The World of Pinball

Evert Brochez has around 40 pinball machines in his own game room, ranging from older machines to titles such as Spider-Man and Tales from the Crypt.

“It’s a hobby that went completely off the rails.”

It started much smaller. Evert got interested in pinball as a teenager, when he started trying to repair broken machines. What began as a hobby eventually grew into Torius, and today he operates and maintains more than 100 machines at bars, bowling alleys, and other locations.

From Hobby to Business

Running more than 100 pinball machines also means keeping more than 100 pinball machines working.

And that’s where things become interesting from an IT perspective. Modern machines aren’t just mechanical devices with some electronics behind them anymore. They run software, receive updates, connect to online services, and increasingly need to be managed like any other connected device.

So what does maintaining a fleet of pinball machines actually involve?

Behind the Flippers: Maintenance

With more than 100 machines in operation, maintenance is a significant part of the job.

Most problems are still mechanical. Springs break, wires come loose, switches stop working, and moving parts eventually wear out. But modern machines also contain plenty of electronics and software, which adds another set of things that can go wrong.

As Evert explains, most of the day-to-day maintenance remains mechanical. But software has become an increasingly important part of keeping a modern machine running.

The Role of Software in Pinball

Software controls much of what happens during a game: scoring, rules, modes, lights, sounds, displays, and how the machine reacts to what the player does.

And unlike older generations of pinball machines, the software doesn’t necessarily stay the same after the machine leaves the factory. Modern machines receive updates that fix bugs, change rules, and add or adjust features.

Once those machines also gained an Internet connection, pinball started looking suspiciously like IoT.

Pinball Meets IoT

Modern pinball machines can connect to the Internet, and that’s where they start becoming interesting as IoT devices.

For players, the most visible part is online accounts. Players can identify themselves at a machine, track scores and progress, earn badges, and appear on leaderboards.

Connecting the Player

Players can scan a QR code to connect the machine to their account. From there, scores and achievements can follow them rather than disappearing when the game ends.

It’s a considerable change from the traditional standalone pinball machine.

But connecting the player is only one side of the story. Once the machine itself is online, manufacturers and operators can start doing things remotely as well.

And that’s where the usual IT questions begin.

Facing Tech Challenges

Once a pinball machine is connected to the Internet, it also inherits many of the same questions as any other IoT device.

What network do you put it on? Should it be separated from the rest of the network? What can the manufacturer access remotely? How are software updates handled? And how long will the machine continue to receive security updates?

For an operator, these aren’t theoretical questions. A pinball machine sitting in a bar or bowling alley is now another connected computer that somebody has to maintain.

And, as usual with IoT, connecting something to the Internet is the easy part.

“It’s a brave mix of bravery and foolishness”

Like other connected devices, modern pinball machines receive software updates. These can fix bugs, adjust gameplay, and add or change features.

For an operator with machines spread across multiple locations, however, updating isn’t always something you want to do blindly. A new version may introduce problems of its own, and if something goes wrong, somebody may need to physically visit the machine.

That makes even a routine software update a small deployment decision: update remotely and hope everything comes back, or wait until somebody can be there if it doesn’t.

What Operators Would Like Next

Connectivity also creates opportunities that aren’t fully available to operators today. Evert has a few things he’d like to see added to the management side.

1. Remote tournament management: Put machines into tournament mode remotely instead of having to visit and configure each machine individually.
2. Happy hour settings: Change pricing or game settings for a certain period, then automatically return the machine to its normal configuration afterwards.

For someone operating more than 100 machines across different locations, features like these aren’t just convenient. They can save a considerable number of physical visits.

The machines are already online. The question is how much useful control operators should actually get over them.

When an Update Goes Wrong

Operators have to be somewhat careful about when they install updates. Automatic downloads are convenient, but applying an update remotely also means accepting the risk that somebody may have to visit the machine if it doesn’t come back properly.

Evert gives an example where an update caused problems with the machine’s pricing configuration and resulted in machines crashing. Fixing that wasn’t something that could simply be handled from behind a laptop. Somebody had to go on-site.

With one machine, that’s annoying.

With more than 100 machines spread across different locations, software deployment suddenly starts looking rather familiar to anyone working in IT.

The Pinball Business: A Conclusion

Pinball is still fundamentally a mechanical game. Balls roll, switches trigger, coils fire, things wear out, and occasionally somebody has to open the machine and fix them.

But behind all of that, modern pinball has quietly become IT.

The machines run increasingly complex software, receive updates, connect to online accounts, report scores, and offer remote management. For operators like Evert, that means dealing with some very familiar questions about software quality, deployments, network access, security, and long-term support.

None of this makes modern pinball worse. The connectivity adds genuinely useful features for players and operators.

It just means that somewhere between the flippers and the high-score table, pinball became IoT.