Given the opportunity, Jeff Murphy can talk about pinball machines.
"I can talk all day about pinball," said Murphy.
He intertwines the history of his passion for pinball machines with the history of the pinball companies.
At one point, Murphy had 18 pinball machines in his house - 15 in the garage and three in the basement.
Currently, Murphy has just five pinball machines and two video games in the garage, but another two pinball machines are at his parents' lake house.
Murphy isn't the only person in his family who has an affinity for pinball. His brother-in-law has four to five machines. His son, Tom, won first place in the youth division at the 2002 Pinball Expo in Chicago.
"In the '70s, pinball was really popular. It was around the '80s when video games started exploding," said Murphy.
Pinball companies started struggling in the 1980s as the video game craze intensified. Many of the pinball games in the early '80s were themed after the video games, Murphy said.
As home play stations started coming out, video games started falling out of favor. In the early '90s, however, pinball machines started coming back. Their comeback lasted only a few years.
In the past 15 years, Murphy bought and sold about 35 pinball machines, he said. Usually, he'd buy one that needed some repairs, but nothing too major. He'd play it for awhile, and then sell it.
Murphy bought his first pinball machine not long after he got his first real job.
"I thought that was money well spent," said Murphy.
It was in 1997 when Murphy got really hooked.
All the major pinball manufacturers are in Chicago, he said. Before moving to Warsaw with his family, they lived north of Chicago. In 1997, Murphy found out about a pinball expo and decided to go.
"That kind of hooked me," he said.
The two biggest pinball machine companies were Williams and Bally. In 1998, Williams bought Bally. Murphy got to tour the factory in 1997. Now Williams and Bally have gotten out of the pinball machine business, and they make machines like slot machines.
Being a pinball junkie, Murphy got to listen to pinball designers talk about all their challenges. He's been to every pinball expo since his first in 1997.
One of the biggest pinball machines ever produced was based on The Addams Family. The game came out in 1991-92, Murphy said. It broke all records with more than 20,000 games made.
Another competitor for Williams and Bally was Sega. "They came out with some pretty crappy machines, in my opinion," Murphy said.
Sega spun off its pinball business into Stern Pinball Inc. With the shaky economy, Stern is struggling, Murphy said. Two of the pinball machines Murphy has now are Stern - "Ripley's 'Believe It or Not'" and "Roller Coaster Tycoon".
Stern pretty much comes out only with themed games, Murphy said. After Williams and Bally stopped making pinball machines, Stern hired up all their designers.
"Stern is putting out some pretty good machines," said Murphy. "In my opinion, these machines are very fun, and I think people like to play these, maybe not kids so much."
One thing that Murphy thinks hurt the pinball machine industry is the level of maintenance the games require. He said it's easier for a business to be in video games than pinball machines because video games don't require as much upkeep.
"We'll see how much longer they can survive with this economy. I don't think they are producing too many machines anymore," said Murphy.
What some people don't understand, he said, is that pinball games have extremely complex rules. One pinball machine that is highly complex, he said, is the one based on the television show "Star Trek The Next Generation." The game requires the player to move from one phase to the next. If a player finishes the game, however, he said it is really rewarding.
"They're a blast," he said.Over the years, Murphy has become a restorer and repairer of pinball machines. It allows him to buy machines, fix them up, play them and sell them, though he doesn't do it as much as he used to a few years ago. It's a hobby that can pay off sometimes, he said. The older pinball machines, he said, are increasing in value, especially if there's no wear and tear on them. In 1997, the pinball game "Medieval Madness" probably cost about $3,500. Murphy said he's seen that pinball machine go for as much as $10,000 today.
"This is kind of a rare one," Murphy said of "Medieval Madness." He has one in his garage.
Murphy has sold pinball machines to people as far away as Nebraska and Florida. He often sells them through the Mr. Pinball Web site.
"I've sold a lot. That's how I bought some as well, using that Web site," Murphy said.
He estimated that 30 to 40 percent of the pinball market today is now for home use.
