In the course of preparing for a podcast segment, I began my journey down the rabbit hole on ‘street level’ pinball machines. A short-lived experiment, that in brevity could merely be described as tried and failed, but in reality is a slightly more complicated story of a pinball manufacturer that thought it saw a market demand but did not obtain the results it wanted.

What is ‘Street Level’

The ‘street level’ games are a series of six titles put out by Premier Technology, which at this time owned and sold games under the Gottlieb brand (and will be referred to as Premier from here on out). These games were released in 1990 and early 1991. The table below shows the specifics in terms of game, release date,  production count, and designer(s).

Game Date Production Count Designer
Silver Slugger February-1990 2,100 Trudeau
Vegas July-1990 1,500 Norris
Deadly Weapon September-1990 803 Trudeau/Norris
Title Fight October-1990 1,000 Tanzer
Car Hop January-1991 1,061 Norris
Hoops February-1991 879 Tanzer

Details from the Internet Pinball Machine Database (IPDB)

All ‘street level’ games had specific goals and features:

  • They were single-level (no ramps, no upper/lower playfields, etc.)
  • They were slightly smaller (lacking ramps they did not need to sink the playfield as low at the back of the cabinet; cabinet length was also a few inches shorter than full-featured games)
  • Simpler (from an operator perspective, there were to be less issues requiring intervention, such as stuck balls or broken mechanisms; traditional pinball features rather than customized toys)
  • Cheaper (both for Premier to build and the operators to buy)

How Did ‘Street Level’ Perform?

As the table above shows, production counts varied significantly from game to game. The noteworthy aspects are no game was produced in as much quantity as the first release (Silver Slugger), and indeed after Vegas (the second ‘street level’ produced) nothing really got much past 1,000 units of production.

Of course, these figures are relative. To get a better sense of things, let us look at a bigger window of time. The table below explores all the major (traditional) pinball releases from the main manufacturers spanning from 1989 through the end of 1991. This keeps the window relatively small (and avoids the pinball resurgence of 1992 from skewing things even further), but gets our examination through the ‘street level’ period while including a decent quantity of data points before and after the experiment. In addition to Premier, the main manufacturing labels in play at this time were Williams, Midway, and Data East.

1989-1991 Pinball Production by Manufacturer and Game

Data from the IPDB
Data from the IPDB

In the case of Premier, games in light blue represent ‘street level’ releases, whereas dark blue are traditional, full-featured pinball machines.

While the chart is carved into four manufacturers, at this time there are actually only three big players. WMS Industries controlled both Midway Manufacturing Company and Williams Electronics Games, as WMS acquired Bally/Midway slightly before this period of examination. As such, the red Williams games and the pink Midway column could actually be combined, as they were both making money for one parent organization. While a separate issue from this discussion of ‘street level’, it shows just how dominate WMS was at this time. Indeed, their Williams-branded games alone easily eclipse all the other listed manufacturers, and Midway-branded games were still more significant in unit production than Premier (and that is totally discounting the rise of Data East’s own production levels with their heavy reliance on licensed themes).

However, it is important to note that Premier was not gunning for the number one position of pinball manufacturing. The ‘street level’ games were not meant to dramatically change the scope of their operations. According to pinball designer John Trudeau (who designed Silver Slugger and began the initial design efforts on Deadly Weapon before leaving to work for WMS), Premier wanted to target a different market segment with the ‘street level’ games than was being attended to via the traditional release of full-featured games.

He also noted Premier was pleased with Silver Slugger’s demand and sales performance. A 2,100 production game was a healthy number from Premier’s perspective. Also, by all indications Silver Slugger was a good earner on location, with WMS noting its performance rivaled games like Diner (which cost far more to make the Silver Slugger did). Harley-Davidson (Midway 1991) was a WMS attempt to build a game along the lines of ‘street level’ to see if it could be as successful as Silver Slugger was.

