I just installed WiFi on my WOZ and am trying to set up Scorbit, but when it ask for a location and I fill out the info for my house I’ll choosing “private.”
When I then go to locations to set my game there it doesn’t show up.
Ok, there are a few things going on at the same time we can help you with.
When you create your venue (and you can edit the venue in the My Venues tab on the account menu), be sure to put at least a city/state/country so it knows the actual location. You can set it to private, no problem.
Then go to My Machines, and ensure (hit the edit pencil) that the WOZ is set to that location.
Finally, go to you account menu > viewing preferences, and make sure that if you just want to list your own machines, set “always default to home venue” and set that venue as your home. This way it won’t prompt you to choose a location when you hit the big S to play.
Let me know if this helps! Also, feel free to jump on our Discord channel:
Thanks to Brian & Jay of Scorbit and Karl D of DTM there was a competition here in the UK using Scorbit on 7 out of 10 machines with Scorbit pre-entering the scores into DTM - it made scorekeeping significantly simpler and meant there were less scorekeepers required and the process was amazing. Very much like INDISC 2020.
Cheers,
Neil.
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I’ll echo Neil’s comments. I was running that comp and Scorbit was amazing.
For the 7 machines with it installed I was able to stay seated and still enter people’s scores. At first they were dubious, but by the end everyone understood that I didn’t have to physically see the score at the machine and type it in. Queues moved so fast.
There was just 1 issue on I500 when the player scored 491mil, but Scorbit read it as 1.491 BIL, so visual checking is still recommended.
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I noticed that too at one point, but I put it down to our slow internet connection. Once I remapped everything onto a different WiFi I didn’t notice it reoccurring.
Scorbits were great.
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Scorbit v1.1.4 - Announcing the Scorbit Open Achievement Platform
Today Scorbit launches Achievements! This is a free, open platform that works across hundreds of pinball titles from the 1970’s to modern games. It is compatible with any manufacturer, from any location, across 50 years of pinball. No, really, that’s what we said! Let’s start with a video!
*** Achievement FAQ: ***
** What’s all this about achievements? **
I know, we talk a lot about achievements, and have for many years. Let’s start by explaining what we mean:
Achievements are easter eggs. They are magical little bonuses or badges that you receive for doing fun things that you discover. Sometimes, achievements are simple, other times, impossibly hard. They can be fun to collect or share with others. Sometimes they can motivate a certain type of play, even with a game that you’ve grown tired of twenty years ago.
To cook up an achievement, you have to decide what triggers it, and how complex it is. Is it something you an unlock while playing a single game, or does it require many games to achieve it? Does it require playing different titles, from different eras? Do you have to be in a specific location? Are scores involved, or specific people? Is time a factor?
Scorbit spent years thinking about these things, considering how to make something like this really open. Today, we’re launching our achievement platform. We say “platform” because that what it is, it’s a foundation on which game designers, developers, operators, venue owners, players and others can create and express ideas that transcend what is possible from plunge to drain.
Why an open platform?
For the scope of this to work, the platform has to be open to anyone who wants access to it, and that is what we have built. We needed great game designer minds to come up with the first ones, so it’s not a surprise we’re launching this with Jersey Jack. To do so, we gave them access to our API (application programming interface) to play with and figure out how they wanted to start using it. What one game designer dreamed up was different from others, and will likely change and evolve over time. Other manufacturers are already coding against it with plans to launch achievements on Scorbit.
After Jersey Jack, the team at Scorbit will release achievements for game titles going as far back as there are electronic machines. The more sophisticated the game, the more opportunities for fun achievements.
Remember, the Scorbit Achievement Platform works across hundreds of titles. It isn’t limited to JJP, it works with solid states from the 70s and 80s, DMDs from the 90s, and even LCD games currently manufactured. It works on any manufacturer’s games.
On day one, Jersey Jack did the work over the past year and came up with some fun ones on their entire catalog of games, and will roll each one out successively starting with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. You’ll soon see them on all JJP’s titles.
In the future, we will expose the Achievement creator to not only manufacturers, but also venue owners, operators, and other users who can craft unique achievements associated with the games they have on location. Achievement unlocked, free beer at the bar! When we said open, we meant fully open! First we will get the mechanics well tested, then release it publicly.
What kind of achievements can you tell us about?
At the highest level, achievements can be real-time, or be calculated post-game, depending on the ingredients. Ingredients are what we mentioned previously, scores, targets, modes, time, titles, locations, speed, tournament participation…
Achievements can be permanent, meaning once you earn them you have them forever, or trophy, meaning you can lost them to someone else.
Some require completing tasks within a single game, others across multiple games. All are stored in your Scorbit profile, so it travels with you.
How can this work on a game that was made 30 years ago?
When Scorbit is installed in any vintage game, we have real-time data. For example, in a DMD game, we can optionally change the display, so in some cases we are able to display these achievements and other messages right on the DMD. We know the game state, the modes, and scores, all in real-time. That being said, there are hundreds of game titles out there. Our challenge is to create these achievements over time, in a respectful way working with as much original design talent as we can.
You mentioned tournaments above, how does this relate?
Match Play and DTM have taken advantage of the Scorbit open platform and have released integrations with Scorbit that are fairly extensive. They rely on the platforms being open and span across machines of any manufacturer to work. The people behind both of those software platforms plan much further integrations as we continue our strong partnerships with them. The more these systems use our API, the more we can do to use them as triggers.
You can learn more about Match Play here:
Also the next generation of Match Play integrations here:
Drain Tournament Manager information can be found here:
https://www.neverdrains.com/dtm/
How do I unlock achievements?
To access achievements, all you need to do is download the free Scorbit app, log in, start a game and claim a player slot by tapping the player number. A fully integrated game will respond, especially in the case of JJP. Once the game and cloud knows that you’re playing, your actions begin to count towards earning that achievement.
Not all achievements are awarded for game play! Scorbit also is aware of venues, people, time, blood alcohol level, and shoe size.
Where do I view achievements?
When you unlock an achievement, it may be displayed on the game, or sometimes just in the app. You receive push notifications (which can be muted) for achievements you receive. For major achievements, your followers on Scorbit will also be notified.
You can see what other players are scoring or achieving via their profile. Clicking on the “stats” button for any player allows you to see all their vital information, including a machine-by-machine listing of achievements and scores they have earned.
Anyway, there’s a lot to unpack here, so we’ll leave some to mystery. 
Release notes and press release below.
