Pinball News & Articles

Staff Picks

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About America's Pinball Prohibition

Top 10 Pinball Machines of the 2010s

Who Makes Pinball Machines in 2025? A Guide to All the Pinball Manufacturers Making Modern Pinball Games

Ranking the 33 Best Pinball Machines from the 1990s

Pinball Tutorial

I Choose You! The Pokémon Pinball Trainer's Survival Guide

Learn to play Stern's 2026 release, Pokémon Pinball in our latest expert tutorial.

Noah Crable

March 13, 2026

News

TEP's Rob Rath and Nick Neitzel Join American Pinball's Growing Team

TEP co-founder Rob Rath and product engineer Nick Neitzel are joining American Pinball as Product Director and Product Designer — the latest in a string of moves under new owner Bryan Vincent. TEP will continue independent operations while becoming a key AP vendor.

Colin Alsheimer·Mar 12, 2026

Staff Picks

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About America's Pinball Prohibition

Top 10 Pinball Machines of the 2010s

Who Makes Pinball Machines in 2025? A Guide to All the Pinball Manufacturers Making Modern Pinball Games

Ranking the 33 Best Pinball Machines from the 1990s

Pinball Tutorial

I Choose You! The Pokémon Pinball Trainer's Survival Guide

Learn to play Stern's 2026 release, Pokémon Pinball in our latest expert tutorial.

Noah Crable

March 13, 2026

News

TEP's Rob Rath and Nick Neitzel Join American Pinball's Growing Team

TEP co-founder Rob Rath and product engineer Nick Neitzel are joining American Pinball as Product Director and Product Designer — the latest in a string of moves under new owner Bryan Vincent. TEP will continue independent operations while becoming a key AP vendor.

Colin Alsheimer·Mar 12, 2026

Pinball

The Pinball Music Video Leaderboard

Eight contenders. Bonus tallies. An Annie Lennox penalty. Only one takes Grand Champion. Who will it be?

Brian Saa·Mar 6, 2026

Rumors

Get Ready for a Dungeon Crawler Carl Pinball Machine

Someone has the license for the massively popular LitRPG franchise. We don't know who — but we have thoughts.

Colin Alsheimer·Feb 27, 2026

Kineticist Updates

How the Hype Index Got Smarter

We've been quietly rebuilding the Hype Index over the past few months. The scoring is smarter, the nostalgia model actually accounts for franchise eras, and your hype vote feeds directly into the rankings now.

Colin Alsheimer·Feb 20, 2026

TWIPYs

The 2025 TWIPY Pinball Awards: Full Winners and Recap

The 2025 TWIPYs looked nothing like the eight shows before it. Seven categories, no sponsors, four arcades, and real conversations with the people who make the games. Here are the winners and what happened.

Colin Alsheimer·Feb 18, 2026

News

Melvin Williams Joins American Pinball as Creative Director

Melvin Williams has been named Creative Director of American Pinball, just over a week after splitting from Dutch Pinball. Here's what it means and why the history is wilder than you'd think.

Colin Alsheimer·Feb 17, 2026

News

Stern Pinball Reveals Pokemon Pinball

Stern Pinball has revealed their next cornerstone title, and it's the one everybody's been waiting for: Pokemon.

Colin Alsheimer·Feb 13, 2026

Rumors

RUMOR: Dutch Pinball Partnering with Stern Pinball to Produce Back to the Future

Back to the Future might still be happening — and it could be coming alongside a major international partnership.

Colin Alsheimer·Feb 13, 2026

Interviews

The Pinball Bet

The Pinball Capital of the World doesn't have a world-class place to play. Francis Wisniewski thinks he can fix that.

Colin Alsheimer·Feb 10, 2026

News

Dutch Pinball Exclusive (DPX) Is No More

DPX is shutting down and Melvin Williams is out at Dutch Pinball. Here's what we know and what it means for Alice owners.

Colin Alsheimer·Feb 9, 2026

The Score Card

The Score Card: States & Starfighters

The 2026 competitive pinball season is officially underway. We've got the complete list of IFPA State and Provincial Championship winners — plus the first Stern Pro Circuit results of the year from the Starfighters Pinball Festival.

Matt Owen·Feb 4, 2026

News

American Pinball Partners with Planetary Pinball Supply to Produce Classic Williams and Bally Games

American Pinball is getting into the classics business—and they're not just doing straight remakes.

Colin Alsheimer·Jan 26, 2026

News

IFPA Announces Updates to Mission Statement & Leadership Team

Three new members join the IFPA leadership team, the mission statement gets a complete rewrite, and the organization commits to new TD resources and continuing the Women's Championship series.

Colin Alsheimer·Jan 23, 2026

News

14 Questions with American Pinball President Ron Lindeman

Ron Lindeman answers questions on the JB Vincent LP acquisition, what's next for product development, and how American Pinball plans to rebuild trust.

Colin Alsheimer·Jan 16, 2026

News

American Pinball Under New Ownership

American Pinball and Orbit Games were officially acquired by JB Vincent L.P. Here are all the details we know so far.

Colin Alsheimer·Jan 15, 2026

News

Is IPDB Dying? Visualizing the Slow Death of a Pinball Institution

IPDB.org has been the pinball community's go-to database for over two decades. But the data tells a troubling story: database updates are down 93% since 2020, 71% of major pinball releases since 2020 are missing entirely, and search visibility has collapsed.

Colin Alsheimer·Jan 8, 2026

Interviews

A Chat with Pinball Prodigy Sterling Mitoska

On the surface, Sterling Mitoska is your average teenager, that is, until he starts playing pinball.

Matt Owen·Jan 8, 2026

TWIPYs

TWIPYs 2025: Voting Open Now

It’s time! 2025 TWIPY pinball awards voting is officially open.

Colin Alsheimer·Jan 6, 2026

Lists

The Best Pinball Machines of 2025 Ranked

The best pinball machines of 2025 wowed us with their innovation, fine-tuned flow, and excellent layouts, producing some truly standout experiences. In celebration of this year's best release, I've whipped up a list of the best pinball machines of 2025.

Matt Owen·Dec 29, 2025

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