Can This Wizard Save Pinball?

From its modern incarnation with the advent of the flipper after WWII, pinball enjoyed a long run as the go-to electronic amusement pastime.  It lasted until the 70's, when the shimmering graphics and bloop and bleep siren call of video games lured players away from mechanical playgrounds to ephemeral worlds comprised of phosphors on a screen.

Pinball limped along, the market steadily shrinking until a few old warhorse manufacturers remained, companies like Williams, who attempted to resurrect  the genre with a daring video/pinball hybrid system in 1999 called Pinball 2000.  As detailed in the excellent documentary TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball (Two-Disc Set) , this gambled failed, Williams moved to the more lucrative slot machine market, and so pinball has languished as a niche collector's market.

But now former arcade operator and online pinball machine retailer "Jersey" Jack Guarieri has hopes to propel the silver ball back into public consciousness with a new machine of his own design, based on a slightly dated property... The Wizard of Oz.  Guarieri's sense of timing might be spot on though, riding the buzz of the upcoming Disney prequel to Wizard, Oz: The Great and Powerful.  Only time will tell if Guarieri is truly the wizard who can save pinball.

Slate has the story here:

via Digg