Thanks,
-Jay, Ron & Brian
Scorbit v1.1.4 Release Notes:
-
Achievements
• You can unlock achievements based on real-time game activity or other combinations of factors
• Some achievements are displayed, some more mysterious
• Trophy achievements can only be held by a single player at any time
• Achievements can now be viewed in your user profile or other user’s profile as they are achieved
• Achievements details screen describes the achievement and how it’s been achieved
• You receive a notification when you achieve something, and it appears in your profile and activity feed
• You receive a notification when someone you follow achieves a major or trophy achievement
• You can mute notifications from individual players on their profile with the mute button
• You can turn off all achievement notifications in the Account Menu > Settings > Notifications -
User Profile
• User profile now has Scores / Achievements / Challenges tab
• Mute button added to stop notifications from a single user
• Initials and full name added to profile
• IFPA Player Number added to Profile Edit screen
• Stats view added with player Statistics and Scores/Achievements tab
• Statistics tab includes various fields about a player’s performance, including IFPA Rank
• Scores/Achievements tab allows you to see all saved scores or achievements for a specific game title
• Challenges now can be accepted on score details screen
• Challenges now will notify you and appear in your Activity feed
• Save to Leaderboard screen now correctly locates score ranking on machine leaderboard
• Improvements to manual score submission flow and photo upload
• Improvements to Community tab performance
• Fixes incorrect aspect ratio on some manual score photo library or camera images
• Fixes tool tip text for notifications regarding top scores
Scorbit official blog post:
Press Release:
Scorbit Announces Global Achievement Platform for Pinball
Jersey Jack Pinball Releases Integrated Support for Entire Catalog of Games
SAN FRANCISCO - Sep. 23, 2021
Scorbit, the leader in connected pinball, is excited to announce Achievements, the latest in a series of features compatible with hundreds of games across thousands of connected pinball machines around the world. Jersey Jack Pinball continues their long history of pinball innovation with full support of Scorbit achievements, launching first on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, followed by the rest of the Jersey Jack Pinball game library. Achievements on Scorbit for more games from other manufacturers will follow shortly thereafter.
Since launching in 2020, Scorbit’s open platform has welcomed thousands of pinball players who have posted hundreds of thousands of scores to the Scorbit app. Arcade owners and pinball operators have embraced the platform, allowing players at locations to connect to Scorbit easily and utilize the advanced tools provided by Scorbit. With an established platform, the latest addition of the Scorbit Achievement Platform API is fully open to all game manufacturers and connects with Scorbit’s already existing global network. Achievements work with the Scorbit app, ScorbitVision and other software integrations already available. The platform bridges all of these features from games manufactured over fifty years of pinball, right up to modern machines today.
Jersey Jack Pinball is also excited to launch full support of the achievement platform as the next step in their partnership with Scorbit. With deeply integrated achievements designed and implemented by the creators of each game, Jersey Jack Pinball games will be even more competitive for players. Achievements appear in real-time on the game displays as well as within the Scorbit app, and are visible on Scorbit user profiles.
Achievements are new goals for games that can be set up by the developers of a game, a venue owner, or an operator. There are a variety of goals that can be used, including real-time achievements that appear on the game displays, meta achievements that can transcend between games, locations, or titles, and trophy achievements that are only held by one person in the world at a time. Achievements can be based on game play, time, location, people and other users, or a number of other ingredients at the discretion of the game designers. Using Scorbit, games from the past have an entirely new twist when achievements are added to the platform.
As you play, supporting games will tell you if you have unlocked achievements on their own display, including vintage games and DMDs from the 1990s and 2000s. In addition to this real-time display, players are notified of their achievements by the Scorbit mobile app and visible on player’s feeds and profiles.This is all side-by-side with Scorbit’s already existing automated leaderboards, challenges, and real-time scoring.
“Scorbit’s open platform API makes it easy for companies like Jersey Jack Pinball to integrate their games,” said Jay Adelson, Chairman and Co-Founder of Scorbit. “They are being joined by most of the pinball manufacturers, designers, and creative community to enhance game play everywhere.”
“We chose to work with Scorbit to launch achievements because we believe in open, accessible platforms,” said Jack Guarnieri, Founder of Jersey Jack Pinball. “Players like being able to put both their old games and their JJP games on the same system, and since our launch of online support, Scorbit has proven they are the platform to do this.”
Combined with Scorbit’s in-app Challenges, Leaderboards, and exciting visuals from ScorbitVision, pinball is way more fun with Scorbit.
ABOUT SCORBIT
Scorbit (Spinner Systems, Inc.) is a first-of-its-kind, wireless and real-time platform that connects solid-state, DMD and LCD pinball machines to the Internet. With the Scorbit Mobile App and the Scorbitron device for pinball machines, Scorbit has been connecting machines and tournaments since 2015. The implications are nothing short of a pinball revolution, bringing pinball machines and players into the digital age – while increasing plays and revenue for operators and fun for collectors.
ABOUT JERSEY JACK PINBALL
Jersey Jack Pinball (JJP) is the industry leader in quality and technical innovation, creating groundbreaking pinball machines for seasoned players, collectors, and newcomers to the game. Designed and manufactured in the United States, JJP’s state-of-the-art games are conceived on a foundation of pinball’s rich history and engineered with an unflinching eye toward its future. Easy to play – difficult to master, their award-winning games feature several industry firsts, including the use of LCD screens, RGB LED lighting, Bluetooth and Wi-fi connectivity, interactive camera, rich audio, and innovative industry leading technology. JJP brings Pinball machines into the 21st century, designed to provide an enhanced player experience, engage hardcore players and draw new players to the game.
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Hey all! JJP GnR and Dialed In! are now live with Scorbit and the Scorbit Achievement Platform!
S C O R B I T is an online connected gaming platform. (Note, no “e” in Scorbit.)
Just a few high level FAQs. Scorbit has never been just about scores and leaderboards, though all of that is available to you as well as the visualizations on ScorbitVision for you game rooms and large displays.
You can also always find more info at our website at https://scorbit.io and our support site at https://support.scorbit.io.
** Q: How much does Scorbit on JJP cost?
Nothing for JJP owners. For operators we have a Pro license, but you won’t need it for the feature set.
** Q: How do I connect Dialed In to WiFi?
Step 1: Get a USB WiFI dongle
You will need a USB WiFi dongle, if you don’t have that already. JJP recommends this one:
Step 2: Get the Code
You MUST load the latest version of Dialed In! code from JJP. You can get that here:
Step 3: Configure your WiFi on the game
You must connect the machine to WiFi in from the game’s utility > network menu.
NOTE: YOU MUST SET THE TIME ZONE TO YOUR TIME ZONE IN THE NETWORK CONFIGURATION!
Step 4: Get the App
Once WiFi is set up, download the Scorbit app here:
Register your account, which will require that you click the validation email sent to you from Scorbit.
Step 5: Pair the Machine
When we say “Pair,” what we mean is associate your physical machine with the virtual one on Scorbit for keeping all the scores and achievements. If the machine is already on Pinball Map or you already use Scorbit, it will already be there and the app wizard will detect it.
You can follow these instructions to get your game connected to the platform:
https://support.scorbit.io/hc/en-us…-Jack-Pinball-Machine-on-the-Scorbit-Platform
** Q: Why can’t my friends and family see my machine and play?
When you first create your venue, it includes a name, an address, and if it should be public or private. Scorbit uses location to list out venues, closest first, so you can discover places to play pinball. However, if it’s private, only selected users can see it on their menus and submit scores to your game.
