Pinball riding a wave of revival — and this Fresno club is inviting you to play

Vaughn Jordan doesn’t have childhood memories of playing pinball, pumping quarters into a machine at an arcade or some random 7-Eleven. His entry into pinball was much more recent, during the pandemic, with friends who had games set up at home.

The 38-year-old was no less taken.

“I was just obsessed,” he says.

“Like, instantly.”

Within two weeks, he had six games of his own in his garage.

At one point, he’d collected more than two dozen.

The machines, their flashing lights and clacking flippers propelling silver balls along shining rails, are a perfect amalgam of kinetics and electronics, music and art and culture. “It’s just kind of everything for me,” says Jordan, the driving force behind Fresno Flip or Fail Pinball Club, a “local group of pinheads hoping to spread the love of the silver ball.”

That’s from the bio on the club’s Instagram account. Cue, the Who’s “Pinball Wizard.”

Over the past year, the club has hosted a series of eight pop-ups, creating a meeting space for like-minded hobbyists while making their games available to the public, as the manufacturers intended.

“They are built to be played and enjoyed,” Jordan says.

The one-off arcade days are $10 for “free play” on games borrowed from club members or through Jordan’s connections with other collectors.

At a recent pop-up at Summer Fox’s brewery in Clovis, there were eight machines lined up across a full wall of the space.

These were new and cutting-edge games from pinball’s big makers (Stern and Jersey Jack currently are the largest manufacturers). Most were attached to well-known pop-culture properties. Think: Godzilla, Star Wars, Harry Potter and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, even Dungeons & Dragons.

There were rarer, more niche machines, as well, like Ninja Eclipse, which was made in limited quantities and would likely never be found in an active arcade.

Classic games, modernized

For the beginners, the games are intuitive enough.

Try to hit anything that’s flashing.

Don’t let the ball fall through the drain (the official term for the space between the flippers).

More advance players learn to finesse the machines, avoiding the dreaded tilt warning, while slightly nudging the ball during flipper taps.

Modern games have evolved to be competitive with other forms of video gaming, says Dave Ruck, a fellow collector and pinball enthusiast. Along with immersive playfields, modern games incorporate cinematic sonics and visual gameplay. A video on the Harry Potter machine plays scenes from the movies, triggered by the movements of the ball.

Instead of simply displaying the name of the game’s high-scorer, the machine has a built-in camera that records video of the player.

Sterns’ Dungeons & Dragons machine is a game inside a game. Through its video displays, players can choose characters and set off on quests . Some players, especially competitive ones, will look for online tutorials to give them an advantage with these kind of games, Ruck says.

But gameplay aside, Ruck says the club’s pop-up events create a community you don’t get playing a private collection. “It’s always difficult when it’s at somebody’s house.”

A pinball renaissance?

Pinball had a golden age in the U.S. in the 1940s and ’50s before being banned for several decades due to its connections with gambling. It came back to become an arcade staple in the 1970s through the ‘90s, when some of the best-remembered pop culture-themed games were created.

Those of certain age will no-doubt remember playing the Bally’s “Addams Family” game.

But by the mid-2000s, the games had all but disappeared from arcades and there was only one major manufacturer (Stern) making new pinball machines.

Now, there are at least eight manufactures, making thousands of games a year, Jordan says. Last year, Stern opened a new factory outside of Chicago to keep up with the demand, which grew during the pandemic when there was a robust market of private collectors buying and selling new and vintage games.

But machines are expensive for businesses to own and operate, says Summer Fox co-owner Jason Hatwig. Games like the ones on display at the pop-up can fetch up to $10,000 or more. Popular vintage games, like the 1990s version of Bally’s Addams Family (refurbished and with upgrades), can run double that.

Hatwig grew up playing pinball and has been known to visit pinball arcades when he travels. There are a growing number of good arcades in SoCal cities like Pasadena and Eagle Rock and in Phoenix, he says.

There’s nothing like that in Fresno. Even local gaming spot Blackbeards, long known for its arcade, moved its pinball section to make room for claw machines.

That’s a problem, Jordan says. He knows 50 people in the Fresno area, easy, who own pinball machines. Until now, they’ve been fragmented and have had to travel out of town to properly enjoy the hobby among other people.

“I don’t want people to have to travel out of Fresno to play pinball, he says.

“I want leagues. I want tournaments.”

A permanent home at Summer Fox Brewing

The club has worked out an agreement to have machines installed at all three Summer Fox locations.

There could be many as six games in Clovis and another eight at the Fresno location on Herndon and Millburn. The Tower District location is expected to have at least two .

The Clovis spot will get a mini-remodel to work in the machines, which should be arriving in the next few weeks, Hatwig says.

“We’re gonna give it a go.”