Behold! An animated history of the best pinball players in the world over the last 25 years! I’ve been wanting to make this for a while, but didn’t quite know how. It turned out to be way easier than I was expecting!
Obviously I’m biased, but I find it really fascinating to watch this list play out over time. Many of the greats like Elwin and Kerins have been topping the chart for decades. There are also other once great players that are completely unfamiliar to me. We see the legends like Neil Shatz top the charts briefly then disappear into the sunset. I also love how the list initially includes almost exclusively US players, until the “swedish invasion” around 2004-2005.
Note that at one point in the animation, there are only 9 players listed instead of 10. This is was due to a suppressed player making the top 10 rankings. Also, I chose to only cover 1995 and on because there just wasn’t a whole lot of data in those early years and it made the chart look weird. Anyway, hope you enjoy!
Truly great graphic! I like how Ray Ray rose to the top and stayed there for quite a while. But here comes Johannes slowly on the rise and eventually overtakes him. Also cool to see Daniele rise to the top and bounce around the top 5 for so long. As mentioned before, also great to see so many names I didn’t recognize.
Good stuff. Noticed Hal Erickson squeaked in on the very first clip. No sign of Marc Conant, who didn’t compete much, but was worthy of a list like this. Any others missing? (great players who didn’t compete much)
