Randy Fairfield of Pasco is a pinball machine enthusiast who loved the game so much he started his own pinball rental company.

The idea for Tri-Cities Pinball began in the summer of 2022 when he saw that Seattle and Portland have the biggest pinball scenes around. 

“It was something I’d like to see here,”  Fairfield said. “At the time I started it, there was nowhere in town to go play pinball.” 

He and others with a passion for pinball want to stoke interest in the classic arcade game in the Tri-Cities. They say there’s joy to be found in pulling back the plunger to launch a fast-moving silver ball onto a tilted playfield and testing your reflexes at the flippers to keep the ball in play.

Fairfield, who works a day job as a teacher, offers 15 machines for rent around the Mid-Columbia. Eleven of them are out in the community. He also rents them out for three months at a time for people to use in their homes. 

“I struggled to find a partner at first,” he said. “Quake Family Fun Center was my first customer.” Quake co-owner Paul Knabe said that while he was hesitant at first to bring in the old-school arcade game, he now has one pinball machine upstairs in the adult bar and three on the warehouse floor.

A scoreboard at the Quake Family Fun Center in Kennewick shows the reigning pinball champs.

| Photo by Jeff Morrow

“Those three machines down on the warehouse floor – they get on average 1,000 plays a month together,” Knabe said.

By the way, the majority of pinball machines cost more than the 25-cents-a-game customers may remember inserting into a coin door when they were younger. Today, it’s more like $1.50 a game, Knabe said.

That’s why many business owners find it more economical to rent pinball machines rather than buy them outright.

Rob Whitney, operations manager at Moonshot Brewing in Kennewick, said it took Fairfield a few attempts before he agreed to put three pinball machines into the Kennewick brewery. And he doesn’t regret it.

“Pinball has been such a positive impact for our brewery,” Whitney said. “I do monthly tournaments, and it really draws people of all ages in.”

Busts and booms

Pinball popularity has waxed and waned over the years.

In the 1930s, game usage dwindled when machines fell victim to gambling bans. Back then, players could get money payouts.

In 1969, the English rock band paid homage to allure of the silver ball with its popular rock song “Pinball Wizard.”

The ’70s were the game’s heyday with the introduction of digital displays on the backglass.

A decline in the game’s popularity began in the 1980s with the introduction of video games.

The pandemic brought interest back. 

Photo by Nathan Finke

Machines are being produced and sold to collectors and enthusiasts, and there has been a rise in retro arcades and pinball bars nationwide. Seattle even has its own Pinball Museum, offering unlimited free play on more than 50 machines with paid entry.

In the Tri-Cities, pinball machines can be found in about a dozen places, said Jeremy Miller, a Tri-City pinball enthusiast who is working on starting his own pinball rental company, called the Department of Pinball Efficiency, or DOPE.

Miller currently offers two machines for rent and is getting ready to acquire two more. “I have deposits on a King Kong machine, and a Dune machine,” he said. “Five, 10 years ago, it got to the point where there were less than five pinball machines to play in the area.” Now, he said, you can find 30 machines in the area.

Fairfield also rents out his family’s swimming pool through Swimply, which connects owners of private swimming pools with people who are willing to pay a fee to use them for a few hours. Fairfield’s Swimply rental includes access to his game room that is loaded with gems of games of all kinds, including pinball machines. 

Randy Fairfield rents out a number of pinball machines and other games to businesses and individuals.

| Courtesy Randy Fairfield

A changing market

According to FastCompany.com, 70% of all pinball machines are now sold directly for private use. They range in price from $7,000 to $12,000.

 “During Covid, dynamics changed. Seventy percent of pinball machines were going to homes,” Fairfield said. “And the prices went up, from $4,500 to around $7,000 a machine.”

“Part of the problem was sometimes people felt intimidated by pinball machines,” Fairfield said. “They need to be fixed sometimes, and they have a lot of stuff inside them. There is a lot going on inside a pinball machine.”

