Wikipedia:WikiProject Pinball
Welcome to WikiProject Pinball, a WikiProject formed to become a source for improved Wikipedia coverage of the great pastime of pinball. Please consider participating if you have any interest in the game and wish to help us help Wikipedia cover this great game.
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Welcome to WikiProject Pinball, a WikiProject formed to become a source for improved Wikipedia coverage of the great pastime of pinball. Please consider participating if you have any interest in the game and wish to help us help Wikipedia cover this great game.
Goals and scope
[edit]
- Goals
- Make Wikipedia a quality source for information about pinball.
- Create guidelines for articles about pinball, to improve article consistency and make article creation and editing easier.
- Scope
- Arcade pinball machines, notable home (small-scale) pinball machines, video game pinball simulators, pinball-related devices or equipment.
- Individual biographies with a strong association with pinball, including those of pinball developers, designers, artists, champions, etc.
- Companies, organizations, publications and other non-individuals with a strong association with pinball
- Games ancestral or closely related to pinball, including pachinko and bagatelle (some of which may also be within the scope of WP:WikiProject Cue sports)
- Video simulation games of pinball (also within the scope of WP:WikiProject Video Games)
- All articles with a strong association with pinball, even if it is not the primary topic of the article, which may be within the scope of other projects as well (e.g., Tommy (rock opera)).
Sources for Pinball information
[edit]Have a useful resource to share with other editors working on articles related to pinball? Add it here:
Databases
[edit]- Internet Pinball Database
- Pinball rulesheets
- Pinball instruction cards
- Pinball instruction cards
- Internet Pinball Serial Number Database (IPSND)
- Museum of Play archives Most pinball related items are part of the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and currently most only available to view in person
News and Reviews
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- Play Meter. Especially helpful for reviews. Can use https://archive.org/
- International Arcade Museum Library Large collection of coin-op magazines
- Pinball News
- PinGame Journal
- Pinball Magazine (Upcoming pinball machines at Pinball Magazine)
- Pinball Player - list of reviews
- Pinball Mag
- Skill-Shot
- Performance Pinball
Manufacturer
[edit]
- Stern Pinball
- Jersey Jack Pinball
- Heighway Pinball
- Dutch Pinball
- Multimorphic
- Chicago Gaming Company
- Circus Maximus (CM at FB)
Forums
[edit]DON'T cite these as sources in an article
History
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- Short Pinball History
- Pinball History site
- Spanish Pinball history
- Russian Pinball history
- Collection of pinball articles
- Pinball technology
Books
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- Museum of the Game List of coin-op books, including many pinball books.
- Encyclopedia of Pinball (2 volumes), Bueschel
Michael Shalhoub books
- The Pinball Compendium: The Electro-Mechanical Era
- The Pinball Compendium: 1930s-1960s
- The Pinball Compendium: 1970-1981
- The Pinball Compendium: 1982 to Present
Marco Rossignoli books
- The Complete Pinball Book: Collecting the Game & Its History
- Pinball Perspectives: Ace High to World's Series
- Pinball Snapshots: Air Aces To Xenon
- Pinball Memories: Forty Years of Fun, 1958-1998
Documentaries
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- Pinball Passion at IMDb
- TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball (IGN review)
- Special When Lit at IMDb
- Pinball 101 at IMDb
- The History of Pinball
- Pinball Madness
- A Lifelong Love
- Gottlieb Tour
- Chasing Ghosts at IMDb
- Things That Go Bump in the Night Movie
Museums
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- Pacific Pinball Museum, a museum in Oakland, California
- Pinball Hall of Fame, a museum located in Las Vegas, Nevada
- Museum of Pinball, formerly the world’s largest pinball museum with over 500 vintage and modern pinball machines in Banning, California
- Next Level Pinball Museum, a museum located in Hillsboro, Oregon
- Silverball Museum, a museum located in New Jersey and Florida.
- Seattle Pinball Museum, a museum located in Seattle.
- Budapest pinball museum, one of Europe's leading pinball museums, located in Budapest, Hungary.
- Paris Pinball Museum, a museum located in Paris, France.
- Pinball Museum Solothurn, a museum located in Solothurn, Switzerland.
- German pinball museum, a museum in Neuwied, Germany.
- Pinball museum Schwerin, a museum in Schwerin, Germany.
- Vintage Flipper World, a museum in Ann Arbor, MI.
- Dutch Pinball Museum, a museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands
Search
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pinball games.
- Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
- Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Project monitor
[edit]New articles that contain the word pinball
[edit]This list was generated from these rules. Questions and feedback are always welcome! The search is being run daily with the most recent ~14 days of results. Note: Some articles may not be relevant to this project.
Rules | Match log | Results page (for watching) | Deleted articles| Last updated: 2026-04-19 20:17 (UTC)
Note: The list display can now be customized by each user. See List display personalization for details.
- Draft:Pinball Factory (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) by Wilbers (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2026-04-19, score: 20
- Jackpot Records (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools | Jackpot Records (Q139262413) ) by TechnoSquirrel69 (talk · contribs · new pages (4)) started on 2026-04-12, score: 10
- List of pinball game designers (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools | WikiProject Pinball (Q15885026) ) by Rublamb (talk · contribs · new pages (8)) started on 2026-04-08, score: 20
Recent changes of everything related to WikiProject Pinball
[edit]An automated project watchlist of recent pinball related edits. Note: Some edits may not be relevant to this project.
