Someone asks me if I’ve played Attack from Mars on the Switch and it takes me a moment to understand what those words mean. Reflexively I say, “No, I haven’t played video game pinball.” Before even finishing the sentence I laugh out loud at how wrong I am. My initial brush with the silver ball is an NES cartridge labeled simply PINBALL. Age eight, I played that game nonstop until I mastered it and, as with my taste in real-world pinball, the mini games were of particular interest. My statement is also silly because most modern pinball machines are just giant video games with overly complicated controllers.

I don’t relay any of these thoughts to my acquaintance because she’s already moved on. “I’ve played Mars on it and I swear it’s made me better at the game,” she states enthusiastically. I smile and utter platitudes. It seems obvious that learning the mechanics on a computer would improve most peoples’ games. Score is not the only indicator of skill but it might be the most obvious one. I’ve seen total amateurs achieve competitive scores in their first game by just not draining. I express vague doubt at the overall gain and leave out the part where you can’t open-hand slap a Switch. “My current partner has played the video game non-stop,” she continues confidently, “and his score has gone from a few hundred thousand to three billion on the real machine. That can’t be a coincidence.”

Saying a video simulation makes you better at pinball is like assuming you’d get better at playing guitar via Guitar Hero. There are certainly skills that translate between both things such as basic rhythm but no one is going to learn how to play actual music with four buttons. I believe pinball has the same amount of nuance. Being able to time a nudge or anticipate a bounce isn’t something Nintendo controllers can replicate. I smile and posit, “Practice is practice.”

“If you want to play with us sometime you are more than welcome,” she offers sweetly.

Still smiling, “Thanks, I’ll save that experience for when I don’t live in the center of the best pinball city in the world.”