Editing Pinball (section)

===1980s and 1990s: Pinball in the digital age===
[[File:20080405-Vegas004-PinballHOF02.jpg|thumb|right|400px|A row of pinball machines at the [[Pinball Hall of Fame]] in Las Vegas, Nevada]]
During the 1980s, pinball manufacturers navigated technology changes while going through changes of ownership and mergers: Gottlieb was sold to Premier Technologies, and Bally merged with Williams. The [[video game crash of 1983]] made the manufacturers refocus on their pinball sales. A trend started of pinball becoming increasingly elaborate to use more computing resources, following video games.

Games in the latter half of the 1980s such as [[High Speed (pinball)|High Speed]] started incorporating full soundtracks, elaborate light shows and backbox animations - a radical change from the previous decade's electromechanical games. Although pinball continued to compete with video games in arcades, pinball held a premium niche, since the video games of the time could not reproduce an accurate pinball experience.

By the first years of the 1990s, pinball had made a strong comeback and saw new sales highs. Some new manufacturers entered the field, such as Capcom Pinball and Alvin G. and Company, founded by Alvin Gottlieb, son of David Gottlieb. Gary Stern, the son of Williams co-founder Sam Stern, founded [[Data East]] Pinball with funding from Data East Japan.

The games from Williams now dominated the industry, with complicated mechanical devices and more elaborate display and sound systems attracting new players to the game. Licensing popular movies and icons of the day became a staple for pinball, with Bally/Williams' ''[[The Addams Family (pinball)|The Addams Family]]'' from 1992 hitting a modern sales record of 20,270 machines. In 1994, Williams commemorated this benchmark with a limited edition of 1,000 ''Addams Family Gold'' pinball machines, featuring gold-colored trim and updated software with new game features. Other notable popular licenses included ''[[Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure]]'' and ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation (pinball)|Star Trek: The Next Generation]]''. Expanding markets in Europe and Asia helped fuel the revival of interest. [[Pat Lawlor]] was a designer, working for Williams until their exit from the industry in 1999. About a year later, Lawlor returned to the industry, starting his own company,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.patlawlordesign.com/ |title=Pat Lawlor Design |publisher=Pat Lawlor Design |date=December 29, 2009 |access-date=October 27, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121111142800/http://www.patlawlordesign.com/ |archive-date=November 11, 2012 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> working in conjunction with Stern Pinball to produce new games.

The end of the 1990s saw another downturn in the industry, with Gottlieb, Capcom, and Alvin G. closing by the end of 1996. Data East's pinball division was acquired by [[Sega]] and became [[Sega Pinball]] in 1994. By 1997, there were two companies left: Sega Pinball and Williams. In 1999, Sega sold their pinball division to Gary Stern, President of Sega Pinball at the time, who called his company [[Stern (game company)|Stern Pinball]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sternpinball.com |title=Stern Pinball |publisher=Stern Pinball |access-date=October 27, 2012}}</ref>

By this time, Williams games rarely sold more than 4,000 units. In 1999, Williams attempted to revive sales with the [[Pinball 2000]] line of games, merging a video display into the pinball playfield. The reception was initially good with ''[[Revenge from Mars]]'' selling well over 6,000 machines, but short of the 10,000-plus production runs for releases just six years earlier. The next Pinball 2000 game, ''[[Star Wars Episode I (pinball)|Star Wars Episode I]]'', sold only a little over 3,500 machines.

Williams exited the pinball business on October 25, 1999 to focus on making gaming equipment for casinos, which was more profitable.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/28/technology/pinball-line-closing-down.html|title=Pinball Line Closing Down|newspaper=The New York Times |date=28 October 1999 |last1=Headlam |first1=Bruce }}</ref> They licensed the rights to reproduce Bally/Williams parts to Illinois Pinball and reproduce full-sized machines to The Pinball Factory. Stern Pinball remained the only manufacturer of original pinball machines until 2013, when [[Jersey Jack Pinball]] started shipping ''[[The Wizard of Oz (pinball)|The Wizard of Oz]]''. Most members of the design teams for Stern Pinball are former employees of Williams.

Amid the 1990s closures, virtual pinball simulations, marketed on computers and home consoles, had become high enough in quality for serious players to take notice: these video versions of pinball such as [[Epic Pinball]], [[Full Tilt! Pinball]] and the [[Pro Pinball]] series found marketplace success and lasting fan interest, starting a new trend for realistic pinball simulation. This market existed largely independently from the physical pinball manufacturers, and relied upon original designs instead of licenses until the 2000s.