Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Same Player Shoots Again: A Biography of the Pinball Machine

Same Player Shoots Again: A Biography of the Pinball Machine

Bernard, Andreas
Pakis, Valentine A.

Paperback

General Sociology

Publisher Price: $12.99

ISBN10: 1509569448
ISBN13: 9781509569441
Publisher: Polity Press
Published: Mar 23 2026
Pages: 112
Weight: 0.33
Height: 0.42 Width: 5.82 Depth: 8.43
Language: English

This is an ode to the lost golden age of the pinball machine. These vivid, flashing portals of entertainment were mainstays of nearly every bar, pub, and amusement arcade from the 1960s to the 1990s, but today they have all but disappeared. Andreas Bernard, looking back on his coming of age as an avid pinballer, reflects on what the disappearance of pinball machines tells us about the modern transformation of leisure time and public spaces.

The demise of pinballing at the end of the 1990s converged with huge social shifts which eroded the distinction between work and leisure. Now we use the same screen to organize both work and leisure, and games have been absorbed by a professionalization of daily life that is impossible to escape. Is our free time, as we know it, really free? Bernard also shows how the replacement of pinball machines by pocket-sized vessels of distraction was accompanied by the ebbing away of social critique.

At times nostalgic and lighthearted and at others bitingly astute, this book will appeal to all pinballers, past and present, and to anyone interested in the changing world of culture, gaming, and entertainment.

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