It’s been a week since Pinball Expo 2024 wrapped up in Chicago, but it takes a little time to get through the videos and news of the event. If you’re subscribed to Arcade Heroes’ YouTube channel though, you’ve been able to keep up with what was going on there. Nonetheless, for those who read the site more, here is a master post of all those and much more commentary on the show…
An impressive Pinball Cups display for charity
Note that while I have covered this Expo in the past, I’ve had to do so vicariously. This was the first year where I was able to attend, although I wasn’t able to spend all my time walking the show floor and playing, as I was there on the expense of Alan-1 (who I have been doing a lot of consultancy work for). They were at the show with Asteroids Recharged. AVS Companies and Bandai Namco were also there with a booth to each, but they were focused on home sales. If you want to see Retro Ralph’s take on the show, click here. If you want to catch the many panels where a variety of pinball people discuss things like development, business, and other related items, visit the Pinball News YouTube channel.
There are a few people I missed while there, but hopefully I can catch up while at IAAPA. I’ll be sharing a few more photos for Members on the YT channel, so if that is you, stay tuned.
While this event was much more focused on residential customers than commercial ones, there were plenty of operators around. Let’s see what they had to play:
Stern Pinball
We’ll start with the biggest of the bunch, Stern Pinball. I’m used to seeing them with a relatively small booth space that is focused on 2-4 of their latest games. Here, they had 2-3x the space that Betson usually has for commercial shows, and I believe every game that was in production was available to play: The Uncanny X-MEN, John Wick, JAWS, James Bond 007, Venom, Deadpool, and Star Wars. Metallica Remastered made an appearance, but only on the last day (when I had already left). The main focus was on X-MEN, which had quite a few cabinets to play, although the most striking set up came from their X-MEN “cave”:
I enjoyed X-Men, although I didn’t find a massive difference in feel between the Premium and Pro versions. I was expecting it to feel off due to the offset flippers but that was fine and I was able to adjust quickly:
Hopefully Metallica is at IAAPA 2024. Here’s Stern’s tour that they posted; I did not get a chance to visit said factory (instead, I went and made a visit to Raw Thrills, which was cool):
Jersey Jack Pinball
Jersey Jack Pinball also had a much larger booth than what they usually do at industry shows, giving more space to play their games. Their main focus was on AVATAR: The Way of Water, where several machines were available to play (and a couple CE models underneath a tent). They also had Elton John, Toy Story 4, The Godfather, and Guns ‘N Roses. I did see, but not talk to, Steve Ritchie for the first time in person, he usually doesn’t attend shows like IAAPA or Amusement Expo (if he does, I have never seen him).
Unfortunately I did not get the chance to play Avatar (I did try to play it at the Free Play Zone, but the unit there wasn’t fully operating when I stopped by). It is a vibrant game though, and looks like a lot of fun. I’ll give it a spin at IAAPA.
American Pinball
American Pinball had ample space unlike I’ve ever seen them do, although unfortunately they didn’t have any new-new game that we hadn’t seen before. It did give you a chance to check out something you might have missed though, such as Barry O’s Barbeque Challenge, Galactic Tank Force (they had one unit in the closed/tank configuration), Legends of Valhalla, Hot Wheels, and Houdini. I didn’t see Oktoberfest there.
They will be at IAAPA, although I would be surprised if they introduced a new game there as opposed to the Expo.
Spooky Pinball
Even though I’ve played a few games by Spooky before, I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting a booth of theirs, as they don’t attend general industry shows (the same can be said for the rest of the companies I’ll be covering from this point out). This made it a rare chance to see their Looney Tunes, Scooby Doo, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre pins. I didn’t get a chance to play them though. They did not unveil any new-new titles for this Expo, but where I hadn’t played those three aforementioned games, it was all new to me.
Note that I will be posting some other videos of these games a little later – my focus has been on getting everything edited so this post could go live before it gets too far removed from the Expo.