To make your service visible to other users, go to the Account Menu (your profile pic in the upper right of the app) > My Venues > [Your Venue Name]. You’ll see two tabs, MACHINES and PLAYERS. Machines on the left are any machines you want, and they don’t need Scorbit to be added! On the PLAYERS tab, add the other users you want to be able to see your venue.
Also, in the Account Menu > Settings > Viewing Preferences, you can set a HOME VENUE that always loads when you start the app, saving you time if you’re mostly just playing at home!
** Q: Where can I see the achievements I’ve earned?
First I should start by saying, when I say “Account Menu,” I mean the menu with your player profile picture in the upper right hand corner of the app.
The way you can “go back” to the last screen is with a swipe from the left edge of the screen to the right.
If you go to your Account Menu > Profile, you’ll see a feed of all the scores, achievements and challenges you have received, sorted most recent on top. If you click on an achievement here, you do see a detailed view of that achievement.
However, if you want a more detailed view, you can press the “Stats” button next to your name in the profile screen. From there, you have two tabs: Stats and Scores/Achievements.
The stats button does what I’m sure you would think it does.
The scores/achievements lets you first search for a game title (such as Guns N’ Roses), and then toggle (using the small icon on the upper right of the box) between your scores for that game and achievements for that game. You can always click on a score or an achievement for a detail of either one.
** Q: Where can I see progress towards an achievement?
You can see this on the Achievement Details screen, which you can click on wherever you see an Achievement:
** Q: Where can I see the master list of achievements?
Yes, we know completionists want all the list! We do this to some degree in different forms already. You see some, but not all, depending on the behaviors/goals the game designers want to motivate.
- If you visit the Profile > Stats > Machine > Achievements, you will see achievements that you’ve achieved ** plus any additional achievements ** that are part of the same “achievement group” that you have not achieved. For example, if there is an achievement to hit multiball 10 times, and you’ve hit multiball 10 times, you may see the achievements for 50, 100, or 1000 times by viewing that achievement and paging through the others in the GROUP box. This is intentionally not a complete list, and it does require that you’ve at least hit the lowest level number of the achievement. This is because that “master list” concept may have different forms within different achievement groups.
Think of this like you’re unlocking new lists of achievements to hit.
- A feature we are finishing that you will see soon is called the Browse tab. This is the pinball machine in the lower left corner of the app. This is not ready yet, but when you tap that tab, you will get to choose any machine and see various things about it, including achievements (locked or unlocked). It will be release very soon, so stay tuned here. You’ll find that some won’t be seen or some will be in an obscured state (like mystery), but it will not require that you specifically have hit all those achievements.
Very important: Some achievements associated with the game are not specific to something that happens in the game! Therefore, it’s not exactly right to show you those in the context of the machine all the time, and may be invisible to you until you achieve them or someone you follow achieves them.
** Q: When do I receive notifications about Achievements?
Achievements will send to YOU when you achieve them via a push notification. You can turn these off in your preferences. Clicking on your Activity feed will take you directly to that achievement, or they are visible in the other ways described above.
** Q: What’s all this about Challenges?
When you finish a game, after you save to leaderboard, you’re presented with a screen like this:
When you see the options, you’ll see a little person with a “+” on it. You can tag other users to beat the score you just submitted. You can choose more than one at a time as well. Add anyone you like, click outside the user selection box, then you’ll see the profile pics of the players you tagged. Click on SEND CHALLENGE and they all get notified that you’ve tagged them to beat your score.
Then what comes next if you’re the person who received it is a little bit beta! We record all the challenges you’ve received for a specific game title. So if you get three challenges for Wonka, one from Bill, one from Bob, and one from Barry, you play each one out, one at a time.
The next time you play Wonka, we count the game against the first one on the list (Bill), and then Bob, and the Barry, successively. Your next game you save to leaderboard for that game counts! You’ll see screens like this:
In this example, the user has won the challenge against his challenger. Then in the various feeds, community tab, Challenges menu, and on the user profiles, you see the results of challenges.
You can ping-pong back and forth on challenges, and also access them all in the menu.
Challenges expire in 7 days! So hurry up and play.
We know there are a TON of things in challenges that are being added in future releases, like the name of the challenger you’re playing, and also the Challenge Match, which allows you to pick and choose players, and when everyone is in, and the challenge begins, you get one new game to count against it. Stay tuned for those challenges in a future release.
Anyway, that’s just a start. Hopefully that helps! Hit me up with questions.
-Jay
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Hey Scorbit fans!
Coming off an incredibly successful and fun Pinball Expo, I want to share two, heavily detailed, recorded Scorbit updates for all of you.
The first is an 90 minute interview with Pinball News with Scorbit! Jonathan Joosten and Martin Ayub published an unedited, full interview with myself and one of my co-founders, @ronxo , going over a lot of inside information of how Scorbit works and our future plans.
I want to point out that Jonathan and Martin provide such a service to us all. We’re big fans and appreciate that there are rare folks out there like these guys that are willing to get into the details with us.
You can listen to it on Spotify or Anchor.fm.
Anchor link (go to 2:04:52 for the interview):
Spotify link (already advanced to 2:04:52):
The second is the Pinball Expo Scorbit talk, available on Twitch, where myself and my other co-founder, @Brian go into a lot of detail (with some lab videos as well), and field questions from the audience on Scorbit’s future, how we work with various game types, and more:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1190177331?t=00h43m31s
Hopefully this shed some light on everything. Enjoy!
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A huge thanks to Ron and Jay for their great interview.
I’ll be honest and say when I suggested the interview there was some doubt we’d have much to talk about and it might be a bit geeky, but really the Scorbit system is so extensive with so many cool possibilities, we talked about what it is, how it works now, and what’s coming up in the future, and before we knew it we’d been talking for an hour-and-a-half.
Great work guys, and thanks for your time.
Martin.
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Scorbit v1.1.9 Release
Hope everyone had a great holidays! Here at Scorbit HQ. we’re excited to share another packed Scorbit app update. This is just a taste of what we’ve got being developed for the app and we wanted to get this out before the end of the year, we think you’ll like some of these enhancements with v1.1.9.
Achievement Summary, Filters
When you navigate/scan to a machine, the Scorbit attract mode (“Waiting to Start”) now includes your achievements count when there are achievements for that game machine title. If you tap on that achievement count, or swipe across the leaderboards, the final panel now includes a full list of achievements available for that game.
Anywhere on the app, on any list of achievements, you now can change the filter to view completed, highest completed, or all achievements for a game. On Scorbit, achievements are sometimes grouped, and if so each group is listed in order. If you tap on any achievement, you visit the achievement detail screen with more information, and can also view other achievements in that group.