Business Research Insight reported the pinball market is valued at $10.44 billion in 2024.

In 2032, the same group predicts it will grow to $13.68 billion.

Tri-City pinball wizard 

Brent Bowen is the area’s agreed upon expert when it comes to pinball.

“He knows more about pinball than anybody,” Whitney said.

Bowen, a Kamiakin High School graduate who lives in the Tri-Cities and works as an animator for “The Simpsons,” loves pinball. He has six games at his own home and has been featured in on Northwest Public Radio.

Bowen started a pinball league. He organizes pinball camps. He recently did one for a Dungeons and Dragons machine. He has his own Twitch channel on the live-streaming service popular among gamers.

“I started on Twitch to educate people on pinball. I have such a love for it,” said Bowen, who once drove more than four hours to a friend’s house in Poulsbo to play a Foo Fighters machine.

Bowen and his wife Lori started a Facebook group, now 98 members strong, called Columbia Basin Pinballers.

“We have been posting on Columbia Basin Pinballers for a year,” Bowen said. “We have a group anywhere from 8 to 15 people who meet up once a month to play. We’ll hop around. Go to Moonshot once a month. Caterpillar another month. It gives customers something to do when they’re in bars.”

As a kid, Bowen got hooked while watching a 16-year-old playing pinball at Hubby’s Pizza in Kennewick.

“I saw this guy playing, using skills, catching the ball. Things I’d never see anyone do. He taught me tricks. Then he had to leave and told me to take over. I was hooked,” Bowen said.

Bowen has had a pinball machine in his home since 2004.

“All of my problems go away when I play pinball. I can play it, and everything just goes away. It changes my mood,” Bowen said.

He wants others to feel that way.

“When I moved back here in 2021, the Tri-Cities really had no pinball,” Bowen said. “We wanted to fill that drought that was here. We are trying to get more players.

“Believe it or not, the Pacific Northwest is a huge pinball Mecca. Just not yet in the Tri-Cities,” Bowen said. “In five years, I’d like to see this area take off with tournaments and more players, (solve) the drought of machines, and continue educating people on how to play the games. There is just a lack of education of the games.”

Younger generation

One way to hook in younger players is to attract them with new game features.

Pinball machines lined up along the wall at Richland’s Caterpillar Cafe.

| Courtesy Brent Bowen

Stern, which is the last major company making new pinball machines, offers a way to connect a phone app to a pinball machine using a QR code scanner. Players can then earn achievement badges by tracking their scores in the app.

“I think this appeals to the younger generation,” Miller said. “You can track your improvement and get badges.” 

Knabe has noticed people coming to Quake from all over Eastern Washington and Oregon to earn their badges.

Fairfield said these new machines are a huge draw.

“There is so much more to do on the newer pinball machines,” he said. “I can play a game 300 to 400 times and there is always something new happening. There are video games within the game. Story-based games.”

Enthusiasts can find pinball machines via an app called Pinball Map.

In the Tri-Cities, you can find them at:

• Richland: Caterpillar Cafe, Queensgate Fairchild Cinema.
• Kennewick: Hubby’s Pizza, Moonshot Brewing, Quake Family Fun Center, Quake at the Mall, The Pub, 3 Cities Sports Bar.
• West Richland: Ty’s Bar and Grill.
• Pasco: KBTC Family Fun Center, Power Up Arcade Bar, Tri-Cities Pinball.

“The app has been a really big deal,” Fairfield said. “It’s really taken off the last few years.”

But some things haven’t changed – like the player rush at earning a high score or other bonus.

Sometimes, at the end of the game, the final two digits of a player’s score may match the machine’s lucky free game numbers, resulting in a free game with a loud click. Bowen calls it The Knock.

There is also the feeling of being transported in time.

“I like the world under the glass of a pinball machine,” Fairfield said. “My mind is always racing. When I play pinball, I am only thinking about one thing.”