Homebrew pinball

Homebrew pinball is the hobby of creating or modifying pinball machines in a non-professional environment. The terms custom machines and custom games are often used to refer to homebrew pinball machines, though these terms also include pinball machines made by professional manufacturers on commission. 
The hobby of homebrew pinball is often fannish in nature; many builders create original machines based on existing works of media, or modify existing pinball machines to change the machine's theme to an existing work of media (referred to as retheming). Due to the small scale of the homebrew pinball community, the history of the hobby as a whole and fannish engagement are closely intertwined. 
== History ==
Fannish homebrew pinball stems back to at least the late 1990s, with a custom South Park machine being shown at Pinball Fantasy 98, built a year prior to the release of Sega's official South Park machine.Pinball Reviews, unknown date The history of homebrew pinball prior to the early 2000s is not well documented due to the niche nature of the community and limited early web archives.
Prior to 2009, homebrew pinball primarily consisted of changing the artwork on an existing machine. In 2009, hardware engineer Gerry Stellenberg released the system board P-ROC, designed to allow creators to control and modify a game's ruleset, animation and sound.Pinball News, 2010Wilser, 2021 The release of P-ROC enabled the creation of original homebrew pinball machines and more complex modifications, allowing fannish original machines and rethemes to accurately reflect the source material in both theming and rulesets.
In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the homebrew pinball community experienced a significant uptick in engagement. 
== Community ==
The scale of the homebrew pinball community is small, with individual lists of custom games often containing less than fifty games, and the homebrew subfourm on the pinball forum Pinside containing around five hundred threads in 2023. This is due to the high level of entry required for homebrew pinball, with custom machines requiring a diverse skillset and large monetary and time investments.
Builders often create fannish pinball machines due to a desire to see a machine with a theme that has not been or cannot be implemented in a commercial machine. 
Multiple homebrew pinball developers who have created fannish machines have transitioned into building machines professionally. Notable examples include Keith Elwin, who was hired by Stern Pinball in 2012 after Stern's head creative discovered his Archer machine, and Mark Seiden, who was hired in 2021 by Jersey Jack Pinball after gaining notability in the community for his Metroid machine.https://ausretrogamer.com/mark-seidens-amazing-metroid-pinball-machine/https://nothans.com/homebrew-pinball-metroidhttps://www.facebook.com/JerseyJackPinball/posts/4837044279647463
== Examples ==
=== Rethemes ===
* Futurama (homebrew pinball)
* Goonies (homebrew pinball)
* Metallica (homebrew pinball)
=== Original machines ===
* Cuphead (homebrew pinball)
* Metroid (homebrew pinball)
* Sonic Spinball (homebrew pinball)
* Underpin
==Gallery==
File:Nightmare-before-christmas-pinball.jpg |Nightmare Before Christmas pinball
File:Bioshock-pinball.jpg|Bioshock pinball
== External links ==
* Homebrew pinball subforum on Pinside
* Custom games article on Pinball Makers
* Custom Made Pinball Machines article on Pin Wiki
* Custom machines section of the Pinball article on Wikipedia
* More Custom Pinball Projects article on XTCPinball
* Custom Pinball Projects page on Pacific NW Pinball
== References ==
=== Citations ===
=== Works cited ===
Category:Fan Activities
Category:Pinball