A New Year! - A glance back and looking forward

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Looking back at 2016 and my arcade / pinball activity.  What a year!   In 2016, I decided to re-center my arcade & game room activities a bit.  Prior to 2016, I had sought out games that were highly-rated or hard to come by in our region.  

While not on purpose, I think I fell into that trap of hunting trophies and building a collection, which really wasn't the intent for my game room.

The intent for my game room was to build a fun space and in 2016 with the help of good friends, I think we did just that, sacrificing a few pinball machines that are generally regarded as collectible and opening up the room with a new layout that has a little something for everyone in our family and friends circle. 

This year, I bought-and-sold: Ruby Red Wizard of Oz, Hobbit, Monster Bash, Scared Stiff.

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The progression of this hobby very often takes people from Arcade machines to Pinball machines and many collectors I think have a tendency to step away from Arcades in favor of Pinball.   The reasoning is sound since many arcades can be emulated well enough on your console, phone, Multi Cade, etc.    But for me, I still enjoy owning arcades.  I enjoy tinkering with them and the experience of playing games in the arcade format.   Nostalgia, I guess. 

So, part of our arcade activities this year, I tried to strike a balance of arcades to pins and picked up some games that were special to us though the year.    

This year, we picked up:

Bud Tapper (from some dude in Ohio via KLOV) - I learned alot about MCR games and spent a good portion of the year trying to locate a suitable monitor for this game.  After several misses, a Vision Pro finally hit-the-spot to make this game feel right.

Q*Bert (from ArcadeShop.com) - I picked up a reproduction Q*Bert cabinet, running the Mylstar FPGA board and one of the three monitors that I bought attempting to re-CRT Tapper.    Super happy to have a Q*Bert in the lineup, it gets played daily!

Tron (from a pawn shop in Saraland) - A friend in our local club brought this game to my attention and I checked it out during lunch one day.   I spent about 2 months thinking about it and eventually came to an agreement with someone at the Pawn shop.   We moved it in at the end of the year and cleaned it up over the holidays.    It seems to be very original and is in pretty good condition.  A few small areas on the cabinet and a few electrical gremlins but nothing too terrible.

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Part of our 2016 basement reorganization was to give the kids (all of us) a place to hang out and play console games.   The loves eat and chair and TV area is getting lots of use: the kids getting their Minecraft fix and I've gotten to get reacquainted with a few console favorites.  

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For Pinball, I decided to pick up pinballs with specific themes and gameplay that resonate with my childhood and general geekdom.   I added Ghostbusters (after a lengthy preorder) and Revenge from Mars from a collector in Chicago.

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I also added back a HUO Data East Star Wars (from a comic book shop owner in Tennessee) and created this Star-Wars themed nook in the corner of the basement where can play the Dome(usually Star Wars Battlefront or the new Playstation VR mission) and enjoy Star Wars Trilogy & Data East Star Wars.    

The Data East pin has a particular nostalgia for me, being the first multi-ball pinball machine I ever played traveling with my dad as a kid and being the first pinball that owned when I started in this hobby 4 years ago.  This particular pin is in a good bit better shape than my last one, sports a ColorDMD/ LED and Pin sound running a custom soundtrack.

Over the holidays, I got to spend a little time setting up wifi-enabled smart plugs and Amazon Echo / Echo Dot to control game room activity.    

The setup definitely could use some refinement but being able to control individual games, or groups of games with Star Trek-like voice commands is super-nice.  

(Especially where kids are concerned, where they tend to leave games on or don't know how to turn on specific games)

Looking ahead

As we move into the new year, I think my arcade-pinball related resolution is to buy / sell, less and play, more.   To spent less time tinkering with games and more time playing & hanging out with friends.    Do you have a 2017 arcade-pinball resolution?

Game Room Voice Control w/ Amazon Echo

Playing around with Amazon Echo for controlling stuff in the game room

One of the (minor) annoyances in Arcade and Pinball collecting is that over the last 40 years the amusement industry hasn't really build up a great deal of standards around common things, simple things: like the power switch.  

On Tron, the power switch is on the Top / Right.   On Donkey Kong, the power switch is on back- bottom right.   On many pinball machines the power switch is located on the bottom right, near the front of the game though annoyingly Revenge from Mars put the toggle switch half-way down the middle of the cabinet where I have to crawl underneath to power it on.    More recently, Stern Pinball puts the power switch under the lip of the head of the machine.

(GAH!)  - First world problems, I know.  

