Retro Thing

The Economics of Pinball

Jeff Ely, an economics professor at Northwestern, reveals a few of pinball's profitable secrets:

"In 1986, Williams High Speed changed the economics of pinball forever.  Pinball developers began to see how they could take advantage of programmable software to monitor, incentivize, and ultimately exploit the players.  They had two instruments at their disposal:  the score required for a free game, and the match probability.  All pinball machines offer a replay to a player who beats some specified score.  Pre-1986, the replay score was hard wired into the game unless the operator manually re-programmed the software.  High Speed changed all that.  It was pre-loaded with an algorithm that adjusted the replay score according to the distribution of scores on the specified machine over a specific time interval. ...

The other tool is the match probability: you win a free game if the last two digits of your score match an apparently random draw.  While adjustments to the high-score threshold is textbook price theory, the adjustments to the match probability is pure behavioral economics.  Let’s clear this up right away. No, the match probability is not uniform and yes, it is strategically manipulated depending on who is playing and when.  For example, if the machine has been idle for more than three minutes, the match probability is boosted upward.  You will never match if you won a free game by high score.  And it gets more complicated than that.  Any time there are two or more players and they finish a game with no credits left, one player (but only one) is very likely to match.  Empirically, the other players will more often than not put in another quarter to play again."

Link: Cheap Talk - The Economics of Pinball

Remembering The Sega Master System

The Nintendo Entertainment System gets a lot of praise from gamers. And why not? It had great games, introduced a bunch of classic franchises, and revived the video game industry after Atari went ahead and screwed it up. It deserves to be celebrated. We may be on a budget, but don't worry, we're going to have confetti. Just remember - clerks want you to buy the candy first before you take the wrappers.

But back in 1992, all I knew was that we owned a Sega Master System, and it was awesome.

Sega & Cigarettes: Passions That Can Finally Burn Together

In the US, Sega made their mark with the Genesis video game console. To use the vernacular of the era, their ads were "badass", painting the aging Nintendo Entertainment System as sissy and childish. It was effective, and gave Sega their brightest moment in their long history. This all came before a series of disastrous decisions about the future of video gaming hardware:

• Sega CD - barely any good games

• The 32X - hacky 32 bit adapter obsoleted with frustrating speed by next gen hardware

• Saturn - expensive and doomed in the shadow of the then-new Playstation

• Dreamcast - A system I continue to adore, and scratch my head at what went wrong

Imagine how much more badass those original Genesis ads would have been if they used one of these Sega lighters to set the competition on fire. I hope that Mario and Bonk wore their asbestos underwear. These are new lighters from Banpresto's promising "Sega Memorial Hardware Zippo Lighter" series. Even though I don't smoke, I was ready to plunk down a few bucks to pick these up. I like to imagine that I have my own anti-social badass moments that could only be aided through pyromania.
The problem? The lighters are priced in the neighborhood of $155 each, which is WAY outside what I was expecting. The honest-to-goodness Zippo lighters are very good representations of those original consoles, and I've always been fond of Sega's technology at play, but who is prepared to spend that kind of coin for such a novelty? I'll have to find other ways to express my badass/pyromaniac side. I suspect that few of us these days have that kind of money to burn.

Order your lighter from Net You in Japan

2009 Canadian Pinball Championship

Pinballers from as far away as British Columbia, California and Washington will converge in Toronto to vie for the title of 2009 Canadian Pinball Champion from October 23 to 25, 2009 at The Playdium Store. Gary Stern, president and owner of Stern Pinball Inc., will preside over the final round and award the winner the grand prize and title of 2009 Canadian Pinball Champion. Other events include a Donkey Kong Challenge and a free kid's (15 and under) pinball tournament on Saturday.

Shopping for a machine? More than 120 arcade games, jukeboxes, pinball machines and pool tables will be up for sale at an auction on Saturday, October 24, 2009 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

2009 Canadian Pinball Championship

Classic Arcade Sign From Diversions In Chicago

When you write a site called Retro Thing, the question that comes up the most often is "where do you find all this stuff"? Sometimes it's just right there in the street. That's more or less how I got this sign that used to spin around in front of the Chicago video arcade "Diversions".

Neave Games - Play Frogger

 
Paul Neave is a Manchester-based Flash designer who's recreated a handful of respected electronic classics. His site offers a nice version of Asteroids, a suspiciously colorful rendition of Space Invaders, along with non-arcade games like Simon and Snake. These titles run in windowed or full-screen mode and I love 'em because they don't require you to download something dodgy -- perfect for a few minutes of lunchtime alien-bashing.

Link: Neave Games arcade classics

Own A Vintage Entex Adventure Vision System

Brian just pointed out this auction for a rare Entex Adventure Vision game. It includes a boxed console and three of the four original games (two of them in boxes). It's currently $399 and he reports, "Compared to the last one I saw on ebay over a year ago ($5500.00) it's starting out real cheap."

Only 50,000 of these unique LED-based systems were made and I was torn about mentioning it on the site. I'd dearly like it for myself, but something tells me it'll eventually sell for way more than I can afford.

From the auction text: "The Adventure Vision is an all in one cartridge-based video game console released by Entex Industries in 1982. Control is through a single joystick and two sets of four buttons, one set on each side of the joystick, Making it is easy to play for both left- and right-handed players.

An interesting feature of the Adventure Vision is its screen Rather than using an LCD screen or an external television set like other systems of the time, the Adventure Vision uses a single vertical line of 40 red LEDs combined with a spinning mirror inside the casing. This allows for a screen resolution of 150 x 40 pixels. Game cartridges can be stored in spaces on top of the case. Entex released four games for the Adventure Vision: Defender, Super Cobra, Turtles and Space Force."