Bot-generated list of articles needing cleanup
[edit]an automated pinball cleanup listing
Article alerts
[edit]You can find all Pinball article alerts here and subscribe at the bottom of this page to get informed for example about Pinball articles for deletion or miscellaneous discussions and nominations.
Articles to be split
- 25 Sep 2025 – Stern (game company) (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Vegantics (t · c); see discussion
Selected new articles
[edit]Here you can announce and add links to new created or expanded pinball related articles.
- Whiffle - Pinball History! (please add to or edit as needed)
Assessment
[edit]
| Pinball articles by quality and importance | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | Importance | ||||||
| Top | High | Mid | Low | NA | ??? | Total | |
 FA
|
1 | 1 | 2 | ||||
 GA
|
1 | 1 | 6 | 8 | |||
| B | 4 | 6 | 4 | 13 | 1 | 28 | |
| C | 4 | 4 | 29 | 18 | 2 | 57 | |
| Start | 1 | 9 | 39 | 124 | 173 | ||
| Stub | 1 | 2 | 11 | 62 | 76 | ||
| List | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | ||
| NA | 4 | 10 | 253 | 267 | |||
| Assessed | 12 | 25 | 88 | 237 | 253 | 4 | 619 |
| Unassessed | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |||
| Total | 12 | 26 | 88 | 238 | 253 | 6 | 623 |
| WikiWork factors (?) | ω = 1,649 | Ω = 4.79 | |||||
Importance is not necessarily related to the popularity of an article, and is importance to pinball only, not importance more generally.
| Type | Top . |
High . |
Mid . |
Low . |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pinball machines | Very few will be here, only major industry changing tables (e.g. Baffle Ball, The Spirit of '76) | Machines that had a lasting impact upon the industry or were crucially successful (e.g. Space Shuttle, The Addams Family) | Innovative machines will likely be here. Can be machines that introduce a new concept or mechanism (e.g. Twilight Zone | Most will be of low importance, even if popular amongst players (e.g. Hurricane, Cirqus Voltaire) |
| Individuals | Those who made a major contribution to the industry over several decades (e.g. Roger Sharpe, Steve Ritchie) | Those who have made a significant contribution to the industry over decades, but of less lasting significance (e.g.Chris Granner) | Still notable enough for a Wikipedia article, but whose contribution to pinball was less significant (e.g. Bill Budge) | |
| Companies | Industry leading companies that were critical to pinball (e.g. Williams, Stern) | Major pinball companies (e.g. Jersey Jack Pinball) | Companies who neither fit in the Low or High importance groupings (e.g. Data East) | Companies whose importance for pinball was relatively brief, or who only made a small contribution to the industry (e.g. Atari, Inc., Chicago Gaming) |
| Pinball video games | Games that had a significant and lasting impact (e.g. Pinball FX, The Pinball Arcade) | Games that are more than just a single release of a few tables (e.g. Full Tilt! Pinball) | Most pinball games will be of low importance (e.g. Yoku's Island Express, Pokémon Pinball) | |
| Other | Major articles (e.g. Pinball) | Articles of significant importance (e.g. Pinball Wizard) | Those of some importance to pinball in general (e.g. Play Meter, Special When Lit) | Pinball locations, articles only loosely associated with pinball etc. (e.g. Dutch Pinball Museum, Arcade video game) |
Participants
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|
Feel free to sign up as a participant in this project, and add yourself manually or with the userbox {{User WikiProject Pinball}} to Category:WikiProject Pinball participants. Any help is very welcome. :) Feel also free to make suggestions or ask questions on the project's talk page.
- Fractalchez - Longtime pinball player and enthusiast, current league & tournament organizer
- DuoDeathscyther 02 - Casual pinball player; created or improved these pinball articles
- David Pro - Longtime pinball player and enthusiast, has created these pinball articles
- Rich Fife - Longtime collector and enthusiast.
- SarahStierch long time pinball enthusiast and will lend a hand when possible to articles (especially the pinball article itself.
- VMzB - 8-bit era veteran, especially interested in the electronic guts of pinball machines (and some arcade games) and their repair. Imho IPDB is a great resource and we should try to refer to it, or even establish automatic data transfer.
- Wilbers Digital pinball player, created and improved many pinball articles
- Blake W - Child of the 80s, grew up with Pinball and recently fell in love with the prewar era of pinball. Created or improved these pinball articles
Open tasks
[edit]
Nominate improved or new articles for Good Article status (then work towards Featured Article) Improve[edit]
Create[edit]
Completed[edit]A list of completed tasks can be found in the project's archive.
Priority 1 (top)
|
Key articles
[edit]
- General
- Games
- Companies
- Bally Manufacturing
- Midway Games
- WMS Industries (Williams Electronics)
- People
- Technologies
- Video game simulations
- Digital preservation & creation
Categories
[edit]
Templates
[edit]- {{Infobox Pinball}}
- {{WikiProject Pinball}}
- {{User WikiProject Pinball}}
- {{The_Pinball_Barnstar}} - The Pinball Barnstar
- Pinball Wizard Userbox - Pinball Wizard Userbox
Relation to other WikiProjects
[edit]- Parent project
- Related projects
- WikiProject Cue sports (pinball ultimately derives from billiards, by way of games like bagatelle and bar billiards)
- WikiProject Video games (electronic arcade games, the original video games, were an outgrowth of pinball)