Silver Slugger, from a production standpoint Premier’s most successful “street level” pin (photo by author)
Silver Slugger, from a production standpoint Premier’s most successful ‘street level’ pin(Picture by author)

Nonetheless, Silver Slugger’s success was never really replicated. As seen in the chart above, Premier produced roughly 2,624 fewer pinball machines in 1990 than in 1989 (not including non-traditional games and games without production counts listed online; provisions applied to all years examined in the chart). That’s a decline of almost 33%, and obviously was quite significant. Premier responded in 1991 by only putting out two ‘street level’ games (the last, Hoops, coming out in February) and then returning to full-featured machines. As the chart indicates, their numbers recovered (not to 1989’s level, but still over 2,000 units and a 39% improvement from 1990).

Why Did ‘Street Level’ Fail?

According to Jon Norris (a pinball designer who worked on three ‘street level’ games and stayed with Premier until the company closed), he felt two factors were primarily involved. One fell on the shoulders of Premier and the other on Premier’s distributors.

In the case of Premier, Norris felt it was a major mistake to go all in on the ‘street level’ concept. Like Trudeau, Norris noted the games were designed to appeal to a different market segment than normal. Norris viewed it as a niche market, one that would find simpler games more appealing to operate (such as if the pins were at remote locations difficult for the operator to reach in a timely manner, so reliability would be paramount but the games might also face less competition so the simpler designs could still competitively earn).

However, Norris believed most operators wanted full-featured games most of the time, and so it made more sense to only do a ‘street level’ release on occasion (such as a single game annually). Instead, Premier only did ‘street level’ games, as the chart notes (disregarding some novelty games they did as well, which are not included in that chart). Had they spread the ‘street level’ releases around more chronologically, and relied on traditional pinball machines as the bulk of production, Norris thinks the concept would have endured for a longer period of time.

As to Premier’s distributors, their responsibility in Norris’ eyes stemmed from the ‘street level’ pricing. Norris indicated that Premier was able to reduce the MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price) on the ‘street level’ pins by a significant amount. However, Premier’s distributors were not required to adhere to the MSRP. They were allowed to go over it. As such, Norris said many distributors sold the ‘street level’ pins at the same price as they would full-featured releases (and just pocket the windfall profit), or they would only offer a slight discount versus a full-featured game.

Without the incentive of saving significantly on purchase costs, operators were given a choice of buying a stripped down game or a full-featured game from a competing manufacturer that might earn at a faster coin-drop rate (since the differences, visually, between a ‘street level’ and a full-featured game were obvious to anyone at first glance). Without the pricing advantage at the time of sale, there was little incentive to think a ‘street level’ game was a worthwhile investment for many operators.

Legacy

Given the decline in production numbers, and the ultimate fate of Premier (going out of business a few years later), there tends to be a sense that ‘street level’ games were a contributor to that downfall. Norris indicated that, while ‘street level’ was worse for Premier than what they did before, it did not sink the company, and that the numbers not only recovered once they abandoned the experiment (as shown back in the chart), but that even with the ‘street level’ production counts Premier could have endured as a company. It was after the experiment was over, and Premier decided to diversify their income stream by getting into gambling devices (which never panned out and saddled the company with a lot of debt) that the company had to fold.

As for the legacy of the ‘street level’ games themselves, from a gameplay perspective, they appear to be relatively forgotten, probably because many people have never had much chance to play them. As of this writing, at Pinside only Silver Slugger has enough user-submitted ratings to be ranked in their system (and that ranking is barely in the Top 300). At the IPDB, at the time of this writing the average rating for all Premier titles with a rating (including novelty games and other non-traditional pinball) is 7.1, while the rating of the ‘street level’ games averages to 7.3, so the games appear to be recognized as roughly on par with other Premier efforts.

Overall, ‘street level’ as a concept never panned out for several reasons.

