Like scores of players before him, 14-year-old Frankie Leone mumbled something about his ball not getting enough bounce off a rubber-padded kicker and getting robbed of points on the classic pinball machine “Carnival Queen” on Saturday. Frankie was among thousands who descended on the Ultimate Pinball Showdown and Gameroom Expo during the weekend at the Denver Marriott South in Lone Tree.
Frankie barely acknowledged the stranger asking annoying questions about his technique, which included a subtle nudge that got his ball rolling into a target and began piling up points. Quickly, two more balls were launched onto the pinball machine’s playing surface, and Leone became focused and intense.
“Oh, wow, this a great game,” Frankie said. He began playing in 2015, attracted to the idea he could influence the trajectory of the steel ball through his own gentle, but well-timed movements. “It’s different from playing modern video games,” Frankie said. “It’s cool. You can have more control over the game.”
That’s precisely why old-school pinball machines, in some cases retrofitted with the latest in technology, are nearly as popular today as they were in their hey-day in the 1970s, Dan Nikolich said. He and his wife, Holly, put on the Denver expo, now in its 15th year.
“A lot of people are drawn to pinball because it is physical, and the gaming going on now in the digital is not. It kind of takes the human touch out of it,” Nikolich said. “You can bump it, nudge the pinball machine, and you can influence it that way. There is just a physical aspect to it that is lacking in other more modern games.”
Expo-goers could play pinball, retro console and classic arcade video games while also hearing about the latest in cutting-edge innovations during seminars featuring gaming experts, Nikolich said.
The expo draws young and old, men and women from all over the Rocky Mountain region and beyond, he said.
“Some are in their 80s, and they come alongside really young kids … all looking for something unique,” Nikolich said.
Some of the arcade tournaments took on the feel of a high-stakes and intense poker game. Mostly because the pinballers were going head to head with some of the best players in the world, Karli Pigford said.
“Oh, it gets pretty serious in here. People really want to do well and show everybody their skills,” said Pigford, who helped assign players to different machines.
Colorado is home to multiple world-ranked pinball players, some of whom were competing nearly shoulder to shoulder Saturday. Over one machine was Escher Lefkoff, who as a 13-year-old won the A division of The Professional & Amateur Pinball Association world championship last year, making the Longmonter the best pinball player in the world.
Maybe getting the most attention, however, was the legendary who many say literally saved the game of pinball four decades ago. New York City aimed to ban pinball because it was considered an illegal game of chance. But Sharpe argued successfully before the City Council that if he pulled the plunger back just the right amount, the ball would go in a certain lane, proving it was a game of skill and thus legal. Sharpe played in the tournament featuring vintage machines.
“He really was the man who kept the game going,” Pigford said. “He’s the reason why we are all here.”
