
Same Player Shoots Again
A Biography of the Pinball Machine
Andreas Bernard(Author)
Polity Press
1st Edition
Published on 16. January 2026
Book
Hardback
112 pages
978-1-5095-6943-4 (ISBN)
Description
This is an ode to the lost golden age of the pinball machine. These vivid, flashing portals of entertainment were mainstays of nearly every bar, pub, and amusement arcade from the 1960s to the 1990s, but today they have all but disappeared. Andreas Bernard, looking back on his coming of age as an avid pinballer, reflects on what the disappearance of pinball machines tells us about the modern transformation of leisure time and public spaces.
The demise of pinballing at the end of the 1990s converged with huge social shifts which eroded the distinction between work and leisure. Now we use the same screen to organize both work and leisure, and games have been absorbed by a professionalization of daily life that is impossible to escape. Is our free time, as we know it, really free? Bernard also shows how the replacement of pinball machines by pocket-sized vessels of distraction was accompanied by the ebbing away of social critique.
At times nostalgic and lighthearted and at others bitingly astute, this book will appeal to all pinballers, past and present, and to anyone interested in the changing world of culture, gaming, and entertainment.
The demise of pinballing at the end of the 1990s converged with huge social shifts which eroded the distinction between work and leisure. Now we use the same screen to organize both work and leisure, and games have been absorbed by a professionalization of daily life that is impossible to escape. Is our free time, as we know it, really free? Bernard also shows how the replacement of pinball machines by pocket-sized vessels of distraction was accompanied by the ebbing away of social critique.
At times nostalgic and lighthearted and at others bitingly astute, this book will appeal to all pinballers, past and present, and to anyone interested in the changing world of culture, gaming, and entertainment.
Reviews / Votes
"Part memoir, part cultural history, Same Player Shoots Again beautifully evokes a lost world through a single object. It offers an illuminating window on that strange and unknown land, the very recent past."Joe Moran, Liverpool John Moores University
"Charming... often poignant... Reading this book was like my experience of playing pinball: it was all over much too quickly."
Will Wiles, Literary Review
"Touchingly Proustian... Bernard's genius is to communicate something of his life's grand obsession, while recognising how pinball machines are emblematic of an industrial culture that was slain by digital in the 1980s."
Stuart Jeffries, The Spectator
"The German writer Andreas Bernard is right: a pinball machine belongs to the bar, the arcade, the pier and other places of ill repute and misspent youth."
Will Hodgkinson, The Idler
"A beautifully melancholy story... I was never an aficionado, having grown up with video-arcade machines instead, but after finishing this deeply evocative book I've resolved to play the next machine I happen across."
Steven Poole, The Wall Street Journal
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 142 mm
Width: 223 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
254 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5095-6943-4 (9781509569434)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
03/2026
1st Edition
Wiley-Scrivener
€10.49
Available for download

Book
approx. 01/2026
1st Edition
Polity Press
€13.00
Not yet published
Persons
Andreas Bernard teaches History of Science at Leuphana University of Lueneburg, Germany.
Content
1. Time Warp
2. Monaco
3. Harlem Globetrotters
4. Pinball Champ '82
5. Paragon
6. Earthshaker
7. Taxi
8. Star Trek: The Next Generation
9. Tilt
10. Same Player Shoots Again
2. Monaco
3. Harlem Globetrotters
4. Pinball Champ '82
5. Paragon
6. Earthshaker
7. Taxi
8. Star Trek: The Next Generation
9. Tilt
10. Same Player Shoots Again