Adopting Machines and Venues
Thanks to the great guys at Pinball Map, we import live data from Pinball Map to help users find machines. It’s also to help with the creation and management, but of course the data isn’t always correct. As a result, sometimes you get doubles for machines, or if you’re an operator, you find machines you want to take away, or install Scorbitrons into.
Now, if you try to create a machine that already exists, and it was a previously existing machine, the app will give you the option to adopt it instead (and optionally all other machines and the venue) if it’s unowned. If you own the machines, go ahead and adopt them all and the venue with it! The machines will show up on your Account Menu > My Venues and you can manage them going forward. If you adopt by accident, or someone else took control, no fear, just email us at support@scorbit.io and we’ll fix it all up for you. Just like Pinball Map, we love the help of the community to ensure data is accurate.
Machine Tab
Ever wonder what that pinball machine button was in the lower left hand corner? The wait is over, it’s now been activated! By tapping on the machine icon, you can browse machines by title. Once you’ve chosen one, you can browse the global leaderboards and achievements for that machine. Basically search by game, not venue and we’re pretty excited for it.
When viewing achievements for a given title, you have access to the same filters as on Waiting to Start. Remember, all scores are clickable, so click on any score you see for a detailed view of the score. We’ll be releasing the ability to list out nearby machines of that title soon, stay tuned for that.
Saving to Leaderboard
We spoke to large cross section of users and it was nearly unanimous that most users want to auto-save scores. We’ve always had this feature, in the Account Menu > Settings > Playing Preferences. Unfortunately, most of you didn’t know that was available. Therefore, we’re changing it to the default, and changing the language. “Auto-save” has been replaced with “ask to save to leaderboard.” In other words, for new users, auto-save is now default, and you have to opt-in to being prompted!
If you find your Save to Leaderboard screen disappears, and want it back, go to this preference in your settings and turn it back on. When this preference is turned off, if the app is open, you’ll get the sharing screen. If the app is closed, it will just save it automatically.
Just to clarify: Auto-claim only works if the app is open and navigated to the screen. A future feature will allow home users to stay in a mode that auto-claims and auto-saves, but in multi-player environments, we have found auto-claim to be troublesome, so it will be removed in a future release (scanning QR codes will still auto-claim, and the new feature will auto-claim).
There are also lots of enhancements behind the scenes: Differentiation between machines of the same title and different manufacturer, the ability to add custom text, new tools at https://tools.scorbit.io for operators or owners, and a myriad of performance improvements.
Owners of Stern Spike 2 games with Scorbitrons will notice we’ve updated the install flow to work with all the latest Stern code updates since they launched Stern Insider Connected. This is to ensure maximum compatibility for people who like to use both systems! We love Stern games and love the work they did on their new platform, and can’t wait to see more!
Anyway, that’s just a snapshot of v1.1.9! Stay tuned for more to come in 2022. Thanks to everyone using Scorbit and all your support. Have a very Happy New Year!
-Jay, Brian and Ron
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Scorbit is live at INDISC 2022!
If you’re interested in watching any of this live, check out our blog post with links to the ScobitVision boards, along with INDISC current standings.
ANNOUNCING v1.2 RELEASE
Scorbit v1.2 is here! We’re really excited to get this new version of the app released that brings a number of new features and enhancements to the platform. As we roll into 2022, we’ve seen thousands of challenges fly through the system and got a ton of feedback from users so we gave the entire Challenges feature a major upgrade!
Here’s a rundown of what you’ll see in Scorbit v1.2.
Challenges Revamped!
We’ve taken all of your feedback and completely revamped the Scorbit challenge system for machines connected to the Scorbit platform (either with a Scorbitron installed or connected directly like on Jersey Jack Pinball Machines) The focus was all on transparency and to create a fair way to engage in a casual challenge. At the end of a game, you can tag as many people as you like to beat your score. Each tagged user each has a separate challenge which is tracked separately. You will receive a notification of the challenge, and you can accept or ignore them in your various feeds.
Now accepted challenges allow you to:
° Choose if you want to play the challenge NOW or LATER when you claim a slot on a machine. This requires you have the app open and handy!
° If you’ve accepted multiple, choose which challenge you want to play
Since the challenge creator got to pick a great game, you now have as many ATTEMPTS as you like to beat the score until the challenge expires, which is currently set to one week.
While you play a challenge, you can see the person you are challenging during game play and the score to beat.
Challenges will only show up in feeds if you follow the users involved, and when they do, they will display the winner and loser of the challenge. We think this is a great casual way to brag to your friends with a good score to beat and get a little competition going.
Pinball Machines Tab
We’ve updated the Pinball Machines tab with easier search features, finding machines based on distance, and more! On the default Pinball Machine search screen,alphabet navigation tabs can be used to quickly move through the list of machines to find the one you’re looking for.
Once you’ve found the machine, tap the map pin next to the name and the app shows a list of that specific title near you sorted by distance.
We’ve also improved handling of machines that share the same name (Like Guns N’ Roses (Data East) and Guns N’ Roses (JJP)). Now anytime the two are side by side in the app, codes will help distinguish them.
Other Enhancements
Anywhere there are Achievements in the app, we give you the option to view all the Achievements on the list, and see how many you’ve achieved. This is really useful from within the Pinball Machine Tab or Play Tab to know what to go after next. Along with that, we’ve added better display of mysterious achievements and other members of the same achievement group. Some game designers want you to see them, others prefer they remain partially obscured. We leave it up to them how much to reveal, but the “All Achievements” list at least gets you a sense of what remains.
Version 1.2 includes many behind-the-scenes feature enhancements, performance improvements, and changes to registration and user flows. We’ve improved handling of nearby machines, allows playing/claiming of slots in private venues with QR and manual navigation as long as you’re right next to the machine. The release has hundreds of bug fixes and small changes, and we’re super proud to share it all with you. We can’t wait to see all the fun games of pinball you play with Scorbit at your side!
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v1.2.8 Release
Thanks to all of the efforts of our beta testers and development team, we’re happy to release v1.2.8.
As Scorbit celebrates our seventh year providing our open pinball platform API, we have enjoyed watching the fast growth of our platform with new achievements, challenges, leaderboarding, tournament integrations, and broad international support. Our mission continues to be all about an open platform; Open to a universe of diverse players, operators and manufacturers. No other platform provides real-time, live scoring, push notifications, social features, fully customizable visuals, session analytics, operator tools and so much more. Scorbit supports over 450 pinball titles and growing, across all manufacturers and eras of electronic pinball. We’re way more than just an app! Our operator tools and ScorbitVision live visuals are all part of the platform, used in arcades and game rooms all around the world. We have a lot more in store, and we’re just getting started!
Game Session Profile Photos and Display Names
After many requests, we’ve added your profile photo to the live score views and player slots! These photos are now available for developers to integrate into their own game screens, which we expect to see soon.
Challenges Update!