Would it work in the pinball era of today, where home collectors are a larger share of the market and manufacturer MSRP amounts are well-known and tracked by operators/collectors directly, rather than just relying on distributor information? Would it work today if used more sparingly than Premier tried? It remains to be seen, as at least at the beginning (with Silver Slugger) Premier was getting noticed by operators and competing manufacturers as possibly having something good on their hands. Still, as today’s world relies less on operators, the design decisions to make operators’ lives easier may hold far less appeal in today’s market.

For the time being, ‘street level’ will likely sit in the dustbin of history; an interesting experiment hampered by a variety of decisions and in the face of stiff competition from other manufacturers.

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13 Comments

  1. Jon Norris

    17th November, 2017 at 3:54pm

    Thanks, nice article. It should be noted that I designed two street level games that were killed when this series ended:

    1- “Tic Tac Lotto”, used a tic-tac-toe ball pop unit, similar to Chicago Coins “Criss Cross Pop Up” that was visible through a large window in the playfield.

    2- Cue Ball Wizard, CBW was originally designed as a street level game. I added the ramp and 8-Ball device was I redesigned it later.

    Reply

    • Dennis Kriesel

      17th November, 2017 at 4:14pm

      Thanks for the additional information, I’ll make a note of it on our next podcast episode!

      Reply

  2. Eric Rodriguez

    28th November, 2017 at 8:27pm

    Question. Did Premier have minimum purchase requirements for its distributors like Williams did? Williams/Bally had minimum clauses in their contracts with distributors to buy certain amounts to remain an authorized distributor whether the game was garbage or whether it was good, and that significantly contributed to their massive numbers and market share. According to Steve Ritchie, the practice was ended after Popeye in 1994 which is when you start seeing significant drops in production numbers from Bally/Williams per game (by then, distributors were able to say no to a poor design).

    So did Premier do the same thing with their distributors? If not it throws the entire hypothesis of the article in doubt. Just asking.

    Reply

    • Dennis Kriesel

      29th November, 2017 at 4:26am

      Sadly, I never saw information on if a minimums clause was employed by Premier. Perhaps someone out there has the knowledge.

      Was the clause a really a significant factor in Williams’ market share positioning, though? I’ve never seen what those counts were, but if it were significant in quantity I’m surprised Williams didn’t see rebellion from the distributors sooner. Obviously Williams must have factored in market demands even with the clause in place, hence why games like Whirlwind and Funhouse got larger runs than Riverboat Gambler. I see in Steve Ritchie’s Popeye write-up he noted up until Popeye the distributors were fine with the minimum purchase threshold, so I presume it wasn’t arduous to a distributor’s typical purchase intentions… until Popeye (price increase plus a garbage license that had no value in Europe? Ouch!).

      Anyway, interesting angle I did not address; definitely something to think about!

      Reply

      • Ophelia

        24th February, 2018 at 6:29am

        I think it’s because I’m seeing this from the perspective of 2018 and an animation fan, but I’m actually wondering what made Popeye a “garbage license.” I can see Popeye + environmentalism together being an offputting premise, though Popeye itself doesn’t sound too bad, considering Nintendo’s first major release in arcades, before Donkey Kong, was a licensed Popeye game.

        I keep hearing in pinball discussions about Popeye being a poor choice for a theme as if it’s inherently obvious, but it isn’t for me. Is it because it’s a theme that resonates with the wrong audience, that pinball was mostly found, by then, in locations where the clientele would have little interest in children’s entertainment? Was there some scandal shortly prior that sunk the public trust in Popeye as a franchise? Are my tastes in non-pinball things just really different than your typical pinball fan (considering the themes I want to see most happen are mostly anime-related)?

        Reply

        • Dennis Kriesel

          5th March, 2018 at 6:32pm

          Confining ourselves to theme specifically, Popeye was a poor choice for two reasons:
          1) It never was an important property in Europe. Yes, America was the #1 market for Williams in the 90s, but their #2, #3, and #4 markets were all in Europe. Popeye was never a big deal in Europe, so the theme never was a good choice to attract any sort of European audience. A big deal, especially when the European distributors were obligated to buy certain quantities of the game anyway.

