Why did pachinko develop a tradition of playing while seated unlike pinball

[Booniedog85]

Quite curious since pinball which is a major hobby typically don't have seats around and so do many common arcade games esp the ones with joystick and buttons face buttons layed out on the platform beside it at least in the West. Why did pachinko opt to have seats as the standard? I mean even early slots did not have seats and you cans till find a lot of slot machines in public places like gas stations and malls without any seats at all and you can find at least a few casinos in Las Vegas with a couple of machines without a seat in front.


Why did pachinko make complimentary seats the industry standards to the point that even outside parlors and the special seats that are nailed to the ground in front of the machines thats the default in gambling places, you can find separate regular chairs in front of the cabinet in say a bar or arcade or some other public non-gambling places in Japan?


In Japan are the any gambling venues with stand alone pachinko without nailed to the ground seats in front of the cabinets? As I said even within Las Vegas casinos, its not considered abnormal to have 4-10 slot machines without any seats at all in front and players will have to stand (even though seats literally attached to the ground is the norm for slots in casinos).

[Drunkenclam]

Some onsen or Ryohan have a small play area with Pachinko and Pachislo. They don't normally follow the parlour layouts.

In addition during an extended fever. You might be playing for 2-4 hours. Not fun to stand for that long.

[Wayne-Ooo]

Seems pretty simple to me. You probably will stay longer and spend more money, if you are comfortable.

Sitting is more comfortable than standing.

[lotsoballs]

Seems pretty obvious to me as well; a pinball game lasts what, 5-10 mins if you’re decent at it? While pachinko can go on for hours; whether you are skilled or not… lol…it’s specifically designed to suck you in with the powerful yet subtle psychological manipulation of your mind using “intermittent reinforcement”, bringing out addictive/compulsive desire to keep playing to see what’s going to happen next; maybe that next spin is going to be the super rare big fever sequence??


As other pachinko vs pinball threads always come to the conclusion of; it’s an apples to oranges comparison. Casino type gambling machine compared to an arcade/skill based machine.

[MrGneiss]

Long ago it seems parlors were all standing, but as said already, I figure the more comfortable you are the longer you'll stay.. Plus by the 80s games were getting more complex and could have you playing a long time especially when winning like Clam said!!

St2.jpg st3.jpg


Found a pic from 1965 with seats!!

St1.jpg