A short while ago, I decided to do a search over at TVTropes.org to see what they had on pinball. As it turns out, they really don't have very much–aside from a fairly basic rundown of famous pinball tables (licensed, original and video alike) and the major manufacturers over the years, a general listing of tropes common in the genre and a handful of tropes with the word "pinball" in the name (of which only Pinball Scoring and Pinball Spinoff are all that directly related to pinball–and even then, Pinball Spinoff only applies to video pinball), there's not that much on the ground. I was thinking of doing something about this, but would appreciate any help you guys could offer.
The first priority has to be deciding what to do in terms of getting a namespace. TVTropes currently has pinball categorized as a video game genre, which I know probably irks many hardcore pinheads. Do you want to roll with that or push for a separate namespace? I'm not quite sure what to do here myself–pinball's initial commercial hey day far preceded that of video games, but the story of solid-state pinball has largely been one of taking elements of video games in order to stay relevant against the newfound competition they represented, not to mention how many pinball manufacturers also had their fingers in the video gaming pie, so I would probably roll with the video game namespace for now and look into a separate namespace later.
In addition, we should also look into what other tropes have appeared in pinball over the years. The main TVTropes page on pinball actually already has quite a few, but here are some others that aren't on there (just search TVTropes.org for the trope name if its meaning isn't immediately clear to you):
-Crack Is Cheaper: You're doing really well for yourself if you can find any remotely well-regarded DMD for $1000; also, the big boys routinely go for several times that, with $10000 or more not being unheard of for the real holy grails of the genre.
-Dork Age: Many pinheads would place 80-90% of Gottlieb's solid-state output in this category (Black Hole, Haunted House, Lights...Camera...Action! and Stargate are the main exceptions to this); also, Stern Pinball's run as the only manufacturer of pinball games is largely considered to be this (although, once again, with some exceptions, with AC/DC, LOTR, TSPP and perhaps the upcoming Metallica as the main ones).
-Fallen Creator: This very much applies to Gottlieb during the solid-state era. As noted above, they did have their solid players in their lineup, but it seems that for every Stargate or Haunted House, there are 3 or 4 Waterworlds or Barb Wires. Also, Pat Lawlor could arguably be an extremely downplayed example of this–he's still considered one of the all-time great pinball designers, but before a string of 21st-century misses that included RCT, NASCAR and CSI, he was considered the all-time great pinball designer, ahead of even Steve Ritchie.
-The Mockbuster: Many mid-'80s Gottliebs play this one depressingly straight (Raven, anyone?), but a number of Bally/Williams DMDs manage to subvert this trope, in that you can tell pretty quickly what inspired the theme (does anyone really think the Genie in TOTAN is blue for no particular reason?), but the actual games are mostly considered to be good at worst and all-time classics of the genre at best.
-Popularity Polynomial: We're coming out of one of its valleys right now, with at least 4 different credible challengers to Stern Pinball hitting the scene in the past year or so (Heighway, Jersey Jack, Multimorphic and Skit-B) and Zen Pinball being one of the major golden boys of the casual gaming scene. Other high points include the solid-state boom of the '70s & early '80s and the DMD boom of the early '90s.
-The Problem With Licensed Games: Pinball is one of the only video game genres to avert this with any consistency–Rescue 911's page actually mentions the machine Gottlieb made based on that theme and flatly states that "it's pretty much impossible to screw up pinball." Many people here doubtless disagree with that sentiment, but even they have to admit that many pins based on a licensed theme are much more fun than the license itself.
-Vindicated By History: This has been a driving force in the rising prices of many B-list Williams DMDs, including Congo, Demolition Man and Johnny Mnemonic, among others. Also, Revenge From Mars deserves special mention here, as it was a hate sink among pinheads for years prior to the release of Tilt!: The Battle To Save Pinball. Since then, opinions towards it have softened considerably (with the first LCD displays in pinball history accelerating this trend), though SWE1 is still usually regarded as subpar.
