score inflation

The earliest pinball games scored in units of 1 and a few hundred was a good score, but later games multiplied these by one or more factors of 10, such that all scores ended in one or more zeroes. On these games with mechanical scoring wheels, the zeroes were often fixed wheels that didn't have any mechanism for turning them.

In the electronic age, score inflation reached astronomical levels. Early electronic games showed 6-digit scores, but since it was often possible to roll these games (making the score roll over from the maximum to zero), a seventh digit was later added. Later, scores increased to make that 7th digit get used more and more often, making it more and more likely that players could roll these games. Comet bragged at having the first million-point shot. Later million-point shots became common, and the high scores on these games were often "all nines" to indicate a rollover. The difference between this and the earlier mechanical score inflation is that there was no need to add the zeroes to all awards, so there would still be things that scored in the tens of points; a single fixed zero at the end of the score somehow became a tradition that almost all modern pinball games follow.

Williams made some games around 1989-1990 with two 16-digit alphanumeric displays instead of the 4 7-digit numeric displays formerly used. These displays have diagonal LED elements, and the games could display scores of ten million and above, blanking out other players scores if necessary. Most significantly, though, the games also had enhanced computer power to drive the displays, and they started using the score displays to print messages during the game, blanking out all other players' scores in a multi-player game, or even covering the current player's score briefly, for special displays. One game, The Machine: Bride of Pinbot, offered a billion point bonus award, but this was treated as a special thing, and there were separate high score lists for billion and non-billion games. However, at the time, this was an isolated event, and the other score inflation was limited to single awards as high as 20 million (Bad Cats).

Soon, dot matrix displays replaced the alphanumeric ones, and score inflation went on a quickly spiraling path. 9-digit scores including multiple 8-digit bonus awards became the norm, and 10-digit scores were possible. This increased even further such that 10-digit scores became the norm, with 9-digit bonus awards and even some billion point awards, while scores with 11 or even 12 digits were possible.

At this point, pinball manufacturers realized these scores were stretching the limits of players to have any clue how good they were doing, so there was a backlash in which games returned to 7 and 8-digit scores being typical, but more score inflation followed.