Number of games played on a pinball machine

When buying a pinball machine, condition is everything. It’s influenced by various factors, such as how the game was stored (humidity, exposure to sunlight), how often it was cleaned and maintained, but one of the major indicators is the total number of games played. You can think of this like the mileage on a car: high game counts typically mean more wear.

Machines with many plays show clear signs of use. Mechanical parts such as coils may lose power, components might feel looser or less precise, and metal pieces can develop visible wear from tens or even hundreds of thousands of ball passes. Even if two machines were stored under identical conditions, the one with fewer plays will generally look and feel fresher.

Thankfully, pinball machines are built to commercial standards. They're designed to handle thousands of plays without falling apart. When machines were primarily used in arcades, it was common for them to rack up tens of thousands of games, sometimes even over 100,000, while still performing well if maintained regularly.

Only in the last decade have machines been commonly sold for home use. Many of these hardly get played. Even after ten years, some machines have only a few hundred games logged and are practically brand new. Occasionally, you’ll see listings with very low game counts, sometimes only 50 or 100 plays. People focused solely on extremely low numbers are often collectors rather than players, looking for pristine machines to admire rather than use.

That said, don’t base your buying decision solely on game count. Use it to validate a Home Use Only (HUO) claim and to estimate the level of wear and possible price adjustment. A machine with under 200 games is essentially fresh out of the box. Fewer than 3,000 usually indicates home use only. Of course, this depends on the machine's age and whether the owner had other games. Some enthusiasts spread playtime across a collection.

On newer machines with over 10,000 games played, it’s reasonable to assume they've spent time on location. These are worth a closer look, especially around mechanisms like motors and servos, which might need repairs. You’ll also want to inspect areas that often show location wear: flipper button surroundings, coin slots, and start buttons.

So how can you know exactly how many games were played on a pinball machine?

On many machines, you can never know for certain.

Electro-mechanical pinball machines

Many electro-mechanical (EM) machines, especially those from the 1970s, have mechanical counters located near the coin door inside the cabinet. If one is present, you can simply read the number.

Is it accurate? Usually, yes, but not always. If the counter wasn’t factory-installed, it may have been added later, possibly years into the machine’s life. Even factory counters can have issues: a disconnected wire or failed linkage might prevent tracking for a period. So while mechanical counters provide a helpful estimate, they’re not absolute proof.

Game counter on Bally Fireball

Electronic games

Almost all electronic machines from 1977 until around 2010 rely on batteries to preserve memory. If the battery fails or is removed, even briefly, all settings and audit data are lost forever. Changing the software or upgrading ROMs also typically wipes audit info. As a result, it's nearly impossible to know the true number of games played over a machine’s full lifetime.

In rare cases, a mechanical counter may be installed by an operator, but these are exceptions and not factory standard. Occasionally, you’ll come across electronic machines whose batteries were never replaced, and the original audits remain intact. I remember buying a few WPC95 games that hadn't been reset once in their entire lives, still holding all audit data. But once audits are erased, they’re gone for good.

Game counter on Zaccaria Pinball Champ 82

On most electronic games, assume that the total games played listed in the audit menu reflects only the count since the last reset. This is usually the last time batteries were changed or software was updated. There’s no way to confirm the number’s authenticity.

Even modern machines like Jersey Jack titles aren’t immune: some software upgrades retain audits, but a full install wipes everything unless the user takes explicit steps to save and import settings. If this step is skipped skipped, the game count starts from zero again.

On WPC and WPC-95 pinball machines, audit B1-06 indicates the number of games played (since the last reset).

Game counter in Bally Attack From Mars audit screen. On WPC and WPC-95 pinball machines audit B1 - 06 indicates the number of games played (since last reset).

Stern pinball machines

Stern Pinball has improved audit reliability in the last decade. Most Stern machines since around 2012 include a lifetime audit for total earnings. This data remains intact even through software updates or battery failure. Resetting this value requires replacing multiple major boards, which is costly, so tampering is unlikely.

Metallica only has an older style of game count that can be reset.

However, it does have a lifetime audit of total paid credits.

From what I can find, the lifetime audit was implemented around 2012 with the AC/DC pinball machine. These first-generation games do not keep count of the total number of games, only of earnings. This is useful for operators (it prevents tampering with earnings by the location), but for home use, it's still useless in knowing the number of games played.

It does give a good indication if a game was routed and earned money or not. Most home owners don't install a coin validator and keep their game on free play. For their games, the lifetime earnings will remain at 0, without giving an indication of how many games have been played.

The lifetime earnings audit is useful to determine if a game is truly Home Use Only (HUO). It often happens, either intentionally or accidentally because people don't know exactly what HUO means, that games used on location in their early years are later sold as HUO, or as 'HUO for the last X years'. People forget what 'only' means :)

A true home-use only game will not have a coin mechanism installed and will have lifetime earnings audits of 0. A collector can install a coin mechanism and use coins or tokens, but then there shouldn't be thousands of games played. If there's a substantial number, the game was probably put on location for part of its lifetime.

The number of lifetime audits has been expanded later (possibly with the Spike boardset). More recent games also display a lifetime total plays count. It keeps track of every game started, even on free play in a home environment. That lifetime count is the only reliable number which is difficult to reset.

So when inspecting a game for sale, look at the lifetime audit number. But as I said in the beginning, this number doesn’t tell the whole story.

Iron Maiden does have a lifetime audit of total games played.

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