It's not always good news in the world of pinball, unfortunately. We just got official surprise news from our friends at Scorbit that, unfortunately, coming right after the release of The Godfather, Jersey Jack has decided to sever their partnership with Scorbit, the top 3rd party connected pinball platform.
In reading through the announcement by Scorbit, it seems to have caught the team by surprise.
From the announcement:
We have made every attempt to come to a mutually satisfying agreement with Jersey Jack Pinball, but unfortunately they have made their position clear that they wish to go in a different direction, and that connected pinball is not something they are looking to invest in any longer.
Of note, even older Jersey Jack games that previously had Scorbit connectivity baked into the code will have the integration removed.
Jersey Jack has informed us that they intend to remove Scorbit from their game code on all previous titles. The titles will continue to function but will no longer connect to Scorbit.
From our perspective, the decision seems puzzling, to say the least. Unless this means that Jersey Jack is perhaps working on their own connected pinball platform to compete with Stern's Insider Connected. But still, even if that were the case, there's so much value to working with an open, connected platform like Scorbit over a proprietary walled garden solution.
Scorbit did at least make the point that their business remains in a good position, so current customers can continue to enjoy the service and platform as they have in the past.
This story is developing, so we'll be sure to update you if any new information comes to light.
Colin is the chief pixel pusher at Kineticist. He's a lifetime gamer who became enamored with pinball after taking in a family copy of the 1979 classic Joker Poker (the EM version). Since then he's bought, sold and repaired many machines, competed in all kinds of tournaments, and contributes to This Week in Pinball, the New England Pinball League, and Pin-Masters of New England. Previously, Colin spent over a decade working in marketing for agencies and tech startups. He also started and ran a music blog, happy hour website, and wrote a regular craft beer review column for Central Track in Dallas. Once aspired to be an artsy film director.
