Double post but whatever, I might put some random video game/pinball crossover facts in a post (or in the OP). This post might just be my scratchpad for putting things down in one spot:
* Steve Ritchie (designer of High Speed, Getaway, Terminator 2, up to Game of Thrones and Star Wars) was the voice for Shao Kahn/"the announcer" in Mortal Kombat 2 and 3. It was also his idea to use a "K" for Kombat in the game's title. Lastly, he was also the producer on California Speed, an arcade driving game.
* Eugene Jarvis worked at Williams as a pinball programmer before (and sometimes during) programming video arcade games. He worked on High Speed, Gorgar and F-14 Tomcat (amongst others)
* Ed Boon (co-creator of the Mortal Kombat series) did software programming for several pinball machines, including Black Knight 2000, Space Station and Taxi. His brother Mike also worked on a good number of games, like The Shadow, White Water and The Addams Family.
* Brian Eddy (designed Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness and The Shadow) directed Stranglehold and Psi-Ops, both Midway console-exclusive games.
* Dan Forden worked on sound at Bally/Williams for 10 years, from 1989-1999, working on Medieval Madness, Star Trek TNG and many, many others. You might know him as "Toasty!" from the Mortal Kombat games, he also did the sound on most of those.
* Brian Schmidt worked on the music for several pinball machines at both Williams and Data East, including Black Knight 2000, Swords of Fury and Banzai Run before being contracted by Electronic Arts to do music specifically for a pinball video game called Crue Ball. Would later go on to do music for multiple non-pinball EA games like Desert Strike, Mutant League Football and the Madden NFL games.
* Python Anghelo co-designed and did artwork for a number of pinball and video games. His pinball works include the concept and/or art for Pin*bot, Bride of Pin*bot, Taxi, Big Guns, Bad Cats. Video game works include the artwork for Joust and design on Bubbles, both by Williams.
That's about all the notable ones I can think of right now. I always like telling people about the ties between Steve Ritchie and MK :D
Ed Boon is also the voice of Rudy in Funhouse!
Modern pinball is the product of a very slow evolution from bagatelle. As more and more features were added to excite players the game eventually became what it is today. The pins on the boards of those early games are what gives Pinball its name.
(the game that started Bally!)
First flipper game: Humpty Dumpty (Gottlieb 1947)
First pinball machine with a bumper: Bumper (Bally 1936)
First pinball machine to use "jet bumpers" and locate the flippers at lower end of playfield: Saratoga (Williams 1948)
First pinball machine to use a ramp on playfield: Nine Sisters (Williams 1953)
First pinball machine to use drop targets: Vagabond (Williams 1962)
First pinball machine with multiball: BBalls-a-Poppin' (Bally 1956)
First pinball machine with multi-ball in the solid-state electronics era: Firepower (Williams 1980)
First pinball machine to use a microprocessor (first SS table): Spirit of 76 (Mirco Games 1975)
First pinball machine with an alpha-numeric display: Chicago Cubs: Triple Play (Gottlieb 1985)
First pinball machine with a dot matrix scoring display: Checkpoint (Data East 1991)
First pinball machine to feature speech: Gorgar (Williams 1979)
First pinball machine to feature a known celebrity voice (Cassandra Peterson - Elvira) especially recorded for the machine: Elvira and the Party Monsters (Bally 1989)
First pinball machine without a plunger: Spectrum (Bally 1982)
First pinball table to feature a two-level playing field: Black Knight (Williams 1980)
First pinball with a three-level playing field: Haunted House (Gottlieb 1982)
Last Williams/Bally Alphanumeric displays: Bride of Pinbot & Harley Davidson respectively (February 1991)
Last Pinball Game to use a Dot Matrix Display: Ghostbusters (Stern) (for now)
Last pinball game made by Williams/Bally: Star Wars: Episode One (1999, The second and last of the Pinball 2000 platform)
Best-selling game of all time: The Addams Family (Bally) 20,270 units + 1,000 units of the 1994 Limited Edition run
Biggest pinball
table ever made: Hecules (Atari 1979) It uses a pool ball
Biggest pinball
machine ever made: Galactic Dimension
Rarest pinball machine: Pinball Circus (Bally 1994, 2 units) While there are actually quite a few games that only had 1 unit made they are all conversions of pre-existing games as far as I am aware. Pinball Circus is 100% original (in more ways than one):
One is at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas, the other in a private collection. It looks incredible.
Here's a link to Wikipedia's list of Pinball Manufacturers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pinball_manufacturers
Here's some history about some of the prominent pinball makers:
http://www.flippers.be/basics/101_pinball_history_usa.html
http://www.pinball-magazine.com/?page_id=31
Here's a great post on Pinside with some fascinating facts about the history of pinball (though happily the one about there being only one pinball manufacturer left is no longer correct!!)
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/some-things-you-didnt-know-about-pinball-history
There's some real fun stuff about how pinball was illegal for decades and how it came to be legalized (although it is still technically illegal in some places in America!)
We should also do weirdest/oddest pinball machines, for example Joust, Varkon, Orbiter 1, etc.
BTW, I inserted quotes around the different sections of my megapost so no more image spam.
