Wiring and electronics are soldered to pinball machine game boards at the Stern Pinball Factory on Feb. 22, 2024. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune) Wiring harnesses at the Stern Pinball Factory.

They do, and Stern is not alone: There’s also Jersey Jack Pinball of Elk Grove Village, American Pinball of Palatine, Chicago Gaming Company of Cicero, as well as several others, in Wisconsin ...

Apparently two of the criteria for a great pinball game are "flow" and a "rules set": To this day, pinball still provides me a rush that I can’t get from video games. Part of it is the live physics.

While the industry lost some ground to video game machines through the 80s, it continued to be successful. The most popular pinball machine of all time, for example, was The Addam’s Family; it ...

No matter if you're a fan, game maker, or game distributor, every pinhead marks the annual Chicago Pinball Expo on their calendar. The annual event is filled with seminars, tours, parts, game ...

Then in the ’90s, Midway, a game maker on Chicago’s Northwest Side, had its big moment with quarter-munching hits like NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat — the bloody brawling game that prompted ...

Thirty years ago, when a truck driver or college student put a coin in a pinball machine to while away a few pleasant moments, he’d test his skills-and maybe do a little body-English “gunching ...

Gary Stern, CEO of Chicago-based Stern Pinball joins Dave Plier to trace their Chicago-based company’s lineage from the early 1930’s to the founding of modern pinball, the growth of arcade bars across ...

The new machine is being unveiled at the Chicago Auto Show on February 6 and goes on sale in March. Believe it or not, but new pinball machines are still being made.

Game designers and other pinball employees frequent the many pinball bars around town, including Logan Arcade. “This place fosters a kind of pinball nerdery,” said Ms. Karlic, 44, an events D.J.

But pinball was once an egalitarian game, Sharpe said, “a fantasy world under glass.” And now, at least for the time being, “Detroit still makes cars, and Chicago is still making pinball ...