Talk:Pinball

Limited time

In "The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible, often within a limited time." I removed the limited time part, as each game usually consists of a number of balls for which the player has unlimited time. Individual tasks may be set that offer points for completion before a countdown finishes, but the primary objective of the game is to score points, however long it may take, rewarded with free plays and/or your name on the hi score list. Completing time-bound tasks just makes it quicker to get a high score. Regards Guffydrawers (talk) 20:39, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

That was a good call. There are some pinball games where the turn itself is time-limited, but these are exceptions to the standard. Timers are used in a lot of places on many machines to give you the chance to score extra points and/or advance whatever "plot/story" the game presents, but the games themselves aren't generally subject to a timer. (One game that notably DOES use a timer in place of the traditional ball counter is Safecracker, where you are given a limited amount of time at the beginning of the game in which you get unlimited ball saves, but once that timer runs out, losing the ball once results in an immediate game over.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:21, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Lead details

There have been a few edits recently on the lead for the article calling into question just how much detail the lead should have. Figured we should start a discussion on it here.

Generally, the lead for an article should give enough information to:

• Establish the subject's notability,
• Briefly explain the subject enough that the reader can understand it "at a glance", and
• Give some context for what to expect in the rest of the article.

In this case, there's no question that pinball, as a concept and style of game, is notable. It does require some basic explanation about how it's played and the general structure of a machine and a typical game. I agree that it doesn't need a LOT of detail, but the most essential elements in my experience are:

• Cabinet, playfield, general targets and structures, lights,
• Physical balls and flippers,
• "Balls" (turns) and draining as a means to end a turn, and
• Primary goal of scoring points.

The lead could (and probably should) have a brief mention of its history - at least discussing when the first pinball game was created and briefly touching on its evolution. One or two sentences should suffice. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 23:28, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Scoring section needs some love

The section on Scoring right now has a lot of things mixed into it in a kind of haphazard manner. I think we need to rework this whole section to clearly divide these concepts from one another:

• Scoring paradigms (e.g. general patterns for which kinds of targets score what, bonuses and multipliers, extra balls and replays, etc.).
• Electromechanical vs. solid-state (pinball machines are generally categorized by the difference between these two terms)
• Score display technologies (light arrays, number wheels, segmented LED and plasma displays, DMDs, LCD panels).
• Scoring trends (point inflation, rules and variants, etc.), wizard modes, etc.

Additionally, this section should be devoted only to topics on scoring. Mentions of pinball/video hybrids, video modes, etc. should go in a different section on how games have evolved over time. The bit about display tech can be separated out into that, since it has more to do with the game's presentation than strictly with scoring, so I'd say the bit about display tech within the scoring section should focus more on how scores were limited (how many digits could be displayed) by the tech used.

It's worth noting that the entire article's subject is basically about scoring points - that's the goal of all pinball games. Therefore, saying that hitting targets scores points is kinda redundant. Focusing more on HOW the machine processes hits is more appropriate here. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 00:05, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

History section overlap - 1970s solid-state and 1980s-90s digital age

There's a lot of overlap between the "1970s Solid-State" section and the "1980s/90s Digital Age" section, where both sections mention things like Bally selling its assets to Williams and video games generally taking over arcades. We should separate these sections a bit.

Here's my suggestion:

• The 1970s section should be updated to "1970s-80s" and focus on both the move to solid-state tech and the early takeover of video games in arcades. I believe we should end it at the point where Bally and Gottlieb exit the business.
• The next section should focus more specifically on the resurgence of pinball starting in the late 80's and most prominently in the 90s to early 2000's.
  • This should include the transition from segmented displays to dot-matrix displays, which introduced greater gameplay depth and new features (e.g. Video mode).
  • This section should probably segue into modern-day pinball following Williams' departure, talking about Stern's takeover and the transition to LCD displays, video pinball cabinets (e.g. Zen Pinball), etc.

This way, we can avoid saying the same things more than once. As time allows, I may try to take this on. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)