For Christmas, Dina bought me an Amazon Echo, a couple of Amazon Dots and some wifi enabled switches.  Having attended an Amazon Developer's conference just last month and knowing this is the direction I'd like to go, I've been planning for this for quite awhile. 

This video shows a pretty stock setup, just triggering devices by grouping and playing music and I'm pretty darned happy with the result.  I am playing with some custom Alexa skills to do a bit more, though...  

More on that later :)

A couple of things of note.. The 2nd generation Amazon Dot is fully functional. You can have a Dot only and still get most the features you want.   I used a combination of iHome plugs (like them for their size) and Belkin WeMo wall-switches connected to switched outlets.   You could potentially save a little money by going with a hub-based solution like Z-Wave, Zigbee but I found the savings versus convenience was sort of minimal, at least for my uses.

The WeMo software seems to be more mature.  iHome is integrated with HomeKit and installs pretty quickly but I did have a few snags getting it married up to the Alexa app.   It is almost as if you end up with two iHome accounts, one with a userID, associated by the app - and one with an email as the username as part of the OAuth handshake when you enable the skill.   The secret sauce, in my case - was to set up Device sharing in the iHome application, to basically share the {MyUserNameAccount} on the app devices with the {MyEmailAccount} on their portal.  Once I did this, Alexa was able to discover all of the iHome devices without a hitch.

The WeMo plugs work really well but they are big, generally blocking part of the outlet or at least preventing to WeMo plugs from going into one outlet.  The iHome plugs, however - have the added benefit of being the size of a standard plug, so you could have two iHome plugs in out outlet, if you wanted to.   WeMo has the better wall-switch offering, however.    

Being split across the two ecosystems is annoying if you plan to use their apps to control things but Alexa is the glue for the end result - since you can group devices regardless of manufacturer.

Echo also supports integration with Nest and IFTT, though my IFTT recipes for triggering the lights on Nest motion sense - seem to be spotty, at best.

All in all, being able to enter the room and saying things like "Alexa, turn on the Pinball Machines only" or "Alexa, turn on Mario Kart" or "Alexa, turn on the classic arcades" - is very-very nice.   Now, if I can just keep Miles from saying "Alexa, turn off the pinball machines" - while I'm in the middle of a game... :)

Halloween Party 2016

A quick clip of activity in our gameroom for our annual halloween block party. :)

A quick clip showing some of the awesome level of activity from our Halloween block party / outdoor movie.

Uploaded by Arcade Shenanigans on 2016-11-06.

Full clip of some of the video feeds from the gameroom during the party. 

I've gotten a little tongue-in-cheek heat from friends in this hobby about scaling back on pinball in our gameroom but watching these clips reinforced to me that I made the right call. Moving away from 'how many more pins can I fit in this room?' and towards, "how can we make this space fun and inviting for a variety of arcade-nostalgia seekers" paid off in a big way!  

For Halloween 2016 we had a great turnout for an outdoor halloween movie and some arcade goodness. :)

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We watched Hocus Pocus on the outdoor screen. There is something just fun and magical about outdoor movies in the cooler fall evenings!

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A certain dark-side force user got to stop in for some pinball action to many of our Star-Wars themed guests' excitement!

Star Wars

Arcade Move

Uploaded by Arcade Shenanigans on 2016-09-17.

For about 6 months I've been thinking about a major re-work of our game room and about what direction I'd like to take the room.  

Generally, the notion that I landed on was that, for me anyway, chasing the Pinside top 10 or 20 list of pinball machines isn't a (reasonably) attainable goal.   Part of the challenge is that I am my own worst enemy in terms of maintenance.   When the lights turn off and everyone leaves, I go back to work cleaning and wrenching-on games.  

Just one more cool mod, just one more coat of wax....

I do like working on pinball machines and arcades but it would be cool to get to play them now and again, too!  Plus, the pins get most of the maintenance time while the arcades were a little more neglected.

I came back from Southern Fried Gameroom Expo with this personal revelation that space is always a limiting factor.   Even at a big expo like that, there were games that weren't present and there will never be enough room (in my house or in my checking account!) to feed that one-more-again urge.   As in a lot of things, the chase is (often) better than the catch.

Do I want a gameroom to play in or a room full of trophies?

On one hand I had rough plans for adding a pool-house (eventually).   A place with bathrooms, shower, a kitchen / bar - and of course the arcade would move there.   But, would it stop with the $90,000 remodel or just keep going...?   On the other hand it wasn't lost on me that my home arcade was larger than the arcade at our local movie theaters.   

