"And the winner of this tournament will be declared the world pinball champion.” “This is a tournament with 24 qualifiers all playing eight different pinball machines set up at a very high difficulty," said tournament director Mark Steinman, who doubles as the event’s TV play-by-play announcer. PAPA 17, as this year’s championships were called, was held in a massive, 30,000-square-foot warehouse filled with nearly 500 pinball machines. ![]() “It is the chance to be a pro athlete for one weekend a year,” Kerins said. The top players like Kerins competed for a $10,000 first-place purse - nothing to sniff at for an arcade game where normally the only prize is being able to input your initials when you land a high score. and a few from countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden, where pinball is popular. The tournament, in its 17 th cycle, drew hundreds of players from around the U.S. It is the chance to be a pro athlete for one weekend. And he was in Pittsburgh recently to defend his title at the 2014 Professional and Amateur Pinball Association’s World Championships. ![]() But not just any pinball player - he’s last year’s world champion. Kerins, from Salem, Mass., is a pinball player. Plus, there are balls and an elaborate point system. For starters, it requires agility, quickness and coordination. It’s unlikely that anyone would mistake Bowen Kerins' hobby for a sport, though it does have a few whiffs of athleticism. ![]() (Lauren Ober/Only A Game) This article is more than 8 years old. Prone to volatile swings in popularity, pinball is currently on the up.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |