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FROM PINBALLS TO PIXELS: AN ARCADE HISTORY OF WILLIAMS-BALLY-MIDWAY

Ken Horowitz



 

From early classics like Contact to marvels like High Speed, gaming publisher Williams dazzled arcade goers with its diverse range of quality pinball games. The age of video games catapulted the company into legend with blockbusters like Defender and Joust, and by the end of the 1980s it was the largest coin-op publisher in North America. Williams’ acquisition of Bally/Midway began a period of hits that included Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam, as well as the best-selling pinball machine of all time, The Addams Family.


The history of Williams spans nearly six decades and is filled with great games, huge gambles and technical innovations that impacted every aspect of pinball and arcade video games. With interviews of 40+ former designers and executives from Williams/Bally/Midway, as well as information from hundreds of contemporaneous news reports and documents, this book presents a never-before-seen chronology of how the small company became a coin-op juggernaut. Thirty pinball and 26 video game classics are examined in depth with direct input from the people who made them, along with the story of the events that shaped one of gaming’s greatest publishing houses.

 

PUBLICATION DETAILS

LANGUAGE

BINDING

EDITION

ISBN

YEAR

PAGES

English

Paperback

9781476689371

2023

442

English

eBook

9781476647968

2023

442

 

TAGS


Authors: #KenHorowitz

Publishers: #McFarland (McFarland)

Languages: #English

Year: #Year2023


Companies:

#Bally (Bally)

#Midway (Midway)

#WilliamsElectronics (William Electronics)


Public Figures:

N/A


Games:

#ArchRivals (Arch Rivals)

#Blaster (Blaster)

#Conquest (Conquest)

#CruisN (Cruis'n USA)

#Defender (Defender)

#HighImpactFootball (High Impact Football)

#HydroThunder (Hydro Thunder)

#Joust (Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest)

#MakeTrax (Make Trax)

#MoonPatrol (Moon Patrol)

#MortalKombat (Mortal Kombat)

#NARC (NARC)

#NBAJam (NBA Jam)

#Pigskin (Pigskin)

#PowerUpBaseball (Power Up Baseball)

#RevolutionX (Revolution-X)

#Robotron (Robotron 2084)

#Sinistar (Sinistar)

#SmashTV (Smash TV)

#Stargate (Stargate)

#StarRider (Star Rider)

#TheGrid (The Grid)

#TheTerminator (Terminator 2: Judgement Day)

#TotalCarnage (Total Carnage)

#WarGods (War Gods)


Misc:

N/A

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