Bally’s Space Invaders, released in 1980 and designed by Jim Patla, holds a genuine place in history as the first pinball machine ever based on a video game. Bally’s video-game division, Midway, had licensed Taito’s blockbuster Space Invaders, and capitalized on its phenomenal success with this widebody table — though, in truth, little of the original game survived beyond the sounds and the name. The artwork instead conjured menacing, biomechanical aliens that bore a striking resemblance to H.R. Giger’s designs from the film Alien, a likeness that led to lawsuits and saw Bally halt production early, with around 11,400 machines made.
The playfield is a target-rich widebody with four flippers, a mirrored “infinity lights” backglass, and a clever scoring puzzle. Shooting the ball through the center hoop scores 5,000 and bumps your multiplier up to a maximum of 5X. The Red Invader standups advance a separate super bonus of 20K to 60K — which, importantly, is multiplied by your bonus multiplier, pushing the max bonus toward a huge 495K. The most lucrative shot is the Clone Chamber captive ball, worth 10K to 50K and repeatable via the center top lane once you’ve completed the top lanes to light its value. The smart play is to build your bonus multiplier early via the center hoop, then work the Clone Chamber captive ball repeatedly for those big 10K-to-50K collects — a scoring loop that rewards patience and accuracy in equal measure.
Striking, historically pivotal, and a little notorious thanks to that Giger controversy, Space Invaders is a fascinating early-80s artifact. For collectors who love a great backstory, a handsome widebody layout, and a genuine “first” in pinball history, it’s an essential and rewarding classic — proof that the arcade and pinball worlds first collided right here.