Gotta Catch ‘Em All? Stern Pinball Officially Unveils Pokémon

The internet went all ablaze last week when Stern Pinball finally teased that their next major release would be the long rumored Pokémon, based upon the ultra-famous franchise of the same name. This did confuse a lot of fans who know nothing about pinball, which I sort of addressed here, but today, the company fully rolled out the details. Let’s discuss.

Pokémon – The Pinball Machine

There are three models to Pokémon Pinball, as Stern usually does – Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition (LE). There are always questions about “well what’s the difference between them?”, but that is easily answered by visiting this Features Matrix (off-site link to a PDF).

It is based upon the original cartoon, which could be argued is a bone thrown to the older generations, however, there are plenty of kids who don’t have a problem watching that (my nephew being one of them). The main point of the game is to “catch ’em all”, which is achieved by hitting the Poké Ball target (this has an enhancement for the Prem/LE models, otherwise it functions the same). If you want to keep track of your catches, you’ll need to use the free Stern Insider Connected app, and build that collection.

The differences between the playfields are subtle as opposed to significant. As you can see here, they’re almost the same, the differences coming in with mechanisms and animatronics instead of additional ramps, playfields, and flippers. Prem/LE does come with the “whirlpool” bowl on the bottom right as the most noticeable difference, and there’s a magnet under the playfield within the arena that will certainly cause some different effects. That aside, it won’t feel like you’re playing completely different games if you try both out:

Note that this was designed by Jack Danger and George Gomez; it isn’t common for there to be two principle designers on a pin, however, Jack had to leave Stern due to personal reasons. It sounds like George stepped in to finish it (presumably to address anything left for the licensors to sign off on, which would be part of the process here).

A press release for the game, which is now considered to be released and available, can be found here.

As a note, I did do a reaction livestream to this trailer, although I screwed it up at first thanks to not checking my mic before streaming. I stand admonished.

Pokémon – The Trailer

It’s one thing to discuss, another to watch, so in case you hadn’t seen it yet, here is the first of what I assume will be a few different game trailers:

What also might be of interest is footage from the Stern Pinball Media Day that was held this past Thursday at Stern HQ for the game. Unfortunately I did not go there (I did get an invite in January, however, I didn’t know it was going to be for Pokémon, so I didn’t make any arrangements), but several others in the pinball community did. PinballNews has a 17 min video from that event;

Quick Thoughts

The thing about the initial reveal of this that surprised me was that it took so long; before I saw any rumors about it at all on Pinside or Knapp Arcade, an industry insider (who was not involved at all with pinball, but he knew someone at Stern) pulled me aside and told me that it was “likely their next game”. I kept expecting the announcement to come after that, but after a couple of years I began to think that maybe the license fell through.

I’m glad that they did release this though, as the whole idea of a Pokémon pinball machine was a brilliant idea. It is one of the most sensible licenses that could possibly be picked for an industry always complaining about “how to bring in new fans”. While appealing to Boomers/Gen Xers/Millennials works for the collector’s market, it’s not how you get people into the arcade. As I’ve stated many times, pinball has some of the worst ROI of a product in the industry, and that’s because most of the people interested in playing it buy one for their house and play there. Tournaments does get some out, but that’s only once or twice a month from a small group, it’s not appealing to the masses.

Pokémon has appeal not just with Gen Xers and Millennials, but also whatever new generations you want to call the kids these days. It has appeal beyond just an anime, or movie, or card game, or video game, and that’s what you need – plus a game that isn’t too over-the-top-complex – to grab their attention in a venue where they’ve been trained to go to the ticket games first.

Will this become the best selling pinball game of all time, or at least Stern’s best? Who knows, but it certainly is in a good spot to achieve that, given what I’ve seen here. Let’s just hope that the code is not terrible with the initial production run; it also would have been cool if it could have had a card dispenser, but I’m guessing that was a complexity that they didn’t want to deal with.

What are your thoughts on this game? Would you get it for your game room or operations venue?