Then there's the idea that I personally enjoy arcades as much as pinball, yet one pinball machine like Wizard of Oz is equivalent financially to about 10 Tron Arcades..  

This was my quandary. 

I like pinball, I like arcades.   At peak, I've owned 8 pinball machines at once and 5-7 arcades in the same amount of time.   Yep, I know there are folks out there with (much!) larger collections and even a few people who even beat my level of maintenance OCD.   Family, demanding work schedule along with this and other hobbies - I probably won't ever be in the 20-pinball-machine upper crust of collectors. (And that's cool)  So, I decided a couple of months ago to start trimming back on Pinball games and to make some changes.

For pins, the number that I landed on was no more than 5.   I looked at each game in a duck-duck-goose-reminiscent way to determine what games would go and what games were safe for now. My guidelines were:

• These are games, not trophies: keep what me and family find fun to play
• Nostalgia
• Make the space more comfortable
• Allow for themed-areas or general theming opportunities
• Represent a balance of arcade, pinball and console gaming

For the pins, these were my thoughts:

Williams Indy - Love the theme, love everything about the gameplay. - A Keeper.

Stern Indy - Love the theme, game is fun but enjoy Williams IJ more - Sold it.

Wizard of Oz - Like the game, not into the theme. Love the lightshows and sound.   Shot geometry could be better /  the outlanes are vacuums. In the end, more trophy than game.  Sold it. 

Scared Stiff - Love the game, love the suggestive nature of the theme.  Fast game / short ball gameplay will be represented in Ghostbusters  Harder decision but landed on selling it in favor of making room. Sold it.

Ghostbusters - Who the hell knows, Would this damned game ship already? :)
Current estimate is Oct1.  If it slips any more, I'm switching my order to an MMR or a TOTAN.

Monster Bash - Love the theme, enjoy the game but it is easy.   Keeper but potential trade bait for something later.

Star Trek - Love the theme, love the light show, love the gameplay.  Classic Steve Ritchie.  It stays.

And pin number 5 well - stay tuned, it might surprise you.  Hint: I've owned one before.

Several friends from the local club popped in to help with the move and even provided some up-front design and sketch ideas as we were going through layout ideas.   This video is a timelapse over a couple of weeks using the Nest's motion-detection keyframes to create segments.  In a few places you will see they get out of sync, because some cameras got unplugged temporarily during the move.  

Still, kind of neat to see it happen in front of your eyes over the course of a few minutes..

In the end, I think what we ended up with turned out pretty well.   Pins, classic arcades, contemporary arcades, even consoles all represented in a more comfortable, open and inviting arcade.   Because in the end arcades are as much about fun with friends as they were about gaming.

The Ghostbusters Effect

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The chase for nostalgia is an interesting and magical thing.  Following months of rumors, when Stern Pinball finally announced that their Ghostbusters pinball game based (mostly) on the 1984 movie, the pinball-focused portions of the internet exploded.  
 

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Collectors, operators and enthusiasts started throwing money at Stern to line up for the privilege to buy the latest and greatest - and most expensive Stern pinball machine to date.

Cult classic movie, hand drawn art from an up and coming artist and a legend of Pinball design, how could this possibly go wrong for Stern?

If you've ever seen a Gary Stern interview or talked to him in person, you probably can predict his speech.  Really, it is like a drinking game: take a drink every time Gary says "Manufacturer" and "USA".    Stern takes pride in being a pinball manufacturer, the only pinball manufacturer to make it through the industry gloom early 2000's.  Even though plenty of pinball companies are making machines today, Stern carries the distinction of being the largest and most established.

The problem with repeating over and over that you are the best of something is that you stand to fall extra hard when you do finally fail.   Like David J. Maloney, a local ambulance chaser lawyer with cheesy dramatic local commercials about going after drunk drivers.  When he was pulled over for an alleged DUI, the local media ate up the irony with gleeful abandon.  Except, David J Maloney was shortly thereafter forgiven of his transgression.     I don't know (or care) enough of the details to make a sound judgement on if that was fair but I do know the cry for public awareness when a public figure fails is always much louder than when one succeeds.

With Ghostbusters, Stern finds themselves on the edge of a moment this like this.  When it was first announced, it was as if a giant Luigi-Mansion-esque vacuum cleaner sucked up all of the money in the pinball hobby.  If you had a pinball machine to sell in Q1-Q2 2016 in the pinball space, it was a buyer's market.  Most of the buyer's dollars were going to Stern through distributors and retailers.

