Pinball is booming in America, thanks to nostalgia and canny marketing

On a Tuesday night at Logan Arcade, a bar on Chicago’s Northwest Side, Ian, a 57-year-old assistant manager, looks at the Rick and Morty pinball machine. “This is a frustrating machine,” he says. He steps up and takes his turn—one of a group of four, including your correspondent—bashing the flippers to try to direct the ball into the garage of a model house with a flying saucer at the top. A screen above records the scores and shows clips from the cult cartoon show. When you hit the target, the show moves along. Ian’s ball falls into the gutter. He sighs and shuffles out of the way for the next player. “I met the dude who designed this machine,” he says. “They take a lot of learning. They’re deep.”