Also, I’ll add…having played Dialed In myself, because it’s not random, the disabling of a flipper during multiball provides yet another way for better players to benefit from their superior skills over lessor players. The most skilled players will be able to manage the attack, while the lessor skilled will not.
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After reading the rest of the article, Pat’s comments above make more sense. Here’s the (long) paragraph right before the comments above:
When you’re in multiball, you can shoot jackpots like you can in every other game. But once you started shooting jackpots, the characters in the game start attacking you back. There are incoming shot lines on those small inserts that are in toward your ippers and they trace on in. If you can hit where the shot came from be- fore it hits you you’ll get a Su- per Jackpot. If you don’t hit it before it hits you, there is a big explosion and then you’ll lose control of that ipper for some small amount of time. It accomplishes a lot of things. First of all, it’s very exciting because once players understand that there’s something incoming and they’re in trouble, they get really crazy in trying to do anything they can to stop it. It’s gratifying in that you get a Super Jackpot for stopping that shot if you can manage to do that. And it solves the problem of the extreme tournament players standing there cradling two balls on a flipper for fifteen minutes, while they play with one, because now there’s an incoming shot and you can’t leave the balls on that flipper. You have to play the game. And I’m a big fan of forcing people to play the game. I’ve always felt like that’s part of what my job is.
In that context, it makes a lot more sense. He doesn’t hate tourney players, he just doesn’t want to make it easy for us. I’m fine with that. Stop trolling us Josh. d;^)
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He actually does hate tourney players as I think most of us know from past statements he has made (and I from working with him for several years.) He is just figuring out a different way to approach it.
LOL if you only knew Mike 
ahhh I see Greg posted a response
Seeing how technical and hard it is to play with cradled balls during MB, I wouldn’t say it is “not playing the game”. I guess he meant not playing the game Andrei style? 
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Do either of you guys feel his stance has softened over the years, or was he just being somewhat nice for the interview?
Makes zero sense to me that a guy with his talents would dislike any of his potential customers. As Cayle said, why should he care how we enjoy the game? I also wonder if he realizes that many operators now are also hobbyist that compete regularly. Look around this forum (Pat). Hell, there’s probably half a dozen current or former ops in this thread alone. Not a demographic you want to alienate.
Steve Ritchie would hang with tourney players all day long if he was a better player and a few years younger. He respects our position in the hobby. You’ll never hear a negative word come out of his mouth regarding tourney players.
I’m not sure, I haven’t spoken to him in a really long time, so it is hard to say. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has softened a bit, and with people like @keefer around him he obviously has that stance close by and giving him feedback. However, as you see in the interview, he is someone who has very strong opinion about what is and isn’t fun in a game, and if he can he wants to make you play it his way, not yours. I agree it makes no sense, but as I said above, everyone has their own ideas.
Agree with this 100%.
The number of times I remember him bringing up great player angst is probably countable on one hand. It’s not a Primary Motivating Factor. I don’t know if he thought he was catering to an “anti-tournament” audience or not, but the fact it found its way in there is unfortunate.
After hearing @pinwizj whine/complain/bring it up for discussion, I talked about it with @FunWithBonus after the Deep Dive because of the stream the next week. He loved it. I like the idea too. It’s cool and adds a level of stress of needing to deal with something, and it’s relatively quick instead of semi-permanent (GOT WHC).
I realize that 3 people is not a very large sample size, but haven’t talked to that many people yet.
I’m in a place where my voice matters a lot more if something sucks, and I simply don’t see it sucking, personally. So, you can say I suck too, and that’s fine, but I’m willing to live with it.
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The three magnets under the playfield would be a better thing to complain about. He forces us to play it his way: in defiance of normal physics!
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…in compliance with Quantum physics?
I think Pat’s side here is that he views what he’s doing as creating an experience, and players finding an exploit and exploiting it while ignoring the rest of the game as breaking that experience in favor of pursuing an abstract goal that is, for all intents and purposes, meaningless.
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So…Is there a rule sheet for Dialed In! yet?
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Just started… is on pinside at https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dialed-in-rulesheet
If someone wants to take this and try to wiki it for this site please have at it…
Interestingly, George just confirmed in the SAPS that it was a reference the shop in the boom / movie.
Was playing this in a tournament the other day and watched someone nail like 10 combos, complete with awesome sound effects and everything, drained, then watched the next person beat their score from pop bumpers… why are the combos worth the same as a single pop bumper hit… is there still some score balancing to do on this game? @PinballKatz
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