So it’s come to this: skee-ball cheats
I have a soft spot in my heart for skee-ball, a game I was able to play even as a tiny kid and still do well enough to not get teased too much.
As the years rolled on—and on (sort of like those skee-balls, coming out of the chute and rolling down the alley, over and over)—I’ve found myself now and then at the ocean or some other family resort area, and there’s one of those game centers, and I wander in and spy the skee-ball area.
I usually put a few quarters in and go for it. The balls are light and I can do it even with my arm injuries, and I still can sometimes score pretty well.
Yesterday I found myself at one of those arcades and took up a position, ready to start. But when I looked down I saw there were already quite a few balls in the “go” position, even though I hadn’t put in my quarter yet. I was curious what was going on, so I picked one up, rolled it towards its goal and scored, but nothing registered. Then I tried putting in a quarter. Still nothing.
I went over to the attendant’s booth (they still have actual people there to help) and explained that that particular lane was out of order. She called a young man over and gestured for him to help me, and they both explained that this happened all the time: people took the balls from other lanes, thinking they’d get extra chances and higher scores that way. It didn’t work, because the machines are programmed to stop toting up scores after nine balls. All it did was gum up the works.
I’ve been playing skee-ball for umpteen million years and I’ve never encountered this before.
What gives? Has the social contract broken down that much? People are now resorting to cheating at skee-ball? Isn’t skee-ball supposed be a game? Isn’t it supposed to be fun?
I had to assuage myself with some salt water taffy.
[NOTE: Maybe this has been going on for a long long time and I just failed to notice it before? Have you ever encountered it? The attendants said it happens to them constantly now.]
A rule in life.
If they are giving something away for it then people will try to cheat. No matter how big or small that something is.
I never heard of skee-ball cheating either. Though I saved my quarters for the pinball machines myself.
neo: Is the equipment still entirely mechanical?
huxley:
The equipment where I was looked like it hadn’t changed a bit.
It’s been quite a while since I played skee-ball, but if I remember, it’s obvious you can only throw a certain number of balls before the game ends and trying to throw extra balls won’t do anything (ok, perhaps I did try once, but it’s hazy since it was decades ago). It is also one of my favorite arcade games. I even have a simulation of the game on my phone.
I remember skee-ball as the wholesome family entertainment at the arcade, at least on the Boardwalk in Daytona Beach. If you did well, you won tickets to be redeemed for large stuffed animals.
As such it didn’t attract teen boys more likely to cheat.
Neo,
For a measly $6K, you can own your own Skee-Ball game. Howabout that?
https://www.thepinballcompany.com/product/skee-ball-classic-alley-bowler/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&adpos=1o3&scid=scplpwoocommerce_gpf_722&sc_intid=woocommerce_gpf_722&gclid=CjwKCAjw7O_pBRA3EiwA_lmtfpuXvdcwZbOdvkJpVBpemTa5HMIeq0pFPHiR36yyKE2VY47HfAvnQRoC7e4QAvD_BwE
Waidmann
I really dislike cheaters, no matter what the game because you play by the rules and number one you are your own competition trying to do better each time and number two, it feels good to win without cheating. I played golf a bit when I was in college and quit when the guys who were so much better than me and winning were cheating on their strokes.
Now I find out people cheat on an arcade game perhaps to win cheap prizes? Kind of like men saying they are women competing against women and taking pride in their accomplishments.
Too morally bankrupt to realize that cheating necessarily sacrifices integrity. They forfeit their gold for lead.
Waidmann:
But with my own skee-ball game, I won’t get the little prizes!
Never heard of skee-ball. Have no idea what it is. Suspect it’s a NYC, NE America thing.
miklos:
NY and NJ and Pa mostly at first (early part of 20th Century), then it spread. I’ve seen it in lots of Eastern area, and now it’s in Texas and CA and I not sure where else. See this.
I remember it here in the northwest when I was a kid at carnivals and fairs but I’m not sure it was called skee ball.