Challenges are now easier to see and interact with on all views. As a refresher, a challenge can be sent to anyone, and if accepted, they have a week to try to beat your score on the title you’re playing. To send a challenge, add other users (we’ll show you a list of those you already follow) at the end of a game. If you send a challenge to multiple people, each challenge is treated as an individual challenge instance, with a 1:1 pair against your competitor. You can create as many of these as you like, and win some and lose some:
If you’ve been challenged, you will receive a push notification on your smartphone, as well as get an activity item in your account menu. Different users use the app in different ways. Some will receive the notification, click through to the score details screen and accept. Others will view it in their feed or on their own or someone else’s profile. At this point, you can ignore the challenge or accept it. You’ll see an “Accept” button on the score card associated with the challenge:
Scorbit remembers that you have accepted the challenge and gives you one week to beat the score! The next time you play the title, you are given a choice before you play if this game is going to count against the challenge. If you’ve accepted two or more challenges on the same title, you have to pick one that this challenge is going to count against. No smart-bombing one score across a dozen challenges! You can also choose to wait until another time to play:
The game plays like a normal game, but has a few extra features, such as showing you the challenge score you’re trying to beat. The idea here is that you have an infinite number of games, but a finite amount of time (one week) to get it done. We do have another type of challenge called a Challenge Match coming in a future release, that everyone gets one shot. This traditional challenge works like a taunt, and designed to be a bit friendlier and lower stakes:
Finally, if you beat the challenge, you get a victory card. If you fail, you will get information showing you the number of attempts you have played against it. It’s only fair, after all the challenger probably chose a great score with which to challenge you! At least for now, only you know the number of attempts you took. That day you called in sick to play Future Spa 700 times to beat your buddy’s score:
Graphics, Performance, and Landscape Mode
We have decided to add landscape to two areas of the app, namely the Score Details screen for the timeline view, and the camera to take advantage of resolution. Generally the app is designed for portrait mode, but in these two cases we make an exception.
When you take a photo to add to a score card or submit a manual photo, we crop it to a specific size so it matches with the score card and makes a good shareable image. Now with landscape, you can take advantage of more resolution for better quality score shots and selfies!
On the score details screen, you can now view the timeline using landscape mode as well, which is fun to see across the entirety of the game. Watch this space for more details to be added to the timeline views in the future!
Virtual Pins
Scorbit has now added support for the Virtual Pin community. Developers of VPINs now can work with Scorbit to create machines with a VPIN designation. Stay tuned for more announcements about these new integrations from their creators, with some of the first examples already live! Virtual machines get their own global and local leaderboards and all the features that regular pins get within the Scorbit platform, including ScorbitVision and app integration.
General Housekeeping
As always, this release also improves many performance and UI issues, especially around the User Profile and Scorbitron installation process.
We have plenty more to come, so stay tuned and keep on submitting those scores!
Release Notes:
- Adds profile photo and display name to live game session screens.
- Adds additional attempt and challenger info to score card when finishing a game.
- Allows viewing of challenges in progress on various feeds.
- Provides a default (not selected) list of people you follow when sending challenges.
- Adds additional classification labels and support for VPIN (Virtual Pinball) machines throughout the app.
- Landscape mode is now supported for score details screen, timeline and photos.
- Fixes wifi list during Scorbitron install process for some situations.
- Fixes installation wizard readability and install graphics/UI process.
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Here is a link to our presentation at Pinball Expo 2022:
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Question #1 at 14:37 (paraphrasing):
Q: Jersey Jack has a relationship with Scorbit, and Scorbit has a relationship with the players. Does Scorbit perceive a time when those costs (from Scorbit to JJP) gets passed along to the players?
A: No, in fact, our API is free for manufacturers to use, and our philosophy is to maintain a free service for players to use forever. We only charge people who buy our hardware for the recurring costs. There is always the hope that we can create value for all parts of the chain (manufacturer, owner, player) that could ultimately provide us revenue with optional features, though if it doesn’t increase the coin drop or other measurable value, philosophically we don’t think we should charge for it.
Question #2 at 17:24 (paraphrasing):
Q: What can you say about your relationship with Jersey Jack, and can you assure us that both parties will want to keep going with this relationship?
A: We talk to them on a daily basis, all indicators on their side is they are super happy with the relationship and have plans to move forward.
Question #3 at 21:30 (paraphrasing):
Q: Whenever I tour pinball factories, they are always talking about how great their quality is,hardware and software. I keep hearing these stories about it taking forever for them to fix it. How did things go so bad if they check them out so well?
A: With any manufacturer delivering a complex machines, which only increases, it’s extraordinarily difficult to deliver a smooth experience. What is important is what they do when these problems are discovered, and what is their commitment to getting things fixed. Do they stay committed to games that have been released a long time ago? We believe JJP and American are great examples of companies that come back and fix the platforms and improve them. As manufacturers improve their platforms, Scorbit has to re-integrate into it, but we’re happy to do so.
Question #4 at 24:02 (paraphrasing):
Q: Is there any plans to leverage the JJP camera to attach photos taken during the game to add to the scores posted on the Scorbit platform?
A: We currently do not pull any personal information, including photos, from JJP machines into the Scorbit platform. The capability exists, and that is up to the manufacturer to decide to use it or not. We default to only pulling data when the user has opted into such a thing, as philosophically we believe that data belongs to the player and requires their permission.
Question #5 at 31:18 (paraphrasing):
Q: What does this mean if you own ColorDMD?
A: We do work along with ColorDMD and Pin2DMD. Because we change the output, those frames we display end up as monochromatic. We’ve discussed this with ColorDMD and know a way to solve this in the future, but aren’t currently prioritizing at the moment that because it’s significant work.
Question #6 at 33:00 (paraphrasing):
Q: There is a small community that use products like Multimorphic P3-Rock that build their own homebrew pinball machines. Do you plan to work with those homebrew games?
A: We absolutely do. We have relationships with the manufacturers of these hardware platforms, like P3, FAST, and PinSound, and we are committed to hardware compatibility. The open platform allows any machine to connect to our infrastructure the same way that JJP, American and others connect to us. We’re looking into providing distributed, open source clients that make this even easier, or leveraging the work of the community to distribute these tools as well.
Question #7 at 36:15 (paraphrasing):
Q: (Hard to hear) Will there be documentation on how to create DMD achievements and tools provided by Scorbit?
A: The API is already open and available. We’ve recognized that for rules we will be providing a UI for creating rules for achievements. We’ve also worked with Olivier Galliez to create a version of Pinball Browser designed specifically to create pixel art for the DMD achievement overlays, such as badges or messages.
Question #8 at 40:12 (paraphrasing):
Q: I’d like to follow on to what you just said… For someone who had a venue, not just routed machines, and wants to build a pinball mecca, what is your pitch to them?
A: If you take all of the features we’ve discussed, the player features, visualizations and achievements, you create greater engagement. You can use the tool set to increase your own revenue.
Question #9 at 41:33 (paraphrasing):
Q: What about the player leaving comments on the condition of the machine? I go all around the country, and I’m regularly disappointed with the condition of the machine. Is there a way to take user feedback on the machine?
