Bally Manufacturing, founded in 1932, manufactured amusement machines such as slot machines and pinball,
and became a big player through the electromechanical and solid-state eras. In 1943, Bally acquired fellow slot machine
maker Midway, and began making pinball machines. Shortly thereafter the company began designing video arcade machines.
Meanwhile, Williams Electronics was at the forefront of pinball manufacturing. They were famous for pioneering many staples
of modern-day pinball, including releasing the first pinball machine with inward facing flippers (Lucky Inning, 1950), the first pinball game with speech (Gorgar, 1979), the first pinball machine featuring multi-ball play (Firepower, 1980), and the first dot matrix display (DMD) with fully animated graphics and interactive video mode (Terminator 2: Judgement Day, 1991).
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Michael Thomasson is one of the most widely respected videogame historians in the field today. He currently teaches college level videogame history, design, and graphics courses. For television, Michael conducted research for MTV's videogame related program Video MODS. In print, he authored Downright Bizarre Games, and has contributed to nearly a dozen gaming texts. Michael’s historical columns have been distributed in newspapers and magazines worldwide. He has written business plans for several vendors and managed a dozen game-related retail stores spanning three decades. Michael consults for multiple video game and computer museums and has worked on nearly a hundred game titles on Atari, Coleco, Sega and other console platforms. In 2014, The Guinness Book of World Records declared that Thomasson had “The Largest Videogame Collection” in the world. His businesses sponsor gaming tradeshows and expos across the US and Canada. Visit www.GoodDealGames.com.
