The world’s largest pinball manufacturer, Stern Pinball, have launched their new online platform, Insider Connected!
According to their press release, Insider Connected is a comprehensive technology initiative to connect the universe of Stern pinball machines. The platform is designed to enhance and extend player engagement with the games across both home and commercial environments. It also presents operators of pinball machines with a robust set of tools to drive location play, build player loyalty, analyze performance, make adjustments remotely and maintain the machines.
Registration for Insider Connected is free; players can either scan a QR code at the games or go to the Stern Pinball website where they will need to enter an email address and create a password. Once players register for Insider Connected, they are issued a unique QR Code that can be used to identify that player at any connected Stern pinball machine, anywhere in the world. When a player logs into the machine, they can track their progress, earn new game specific achievements, engage with the player community and participate in promotions and Challenge Quests.
Challenge Quests can be issued by operators to drive play at their locations and build player loyalty or by Stern Pinball to highlight a game title or engage the community. When players complete quests, they receive loyalty rewards.
Key launch features of the Insider Connected platform include:
- Gameplay up to 4+ players – friends or foes
- Game achievements and promotions
- Stern authorized Quests and Operator authorized Quests
- Loads on loads of free play, pay to play games, rewards and treasure chests
source: Stern Pinball
All Stern Spike® 2 LCD games produced after the September 2021 launch will ship with the Insider Connected system installed; this includes new runs of previously released titles. Any existing Stern LCD game can be added to Insider Connected by installing a simple, inexpensive retrofit kit available from Stern distributors, dealers and the Stern Store® – we have asked Stern to provide more details about this kit. We will update this post once we receive their response.
By the end of the year, all 17 Stern Spike 2 LCD system titles will be added to Insider Connected, which means we’ll be able to connect our Star Wars Comic Art Premium machine! At launch seven titles will be supported, with the remaining Spike 2 LCD machines added over the next year. with full system with added features will be rolled out. Once again, we have reached out to Stern to confirm the seven titles that be supported at launch – we will keep you posted!
We have written about internet connected pinball machines in the past, so it is great to see Stern Pinball finally enter this new age of online pinball play and cool tools to interact with pinball machines. This is a game changer for sure, so we will keep an eye out on the evolving feature set and will report back on what more we can find out from Stern Pinball about their Insider Connected platform – so stay tuned!
PS: We have reached out to Stern Pinball with a number of questions relating to their Insider Connected platform, so look out for a future update!
We have fond memories of our times in Vegas. Travelling to the US was never complete for us without popping into the desert city to catch a show, fly over Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon, and of course, hit the 
image source: Debbie Courson Smith via Facebook
After clicking through the amazing images of pinball machines (below), you’ll be blown away by the drone videos by live streaming producer, Eddie Codel, of the mass of pinball machines at the Pacific Pinball Museum (PPM) Annex!
We absolutely love archival footage from television broadcasters, especially footage from amusement centres (or as we used to call them, parlours) from back in the day!
Have you ever dreamed of raiding a warehouse full of arcade machine we used to play back in the day?
image source: 
Just like the pinball prohibition era in the US, an Australian council (Heidelberg, Victoria) took it upon themselves to ban pinball machines. This ABC TV report from July 13 1978 shows how close our silverball pastime came to being driven out of milk bars, cafes and fish and chip takeaway shops!