Vintage pinball machines lit up in a dark arcade room — the retro revival

Retro Revival: Why Vintage Arcade Games Are Making a Comeback (Led by Pinball)

Retro Revival: Why Vintage Arcade Games Are Making a Comeback (Led by Pinball)

The arcade comeback is not just a nostalgic impression: it is a measurable phenomenon. In 2025, the International Flipper Pinball Association recorded 14,122 pinball tournaments and 43,742 unique players across 30 countries, up from 7,200 tournaments and 24,380 players in 2019 (source: IFPA, System Statistics, accessed July 13, 2026). And at the heart of this resurgence, one machine leads the way: pinball. Here is why — with facts, figures, and sources, no myths.

The Revival in Numbers: What the Data Shows

The cleanest data in the industry comes from the IFPA, which has sanctioned pinball tournaments worldwide for decades. Its public statistics page tracks the number of events and players year by year. The picture is unambiguous.

Year IFPA Tournaments Total Entries Unique Players
2017 4,723 113,825 19,392
2019 7,200 168,546 24,380
2020 (Covid) 1,540 35,891 11,403
2022 7,724 180,021 24,717
2024 12,776 291,118 38,906
2025 14,122 319,878 43,742

Source: IFPA, "Events by Year" and "Players by Year," data accessed July 13, 2026. The 2025 figures continue to shift slightly as the IFPA integrates late-reported results.

In other words: the number of tournaments has tripled since 2017 and has nearly doubled compared to pre-Covid levels. This is not a rebound — it is sustained growth. An honest caveat: these figures measure organized competition, not the pinball market as a whole. They are nonetheless the best publicly available indicator — and the trend is clear.

From One Manufacturer to More Than Ten

To grasp the scale of the recovery, you need to remember where things stood. By the late 1990s, Bally, Williams, and Gottlieb had all exited pinball. Gary Stern, head of Stern Pinball, sums it up: "Bally, Gottlieb, and Williams all went away. If we hadn't continued, I don't think there would still be pinball. There are other smaller manufacturers because we were able to keep going." (GamesBeat interview, July 2, 2026). For a decade, Stern was virtually the only game in town.

Today, the landscape has changed. Rob Berk, founder of the Pinball Expo (the oldest pinball trade show, established in 1985), told NBC Chicago in October 2024: "There are probably more than ten factories making pinball machines today." Among the companies that have actually released or announced a machine in 2025-2026:

  • Stern Pinball (Elk Grove Village, Illinois) — the world's largest pinball manufacturer. The company is the legal successor to Data East Pinball (1986), which passed through Sega before Gary Stern acquired it in 1999. In 2026, Gary Stern mentions approximately 500 people (employees and consultants) and a pace of roughly 6 titles / 12 variations per year.
  • Jersey Jack Pinball — founded in 2011 by Jack Guarnieri; first machine The Wizard of Oz (2013), a pioneer of large color LCD screens in the backbox.
  • Chicago Gaming Company — the remake specialist: Medieval Madness, then Attack from Mars, then Monster Bash, then Cactus Canyon (order confirmed by Pinball News, August 21, 2021).
  • Spooky Pinball — a family-run shop founded in 2013 by Charlie Emery in Benton, Wisconsin: 30 to 35 employees, over 1,000 machines per year, roughly 40 hours of labor per machine (NBC15/WMTV, October 31, 2024).
  • American Pinball (founded in 2015, first machine Houdini in 2017 — company sold in January 2026), Barrels of Fun, Multimorphic, Pinball Brothers, Turner Pinball, Pedretti Gaming (Italy)...

Let's be honest: this renaissance is also brutal. Haggis Pinball (Australia) went into liquidation in July 2024, leaving unfinished production runs; deeproot Pinball collapsed; American Pinball changed hands. Pinball is back, but it is a tough business.

Why Pinball, and Not Some Other Retro Game?

Video arcade cabinets are making a comeback too. But pinball holds a special place, and it is no accident.

1. Real Physics, Not a Random Number Generator

George Gomez, Chief Creative Officer at Stern Pinball, puts it better than anyone: "The randomness of these games is a function of gravity, not a random number generator, and your progression is not based on a series of scripted outcomes." (Gaming.net interview, August 26, 2020). An 80-gram steel ball bouncing off pop bumpers never repeats the same path. Two identical games are structurally impossible.

2. An Object, Not a Screen

Gary Stern describes it as a "Pavlovian" game: "Unlike video games, it's physical. It's mechanical action. People see the Jurassic Park dinosaur swallow the ball and spit it back out... they see that and they're amazed." A pinball machine from the 1980s weighs 250 kg of wood, copper, coils, and silk-screened glass. It takes up space in a room. It makes noise. It can be repaired.

3. A Real Competitive Scene

The IFPA table above proves it: unlike most retro hobbies, pinball has a structured worldwide competitive circuit with rankings, national championships (including France), and a World Championship. It is a powerful driver of recruitment.

Barcades and Location-Based Play: Pinball Has Come Out of the Basement

The barcade movement — bars where you play on vintage machines — began on October 1, 2004, when four friends opened the first Barcade in a former workshop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The concept has spread (Jersey City, Philadelphia, Manhattan, New Haven, Detroit, Los Angeles...), with openings as well as closures: the model is not magic, it is simply solid.

The most concrete indicator today is Pinball Map, a community-driven database launched in 2008 and used by Stern Pinball for its own machine locator. As of July 13, 2026, it listed 10,962 public locations and 45,306 playable machines worldwide. This number changes every week — but the order of magnitude says it all: pinball has once again become a game you encounter out in the wild.

