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The Classic Pinball Podcast
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#55 World Cup / Led Zep - The Classic Pinball Podcast

PodcastAnalysis updated 2d ago58 min listenBy George
From the creator

This episode focuses on World Cup by Williams. The guys talk about the origins of this game and then play three games. You can probably guess who ends up winning? Bonus Feature: George goes with Dave...

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Highlights

  • Williams World Cup was produced in March 1978 as a System 3 machine with approximately 6,000 units made
  • World Cup was the first Williams solid-state pin with electronic sounds replacing chimes, though early production had chimes
  • Designer Edward Thomas Zawuski only made three games total, with Alien Poker being his other notable title
  • The game's distributor price was $1,235 with retail estimated at $1,500-$1,700
  • Kyle Rote Jr. (American flyer) was the only U.S.-born player to lead the NASL in scoring in the league's 17-year history
  • Michael Platini was banned from football until 2023 over ethics violations
  • System 3 Williams games are very limited with only five games in the series (Contact, World Cup, Hot Tip, Lucky 7, Disco Fever)
  • World Cup has no attract mode and requires complex dip switch configuration instead of software-based settings
  • Dave has received customer requests for World Cup restorations after publishing a restored example on YouTube
  • All World Cup machines Dave has seen have heavily worn playfields requiring restoration work

Notable quotes

“This Dave told me the other day that you'd like to come on our show. Well, here was a perfect opportunity.”
George
“The people that designed this game, the software... There were some good drugs back in the 70s, George.”
Dave
“How about you just make it a track mode instead of this stuff that you worked on? I just don't get it. Why would you do that?”
Dave
“It's very much an EM design... there's no attract mode on it it's just sitting there dead”
George
“At least this one has a little more attempt at some more complex sounds, and it's passable, you know, so you wouldn't be in a rush to convert this to chimes, you know, necessarily.”
Dave
“This is a stingy game. It is EM-like. It is. Low scoring.”
George
“I would say, George, there's a lot of fun collecting the T and A, you know?”
Dave

Entities

  • Williams· company
  • Alien Poker· game
  • Contact· game
  • Disco Fever· game
  • Hot Tip· game
  • Lucky 7· game
  • Space Mission· game
  • World Cup· game
  • IPDB· organization
  • NASL· organization
  • The Classic Pinball Podcast· organization
  • Christian March· person
  • Dave· person
  • David Gursick· person
  • Edward Thomas Zawuski· person
  • George· person
  • Kyle Rote Jr.· person
  • Maureen· person
  • Michael Platini· person
  • System 3· product

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