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10016. It's open seven days a week, from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Information can be had by calling (646) 415-8440; For parties and corporate events, call (908) 358-7773. Click here for directions to Modern Pinball NYC. - See more at: http://www.vendingtimes.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=EB79A487112B48A296B38C81345C8C7F&nm=Vending+Features&&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=738AB6924D434794930EBBAF8209912E#sthash.rNHuscIU.dpuf Legendo Entertainment's Pure Pinball is now available on the App Store. Players can download the game for iOS devices for $1.99. First introduced on PC and Xbox in 2003/2004, Pure Pinball returns to iOS devices with the newly created table T-Rex Savage that pits players as a savage dinosaur hunter during the Age of Reptiles. Jam-packed with nerve-racking game modes, special rewards and a daring multiball mode, Pure Pinball: T-Rex Savage lets you experience a slice of steel ball magic, not unlike real-life pinball. All you need is crazy-mad flipper fingers, a decent war-cry, and the attitude to play a mean game… the hunt is on! Additional tables are planned for release throughout 2014. To learn more, visit the Pure Pinball App Page. 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 Fox Orlando has a quick little write up about our friend Curly Wiemer and his passion for pinball with a link to his website. Video is however missing for some reason. Perhaps it will be posted shortly. Check in below.
Curly Weimer bought his first pinball machine in 2002 when his son took him to an auction. He took it home and played it for a while. Then he fixed it up and sold it for a tidy profit. That's when he says he became hooked! Since then he's retired from the construction business he owned and has a pinball business. FOX 35's Tom Johnson shows you how he became one of Florida's last, true, pinball wizards. More info: www.littleshopofgames.com Read more: http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/23840334/lake-county-man-is-true-pinball-wizard#ixzz2jKNXV4m2 Stern Pinball announces the availability of their patent-pending Pinball Armor, a handcrafted cover that protects machines from everyday wear and tear as well as transportation and storage damage.
In a move to try and stay ahead of the competition as "The world's leading manufacturer of real pinball games", Stern Pinball has licensed the new Pinball Armor line of pinball covers and placed their logo on them. Here's hoping for more innovation from them in the near future. Read the press release after the break For this California man, the beauty is in the classic game
By Greg Hardesty / The Orange County Register Published: October 27. 2013 4:00AM PST SANTA ANA, Calif. — Dave Miner used to spend a lot of time in bowling alleys. It made sense. It was the 1980s; Southern California. He was a teenager. Bottled water is served. No alcohol or food allowed. But like a lot of teens who hung in bowling alleys but weren't really into bowling, Miner's alley time was spent playing pinball. He fed a college tuition worth of quarters into the slot, trying to keep the steel balls in play long enough to earn a free game or two. Ding-ding-ding! Blip-blip-blip! Tat-tat-tat! Some might consider this a huge waste of time, and they'd have a point. But Miner found the game's simplicity appealing. And the gloriously cheesy pinball art — usually chronicling the pop culture vibe of the moment — was beautiful. One day, when Miner saw a repairman reveal the mystery of the machine's guts, the kid from Arcadia, Calif., was transfixed. Decades later, he's still a complete pinhead. Miner was 15, he thinks, when he bought his first machine. He was working part-time as a computer lab assistant — a.k.a. the Epicenter of Nerd-dom — and he shelled out $300 to a guy getting rid of some machines from an arcade in Buena Park, Calif. The one Miner bought was Gottlieb Circus, with art by Gordon Morison, who in those days was one of the bigger names in pinball art. The purchase virtually certified Miner as a lifelong geek. (He's OK with that.) It also fed his soul. “It was a beautiful game," he said. Over the next few decades Miner kept feeding his passion. Today, Miner, 45, a computer executive, is a celebrity in the tiny but still vibrant world of pinball. He owns one of the world's most diverse private collections of pinball machines, with pieces representing each key innovation and era in the history of the game. Miner recently opened his 80-machine collection to the public. Some date back to the dawn of the Great Depression, when the first coin-operated pinball games were manufactured in the U.S. Pinball Forever, Miner calls his business. Rachel Miner, Dave's daughter knows pinball history. She's 12. She can talk about the first machines, built in the 1930s. She can talk about the big years, the '50s through the early '80s, when everything from the games themselves to the rise of bar culture to random influences like the rock song “Pinball Wizard" and the movie “Tommy" helped boost the game. She can talk about the time pinball nearly croaked (again, in the '80s), because of the rise of video games. She can even talk about the current resurrection of pinball, as the game today is a popular niche entertainment consumed by back-in-the-day pinhead types, like Dave, and youthful hipsters, like herself. Before she talks about all this, Rachel tapes a homemade sign to the door of the office, located at the back of a light industrial complex in Santa Ana, near Grand and Edinger Avenues. For $20 (cash preferred), visitors can play three hours' worth of games on more than 50 of Miner's machines, most of them from the 1950s through the 1980s. Some of the older machines are relics, meant to be admired but not touched. Paul Anderson, 48, of Mission Viejo, Calif., who started playing when he was around 12 and, today, is one of about 70 or so who play in the Orange County Pinball League (yes, it exists). He is a Pinball Forever regular. “Some old kid at the local 7-Eleven, which was at the end of my paper route, saw how I would use both flippers at the same time. (He) took pity on me and showed me a few tips, like playing one flipper at a time," Anderson says of his introduction to pinball. Patience, eye-hand coordination, timing, familiarity with the game, and practice, practice, practice — pinball fanatics like Anderson say those are the key skills required for strong pinball. Miner believes there's a little renaissance going on in pinball playing these days. Heather, his wife, has a theory about why that's true. “People come in here, and all of the stress of the day disappears," she said. “All that matters is the silver ball." 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 It's safe to say that South Park's excited about the impending opening ofBrabant Bar & Café. Eater readers have been asking us for an update, and at the last South Park Walkabout, proprietor Adam Parker, dressed as a Belgian beer gnome, says they dished up 55 pounds of Belgian frites in 45 minutes.
Belgian beer and food fans won't have to wait much longer; Brabant is aiming to open by San Diego Beer Week. Parker, a South Park resident, is currently transitioning the former Vagabond into a faithful rendition of an old world Belgian beer bar and restaurant. He's amassing a collection of antique Belgian movie posters to decorate the walls and scouting for traditional glassware to serve the Belgian beers that'll flow from the 16 taps; the goal is to offer each brewery's proper glassware whenever possible. An underutilized back space will turn into a showcase gallery for the glassware and have a small seating nook. Parker tells Eater that he's transplanting another element from the old beer bars of Belgium by installing a pinball machine at Brabant, a vintage 1971 Flash Gordon. · Brabant Bar & Café [Facebook] · All Beer Coverage on Eater [~ESD~] Via http://sandiego.eater.com/archives/2013/10/22/30th-sts-belgian-beer-bar-has-proper-glassware-pinball.php |
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