NORTHAMPTON — “It’s back. It’s back in a big way,” says Jamie Fleming, enthusing over the swelling popularity of pinball at Progression Brewery’s monthly pinball tournament — a competition that started underground in Fleming’s basement and has found a new home above ground as the vintage arcade games trend toward a revival.

Fleming’s own machines, which he has accumulated over the years, have been moved to the brewery full time and will be used for monthly tournaments.

This past Sunday marked the second monthly tournament at the 9 Pearl St. brewpub, which welcomed 16 pinball wizards for the competition.

Pinball, said Fleming, has been making a steady comeback since 2012, initiated by what he called “enough time since the death of arcades.” Game play continued to grow in popularity during the pandemic, evidenced by the fact that many of Sunday’s competitors had picked up the pursuit over that time.

“We have spots in Westfield, Springfield, Palmer, here … There’s so much pinball to play in the Valley,” he said, where tournaments have brought the pinball community together after a social media network of pinballers gradually formed.

Whereas pinball appeared to be on the way out some 20 years ago, its revival can be traced to around 2008, according to a 2023 article in the Economist.

Sales of new machines have risen by 15-20% every year since 2008, says Zach Sharpe of Stern Pinball, one of the few remaining major makers of pinball machines. Used machine sales are also up, and the number of “official” tournaments approved by the International Flipper Pinball Association has climbed to 8,300 — a four-fold increase since 2014.

Barbecue origins

According to Fleming’s longtime friend, Jonny Forance, a passion for pinball was unlocked for the two at a Korean barbecue in Los Angeles.

“Jamie and I lived in California for about 10 years, and there was a bar right around the corner from us that was like a restaurant that did Korean barbecue and stuff,” Forance said. “And we randomly walked in there and it opened up to 20 beautiful pinball machines. ...We spent thousands of hours there, and they were like one of the most competitive pinball spots in Los Angeles. So we kind of like launched straight into a really high level of competition pinball with that.”

The experience led to Fleming to rent and later buy machines after they moved back to western Massachusetts.

Tournaments had originally formed in Fleming’s basement, hosting mostly friends and people who met through the Western Mass Pinball Club in Palmer, which attracts as many as 150 competitors on a regular basis from throughout New England. The partnership with Progression was a natural process that grew out of an afternoon conversation with the brewery’s manager, Chris McKenney.

Fleming had wanted to operate his machines for the public ever since he began collecting them, and McKenney was interested in housing games. Now four tables illuminate a corner of the brewery full time.

According to Fleming, to play, “You don’t need to be necessarily athletic. I get a huge amount of pleasure from seeing the kinetics of the ball, rolling around the playing field.”

But to be a grade above, Forance explained what makes an elite pinballer.

“Fantastic control of the ball. They’re able to settle the ball when it’s wild very quickly. But a big part of pinball is just knowing the rules to that game. In every one of these games there’s thousands of sequences of different shots. You can get into different timings and different modes that you can progress you to higher and higher points,” he said.

Enthusiasts at Sunday’s competition explained that every machine features a storyline that if followed can boost scores. For instance, the Jurassic Park machine at Progression makes players work from the top to the bottom of the board’s island. Similarly, a superhero console may have a villain narrative built into it.

And there are also countless ways to score tournaments. Sunday’s match was done on a “10-strike” system, where the goal is to “whittle people down” until there is only one player left who still has strikes, explained Fleming, as competitors alternated between the four machines.

Local competitors

Among those in attendance were the owner and operator of the Western Mass Pinball Club, Andrew Stevens, as well as Tones Smith of Northampton, who placed third in last week’s statewide pinball championship in Three Rivers.

Ryan Beslisle of Connecticut, another notable competitor who is ranked in the top 1,000 players globally, shared that he only picked up pinball five or six years ago. He recommends playing as much as possible on a variety of different consoles to build skills, and added that he is a fan of newer pinball systems since they often offer more complex storylines than those from the 1960s, which he also plays.

Caroline Holladay, who is ranked in Massachusetts and competed in the state championship last week, noted that pinball can be a winning sport for those with perseverance, after she explained that state rankings are, in part, compiled based on participation rather than just skill — which also makes it a good game to socialize around, she said.

Tori Danger, who said she was there to practice for other tournaments and has been active in the area at other pinball venues, also highlighted the social aspect.

“This is just a really fun game to play and the people are really nice,” she said.

For Deric Harrington, who comes multiple times a month from Albany to play in the Valley, there is also the element of nostalgia.

Many on Sunday said that arcade culture had been dead when they were growing up, and as a result they had never experienced pinball before the past few years.

“We don’t have a lot of nostalgia for pinball,” Fleming said. “It was gone. Arcades didn’t exist when I was, you know, in my teens,” explaining that younger audiences are drawn to the pastime because of its skill-based nature, its social aspects, and enjoyment of the games’ mechanics.

But for Harrington, the draw is a leftover from high school and college, noting that he first came across pinball while at a residential high school in the 1990s.

“In my high school it was just something that they had for kids to do. So you know it was just sort of there. You also have something to fill time between classes, things like that. Then I went off to college and they had a couple machines there, so I just sort of had the bug all the way back then.”

He began competing six years ago, and said that in that time he can list on “two fingers the jerks” he has come across. “It’s such a friendly atmosphere,” he said.

Samuel Gelinas can be reached at sgelinas@gazettenet.com.