A: There is a series of features slated for early 2023, along with optional digital payments, around machine reports. This will combine automated alerts and data around machine condition with user-generated reports.
Question #10 at 43:40 (paraphrasing):
Q: If you could do something for the venue operator…that could bring people in…
A: First and foremost, we think that there is a big opportunity for Scorbit to develop a set of tools specific for venue owners. This will be using social media and Scorbit tools. We’ve been talking to industry people like PinQuest about redemption, achievements integration with point of sale systems, dynamic pricing. Venue operators have often made custom offerings to their players, and Scorbit is committed to not interfering, only enhancing those systems. For those who don’t have these capabilities, we would make this easier for them. We also released a Comboboard Wizard to automate the deployment of ScorbitVision boards for venues. However, next year we will roll out a dedicated venue features.
Question #11 at 46:30 (paraphrasing):
Q: How do you deal with the fact that machines are often configured and set up differently, such as one game being set for 3 ball, and others set for 5 ball, in regards to your scoring platform and leaderboards?
A: As for taking the glass off, there is an honor system. When you load the machine, we do see the ball count as the game is played. We then display those ball information on the game timelines, so it’s exposed. If you claim a score on a leaderboard for a machine set to easy levels, it’s pretty clear, and that is why in the millions of scores, people have not abused this.
Question #12 at 48:06 (paraphrasing):
Q: Question about leaderboards. Would it be possible to bring in the Stern Insider Connected leaderboards into Scorbit, so we can have a single leaderboard? It is a bad experience having to have two screens up, one for the majority of our games and one for Stern Insider Connected.
A: Unfortunately, not at this time, but their platform is not open. Technically we could, but Stern would have to allow this. We have approached them and asked for this integration as as of this date they have not accommodated this. We have many customers in this situation and recognize this is very awkward for these customers. That being said: If you do load Stern game code software that predates August 2, 2022 on those Spike 2 machines, it does fully work with Scorbitrons and the leaderboards can be integrated.
Question #13 at 49:55 (paraphrasing):
Q: Do you support users pulling analytics directly from your API for their own uses?
A: Right now we create the visualizations from the analytics on the tools website. We haven’t yet added API endpoints to pull aggregated statistics, but we’ll take this under consideration, there is no reason why not. We will work on providing a downloadable format along with an API for those analytics. Over time we’ll bake the data more and more ourselves, though ideally we could present to you what you want to see.
Question #14 at 52:18 (paraphrasing):
Q: As a small business owner, I wonder if you could provide any testimonials, or case studies, to explain how to justify the return on investment for an operator or venue owner in connecting their machines?
A: We have existing venue owners and operators we’ve been working with for quite some time and we will look to using their experiences as testimonials. Venue operators have many different business models, such as free play, tokens, POS integrations, food and drinks, redemption, and others, so we will work on creating examples of a business case for each of these types of models as we come across them. We know investing in connectivity can be an expensive proposition so we want to make sure our customers are armed with the metrics and models needed to be successful.
Question #13 at 55:18 (paraphrasing):
Q: Do you want to share details on the Virtual Pinball (VPIN) announcement?
A: As part of v1.2.8, we treat virtual pinball machines as another manufacturer. Therefore, these games work identically to directly connected machines, but as if they were different manufacturers with different titles. They have their own leaderboards, but function identical to all Scorbit integrations. We hope to also be announcing in the near future extensions and modules that will accommodate table designers to go back into their older catalog and extend the Scorbit functionality as well.
Scorbit is pleased to announce the first fully integrated example of Virtual Pins on Scorbit!
Thanks to the genius work by The Pincredibles, they have released their homage to Guardians of the Galaxy v2.1 with full Scorbit integration!
Virtual pin fans can find the table here:
To make this even easier, @mpt3k has released a fantastic instructional video here:
Beyond that, the table functions exactly as all pinball machines do on Scorbit, with the exception that they have the VPIN designation on lists and leaderboards in the app. It is not considered to be the same “pool” of scores used for physical pinball machines. However, just like with Scorbitrons, all ScorbitVision scoreboards, app integrations, modes, achievements, challenges and other features all work the same!
Congratulations to @daphishbowl and @mpt3k and The Pincredibles team on an amazing reference example of how anyone can integrate our fully open Scorbit platform.
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Scorbit v1.2.9 - Maintenance Release
• Fixes missing vpin leaderboards
• Profile now refreshes follower counts on return to view
• Adds Homebrew pinball machine support
• Now accommodates a Vpin version for all pinball machine titles
• Fixes display of venue list screen tool tips on first install when opening inside a venue
• Adds vpin pairing animated help image
• Adds vpin tool tip and helper text
• Removes auto-claim (app-based) from Playing Preferences
• Adds new auto-claim (aka Hog Mode, coming soon) settings and helper text
• Fixes confusing tool tip language in settings
• Fixes proper cropping of library photos added to scores
Some clarifying points regarding vpins and homebrews:
Scorbit added support for vpins, though it requires that table developers integrate that support for the machines to be functional (such as Blood Machines or Guardians have done). We are currently working on some extensions and code that will allow all the ROM based games to work as well. Until that time, if you wish to add a vpin for manual submission to your Scorbit experience, you can search for a machine title and choose to add the vpin version (vpins have separate leaderboards from their physical world versions).
When a vpin has full Scorbit integration, it works exactly the same way as all Scorbit pins: You create an instance of the machine in your My Machines or My Venues/Machines list, and you pair it with your actual vpin within the vpin’s setup. We posted a great walk through from [mpt3k] above.
We’ve also added support for Homebrews, and you’ll be seeing some of those very soon.
For those who have been patiently waiting for hog mode… 1.3.0 is coming soon!
v1.3.0 - Major App Update and over 2 Million Scores!
Greetings and Happy 2023, fellow pinball people! Scorbit is kicking the new year off with a bang as we’re excited to announce the release of the long-awaited Scorbit App v1.3.0. This new app update includes some major new app features and bug fixes which we’ll get into details on below. But first we’ve got a lot to celebrate!
We’re ecstatic to share that we crossed another milestone at the end of 2022, as we crossed the 2 million Scores in Scorbit milestone! We crossed the 1 million score mark in March 2022, and saw the next million happen even faster! Scorbit’s growth has been twice as fast in 2022 as it was in 2021, and accelerating! Thank you to all the Scorbit users and keep the scores coming!!
To add to the excitement, we’re happy to report another very successful Scorbit-integrated INDISC World Championship in Riverside, California, where the best of the best competed on a diverse set of machines with Scorbit running the automated and live scoring. If you didn’t get a chance to check out the live stream, check out https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1708296904 while it is still available online, or on the highlights posted later by the IE Pinball’s amazing Karl DeAngelo.
