It is our goal to create an awards organization where the recipients of the awards would be determined by The Pinball Industry Awards Judging Panel, rather than determined by a popular vote. The judges will be comprised of pre-vetted pinball hobbyist media such as podcasters, streamers, video creators, writers, etc. In the effort for transparency, all judges, nominations, and vote tallies will be public.
Bex works with kids and does stuff. Sometimes the stuff she does involves pinball. Woot pinball. Bex likes cats. Bex may be a lizard person secretly but a cat (not a cat person, because that would be confusing word spaghetti) Celebrate science. Words are hard. Cereal with Bananas.
Fliptronic
Dennis began collecting pinball machines in 2012 and competitively playing in 2015. He co-hosts Eclectic Gamers Podcast, formed in early 2016 to cover pinball and video games, and is the co-host of TPN's The Pinball Show, and has appeared as a guest host on several other podcasts.
Eclectic Gamer's Podcast
David is an avid pinball enthusiast and has been active in Pinball since 2018. He joined The Pinball Network in March of 2020 and is the host of Silverball Chronicles with Ron Hallett.
Silverball Chronicles
Mike has been an avid Pinball player for most of his life. He rediscovered Pinball in 2017, diving in headfirst. He joined The Pinball Network in spring 2021 and is an active competitive player, tournament director, and streams regularly from "The Bunker" with his wife Lisa and son Carter on the Twitch Channel PinBallers
PinBallers
Amanda found a love for pinball in 2017 when she and her husband began searching for the perfect game to place in their home. Since then, games have come and gone, but her passion for the machines and the community continue to grow. After dropping in on the occasional stream and podcast, Amanda joined The Pinball Network as co-host of Free Play Pinball Podcast with Bill Webb.
Freeplay Pinball Podcast
George hated pinball until he stumbled into an underground gaming paradise in 2017 that served craft beer in Colorado. He found the pinball community and 80s music. Since then, he's fought boredom, sobriety, and monetary success one stream at a time.
Don't Panic Flip
Eligibility Requirements: To be eligible for the 2021 Pinball Industry Awards, the pinball machine must have been released from 12/1/2020 to 12/1/2021.
The Pinball Awards Judging Panel will be comprised of any Pinball Hobbyist Personality who meets the criteria below. The PIA Governing Committee will vet each applicant around the eligibility requirements. All Judges will be identified by name and organization publicly on this site to ensure transparency of the judging pool. However, the judge's final votes will be kept confidential. A list of declined judges and reasons why will be retained but not published. If an issue arises around someone being excluded the reasons why may then be made public. Once a person qualifies as a PIA Judging Panel Judge, they will receive the secure online voting ballot via email where they will vote for their Category Award choices.
To ensure The Pinball Industry Awards are as unbiased as possible we strive to keep conflicts of interest in the judging pool as small as possible. This requires exclusions in the selection criteria. Any individual contracted or employed by an industry manufacturer that was responsible for the development or creation of physical or intellectual contributions. Moreover, any employee who had an employee/manufacturer relationship but was terminated by either party in the 12 months prior.
The Excellence in Pinball Awards Judges are comprised of the same judges as the Category Awards. It is our goal to prevent the Excellence Awards from becoming a popularity contest among those nominated. To prevent a popular vote run off from happening, the PIA Governing Committee has determined to allow the judges a write-in style of vote for any one they see fit in a specific Excellence Award Category.
Each Judge can vote one individual per Excellence Category on their ballot. They may also decline to vote by leaving the write-in blank. Once the ballots are submitted, the write-ins votes will be totaled, and a winner chosen.
Top 3 finishers for each category will be considered 'Nominees' and will be posted on this website prior to the Crystals being awarded.
The list of write-in votes will remain confidential to prevent future vote lobbying, judge intimidation, and bias.
