Pat Lawlor has been interviewed by Gamasutra and it’s a pretty good interview where he discusses the modern pinball market along with some talk on his old pins like The Addams 
Family, Funhouse, Family Guy, CSI, Pinball 2000 and more. What I really like about the interview however are his straight-forward and perhaps sharp answers about the current pinball and arcade market. When he says that what we are doing with pinball today is the same as in 1992 and that unless there is a course change, pinball will surely die.He doesn’t have a bright outlook for the coin-op market as a whole but he does make some good points about how mass marketing (which is still fairly non-existent in the coin-op industry except for what you get online) is useful and the advantage of small groups designing a game over a large one. I can’t say that he has great words for working with Stern and how games are picked, but you’ll have to read the article and judge for yourself.
It’s short and sweet, but Pat does seem to have some animosity for the coin-op industry (or what’s left of it in his opinion). I hope there’s a future for pinball and that Pat can be involved somewhere along the line.
I think that there is a future for pinball but some things need to change and I think that Pat hit the nail on the head with what is going on. The machines aren’t seeing much innovation that couldn’t have been done in 1992. They need to dump the dot matrix display in favor of something more advanced. They also need to market more to the public. Now Stern has done that a little with appearances on US morning talk shows so it’s a start but it’s not enough. Operators can always help too – I’ve been able to draw people in simply with Indy – the nice thing about pins I have noticed is that families seem to enjoy them the most. Maybe it’s time they started figuring out ways to market jointly with Disney or something along those lines.