Scott Stinchcombe was 12 when his dad brought home a pinball machine, and his life was never the same. The game was Freedom, a 1976 machine Stinchcombe spent countless hours playing — and fixing — with his dad. It opened Stinchcombe to a whole new community, and a current collection of 50 more machines, both of which he enjoys as much as those first days with his dad.
“The best part about pinball, is all the people from different walks of life getting together and just having fun playing pinball,” says Stinchcombe, now the 38-year-old cofounder of the non-profit Die Hard Pinball. It began as a group of friends, but grew to running game nights in Sherwood Park’s Arkadium.
“I’ve made some really good, lifelong friends from pinball, and we just want to share that with more people who get involved in the game.” To that end, Die Hard will host its eighth YEGPIN Pinball & Arcade Expo, where people of all ages and abilities can peruse, play and even purchase some of the expo’s 250+ games — without a bunch of change jangling in their pockets.
The pinball community noticed a influx of people joining Arkadium and the Expo following COVID lockdowns as the usual arcade bars downsized pinball collections. The expo offers games for experts like him and the pinball-curious alike, with tournaments, sales and a welcoming community.
The game Stinchcombe’s dad brought home was a solid-state, electromechanical machine, full of relays, spinning reels and solenoid coils — all the things that give pinball its classic sounds. The ‘90s brought the first monitors, and the newest machines today are filled with LCD screens, multi-ball play and even Dungeons & Dragons-like story mode games with complex rules and nonlinear narratives.
No matter how modern they become, pinball machines will always provide a more tactical experience than the feeling of a videogame controller briefly vibrating after a Call of Duty headshot. The sensations can catch some young gamers off guard. “The kids sometimes look at a machine like, What the heck is this thing?” says Stinchcombe. “You pull this thing and then there are actual balls flying around, and all these moving parts — there’s a lot of interaction that makes it fully submersive.”
But Stinchcombe says kids’ quicker reflexes also give them a natural advantage. It’s no wonder that some of the best players in the world are under 15 years old. “Anybody can play,” says Stinchcombe. “You don’t need great athletic ability, or be super strong, or male or female. It’s just two little buttons you have to press.”
Stinchcombe’s story shows there’s a whole community around the person pressing two little buttons, cheering them on and looking for ways to help. “I’ve done other sporting things,” he says, “but with pinball — I’ve never met a greater group of people in my life.”
YEGPIN Pinball & Arcade Expo runs May 15 to 18, and Arkadia is open all year round.