Pinball Brothers
The torchbearers of Heighway Pinball’s legacy had their three titles at Expo: ABBA, Alien, and Queen. Most of the focus was on ABBA since that’s the newest title (and wholly original – Alien and Queen were the Heighway pick-ups). I only got to play Alien out of the three, which was fun, although I need to spend more time learning its flow.
Dutch Pinball
One of the most popular games at the show was Dutch Pinball’s new Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. From the moment that the show opened, a line formed that varied little throughout the day. Wait times were variable, but still you were waiting 20 minutes, if not longer, to give it a try.
With that kind of interest, I was certainly wanting to give the play a spin, but I just didn’t have the time to play it. Visually, this one really stands out, but that price tag makes it a non-starter for a location (unless it happens to post some amazing numbers over the course of a long time).
Barrels of Fun
The only game from Barrels of Fun at this point is Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. It was at a distributor booth with two models, one of which has the awesome topper you see in the thumbnail below. Unfortunately when I went to play it, the game wasn’t working, but later on I was able to film it with the issue resolved. This is a very impressive effort from a newcomer, although they are mainly focused on collectors. I did see an earnings sheet with this game on it recently that showed it as a strong earner, although it was only installed at 3 locations…so we’d need more to get a better idea of where it lands.
AtGames
AtGames has popped up at IAAPA and Amusement Expo before, although it hasn’t been consistent. They offer digital pinball games inside of pinball cabinets – anywhere from full-size to mini-desk sizes. They were saying something about a new software platform, but I was unable to follow-up on that (when I was around at the booth, several of the games were undergoing a software update).
Homebrew Pinball
One of the best sections of the show was for homebrew pins – essentially the “indie developer” section of unique designs and ideas, some of which were top notch. In retrospect, I should have spent more time on Overwatch and SAW, but hopefully I’ll come across them again one of these days.
Free Play Zone
Here’s something that I would love to see at more expos – a place where you can just play some games, no sales people or pressure, just fun. This zone also had games from the distant past to today, making for some nice variety. Granted, it makes a little more sense to have an area like this when you’re catering to residential customers over operators, but I still wouldn’t mind it at events like IAAPA or Amusement Expo.
Other Games
Finally, we have a couple titles I have added and uploaded later due to not having time to edit their videos, and a non-pinball Electro-Mechanical oddity.
For the first of those, The Princess Bride by Multimorpic is a digital/physical hybrid pin. This was the first time I’d come across anything by Multimorphic:
Then there is Ninja Eclipse by Turner Pinball. I had never heard of this one before seeing on the expo floor, but it looked cool and had a pretty fun theme.
For something different, I came across this pure Electro-Mechanical game by Fels Games. Oceanfront Helicopter Rides is essentially a brand new version of a classic going all the way back to 1969 called Whirly Bird (Midway). You control a helicopter that needs to touch as many lit-up metal rods as you can before the timer runs out. While not exactly original, I find EM games of all sorts to be fascinating and this is something that you can’t recreate faithfully in digital form (sure, you can make a game like it, but as it is with pinball, the feeling is nowhere near the same). The sticker on the game says it’s a money maker, which you expect any manufacturer to say, but I am quite curious to see what a modern game like this could earn on location.
There was a company that was all focused on retro arcades, but I highly doubt that they had any licensing for the stuff they produce (that becomes even more suspect when they have all these games from big companies like Konami, Nintendo, and so on – those never have licensing to them). At least I didn’t see coin acceptors on anything, but still, I just wouldn’t trust any company that makes stuff like that and it obviously isn’t licensed.
There were also some retro console items there that I could enjoy, although once again, I didn’t have time to play them. This same issue prevented me from visiting local arcade hotspots like Galloping Ghost Arcade… hopefully I can accomplish that next time.
All in all, Pinball Expo 2024 was a great show – I just wish I could have stayed longer to be able to play a few more games. If you were there, what was you favorite pinball to play?
