Williams (gaming company)

Williams is a long-standing electronic gaming and amusement company based in Chicago, Illinois. Williams was founded as the Williams Manufacturing Company in 1946 by Harry E. Williams. Williams initially was a manufacturer only of pinball tables. In the early 1970s, Williams branched out into the fledgling coin-operated arcade video game market, where it was successful for many years.

=Early history=

In 1943, Harry Williams founded Williams Manufacturing Company at 161 West Huron Street in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The first four products were a fortune-telling machine called Superscope , a novelty called Zingo , and two pinball conversions, Flat-Top and Laura . These pinball machines were made by purchasing older pinballs made by other companies and changing artwork and other elements on the playfield. The lack of raw materials during World War II made the manufacture of new machines difficult and expensive.

The first known original amusement device made by Williams was an early-era pinball machine called Suspense in 1946. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Williams continued to make pinball machines and the occasional bat-and-ball game. In 1950, Williams produced Lucky Inning , their first pinball table to have its bottom flippers facing inward in the modern manner. In late 1958, Williams Manufacturing became known as Williams Electronic Manufacturing Company. In 1960, company founder Harry Williams designed his last pinball table as a full-time designer, the horse racing-themed Nags .

In 1962, 3 Coin became the first Williams table to sell over 1,000 units (1,100, specifically). One year later, Skill Pool sold 2,250 units. In 1964 Williams was purchased by the Seeburg Corporation. The 1966 pinball table A-Go-Go , with its avant-garde 60s theme, sold a staggering 5,100 units. Early Williams pinball tables often included innovative features and pinball firsts, such as mechanical reel scoring and the add-a-ball feature for locations that didn t allow game replays. By 1967, Williams once again changed its name, this time to Williams Electronics, Inc.

By 1967, pinball was in the middle of its so-called golden age , and the number of pinball units that sold began to increase dramatically. Popular Williams pinballs included Shangri-La (1967), Apollo (1967), Smart Set (1969), Gold Rush (1971), and Space Mission (1976).

=Arcade Videogaming and Solid-state Pinball=

In .

At the same time, Williams would enter the era of solid-state electronic pinball and come to dominate the entire pinball industry. Williams first solid-state machine was Hot Tip (1976), which had originally been released with electromechanical reel scoring. The updated machine outsold its predecessor by nearly four to one. As the 1970s became the 1980s, Williams would release numerous innovative pinballs, such as Firepower (pinball) (1980), Black Knight (Pinball) (1980), Space Shuttle (1984), Comet (1985), Pin*bot (1986), F-14 Tomcat (1987), and Cyclone (1988).

=Industry Decline=

By 1983, the entire arcade amusement industry went into a major decline. In spite of this, Williams managed to weather the poor economic conditions better than most. In 1985, Williams once again changed its name, this time to Williams Electronics Games, Inc. In 1988, Williams acquired Bally Midway Manufacturing Company, which was the result of Bally s purchase of Midway Games in 1983, and as a result, the parent company s name became WMS Industries, Inc. Williams would continue to manufacture pinball machines, while Midway would concentrate on video games (thus ending the Williams brand in video games) and pinball machines (under the Bally brand name). WMS also created a new division known as WMS Gaming to enter the gaming and state video lottery markets. In 1992, the Midway division produced the licensed Addams Family pinball table (based on the movie of that era). Addams Family sold a record 20,270 units, which still stands to this day. In 1993, Midway produced Twilight Zone , which sold an impressive 15,235 units as well.

But the writing was on the wall. After 1993, Williams never came close to matching the sales numbers of Addams Family or Twilight Zone . In 1999, Williams made one last attempt to revitalize pinball sales with its Pinball 2000 machines that integrated pinball with computer graphics on embedded raster-scan displays. The innovation didn t pay off and that same year, Williams left the pinball industry to focus on slot machine development as WMS Gaming. In late March of 2005, http://www.pinballnews.com reported that Williams had exclusively licensed the intellectual properties and the rights to re-manufacture former Bally/Williams games in the field of mechanical pinball (including traditional pinball and Pinball 2000 style machines) to Wayne Gillard - Mr Pinball Australia.

Currently, Midway owns the rights to Williams video game library, including Defender , Joust , and Smash TV . Williams video game library are now copyrighted as Midway Amusement Games, L.L.C.

Overall, Williams was one of the major forces in arcade amusement history. During the Golden Age of pinball, Williams was one of the three major manufacturers and also had success making coin-op arcade video games. For much of the later history of pinball, Williams simply dominated the industry even as pinball began to decline in popularity.

=External links=

*[http://www.wms.com WMS Gaming website] *[http://www.pinball.com WMS Pinball Website] *[http://www.ipdb.org The Internet Pinball Database] *[http://www.klov.com The Killer List of Videogames website (KLOV)]