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Monday April 28, 2008
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As the gaming world eagerly awaits the latest entry into the mega-popular and highly controversial Grand Theft Auto series, The New York Times has taken a step back in time with a trip to Melrose Park, Ill, where Stern Pinball continues to operate a 40,000-foot pinball warehouse--the last of its kind.
It's a bittersweet piece about the death rattle of an industry, featuring quotes that can't help but make you feel for those profiled, such as, "There are a lot of things I look at and scratch my head. Why are people playing games on their cellphones while they write e-mail? I don't get it." That one's from Tim Arnold, a former arcade owner, who adds, "The thing that's killing pinball is not that people don't like it. It's that there's nowhere to play it." But the factory's owner, Gary Stern, who inherited the family business from his father Samuel, posits that despite its tough times, pinball isn't going anywhere.
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April 28, 2008 8:57 PM
I'd have to agree with the second quote (although the first is just kind of sad...); after the arcade died, people didn't really have a place to PLAY pinball anymore. You don't want to drop the money to just have one in your house, they take up a lot of room, and they're expensive to maintain and keep up. When the arcade was a live and well, plenty of people played pinball, but now pinball machines have been delegated to seedy bars and grown-up playpens like Dave and Buster's (not that there's anything wrong with that!), or at best, a collector's basement.
I was never a huge pinball fan myself, the shiny lights and noise of arcade cabinets kept me away from the pinball machines, but I always had kind of a reverence for 'em. Maybe if the arcade ever comes back, we might see a resurgence in people playing pinball, but given how cheap at-home game consoles have been, I don't know if that's going to happen in enough time to save the industry. :/