-What Could Have Been: Ah, Pinball 2000, we hardly knew ye! Also, Alvin G., Capcom and several other smaller manufacturers fall squarely into this trope.
Well, that's about all I have for now. I turn the floor over to the rest of the forum...
The first priority has to be deciding what to do in terms of getting a namespace. TVTropes currently has pinball categorized as a video game genre, which I know probably irks many hardcore pinheads. Do you want to roll with that or push for a separate namespace? I'm not quite sure what to do here myself–pinball's initial commercial hey day far preceded that of video games, but the story of solid-state pinball has largely been one of taking elements of video games in order to stay relevant against the newfound competition they represented, not to mention how many pinball manufacturers also had their fingers in the video gaming pie, so I would probably roll with the video game namespace for now and look into a separate namespace later.
In addition, we should also look into what other tropes have appeared in pinball over the years. The main TVTropes page on pinball actually already has quite a few, but here are some others that aren't on there (just search TVTropes.org for the trope name if its meaning isn't immediately clear to you):
-Crack Is Cheaper: You're doing really well for yourself if you can find any remotely well-regarded DMD for $1000; also, the big boys routinely go for several times that, with $10000 or more not being unheard of for the real holy grails of the genre.
-Dork Age: Many pinheads would place 80-90% of Gottlieb's solid-state output in this category (Black Hole, Haunted House, Lights...Camera...Action! and Stargate are the main exceptions to this); also, Stern Pinball's run as the only manufacturer of pinball games is largely considered to be this (although, once again, with some exceptions, with AC/DC, LOTR, TSPP and perhaps the upcoming Metallica as the main ones).
-Fallen Creator: This very much applies to Gottlieb during the solid-state era. As noted above, they did have their solid players in their lineup, but it seems that for every Stargate or Haunted House, there are 3 or 4 Waterworlds or Barb Wires. Also, Pat Lawlor could arguably be an extremely downplayed example of this–he's still considered one of the all-time great pinball designers, but before a string of 21st-century misses that included RCT, NASCAR and CSI, he was considered the all-time great pinball designer, ahead of even Steve Ritchie.
-The Mockbuster: Many mid-'80s Gottliebs play this one depressingly straight (Raven, anyone?), but a number of Bally/Williams DMDs manage to subvert this trope, in that you can tell pretty quickly what inspired the theme (does anyone really think the Genie in TOTAN is blue for no particular reason?), but the actual games are mostly considered to be good at worst and all-time classics of the genre at best.
-Popularity Polynomial: We're coming out of one of its valleys right now, with at least 4 different credible challengers to Stern Pinball hitting the scene in the past year or so (Heighway, Jersey Jack, Multimorphic and Skit-B) and Zen Pinball being one of the major golden boys of the casual gaming scene. Other high points include the solid-state boom of the '70s & early '80s and the DMD boom of the early '90s.
-The Problem With Licensed Games: Pinball is one of the only video game genres to avert this with any consistency–Rescue 911's page actually mentions the machine Gottlieb made based on that theme and flatly states that "it's pretty much impossible to screw up pinball." Many people here doubtless disagree with that sentiment, but even they have to admit that many pins based on a licensed theme are much more fun than the license itself.
-Vindicated By History: This has been a driving force in the rising prices of many B-list Williams DMDs, including Congo, Demolition Man and Johnny Mnemonic, among others. Also, Revenge From Mars deserves special mention here, as it was a hate sink among pinheads for years prior to the release of Tilt!: The Battle To Save Pinball. Since then, opinions towards it have softened considerably (with the first LCD displays in pinball history accelerating this trend), though SWE1 is still usually regarded as subpar.
-What Could Have Been: Ah, Pinball 2000, we hardly knew ye! Also, Alvin G., Capcom and several other smaller manufacturers fall squarely into this trope.
Well, that's about all I have for now. I turn the floor over to the rest of the forum...
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