Cool video though. I like the clear explanation of goals and all the flashy lights.
Even the people shown calling it random sound less like they're calling it inherently random, and more like when I talk about something that I'm sufficiently bad at that any success is more a matter of luck than skill.
(Of course, as hakfoo points out, early 'pinball' was basically roulette in cartesian coordinates with more complications, but I don't know of anyone who non-trick-questionishly means that rather than actual pinball when they say "pinball" without disambiguation, so that's if anything a even-more-straw-stuffed position to be trying to correct.)
This made it a lot more of a game of chance than a game of skill, so it was closer to a gambling device. Some places went all the way-- the operator would award prizes for getting specific outcomes, and a lot of places banned or regulated them for decades.
There were apparently court trials where experienced players demonstrated that they could call specific shots, to prove that it was not a pure-chance endeavour.
They really are amazing, that feeling if the ball gliding on the surface is incredible.
I think I initially saw it as a random thing with bright shiny lights and funny sounds, but I eventually understood the game. I was never very good at it, but it is most certainly a game of skill.
Some tables have an electromagnet under portions of loops to hold and release balls for specific modes, for example on Twilight Zone.
Other tables have electromagnets in more open parts of the playfield like Stern's BatMan with the electromagnet on a crane, and as I recall, SpiderMan has an electromagnet feature. There's some that use an electromagnet to get randomish motion near the flippers, but they usually pull the ball upwards, not downwards.
Do yourself a favor and change that ;)
Check out PinballMap.com and find a machine near you. It’s a surprisingly fun and zen hobby.
Like, you thought you suck at reaction time games despite playing them a lot, because you always hit the button a split second too late or too early? Your reaction time was likely stellar - it's the game code that rejected your hit and animated it as near-miss. You'd never know without a high-speed camera - but these days those are ubiquitous, and YouTube has plenty of recordings of games cheating this way.
It's one of those things you learn as an adult and realize that people suck much more than you thought when you were a kid.
Additionally, many pinball machines will tell you on the displays what to do. I've got a Pin-Bot (1986) and in addition to the instruction card, the attract mode has a detailed description of rules you can see here [1] this video doesn't show it, but while it's telling you what to do, it also flashes the lights near the feature it's describing. Pin-Bot only has alphanumeric displays for the top displays, so it takes a while to get through the whole thing.
I don't think all machines have that detailed instruction, but I don't think it was only Pin-Bot.
But, the rule of shoot at the flashing lights basically works.
You can also get a lot of mileage out of not doing anything. To practice that, if you've got access to a machine on free play or at lost cost, try playing one handed, moving your hand from button to button. You'll miss a ton of shots because your hand is on the wrong button, but a lot of the time, more often than you'd expect, it'll be ok, or at least, the ball will take longer to drain than you'd think it would.