This award honors a pinball streamer(s) that has displayed ‘Excellence in Pinball’ by significantly contributing to the sense of community in pinball, has innovated in terms of technology in broadcasting, worked to grow the community, has consistently engaged virtually on streaming platforms, built a professional and positive brand, and who is an ambassador to the hobby of pinball.
This award honors the pinball podcast that has displayed ‘Excellence in Pinball’ by providing consistent content, unique creative license, technical achievement in editing and sound production and furthered the hobby of pinball in a positive way.
This award honors a pinball writer that has displayed ‘Excellence in Pinball’ by publishing a pinball article of significance, be it fiction or non-fiction, formally printed or online and has built the literary portfolio of the hobby of pinball.
This award honors a pinball photographer that has displayed ‘Excellence in Pinball’ by publishing photography with an emphasis on pinball, where technical achievement is displayed and has advanced the photographic presence of the hobby of pinball.
This award honors a pinball videographer that has displayed ‘Excellence in Pinball’ by publishing videos featuring pinball content, whose ability to capture an event or communicate a pinball-oriented message is exceptional, where technical achievement and innovation is on display and has advanced the presence of the hobby of pinball in a visual medium.
This award honors a pinball social media provider(s) that has displayed ‘Excellence in Pinball’ by consistently engaging virtually on one or more social media platforms, has a significant social media following, worked to grow the social media footprint of pinball, has built a professional, positive brand, and who is a representative of the hobby to those on social media platforms outside of pinball.
The Harry Williams Legacy Award is awarded to an individual in recognition of their designs, programming, innovations, boldness, business acumen, or industry leadership. This individual, who over a period of years has made a substantial and lasting contribution to the industry of pinball.
Given The Pinball Industry Awards have a goal of positive promotion of the pinball hobby, there are a list of disqualifying behaviors. This list is applied by the PIA's Governance Committee (ballot vote) and the Excellence Awards (write-in process).
Below is a list of conditions that the PIA Governance Committee have deemed to make a potential recipient ineligible for a Category or Excellence Award. If the top vote-getter is in violation, the next highest vote-getter not in violation will receive the award. It will be publicly declared if this happens for transparency, but the name of the violator will be redacted from the announcement for privacy reasons.
The ineligibility criteria are as follows:
Annually, The Pinball Industry Awards Governing Committee will induct pinball machines
(not individuals or design teams), voted on by the pinball community to the Pinball Machine Hall of Fame. Votes will
be accepted until January 6th 2022, 12:00PM ET
Machines must:
- Have flippers
- Machines prior to 1995 must have a production run of 500+ machines
- Cannot include novelty machines
- Pro/Premium/LE machines are included as one machine
The This Week In Pinball Yearly Awards (TWIPYs) are a great part of the hobby and are a People's Choice style award, which means everyone online can vote for their favorites. Conversely, The Pinball Industry Awards are a Critics Choice style of awards with a pre-vetted judging pool, comprised of the pinball industry Hobbyist Media.
This Week In Pinball does an amazing job of hosting the TWIPYs, a People’s Choice style award. Everyone should be proud of what TWIP brings to the hobby in terms of community engagement, energy, and quality. Pinball is an awesome hobby to be a part of and TPN wants to continue to diversify the various ways those who put so much into the hobby are celebrated. The best way to expand the hobby awards is adding a Critic’s Choice style award.
The Excellence Awards are designed to be a recognition of innovation and creativity in pinball, NOT a TPN provider celebration. Nominations will be from both inside and outside TPN and are based on merit. There is a great deal of debate among the Excellence Award Panel members regarding who should be nominated, the reasons they are nominated, and who should be publicly recognized for their yearly excellence.
To prevent a popular vote run off from happening the PIA Governing Committee has determined to keep the judging pool closed with nominations and judging to be done by TPN members.
Bias will always exist. By making all Excellence Awards judges, nominees, and final votes public, we plan on being as transparent and open as possible. This will help us manage conflicts of interest and bias. In the end, the pinball community will be the final judge.
+1 812-457-9711
info@thepinballindustryawards.com