Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 273)

Trigger Happy
275
Some Pachinko experts roam the halls with a gaze
so intuitively attuned to the game that they can pick out
machines whose pins are slightly bent from the constant
battering of balls. These, they know, will pay out more
often. But to minimize this advantage, parlor operators
go around at closing time with a hammer, knocking all
the bent pins back into line. So the Pachinko system
can never be rationally mastered.
A lot of videogames rely in part on exactly the same
teasing unpredictability as Pachinko. It is thoroughly
deterministic, but a feeling of randomness is generated
by our imperfect knowledge. “We may have written the
game, but we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
You’re never sure what’s coming next, which is partly
why you want to try again.
Pachinko further prefigures another deep pleasure
of videogames in its method of control. The player
holds a single, very sensitive knob; as it is turned
clockwise the tiny silver balls are shot out from the
funnel at increasing speed. The challenge for the player
is to manipulate the control in order to find the optimal
ball speed—the rate at which the greatest number of
balls falls into the target slots. Unlike a slot machine,
then, where you merely pull an arm or hit a button and
then wait, Pachinko marries its teasing