Play Meter

STEVEKIRK
Coinman
of the Month
St eve Kirk, this month's Coinman and pinball
enthusiast extraordinnaire, has attacked the
subject of pinball from most angles - as a player, a
promoter, an operator, a designer, and now as an
author.
His book, All About Pinball, was about two years
in the making and promises to focus even more
national attention on the modern day phenomenon
knoum as pinbaU.
He is president of the PinbaU Association of
America which was an outgrowth of the friendly
competition at one of his locations back in 1970.
A ccording to Kirk, the competitions got to be a
regular thing, and they grew until it was decided
the players should form an organization for the
purpose of playing the game and promoting it. It
wasn't until 1974, however, that the association
began actively soliciting people for tournaments.
Th en in 1975, the association held its first national
pinbaU open in Chicago. It drew 1,400 players.
It seems that Kirk has been around pinball
machines almost from birth. A heart condition as a
child prevented him from doing some things other
children were doing; so as he says, "I put a little
more intensity into the game than other people
would . ..
Presently he is working under an exclusive
coin-operat ed contract wit h St ern Electronics as an
engineering and marketing consultant. He got
involved with St ern, he says, as an outgrowth from
the book.
His hobbies (besides, of course, pinbaU ) include
all types of games, including boardgames.
Since he has groum up wit h pinbaU, w e f elt that
his general impressions of the direction of the game
would be a good place to start our interview:
PLA Y METER: Where is pinball today as
compar e d to wh e r e it was ten or fifteen yea r s ago?
KIRK: Obvious ly, as far a s ales go, it is
s ub tantially hi g he r . But I e nvi sion it becomin g
eve n more popular in the future. A lot of things
hav e he lpe d to in cr ease th e popula rity of pinball.
So me of those things ar e obvious like the movi e and
mu ic to Tommy, but some things are more s ubtl e.
Wh en I wa yo unge r, for ins tance, a lot of pare nts
had a ort of negative feelin g about pinball beca use
th ey re membered it as a gamblin g game. Al so,
tho e who went through the Depre sion and the
wa r had certain fee lin gs about th e s pe ndin g of
money. Parent ju t co uldn't unde r sta nd th e
co nce pt of e nte rta inme nt for mo ney. Th ey co uld
und e r s tand it wh e n it ca me to mov ie e nte rta in ·
me nt, but th ey cou ldn't relate to the ga me of
pinball . It ha s tak e n peo ple a whil e to r ealize that
pinball is just a not he r form of e nte rta inme nt. Ju t
beca use yo u buy it a quarte r at a t ime doe n't ma ke
it any less va lid .
10
PLAY METER: So yo u're say in g pinba ll was
misund e r tood ?
KIRK: Rig ht. For a long pe riod of time , it wa
mi und e r tood ; and pa rt of that confu sion s te mm ed
from th e fact that t he thin g that cha nge d pinball ,
t hal mad e it into a ga me of s kill, did not occur
PLAY METER . February. 1978