THE SITUATION facing the pinball designers at Williams Electronic Games in 1998: come up with something new, or see the world's largest pinball manufacturer be shut down forever. And Williams' designers did come up with something amazing: a brand new kind of pinball machine—"Pinball 2000"—that fused video with classic pinball gameplay, preserving what was great about pinball yet opening up all-ne

In an era of digital, streaming, cloud-based, and electronic entertainment, pinball is a paradox. With most forms of modern entertainment downloadable to the palm of your hand, how does a 300-pound box of wires and lights survive, and continue to thrive?