


You will normally get an inkling as to whether a game has that effect on you after a few games, and whether you want to continue hitting start to continue, or to walk away and try something else.Ĭriteria 2 - How important to you is the theme or license?Īs you can probably tell, pinball machines have touched almost every conceivable theme and license. After all, what use is a pinball machine that you don't want to play? Players and designers alike have called the best games 'the ones that left you one shot away', or the games that had you so close to winning it all, and then making the player feel amazing when they eventually pull that one goal off. Just how much enjoyment does any machine give you to play? A pinball machine is a sizable investment, and a game that you will need to want to keep returning to time after time if it's to last any time in your home. This is probably one of the most important questions you can ask yourself when looking to buy any pinball machine.

If you want a general steer however, take the following factors into account.Ĭriteria 1 - Does the game drive you to keep playing? It's a simple matter of playing a lot of games and seeing what you think is the most fun. No one game will be completely perfect for every player, and every player will have their own individual favourite.

This question is both incredibly easy, yet incredibly difficult to answer all at the same time, as advice is generally applicable to everyone - Buy whatever you like! We appreciate that this information may not appear the most helpful, but it is essentially the most valuable piece of advice anyone looking to buy a pinball machine can abide by. If you're new to pinball machines, one question you'll ask yourself if you want one is 'Which pinball machine should I buy?'. Related: check out our guide to the Best Bally Pinball Machines from the 1970s. Williams would eventually acquire Bally/Midway in 1988, before going closing down its pinball division in 1999 due to high losses and declining interest in the marketplace. By the 1970s, Williams was still mostly churning through old-style EM machines and would eventually achieve notable success into the 1980s and 1990s as they transitioned to solid-state and computerized technology. Founded by Harry Williams in 1943, Williams was one of the companies most responsible for growing the pinball market into what it is today. and eventually WMS Industries, Inc., was one of the leading manufacturers of pinball machines in the world. Williams Electronics Company, also known as Williams Manufacturing Company Williams Electronics, Inc. What was the Williams Electronics Company? In this post, we take a look at the 13 best Williams Pinball machines produced in the 1970s. Still, though, Williams Electronics was able to put out a whole bunch of classic pinball games that still hold up today. During the 70s, Williams Electronics would only release about 95 games compared to 113 for Bally and a whopping 153 for Gottlieb. Gottlieb, while slower to adopt and release tables featuring solid-state technology, continued a comparatively torrid pace of releases. Bally was generally quicker to adopt this new solid-state technology, releasing a slew of all-time classic titles like Paragon, Future Spa, and Playboy in the latter half of the decade. While already a storied pinball manufacturer, Williams Electronics was solidly behind its prime competitors Bally and Gottlieb in this era. It would serve as the last gasp of the electro-mechanical (EM) era of pinball, with computerized solid-state machines making their way into the market by the middle and end of the decade. The 1970s were an interesting era for pinball.