          2) The license was not a current hot property at the time. Consider something like Star Trek: The Next Generation, which came out around the same time. The show was still fresh. Popeye was past its heyday.

          Note, these were the reasons Steve Ritchie noted. I’ll include a link so you can read his full write-up, as he discusses other issues it had (bad geometry, a price increase, etc.). But, I think the above-two points are the ones that most directly address your question.

          Link: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.games.pinball/Brmc4Jdbn3s/-gE4nMsfJE4J

          Reply

          • Ophelia

            13th April, 2018 at 4:35am

            All right, thanks. I have read that before, but while the arguments that the design was shoddy I could understand, I either forgot or skipped past the part where Popeye never caught on in Europe in any form. (I suppose this means it must’ve been hard to find themes that would be popular in both North America and Europe.)

            Overall though, as a minor fan of Popeye, both the comics and the cartoons, it does hurt a bit to read that, but that’s the nature of the truth. It does seem odd in hindsight, though, considering Stern’s current big thing is rock bands from the 70s and 80s, all of which are also past their heydays, but I guess it’s because of the audiences having changed since. Though I take it that Popeye fans and pinball fans still have very little overlap.

  3. Eric Rodriguez

    30th November, 2017 at 5:07am

    You’re right. And I don’t know if it’s a factor, but it IS something to think about. Either way, I didn’t mean to sound calloused or disparage your article in any way. Very impressive scholarship and a solid argument. As a historian I found it a very interesting read, thanks so much!

    Reply

    • Dennis Kriesel

      30th November, 2017 at 11:43am

      No worries, just got me thinking about even more questions (I started looking at production counts the year after Popeye even), which is always a good thing! Never bad to push back on a hypothesis, and I’d love to know how much of Williams’ decline was pinball’s decline versus the loss of faith in their product thanks to Popeye (and any other factors, like the ever-timely issue of pinball prices).

      Reply

  4. Eric Rodriguez

    2nd December, 2017 at 6:00am

    I asked Jon Norris if Premier had their own version of a minimum clause for their distributors. He replied:

    “I believe so. But I do think that it was a small number such as 5 or 10 per model domestic. I think the min. amount was higher for Europe. I know that they loaded shipping containers but not sure if all in the container went to same distributor.”

    Would love to know what Williams’ was…

    Reply

  5. Ophelia

    24th February, 2018 at 6:23am

    Stern’s “The Pin” line seems to be a later counterpart to these machines, with a lower price (and this time, Stern got to control the price) and a significant home market audience by then. I have no idea how successful that was, but Stern stopped doing it a couple years later.

    Reply

    • Dennis Kriesel

      5th March, 2018 at 6:37pm

      Probably the best comparison, though the target audience is different (Stern was shooting for home owners whereas Premier had operators in mind, though some of the design choices on both do seem very similar to cater the way they wanted to).

      I assume Stern didn’t see exactly what they wanted, but that recently announced Supreme pin does have the home-edition Spiderman playfield in it, so I guess it’s still getting mileage for them!

      Reply

  6. Mario Van Cleave

    9th March, 2019 at 5:54pm

    Purchased Silver Slugger for the route and it did well with little to no maintenance. Good theme for operators of Laundry mats, sports bars, and batting cages. Then I looked at each new title and only bought Car Hop. It also did well. On one particular visit from Steve and Diana Ritchie he thought it was a decent little game. Just a FYI and off the subject of Street Level games he also mentioned he liked my Operation Thunder.

    The other titles were of no interest to me, (with only Vegas sparking any interest at all), for my particular route locations. If CBW would have been street level as Jon mentioned I would have bought that title. I have always felt the themes were a problem with the line. Even in service schools were we asked what we thought. I guess it either did not get relayed to the brass or they didn’t care. The other thing was the speech sound. It was terrible. Sounded like Harry Cary was in every game and speaking through a vacuum cleaner hose. Thanks Jon for all your efforts.

    Reply

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