Why did physical "knock down pins" bowling arcade games die out? Did skeeball practically kill them off and replace them

[/Arcade]

In a topic I made about arcade basketball and their popularity compared to soccer arcade machines weeks ago, a frequent response was that basketball cabinets don't take up as much maintenance and get far less damaged than soccer machines do. At least a few posters mentioned skeeball. Which inspired me to ask at the r/bowling about skeeball counting as a style of bowling. Bowling is my primary hobby (so much that in a lot of my past threads I made ever since I joined reddit, I mention about my local bowling alley a lot especially if there's a relationship to the subject like drinking). So this is something I noticed before I joined Reddit.

Now in this pic.

http://retrogamerooms.com/images/Picture%20305.jpg

You see an arcade cabinet from the 1960s that's basically bowling on a table. Now over time from the 1940s when the earliest of these cabinets were produced until the 80s when they practically stopped being in production for the mainstream market, you see stuff made like in this poster.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/yb8AAOSwxwxiDS~s/s-l1600.jpg

To fit a variety of spaces across different building types.

So long story short, when the earliest arcades were coming out, one of the most common games were basically tables that give you balls after you instered the quarters and you rolle them across to hit the bowling pines. Depending on the era, the machines either pushes them out after the second round into a compartment and then it gets pulled back up and placed stacked neatly like they were before you put ocoins in to play the games Just like in modern bowling alleys. Or new pins pop up from the bottom. Or during the most primitive earliest machines, an employee sets them up back for you again. The earliest venues that fit the idea of what we think of as arcades today in the late 50s and during the whole 60s decades basically had these bowling cabinet as an expected standard at leat in America.

Before that, carnival fairs, theme parks or amusement parks, venues near beaches and other vacation/relxation/tourist spots and other recreational hangouts with with old mechanical pre-arcade game machines within North America often had at least one bowling style machine. Go 50 years earlier than that and the same basic tables existed at the same entertainment places like fairs, carnivals, and amusement parks and centers except the pins had to be manually be put up by an employee and that same employee had give the ball to you by hand foreach round of bowling. Sounds all tnteresting right? Well go 50+ years earlier than that.......... You had these around!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Skittles_-_geograph.org.uk_-_153273.jpg

https://www.mastersofgames.com/cat/pub/table-skittles-spare-pins.htm

https://www.ebay.com/itm/352989542358?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=352989542358&targetid=1493511175825&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9008656&poi=&campaignid=19851828444&mkgroupid=145880009014&rlsatarget=pla-1493511175825&abcId=9307249&merchantid=6296724&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1JfQopmWgQMVQ0dHAR2YzAZtEAQYBSABEgLEhvD_BwE

As common games across bars, inns, community clubs, and even restaurants! Not just in America but even in England! Witha lot of variety as seen in the two vids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRQyDZAG2k

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lWh_HwMUpA0

So I'm wondering despite being one of the most ubiqitious games not at pre-video game era arcades and at even earlier pre-electricity game spots like carnivals and festivals and bars, why did bowling in the style of "knock the pins down" with physical objects die out in arcades? The only kind of bowling games I see left in arcades are roll the trackball video game style cabinets and the physical kinds that have a screen TV representing the bowling pins and you roll theball into a black spot in which the game's software will use sensors and other stuff to determine the results and show the pins being knocked down on its TV screens. And even those are becoming quite rarer and rarer. All despite the fact much smaller cabinets of these bowling games exist and even your average larger one (as seen in the first pic above) is aboutt he same size as a larger longer skeeball machine thats common in larger arcade venues.

Does the invention of skeeball play a role in the deaths of knock them pins down bowling games? Since skeeball has become a ubiqitious mainstay that practically all arcade venues has several proper size ones and a good number of non-gaming places like restaurants and movie theater with a dedicated arcade room with enough space for 10 cabinets often has a skeeball machine (even if in smaller sizes). Even bowling alleys with arcades rather ironically have skeeballs as a common offering.

So is the assumption that skeeball has completely replaced proper arcade bowling likely correct? What do you think are the reasons for bowling pins death? Looking back at the basketball vs soccer machines thread I wrote weeks ago, I'm also wondering if maintenance and damage to the equipment would also be a gigantic factor for their deaths (as well as why skeeball completely replaced them). Would this be a pretty real factor too?
submitted by /u/CamelIllustrations
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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/coinop/comment ... ng_arcade/