If the games have a mechanism built-in to detect the cheating, then it must have been going on for some time. Sorry about your lost childhood.
Socratease:
No.
The scoring ends at 9 balls. That’s the way the game works. That’s a built-in mechanism to keep proper score after 9 balls have been played, and then to re-set for the next player. All arcade games have to have something of the sort, as far as I can tell. It doesn’t say much about how much cheating there used to be in skee-ball vs. how much there is today.
Plus, the games became more automated sometime in the 80s, and I am fairly sure the mechanism for scoring changed as well, although the basics did not:
And of course I’m sure some people used to cheat, probably since the beginning—or used to attempt to cheat. But I can tell you this: I’ve been playing skee-ball off and on for most of my life, and the other day was the very first time I’ve ever encountered the phenomenon described in this post, and what’s more the attendants said it happens “all the time”now. That never used to be the case, not even close. And I’ve played skee-ball many times since the 80s, too, when the game scoring became more automated.
I don’t know what your “lost childhood” remark is about. Everyone’s childhood is lost, isn’t it?
Another point of evidence of the social and moral decay of America.
neo,
Thanks for the link. All new to me.
miklos:
Skee-ball is actually fun.
I first saw skee-ball in the mid-sixties in Daytona Beach. It was too simple and wholesome for the teen-age boys who preferred pinball to merge with the machine and to win extra games.
Unless you’re out on a date, who needs stuffed animals?
Ever since I was a young boy
I’ve played the silver ball
From Soho down to Brighton
I must have played them all
But I ain’t seen nothing like him
In any amusement hall
That deaf dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball!
–The Who, “Pinball Wizard”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J03yCE15rg
Of course, if you want to merge with something warm, soft and feminine, stuffed animals are the better bet.
huxley:
You’d have to play a LOT more skee-ball than most people ever do to get any sort of stuffed animal. Mostly you win stuff like a small pack of candy or an ugly little rubber figurine, like something to put in a flower pot.
huxley:
Or if you’re very lucky, a kazoo.
Sorry, I misunderstood, I thought the game was purposely locking up if extra balls were played. That would imply it was designed to do that to frustrate cheaters.
Ha! At first glance I thought the subject line said “cleats” and wondered just how special shoes and Skee-ball intersected.
I don’t think I ever played it, but it was present at Playland At The Beach in SF in the early 50s. Skee-ball does not hold a candle to rides like Octopus and the bumper-cars, let alone the Fun House, and a roller coaster that any sea monster would take pleasure in attacking… .
For some reason my arm doesn’t go straight. I’ve never been good at it so this is the first time I’m hearing about the cheaters.
How could that be any satisfaction for a cheater??? ???? ? ? I don’t get how the decay could be this bad. I do not get why they have to put locks on the icecream lids. I don’t get why they have to lock up the safety razors at Walmart. I don’t get any of it. I shop at Target now because I can’t stand that extra time just to save a few cents.
If I remember, Skee-ball was greatly loved by God, as played by singer Alanis Morissette in the movie Dogma. This was a really bad morality play by director Kevin Smith whose idea was to have two angels go on a serial killing spree. It is stopped eventually by the lead female character who is an employee of an abortion clinic.
God had not noticed the killing spree because She was busy playing Skee-ball.
I wonder why the guy who does the parody pitch meeting YouTube videos hasn’t tackled this one.
And this is happening….
https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/police-seek-woman-who-urinated-on-potatoes-in-walmart?fbclid=IwAR17hjTCIoD5rRTYtimr0E9KyXOfQQVKrYtPwRRrq7D0AWg_hFnJh-L4FTQ
I played skee-ball in the mid-60’s at Playland-at-the-Beach in San Francisco and the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. I was never good enough to win anything more than the lowest level of prize. When Chuckie Cheese came to town, th y also had skee-ball, which my older son enjoyed until he was old enough for video games.