Dave Knows: Pinball

Remember Pinball 2000?

Remember how not soon after Williams released a couple Pinball 2000 machines (Revenge from Mars and Starwars Episode 1) they got out of the pinball business? TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball is a documentary about what happened.

Alas, I have not seen the film yet (though I just ordered a copy as a birthday present for my co-blogger Steve), so I’ll let the film’s website explain what it’s about:

IN 1998, COIN-OPERATED GAMES were in dire straits. Arcades were extinct, having long ceded their popularity to home video games. Yet pinball remained an experience you couldn’t get at home. The pinball designers at Williams of Chicago, Illinois—the world’s largest manufacturer of pinball—realized this; they knew that with a little rethinking, pinball could once again succeed.

In a short eighteen months, management planned to abandon pinball in favor of the booming video slot machine business…but not before granting their designers just one last shot at saving the game they loved. TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball is a documentary that tells the story of Pinball 2000, a clever attempt at resuscitating pinball that failed just at the moment a lot of people thought it might succeed.

Khoi Vinh at Subtraction has a review of the film too: Coin-operated, User Experienced.