Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball

News Type: Other — Seeded on Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:45 AM EDT

Article Source: Via "Boing Boing"

technology, games, film, video-games, gaming, gamevine, dvd, documentaries, pinball, gamevine062208

THE SITUATION facing the pinball designers at Williams Electronic Games in 1998: come up with something new, or see the world's largest pinball manufacturer be shut down forever.

And Williams' designers did come up with something amazing: a brand new kind of pinball machine—"Pinball 2000"—that fused video with classic pinball gameplay, preserving what was great about pinball yet opening up all-new possibilities for a product thought to be on its last legs.

Yet soon after its successful and highly-profitable launch, Williams pulled the plug, leaving behind unanswered questions and abandoning one of the world's great design organizations. TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball is a documentary that tells the story behind one of entertainment's most mysterious failures.

Not just for pinball fanatics, TILT tells an account that any follower of technology, design, or business will find fascinating. Seen from the perspective of the designers that created Pinball 2000, TILT is a story about personality and passion, of bold success dizzyingly followed by stunning failure.

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1.5

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M. Remmers

Want.

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1 vote

#1 - Sun Jun 22, 2008 3:47 AM EDT

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Supernaught

I saw a "how it's made" type doc on pinball machines, and their manufacture many moons ago, and found the wizardly technicalities of this sort of engineering to be fascinating. These machines are truly a work of mechanical art, and are indeed an awe inspiring glimpse into americana and good old fashioned know-how.

I haven't read this yet, as it's late, but I look forward to it. It saddens me to think that billiards, and darts are forever, but pinball machines may go the way of the dodo. While never a pinball wizard, I enjoyed these machines immensely in the 80's/early 90's, and one of my favorites (which ushered in the high-tech age of pinball) was Xenon, from '79. I think it was the first to include a "tube" shot, and lots 'o flashing lights and sound effects.

Other favs include 8 Ball Delux, F-14 Tomcat, The Addams Family, and Black Knight, all ingrained in my memory as proof that shiny things engage in a way that even modern videogaming can't touch.

You know what else? Nothing consecrated the sound/feel of an arcade room better than those pinball machines sounds - The Cowboy saying "8 ball Deluxe!", or the femme alien/fembot of Xenon saying "Welcome to Xenon" or sexily "Try Me Again". Man, it was such a carnival atmosphere those days... I'm suppressing a tear (*sniff*)

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1 vote

#2 - Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:50 AM EDT

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M. REMMERS

Backyard

Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball

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