As we hit the beginning of summer, things usually tend to be a little quiet in the world of pinball. Never fear though, there's always something interesting to talk about if you look hard enough. Here's a few things that have caught my eye over the past several days.
First up we have Planetary Pinball. Planetary is the current gatekeeper for all things Bally Williams in pinball. If I understand it correctly, Scientific Games...which is now called Light and Wonder, still technically owns the actual Bally Williams rights and Planetary licenses them through it.
Anyhow, Planetary licenses Bally Williams rights for pinball and has a lot of original parts and memorabilia from the company. They have some interesting auctions of original BW (I'm getting sick of writing that out lol) stuff up on e-Bay right now. Probably the most interesting of which is the original Williams Pinball Production Rotomold used to create the Thing hand that grabs the ball to lock it in its iconic 1992 pinball machine The Addams Family.
The part, which is looking a tad rusty, is currently listed up on e-Bay for $800 USD.
From the listing:
"This item is an original Roto-Mold Cavity used in the production of Williams/Bally Games, which is a specific process to create parts from liquid plastic and heat and gyroscopic type of mechanism to coat the mold with layers of plastic to create the resulting parts that you would see the particular game that used that part.
This action is for the original mold cavity is for the Original Williams Pinball Production Rotomold Addams Family Thing Hand, which is WMS part# 03-8644 and is one of only a handful that exist. These were acquired by Planetary Pinball who is the Williams Electronics Games and are no longer used to make parts.
These are truly collector items, and are a great conversation piece.
NOTE: these items are the mold cavities, which does not convey any copyright for the resulting part which is still retained by Williams Electronics Games. The owner may certainly sell this item to others but is not licensed to make reproduction parts from the cavity in any way."
In addition to the Addams Family mold, Planetary has the Bluto face mold from its 1994 pin Popeye Saves the Earth ($500) and the Brontosaurus crane cover mold from its 1994 pin The Flintstones also for sale ($500). Those are some really cool pieces of pinball history.
The Addams Family mold:
The Popeye mold:
The Flintstones mold:
A picture of the Rotomold process:
I wrote here earlier this week about the recent and in my opinion unfair treatment of freeplay arcades in the state of Georgia by the state's privately-run Lottery Commission. For those of you who missed that article, the commission suddenly and unexpectedly changed its interpretation of an existing law and immediately forced the state's freeplay arcades to shut their doors until they were in compliance with the new policy, which could take a week or longer.
One of those arcades was the outstanding Pinball Palace in Brunswick, Georgia. Well, I have good news to report! After the media and ultimately local politicians got involved, The Pinball Palace has reopened, despite originally being told that it had to close until July 1st. The location is holding a big party this Saturday, June 22nd to celebrate. There will be lots of giveaways and custom t-shirts at the event. So if you're near there, make sure to stop by
The Pinball Palace:
I don't have a whole lot to say about these next pictures, but they were really cool so I had to share them lol. Pedretti Gaming continues to build and ship new Funhouse Remakes.
Rudy Eyes:
For all of you in the Northwestern part of North America, the annual Yegpin pinball convention kicks off today in Sherwood Park, Alberta Canada. The event, which runs all weekend, features over 250 pinball machines and 50 arcade games, tournaments and vendors.
Highlights from last year's Yegpin show:
Last up we have Stern Pinball. Yesterday, Stern rolled out a new code update for it's newest game, John Wick, Version 0.83. This new code marks the launch of the new immersive gun effects that I was shown on my recent tour of the Stern factory and subsequently wrote about here.
Stern is calling it the "Event-Driven Effect System." According to the update, this new feature "adds synchronized shaker motor, expression light, and speaker light effects for gunshots, combat, impacts, explosions, and other film effects" to the game. It's really neat when you see it in action in-person.
Step 1 in buying the creepy cast hand is getting it to sit right on your mantle
Step 2 is convincing everybody who comes over to your place that you don't have some dead dude's hand on your mantle