Like the Wal-mart effect on local retailers but with Ghostbusters and the related secondary pinball market.   This was to be many peoples' first New In Box Pin.  

The track was set and all Stern had to do was run their victory laps past the competition.    Except, that's not what happened. 

Production delays, poor communication and quality issues are what has happened.  
"Your game is coming in June. "
June arrives..
"Your game is coming in July."
July arrives..
"Your game is coming in August."

August is here and half-past and some games have arrived.    The palpable excitement about people getting their LE games (only 500 made) are starting to be dulled by reports of playfield issues.

Insert problems, insert-ghosting, clearcoat chipping, etc..

The people having problems with their games are being vocal.  Possible that many people out there aren't having problems or haven't noticed any issues but the most vocal generate the story of history and right now that story is pointing towards a widespread quality control issue across multiple titles (Spiderman VE, Ghostbusters) and no specific promises from Stern to date as to what they will do to make it right.  

All of the sudden, if the pinball market was a balloon and money was air, it is like the balloon has been re-inflated as droves of customers cancel or delay their orders to see how "Insert Ghosting-Gate" plays out.

If you have a pin to sell, now is a great time to sell it.   But act quickly, the window will close again.

To be completely fair, I tend to believe that the reports of play field failures are likely exaggerated.  It isn't that I don't believe these people are having issues - they are absolutely having problems as the result of what appears to be a manufacturing defect in the playfield.   But, are the vocal few truly a representation of a widespread failure?   Maybe but equally: Maybe not.

 

The Social Media Effect on Pinball?

What is clear is that the days of a manufacturer being able to ignore customer requests for support are over.  In fact, maybe the name of this blog post should have been 'The Social Media Effect' on the Pinball Industry and Hobby.  

I do think, Stern could do a better job of getting in front of issues like this and communicating to the public what they intend to do and what the status of the issue resolution is.   Ignoring the community that feeds your business is a little like buying a pitbull and starving it.  

Eventually, it will eat your face off.

For what it's worth, I'm staying in on my Ghostbusters Premium order, even though I honestly have no idea when the thing will arrive or if it will have problems when it lands here.   I half suspect it will, though my personal experiences with Stern technical support have all been very positive and reasonable. 

But, what do I know, I'm just a guy that sold 3 pins in 9 hours at fair market prices.  If you are looking to cycle your collection, it is probably a good time to do so before the next have-to-have pin announcement freezes the apparently limited supply of cash in this hobby.  :)
 

July Arcade / Pinball Open House

July 2016 Open House / Arcade and Pinball Meetup event in Spanish Fort.

Southern Fried Gameroom Expo 2016

This summer I was happy to get to attend Southern Fried Gameroom Expo in Atlanta with my family and along with fellow arcade and pin collecting friends.  These events are always better if you can share them! 

The SFGE folks put on another great show.  It is impressive considering this is only their (3rd?) year of doing this show  - just how well it all comes together.  In fact, this year the show moved to a new venue to accommodate the growth / popularity of the event.  

In 2016, the event was hosted at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta.

My family appreciated the new venue.   Spacious rooms and clean rooms, friendly staff and roomy venue area, all walking distance to a nearby mall via a sky-bridge with good eats and shopping.

Miles staging his Mario toys out, getting ready of a day of gaming fun.

Who doesn't like a glass elevator, except for maybe Wreck-It Ralph? Jena approved, though.

Opening day, a respectable line waiting for the doors to open.

The event coordinators handled the morning /day one rush and constant comings-and-goings with professionalism and efficiency.  An organized, well-oiled machine.    Speaking of machines, the repair volunteers did a great job of keeping games going throughout the weekend.

Tournament Play

There were some real proud-dad moments watching Jena play in her first ranked tournament match.  In fact, maybe I should have spent less time being proud and more time playing better; she qualified ahead of me in standings :)

JJP

Being a JJP loyalist / I would start off with JJP, right? JJP and Flip-n-Out pinball brought two Hobbits, a WOZ and a MMR.

Whenever I look at Hobbit, I'm struck with just how awesome the game looks.  It is gorgeous and it exudes quality in person.   I have complex opinions regarding this pin.  On one hand, I think it looks great / sounds great and it was quite fun to play.    On the other hand, I'm not really into Tolkien stuff, I'm not a LOTR or Hobbit fan.   I guess maybe a symptom of my rampant ADD, I've never been able to sit through the books or the movies enough to really care what's going on.

In fairness, my complex opinions towards this pin might be colored by a largely disappointing pre-order experience with a particular JJP Distributor.