Entex Adventure Vision System [eBay]

A Pair Of Computer Space Consoles Up For Grabs

That's right - two classic Computer Space consoles are currently on eBay. For those too young to remember, Computer Space was the first coin-operated video game. It was designed by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, who later founded a little company called Atari.

Released in November 1971, Computer Space has perhaps the most distinctive cabinet design of all time. It had no microprocessor, instead relying on a complex array of transistor logic chips. Your choice: An early yellow unit that more-or-less works, or a green one that doesn't.

The seller has also listed  Atari Pong and Space Race. All are in Columbus, Ohio. Local pickup only. [via Technabob]

Happy 10th Birthday, Dreamcast!

The Sega Dreamcast was launched in North America exactly 10 years ago - on 09.09.1999. It was the last console released by the company, even though it was the first sixth generation machine to hit the market (quickly followed by the XBox, PS2 and GameStation PlayCube, uh... GameCube). Sega stood out from the crowd by offering then-revolutionary network capability, thanks to a built-in 56 kbps modem.

The capable hardware was built around a 200 MHz Hitachi SH-4 processor with an on-die 128-bit vector graphics engine. The PowerVR graphics chip set was capable of pushing 7 million polygons/sec, while a Yamaha sound processor offered 64 channels of compressed sample playback. Games were released on a proprietary GD-ROM optical disc capable of storing more than 1 GB.

Even though a staggering 500,000 units were sold in North America within two weeks of its introduction, the Dreamcast didn't fare well the release of the much-anticipated Sony PlayStation 2 in October, 2000. Faced with lagging sales, Sega ended production in the spring of 2001 and withdrew from console development. That didn't mark the end of the Dreamcast platform, since Sega continued to release game titles in Japan for a few more years.

These days, the Dreamcast has a loyal following of homebrew and emulation enthusiasts. If you spot one selling cheap, it's worth owning.

SEGA Genesis Clone Lets You Load Your Own Games

I loved my old "plug-and-play" SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive clone, except for one thing - it came with a less-than-stellar collection of preloaded games. The E-Time Game Play Controller solves that problem by letting you load SEGA ROM images onto its internal 64MB memory from a standard SD flash card (although you can't run the games directly from the card - a slight annoyance).

The controller is powered by 3 x AAA batteries and includes a standard SEGA game controller port so you can enjoy head-to-head 2-player play. Available from Deal Extreme for $21.97 with free worldwide shipping.

SEGA Genesis TV Gamepad Controller with SD Card Slot [via Technabob]

Folk Art Of The Future: Pokémon Toolbox

At my local thrift, they sometimes give me stuff that doesn't sell, and somehow this precious artifact from the future just wouldn't move. Thanks to the branding I recognize the characters as being from Pokemon, and the toolbox as being a little higglety-pigglety in construction. Did some young lad or lass do their best to build a toolbox, and then emblazon with their favorite really odd characters? Or did dad turn his back and find his tools were now an ad for the strange fad?

Whatever the motive might be, I have a feeling that someone was being teased for having such a goofy toolbox, and it ended up abandoned at the thrift. I'm left to wonder what will happen if someone discovers this toolbox a century from now. Will they think the mysterious made-up word is some forgotten language? Or that odd spherical demons ruled the earth of the early 21st century? Or will President Pikachu simply capture the artifact, and commit it to the National Pokéball Archives?

The Virtual Apple ][

I had an overwhelming urge to play Lode Runner the other day, which led me to discover Virtual Apple ][. This nifty emulator site offers nearly every Apple II and Apple IIgs game ever made. 

"Virtual Apple ][ now runs on two emulators. While Windows is still required for the Apple IIgs programs, the Apple II Programs now run on any platform using a Java based Emulator. This web site currently uses both an ActiveX application for the Apple IIgs emulator and a Java based Apple ][ emulator to automatically download and play most Apple 2 and Apple IIgs disk images online. This site is completely spyware free and usage of the emulator is completely free!  Documentation and actual disk images are available for download from the site."

As icing on the cake, joystick control is mapped to your mouse or touchpad. Game on!

Try Virtual Apple ][

Woolen Lemmings

June Gilbank is now my crochet idol. She explains, "There are tons of Mario and Pacman crafts out there, but I think that one group of old-school video game stars has been sadly neglected (until now).

Gamers of the ’90s probably remember the classic Lemmings video game franchise – those hapless green-haired troops who followed each other in a line and would walk straight off a cliff to their doom if you didn’t create a path to safety for them.

My favourite part was making the tiny accessories - and the wire stand for the floater so he actually floats - do you see his dangling feet? I have more details and a free pattern to make the basic Lemming on my blog, if you're interested." [via technabob]

Top 10 Most Collected Arcade Games

Here's a list of the most collected coin-op video games, as tracked by The Video Arcade Preservation Society. Each of these classics is brilliant in its own way, although I'm somewhat stunned to see Ms. Pac-Man in the number one spot.

1. Ms. Pac-Man
2. Tempest
3. Pac-Man
4. Galaga
5. Donkey Kong
6. Centipede
7. Asteroids
8. Joust
9. Defender
10. Robotron 2084

The Lego Arcade

This is absolutely brilliant - a handful of classic arcade games animated in Lego. I'm particularly fond of the B & W Asteroids rendition at 2:05. Come to think of it, someone should create playable versions for the iPhone.

Lego Arcade [via BB offworld]