The Shape of Things to Come

An incredibly prolific writer, Herbert George Wells is probably best known for his works of science fiction. Published in 1933, The Shape of Things to Come, provided the platform for H. G. Wells to speculate on a number of future events leading up to the year 2106. Some were well off the mark, but others were very much on target and still playing out today.

I offer this as an opening since whatever I might feel about the future of pinball is, admittedly, predicated on past events as well as where we find ourselves today. It is a time of uncertainty across the globe. However dire our personal feelings are, or for those who are eternally and ideally optimistic, there is one undisputable fact—pinball has always proven itself to be resilient. And so it is that I will attempt to provide my own personal glimpse into ‘the shape of things to come for pinball’.

But before looking ahead into whatever silver crystal ball I might have in the palm of my hands, I have to set the stage based on the facts of the past. After all, if we ignore the past and any lessons potentially learned, we are destined to have history repeat itself. And for pinball, that is not what any of us will want for that ‘same player shoots again’.

Think about it for the moment. Legal restrictions, of which, yes, I am very personally aware. A public out pouring of animosity and hatred of the innocent marble machine. A world war devastating so many and leaving an entire industry in a shambles, forced (or at least conscripted) to abandon their primary source of business and concentrate on the manufacturing of war materials’. A new technology captivating an entire generation transfixed by the wonders of controlling pixels and vectors on a screen, quick to leave behind and forget about an ‘ancient’ mechanical marvel. And now, a global pandemic which has thrown our very lives into turmoil where some wonder about whatever, and whenever, we might find ourselves bridging into a new normal.