Values Are Rising — But Beware of the Numbers Floating Around

Yes, machines are worth more than they were fifteen years ago. Marco Ramirez, Director of Operations at Marco Specialties (the world's largest pinball parts distributor), puts it simply: "Now that games are worth more, some people are willing to spend a little more on replacement parts." (Pinball News, June 7, 2026).

Concretely, on the American resale market tracked by Pinside (asking prices, 12-month adjusted median, recorded July 13, 2026): Medieval Madness (Williams, 1997) hovers around $10,500, Attack from Mars (Bally, 1995) around $9,000, The Addams Family (Bally, 1992) around $9,500. At the other end of the spectrum, a Black Hole (Gottlieb, 1981) asks around $1,975 and a Gorgar (Williams, 1979) around $1,995.

However, caution is warranted. Many "auction records" and "market studies" circulating about pinball do not hold up to scrutiny: most come from forums, resale sites, or SEO content mills. There is no reputable auction house, nor any truly public transaction price database for pinball, to our knowledge. We will therefore only cite what is verifiable: asking prices, with their source and date. For machine-by-machine details, see our top 10 collectible pinball machines and what they are really worth.

The Real Driver: The Culture of Repair

A pinball machine from 1981 that still works in 2026 is not a miracle: it is the result of the work of thousands of people. Marco Specialties, founded in 1985, now stocks over 30,000 different parts on six-meter-high shelving. Its founder recalls that it all started with the local distributor's dumpsters: "We used to salvage old pinball machines from the dumpsters, strip them down, make up parts lots... that's what gave us the idea: this stuff will never be manufactured again, and someday it will be collectible." His motto: "The only bad pinball machine is a broken pinball machine."

But this economy has its limits. Kevin Wayte, of CPR (Classic Playfield Reproductions), which has been remanufacturing playfields and backbox panels since 2005, said in February 2026: "A finite population of surviving old games inevitably leads to a decline in demand for reproduction parts... You only replace a reproduction playfield once." CPR is restructuring and downsizing. Restoration is a driver — but one that must constantly reinvent itself.

The Breaking Point for 1977-1985 Machines: The Battery

If you acquire a microprocessor-based pinball machine from this era, the most common failure is always the same. The Bally (1977-1985) MPU boards (AS-2518-17 and AS-2518-35) and Gottlieb System 80 boards carry a battery soldered directly onto the board — on System 80, a NiCd rechargeable cell. Over time, the electrolyte leaks and attacks the traces, IC sockets, and components. The community's reference guides (pinrepair.com, PinWiki) are categorical: corrosion behaves "like a cancer" — if any remains, it spreads again.

This is exactly the problem that modern replacement boards solve: no battery, no leaks, no corrosion. We cover this topic in detail in our guides on Bally (1977-1985) replacement MPU boards, Gottlieb System 80 all-in-one boards, and Williams System 3-7 replacement boards.

Your 1980s pinball machine won't start?

Pinballs Store designs FPGA replacement boards for vintage pinball machines: Plug & Play, battery-free (so never any corrosion again), with the original ROMs interpreted in an FPGA — this is not software emulation. You keep the original game, you gain true Freeplay, and the original coin mechanism continues to work.

6-month warranty (parts and labor) against any failure not caused by misuse, 30-day money-back guarantee, and free technical support.

So, What Should You Buy?

Two paths, both equally valid. The collectible path — a highly valued machine from the 1990s, expensive, hard to find: that is the subject of our top 10 collectible pinball machines. And the machine you can actually find path — a Gottlieb System 80 or a Williams System 6/7 from 1979-1985, produced in runs of over 10,000, affordable, repairable, and often excellent: see our top 10 nostalgic arcade games to own, and for example our profile of Black Hole (Gottlieb, 1981).

FAQ

Is pinball really making a comeback, or is it just marketing?

It is measurable. The IFPA recorded 14,122 tournaments and 43,742 unique players in 2025, compared to 4,723 tournaments and 19,392 players in 2017 (IFPA data, accessed July 13, 2026). And Pinball Map listed 45,306 playable machines across 10,962 public locations as of July 13, 2026. These are not marketing numbers.

How many pinball manufacturers are there today?

Rob Berk, founder of the Pinball Expo, spoke of "more than ten factories" in October 2024 (NBC Chicago). Stern Pinball remains by far the largest. The industry is nevertheless fragile: Haggis Pinball was liquidated in 2024, and American Pinball was sold in 2026.

Why pinball rather than a video arcade cabinet?

Because the game is never scripted. As George Gomez (Stern) puts it: "The randomness of these games is a function of gravity, not a random number generator." A real ball, a real trajectory, a mechanical object you can repair yourself.

Is a vintage pinball machine a good investment?

Asking prices have clearly risen for sought-after titles, but we advise against thinking of it as an "investment." There is no reliable public transaction price database, nor any reputable auction house for pinball. Buy a machine because you want to play it; consider the value as a bonus.

What should you check first on a 1977-1985 pinball machine?

The battery on the CPU board. On Bally (1977-1985) MPU boards and Gottlieb System 80 boards, it is soldered onto the board and eventually leaks, corroding traces and IC sockets. It is the number one failure on these machines. A battery-free replacement board eliminates the problem permanently.

Can you still find replacement parts?

Yes. Marco Specialties carries over 30,000 part numbers, Planetary Pinball holds the Williams/Bally licenses, and CPR remanufactures playfields and backbox panels. But supply is contracting: CPR announced its restructuring in February 2026. Do not put off a restoration for too long.

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