Contact Stigmaweb's video: 1054 USA The Love for Pinball Machines

That is the sound of heaven to David Silverman "I've been collecting pinball machines about 30 years. Most of my life I've been involved somehow in pinball, whether its thinking about buying a game or playing games in different places when I saw them." Pinball is a game in which players launch a metal ball into a glass-enclosed area. The game awards points the longer the ball stays in play. But look out! One false move... the ball sinks ... and the round is over. Silverman is the proud owner and curator of the National Pinball Museum in Washington D.C., and it all started 30 years ago in Spain with a game called Fireball. "It was so fascinating to me and I had never seen it before. And that game fortunately or unfortunately started me on this collection phase which was not with the intention of doing anything but playing the game. I don't know what happened, I just kept buying games and buying games, it really is a blur, it like almost 30 years of a blur, but today the blur has ended at about 900 games." Then, 15 years ago Silverman got serious. "I started seriously collecting for the purpose of building a museum. What pinball shows in the almost hundred years of its existence is the development of the United States. If you take any period of American history and say okay the 60's, and you follow the games, the pinball games that were made in the 60's, you would see exactly what took place during the 60's. So besides it being a historic timeline of events, it's an artistic timeline, it's a cultural timeline, and of course is still a game, so the game improved." But pinball is more than just a "flip" through history. "I play pinball as an enjoyment, and I play it as a game to get better at. So I play it with seriousness and I play it with fun. To me a good portion of the excitement of a pinball machine is what the sound is, the sound tells you what's going on with the story. If it's just a huge jumble of noise, then you have to be a hell lot better pinball player then I am because I really want to hear what's going on, it tells me you have done something, it tells me you missed it". But can pinball survive the world of electronic gaming? "The three-dimensionality of pinball, I'm not talking pinball on the computer, I'm talking about the real pinball machine -- to me that's the hope of pinball, to get these kids seeing what pinball is or was before, so they can be interested in continuing playing it. One of the many points of this museum, was to start a little fire under people in terms of, not just seeing pinball as a game to play but as pinball a piece of historic art." Despite spending almost $2 million over the past 30 years, Silverman says his investment is in history and the love of the game. "It's obviously a passion, I'm hoping to make it a passion of a lot other people." If Silverman can make others feel as passionately as he does then he might earn the game's highest accolade - being called a "Pinball Wizard."