Now onto the major news: Today we released the Scorbit App v1.3.0! This includes a number of changes under the hood, so we recommend everyone update to v1.3.0 in order to take advantage of major performance improvements. Some of the features we think you will be interested in include the new Auto Claim, a feature that allows you to automatically claim and save repeated games without the app being open. Also included in this update are multiple new score notifications, some fine-tuning of notification controls, following notifications and contact scanning. There are also improvements to some of the older elements of the user interface, and many, many bug fixes. Let’s break it down!
Auto Claim
First, let’s explain the goal with this feature: We want a Scorbit player to be able to play multiple games, over and over, without having to open the app. Set it and forget it! We also want the player that comes after you to not accidentally claim your scores. Those two requirements require trade-offs with this feature, as anyone knows who saves scores in an arcade.
Why was it originally called Hog Mode you ask? Well, no one likes a pinball hog, and when we first envisioned this feature, part of what we wanted to prevent was encouraging that person who is in front of you in line and starts a four player game, over and over. We unofficially called this feature “Hog Mode” because we wanted to remind the player to be courteous to the other players around you, but now that the feature is ready and tested, it’s been renamed Auto Claim. The old auto claim which required the app open has been removed. Besides, we love hogs. They are really cute.
Here is how the NEW Auto Claim works:
Step 1: Enable Auto Claim
The Auto Claim feature won’t appear in your app unless you enable it first in settings. This is because we are very serious about this feature being “opt-in,” as we are trying to avoid accidental claiming of scores which can be the case with other platforms. Start by visiting your Account Menu by tapping the icon on the upper right, choosing Settings, and then tap Playing Preferences. Enable the feature by sliding the switch to the on position:
Step 2: Start Auto Claim Mode for Any Machine
Now that Auto Claim is enabled, any time you navigate to a machine to play, manually or via a QR code scan, you will see a new icon above the game screen. This is the auto claim toggle button and status indicator:
Tapping this toggle button starts a timer which defaults to 30 seconds depending on the owner of the machine’s configuration choice (more on this later). Any time you start a game on this specific machine within that time frame, even when the app is closed or not focused, the Scorbit platform will claim the player slot and save the score for you! No need to scan a QR code, tap a player slot, or re-authenticate.
Tapping the Auto Claim button a second time will disable Auto Claim. You can tap the icon from the attract mode (Waiting to Start) or during a game, at any time. When the timer expires, the button will return to the inactive state. If that happens, you can tap it again, or perhaps it’s time to move to another machine.
You’ll also notice that an alert slides up on the bottom of the screen indicating that you have enabled or disabled auto claim:
When you start a game, regardless of whether or not the app is open or closed, Scorbit will claim the player slot and assume you’re saving the score to the leaderboard at the end of the session. Also, the timer is paused during the game, then resets to 30 seconds (or whatever the timeout is set to, more on that later) after the game has finished.
The button will return to an off state if the timer expires! This is presumably when you’ve picked up and walked away from the game. Don’t forget to turn it on again before your next round of games!
If you’re having a particularly great game and want to challenge others or share it on social media, you still can open the app as before and view the game in progress or when it finishes. The share screen will present itself like it usually does. However, if you start a new game, you’ll have to come back to that score later in your score feed on your profile if you want to share it.
Auto Claim timers are specific to a game. If you change to a different game, Auto Claim is disabled and you will need to start the Auto Claim mode for that game. If another user plays a game, Auto Claim will be disabled, as is true if multiple players join. This is intended for use by people who will be playing a single game repeatedly.
Setting the Auto Claim Timer
As previously mentioned, the timer starts counting down immediately when you tap the Auto Claim button, then resets itself when you are playing a game. The timer never expires during a game, and always starts fresh when the game ends. We default the timer to 30 seconds, but the owner of the machine can adjust the timer in the machine settings under Game Adjustments:
We recommend setting this number to as low as possible in public venues. If you want the machine to have no Auto Claim available, you can set this number to zero. Obviously your mileage may vary, though you should expect that in a public venue, the player will likely assume the timer is at 30 seconds. If it is not, you should consider displaying on the machine rules how you have chosen to set the timer. We will likely expose this more in future releases. (Note:: This isa personal choice, I like 30 seconds, although if I’m having a pinball party I set it to something low like 5 or 10 seconds.)
Following Notifications
We are excited to add new notifications when someone follows you! Now if someone follows you on Scorbit you will receive a push notification (if you have that notification setting enabled, more on that later) as well as have this notification added to your activity items.
When you choose to follow someone, all of their posted scores and achievements appear on your curated feed of players in the community tab, along with challenges when you’re part of them or they are complete.
When you first receive a follow notification, an activity item is created with the new follower, along with a new button to quickly follow them back:
You can always visit another player’s Scorbit profile by clicking on their photo. From that screen, you can follow/and unfollow next to their picture. You also have the option of muting receiving all notifications from a specific player by tapping the small mute button next to their name in the shape of a bell:
Remember that if you follow someone, you still get their scores in your feed, even if they are muted. The mute is designed to not get a push notification, which is useful if your scores are getting regularly destroyed by someone but you still want to see their results!
More New Notifications
In addition to follow notifications, the app will now alert you if someone you follow beats your score on a specific game! Now you can get alerts if someone follows you, if they unlock an incredibly special achievement, if they get the top score on a machine, if they get the top score on a title (globally), and if they beat your score. We realize that if you have as many pinball friends as we do, that may be too many notifications! Therefore we not only added the mute feature mentioned above for an individual player, but we also expanded the ability to turn off specific notifications in the notification settings:
We want to give you fine tuned control over who or what you hear about. Notifications are entirely under your control and we want to make sure they aren’t annoying! Therefore, we’ve added some spam-dampening features that will keep you from getting notified too frequently.
Each new notification has an accompanying Activity Item which will navigate to the player, the score, the challenge, the achievement, or whatever is referenced in the text.
Find Friends on Scorbit by Scanning Contacts
Also new to v1.3.0 is the optional ability to scan your contacts on your phone and discover other Scorbit players in the app. Your privacy, as well as your contact’s privacy, is seriously important to us, so we do not save, store, or add your contacts to any list! When you tap the Community tab for the first time after v1.3.0, you will be prompted for an opportunity to scan your contacts and find matches. If any are found, you get a chance to add individual contacts, or just follow them all at once with one click.
We’ve also added a new “Contacts” section to your settings so you can always go back and rescan.
To complement contact scanning, we recognize that not everyone you want to follow is in your phone contacts. Therefore, we also offer you the ability to copy a special link to your clipboard. Anyone sent this link will automatically navigate directly to your Scorbit profile, and if they don’t have Scorbit installed, it will prompt them to install, sign up and then navigate directly to your profile. Whether they choose to follow you or not at that point is entirely up to them!
Deep Thoughts about Deep Links
Inviting someone to navigate directly to your profile is an example of a deep link. Deep links are any type of link that takes a player from outside the app into a specific screen inside the app, such as your profile as mentioned above.