In the end, I think The Hobbit, is much like LOTR, at least to me.  Whenever I'd play LOTR in a setting full of noise and distraction, I really didn't get the love that people have for the game.   As I got to play a few good examples of the pin and go through the modes, learn the shots LOTR opened up for me. "AHA! I get it now, this is a really fun pin."   

Same goes for Hobbit.  I don't think a show is the best environment to really experience what Hobbit has going for it.   You really need to hear it, see it and feel the shots as you go through mode progression to fully appreciate the game.   Hobbit is a great second game from JJP.    WOZ was a hard act to follow.   Is The Hobbit better than WOZ?   As a matter of opinion, I don't think it is.  But WOZ might also be among the best games ever made..  

Jack's presentation covered his storied history in the industry, a Q&A format with a follow-on slide deck of some of the awesome things going on at JJP.   They continue to build Hobbits, will be building more WOZ 75th games and are staging for their next title.  From the sounds of it, the next title will scuttle the preorder-payment model and follow a more concise announce / reveal, sell and ship schedule similar to Stern.     

If you've never met Jack in person, you should endeavor to make it to a show and get some face time with him.   He's a super-sharp guy and his influence has raised the bar for pinball in quality, innovation (and price..)  Jack is good people.

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters, the hype is real.     In my short time in this hobby, I haven't seen anything in the pin community like the response to this pin.    This show was the first change for many folks to get their first plays in one of several Ghostbusters games brought to the show by Marco Specialities.

Want to check out Ghostbusters LE? That's it in the center of the frame and this is the line to get to it.

The Ghostbusters pins at the show had a line behind them, constantly.    I would love to have gotten their play counts, though the SM VE next to it got around 500 plays for the weekend.   (Not as much as I would have expected)

My impressions?   Ghostbusters if fun, fast and challenging.  Ball times are generally short, less than 1/3 of folks appeared to start Storage Facility Multiball.  I noticed two people get Mass Hysteria, in the full weekend.   The artwork is.., well art.  Gorgeous.   Nearly TOTAN-level of gorgeous in my humble opinion.   

I couldn't hear the sound very well during the show but I recently found a GB in the wild at a Movie theater and got to enjoy the full sound experience - it sounded great.   I can see, though that some of the callouts and sounds might end up being repetitive after a lot of play.   

The pro and the LE played differently.  I think the pro was a little harder, though the LE was plenty difficult.  I *really* liked the magnetic slings in the LE.  They often worked like regular slings but when they didn't - it was cool. Something fresh, something different.   Apparently Marco set them to "Very Active" in game settings.

The LE/ Slimer Mech did experience some problems a few times during the show.  At some point they had to disable him entirely.  As far as I could tell, the pros experienced no problems.   Negative Reinforcement was spelled wrong on the pro. :)

I did get to put my initials on one of the games, though I'm sure I didn't hold GC for the weekend.

At one point, there was a Ghostbusters 1-Ball tournament.  I was proud of Jena for stepping up for some tournament action, this trip.   The the video below, the GB Pro I was playing was super-tilty, or maybe the sun was in my eyes?  Playing up-hill in the snow.... :)

I spent much of my pinball time at this show running back and fourth between Hobbit and Ghostbusters.   I liked them both but for different reasons.  

Which one comes home with me? For now, Ghostbusters.  I love the theme, the art is cool and it fills a play / gameplay style hole in my pin lineup.    

All in all, Stern has a smash-hit in Ghostbusters.  Now they just have to catch up with demand.  I expect they will be making this game for years.    Looking forward to my Premium in a few weeks.

WNBJM

What can I say about Whoa Nelly Big Juicy Melons?  I was surprised how much fun I had playing this title.  I don't think I'll ever buy one but I did really enjoy it.

...and at the end of the day, who doesn't like Big Juicy Melons?  It is summer after all..

Marco had an excellent showing at this event. Really appreciate the new titles they brought out for us to play!

Getting Our Game On

I tried to balance my time between pins an arcades because I really love both.   While most of the pinball tables constantly had lines, the arcades were quite accessible.

I would like to have one of these! Love these setups

I had to double check which finger was up when he waved at me.. Very movie accurate. :)

As always, a pleasure to meet a member of the 501st!

SFGE this year was a blast.  The weekend went by really too quickly.  As, I came home and flipped the lights on in the game room it was a bitter-sweet moment; a mixture appreciation for the fun games I have but sorry the fun weekend of arcade festivities was over.  

All the more reason to go back next year!