Scorbit x IFPA

We’re thrilled to announce that we’re joining the IFPA as a Platinum Level sponsor! Even before we launched Scorbit, we were pinball players who loved playing in IFPA tournaments. As we set out to build the Scorbit platform, we knew first hand that so much of the growth of pinball recently was due to the efforts of the IFPA and promoting competitive pinball and anything we did would need to also benefit tournaments and tournament players. A great first step is helping to sponsor the IFPA, working with them to help tournaments become more efficient and explore potential new ways of supporting competitive pinball.

Josh Sharpe, IFPA President had this to say about our sponsorship, “Time and time again people are putting their real-world technical expertise on display to help advance competitive pinball forward. The team at Scorbit is doing exactly this! The IFPA is super excited to partner with Scorbit on using their technology to help provide a valuable tool for organizers to add to the quality of their events.” Thanks Josh! We’re pretty excited too and we’ve got so many great ideas and can’t wait to share more with everyone in the upcoming months!

Scorbitron Update

 Since our last update, our main focus for the Scorbitron has been on field testing the hardware. After having Scorbitrons installed at the San Francisco City Champ and INDISC tournaments, we demoed units at Texas Pinball Festival and the Golden State Pinball Festival. Since those events, we’ve installed several Scorbitrons into pinball machines at our favorite local arcade, FREE GOLD WATCH in San Francisco. It’s been immensely beneficial for us to see real players using Scorbit on real pinball machines on location. We’re working out the bugs as people play solid state games like Eight Ball Deluxe or DMD games like Fish Tales and even modern games like Batman ‘66… It’s so amazing to see the results as scores seamlessly get saved from the machine to users’ accounts in the Scorbit app!

Scorbit App Update

While we’ve been hard at work on the Scorbitron, our software team has been making great progress on the Scorbit app and software platform. While it’s still in alpha development, we’re happy to report that users will be able to save their scores automatically when playing on a pinball machine with a Scorbitron installed. It’s really magical when you see it. We’ve also added the ability for players to save their scores manually, for when you’re playing pinball on a machine without a Scorbitron. Finally, we’ve also begun building out the Operator functions within the app, so that pinball machine operators will be able to manage their machines on location.

As we mentioned, if you were at Texas Pinball Festival or the Golden State Pinball Festival, you may have seen Scorbit in action. We’ve been evolving our scoreboard view software, so that live pinball scores can be displayed externally, a perfect solution for livestreams. This software is intended just for these types of demonstrations, so we’re changing it constantly. We also recently demoed how Scorbit and the scoreboard worked on Mystery Pinball Theater 3000, livestreamed from FREE GOLD WATCH in San Francisco. Check it out (and watch more of Manu’s streams — he’s the best!):

So…when will this be available?

We’re sure after reading this, you’re probably thinking “This all sounds great…when I can I use any of it with my pinball machines or my pinball scores?!” We’re as excited as you and many others in the pinball community are. Our next immediate steps are:  

• Finalize the Scorbitron hardware design and begin manufacturing.
• Move the Scorbit app from Alpha development to Beta release.

As for when, we’re still on schedule. While we’d love to give you a firm date for both, as of today the answer is still “soon!” As we’ve stated in previous updates, we want to get this right and make sure that everything works smoothly so that when pinballers get their hands on it, everything works as it’s supposed to. We’ve had such great feedback from all sides; from pinball players who are excited to use the app to pinball machine manufacturers who want to work with us to make sure Scorbit works with their machines. In fact, a lot of the responses we’ve gotten have led to some awesome collaborations that we’re working on now and will be able to share with you soon!

In the meantime, there’s a few things you can do to stay on the inside track with Scorbit:  

• If you haven’t yet, go to our website and sign up for our email list to make sure you never miss an update.
• If you want to be one of the first people to get a Scorbitron, order one now.
• And of course, you can follow us on social media on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and now YouTube!

Thanks to everyone who’s been interested in Scorbit and for all the kind words. If you have any questions, you can always email us at [email protected]. Until our next update, have fun playing pinball!

-The Scorbit Team
Ron Richards, Brian O’Neill and Jay Adelson