When you scan a QR code printed and displayed on a machine or one displayed on a game screen, that is also a deep link, as it will take the player directly to the right screen. These QR codes aren’t a secret authentication mechanism (the app already knows who you are), they are merely convenient ways to navigate directly to an app location.
We heard loud and clear from venue owners the desire to share a link, either directly or via a QR code, that opens into the list of machines in the venue. Now anyone can create a deep link to a venue following a special syntax for the URL. You can generate a QR code with your favorite QR code generator (it’s just a URL) and include it on posters, social media, or whatever you like, and it will open immediately to the list of machines you want to share!
The deep linking format for Scorbit is really easy! The only thing you need to find is the Scorbit ID number for each type.
For a specific machine, you can go into My Machines > Edit Pencil > Tools and print the QR code. This will have the information presented in the following syntax:
https://scorbit.link/qrcode?$deeplink_path=[vmid#]&opdb=[opdbid#]
A venue is very similar, though you need to discover your venue ID. We will be exposing the venue ID in a new venue screen in a future release, but meanwhile, you can email us at support@scorbit.io and we’ll be happy to provide the ID. Venue syntax looks like this:
https://scorbit.link/venue?$deeplink_path=venue&venueid=[venueid#]
Finally, if you use the Settings > Contacts “Copy Link” option, you will be given a URL with this syntax for navigating directly to your profile:
https://scorbit.link/invite?$deeplink_path=invite&inviteuserid=[userid#]
We think these deep links can be used for all sorts of applications.
As always, we are grateful to our hundreds of beta testers and dedicated players across the globe. We love you!
We have put details around all these new features in our support documentation at https://support.scorbit.io.
v1.3.0 Release Notes
- Adds Auto Claim, new notifications, following enhancements, contact scanning, deep linking to venues, machines and profiles
- Fix for incorrect challenger field for challenges you haven't received on score items.
- Viewing radius and distance calculations now shown in miles or kilometers automatically depending on what country you happen to be standing in.
- Fixes lack of SAVE button on creating a new machine screen.
- Fixes timeout rubber banding you back into the session screen
- Various upgrades of libraries under the hood for performance and stability.
- Creates Auto-Claim Timeout field on Playing Preferences
- Fix for picker fields on Playing Preferences
- Adds support for all current Stern Spike 2 machines for code released as of 1/10/23
- Fixes image cropping when adding a victory photo
- Fix for crash when turning on/off prompting in Playing Preferences
- Support for more VPINs and Home Brew games, including Haunted Cruise, Magic Girl, and VPIN recreations such as Iron Maiden, Guardians and originals like Blood Machines
- Released new developer documentation with VPIN table developers interested in integrating Scorbit at https://tools.scorbit.io/developer
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SERVICE INTERRUPTION TO JERSEY JACK OWNERS
Important update for Jersey Jack owners only:
Moving forward Scorbit will no longer support live connections to Jersey Jack Pinball machines.
Regrettably, Jersey Jack Pinball has informed us that they no longer value the services provided by Scorbit and connected pinball and have chosen to remove Scorbit from their machines,
As such, effective immediately, Jersey Jack Pinball machines may no longer connect or function with the Scorbit app as they had previously. Existing achievements, leaderboard entries, and other data will continue to exist within the platform, but no new achievements can be earned or challenges played as the service is removed.
We apologize for the inconvenience. This is a surprise to us and the community. We are heartbroken.
We have made every attempt to come to a mutually satisfying agreement with Jersey Jack Pinball, but unfortunately they have made their position clear that they wish to go in a different direction, and that connected pinball is not something they are looking to invest in any longer.
We wish Jersey Jack Pinball the best of luck with their future endeavors. We love their excellent games. These are some of the best designers on earth. Any inquiries or dissatisfaction with this decision should be sent to Jersey Jack Pinball. This is entirely their decision and we can only hope they reconsider in the future.
As always, Scorbit is committed to connected pinball and we remain open to work with all pinball manufacturers who value the concept, respect the pinball community and are open to driving innovation in pinball.
Q & A
Q: What drove this decision by Jersey Jack to abandon Scorbit?
A: It’s not entirely clear. We know that in our conversations with JJP up until the launch of The Godfather, we had support from within the game design team. Scorbit was included in the marketing documentation for The Godfather. We were surprised when we were told by the leadership they did not value Scorbit features or connected pinball in early March.
Q: We heard that there are over 10,000 connected JJP machines. Is that true?
A: As of the time of this post in March, 2023, there are over 10,000 active, connected JJP machines on the Scorbit platform posting scores and growing every day.
Q: Did Scorbit try to change the terms of an agreement with Jersey Jack?
A: We have never been under any contractual agreement with Jersey Jack Pinball. Over the years, we have offered them various service level agreements to further partner and formalize our relationship, but they have never been interested in negotiating at any level.
Q: Were there any service issues between JJP and Scorbit?
A: No, we have scaled our platform in line with their demand, and resolved every support request from Jersey Jack’s customers, free of charge, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for years.
Q: What was Scorbit’s last request of Jersey Jack prior to this decision?
A: Due to significant growth and engagement of the product, in mid February we requested some updates to the network code on their end to improve performance and reduce overhead.
The employee at JJP responsible for these changes resigned, so we offered to make the changes ourselves.
At this point they stopped responding to messages. The next communication was their decision to end the relationship, for which we learned more details during a livestream.
Q: Was Scorbit requiring a cost component to Jersey Jack which led to this decision?
A: No. Our API access has always been free of charge to Jersey Jack and their customers. It is true that we have presented options to JJP that included shared costs for accelerated benefits, features and enhanced support, but always offered them a free option. For some reason, they were not interested in negotiating an agreement or exploring ways to continue working together.
Q: What happens to the entire library of older games that currently connect to Scorbit?
A: Jersey Jack has informed us that they intend to remove Scorbit from their game code on all previous titles. The titles will continue to function but will no longer connect to Scorbit.
Q: What data did Scorbit provide to Jersey Jack, and what is the state of that data?
A: We offered Jersey Jack access to anonymized analytics around their games and engagement, and built a custom portal for that use. To this day, no JJP employee has logged into that portal, so we disabled their access to the portal. They never noticed.
Q: I use Scorbit every day on my GnR. Does this mean my game is now bricked? How do I complete my achievements?
A: We are truly sorry but Scorbit will no longer function on your GnR. You can continue to post scores manually via the app by taking photos of your scores as we do on EM machines.You will no longer be able to view new session timelines, earn achievements or engage in challenges.
Q: I am a Jersey Jack machine owner and I use Scorbit pro licenses with my games. What should I do?
A: Send an email to support@scorbit.io and we will cancel the license and offer you a refund.
Q: What does this mean for Scorbit’s future?
A: We have numerous manufacturers using our platform, and the entirety of our business model comes from non-JJP machines. There will be no impact to our operating business, other than to improve the economics. We do anticipate a significant reduction of load on our platform, which will result in lower overall cost for our infrastructure.