Just read the Pinside post to find out where the camera was. Sheesh – what a bunch of negativity exists over there!
Anyway, this reminded me of a game I saw at Pin-A-Go-Go a few years ago called Flash Dragon, which took a Polaroid photo of you when you got a high score.
The one time I recorded a high score on a DI, it also took a picture of my chest! I thought it was just me! (I’m also female, so of course my pals thought it was tooooo funny.) 
Edited to add: oh yeah, and I’m short, for what that’s worth.
Why not have an opt out at the high score entry? Enter initials and then photo y/n?
Three of our DI high scores are not the face. One is of some guy’s chest and one is of the full HGT machine directly across from DI. Another is of someone holding up a hand to cover the face, so it is about half palm and half face.
Also, the hipster hotel 25 Hours in central Vienna has a Gottlieb Sheriff with a Polaroid on top of the backbox that snaps a photo when you get a free game at 1 euro per play.
I always found it strange there wasn’t an opt-out for privacy or legal reasons; definitely making sure players know that the feature is there would help drastically, unlike “hidden” features like GoT Beginner Mode.
For the camera quirks, I dunno how the camera does facial detection at JJP but software will always have it’s odd quirks and if it is mission-critical at some point it will get ironed out. Probably the simplest solution is a prompt to accept the photo; this wouldn’t involve any machine learning or algorithm changes that can (nah, WILL) bork up the code and only impacts the game flow slightly.
New inspiration for a high score picture found!
I’m glad to see this conversation and see that I’m not alone. I wouldn’t describe myself as an introvert, but I refuse to play DI unless “forced” to in leagues/tournanents. I don’t want any photos of me displayed publicly without my permission. The first time Selfie Mode happened to me, I muttered “there oughta be a law” and wrote off the game.
I think the best thing that came out of that pinside thread was that I somehow got like four people to use the word “skeeve”. Also the location of the camera.
Well I don’t mind my awesome posed high score pics, but selfie mode is all resting pinball face. Not too flattering. And all the shots usually look identical, which I think is not really the point. NOW, if you put some of them different snapchat whaddayacallems randomly on there, that might be kinda fun. Or you pasted the faces on goofy bodies (like centaurs and hamsters). Cute.
Not always… ‘more choice’ isn’t always the best option when designing products.
If it’s ‘too many options’ or ‘on by default to encourage discovery’ or ‘on by default to drive adoption’, etc. Lots of thought processes behind limiting choices to drive intended behavior. A simple yet classic example is rolling out new user interfaces. Immediately everyone asks “can I have the choice to switch back?” - and often you say no, simply to force people to use it and give it a chance.
And confusing the start of the game itself is especially risky. Your choices must fit both the complete noob, the rando who drops some coin, as well as the regular player.
Really seems that if a choice is to be offered, it could be done at HSTD initials entry time, when the player is already engaged in a selection process. Just show a banner saying “your photo will be taken and stored with this high score - hold both flippers to decline”… that would be unobtrusive. Per Keefer’s comment, the Selfie mode pics aren’t stored; I don’t see any privacy concerns with that.
Last year at pinburgh, one of the group’s beside us on POTC got really confused by the Spanish option at start of game. They started in Spanish. Called a TD over, and got allowed to restart in English. They started again, and started in Spanish again. Then the TD went into settings are disabled language choice 
Yeah, I thought the camera was at the TOP rather than at the bottom.
Now I’m curious about ways to confuse the machine. If someone comes in with a blank mask and puts a cardboard cutout of someone next to them, will the camera take a picture of the cardboard cutout instead? Or I could even just bring along my tablet, have it display a picture of, say, Eustace from Courage the Cowardly Dog propped up on the playfield (and request the player not play roughly), would it take a picture of that instead?
I actually would not mind at all if it mistook the fictional character for myself–I mean, I’m already posting to this site under the name and avatar of a fictional character.
pinside=scum
When I was a relatively new player, I had someone who certainly was experienced enough with the game to know what they were doing, start POTC in Spanish mode in a matchplay tournament against me. I didn’t say anything because I was a new player and shy, but I really felt like it was unsporting. I didn’t know the game as well as they did to be sure, and I think they knew that and it probably motivated that choice.
Given the opportunity, I’ll choose to go first on Family Guy just to select Spanish mode. Not as any sort of advantage, but so I don’t have to hear the terrible jokes in English over and over throughout the match. Premio gordo!
There is some correlation between PotC/FG scores and Spanish Mode for me - all of my initials show up on Spanish Mode games!
Premio Gordo!
Premio Gordo!
Pirates is especially easy to start in Spanish, even for experienced players. Once you hit the start button, if you hit either flipper button before the playfield is validated, everyone is playing in Spanish. I always short plunge Pirates and I like to test the right flipper before the ball gets there. If I test it before it gets to the inlane switch, Spanish for everyone. So if you’re not sure if a player did it on purpose or not, see if they’re short plunging. I still do it on accident.
Increased pitch and (natural) yellow flipper rubbers will keep ball times down on Pirates.
Good to know… I’d rather believe it was accidental! It still put me at what I think was an unfair disadvantage, though, since I didn’t know the rules of the game well at the time and made a lot of use of English cues, whereas that was not so much the case for the other player.
Worth noting is that Dialed In actually ships with a magnet specifically designed (I assume) to cover up the camera for players who are not comfortable with it (the text on the magnet is “Why Not Trust Us?” along with the DIE logo 
). There are a few players at our office who use it regularly although obviously it’s not really a viable solution for a location game (it’d probably disappear within a week~) but I thought it was a nice touch.
Side note, the camera is completely unable to recognize my wife’s face; in general the facial recognition seems to be less reliable for female players. Maybe JJP needs a few more women around the office 
It’s just bad form to be taking pictures of people and not giving them a choice of having them displayed in public. This is not a security cam with a monitor hidden in some back room. The game saves the pictures for the high score making it even worse. I grew up with two first cousins who would literally do anything to avoid getting in pictures, so I know there are more than a few people around who this would enrage. Personally I am completely over selfies (possibly because I have the kind of mug that only a mother could love). I regularly go to a location that has DI and have yet to play it. To me there should be an option at the beginning of the game to pick the camera or one of a handful of cool looking characters for the selfie mode and the high score display. The default should be a cartoon-like character and not the camera unless you choose it. I’m probably in the minority, but those are my two cents.
Heh, not a fan of the show? (Or is it just grating hearing the same jokes repeatedly? Or were the people writing the script for the pinball machine not nearly as clever as the writers for the show?)
I just wanted to say that the phrase “Why Not Trust Us?” for the camera cover feels somewhat bitter and resentful. While I want to give the people at Jersey Jack the benefit of the doubt and say it’s unintentional, to me, it comes across as a taunt to people who would rather the camera not see anything.
And yeah, it’s useless if it’s put out in public–sooner or later, someone’s going to steal it.
That would be a superb idea, providing just some characters here and there as placeholders for the photos. I know others have suggested it already, but I also wanted to say that I discussed this with some other people, one of whom told me that Mario Kart Arcade GP actually DOES already do this: While it asks for your picture before it takes it, later releases allow you to decline it and have one of the playable characters instead. I must wonder if it was a reaction from all those Mario Kart Arcade GP machines on location with duct tape over the camera, or if it’s because it comes from a country where the majority of people will refuse to participate in something if it takes their picture.
I’m also glad to see there are more people pointing out that there ARE a lot of people who would rather not have their photographs taken. Go to a large media convention where there are many guests consisting of authors, artists, even actors and musicians, and there will be at least one guest with a personal request not to have their pictures taken of them.