Wow, I didn't expect this topic tobecome so replied-to. I'm glad to see there's an interest in observing beginners and how to either show them the ropes or preventing them from doing things that'd turn them off of pinball.
I've been in some other forums regarding other hobbies, and by and large, beginners are most often quietly ignored, picked on by the long-time fans, or sometimes even shunned from entering. I'd say to them that such behavior will lead to a slow death of their hobby (except for things like Mario Kart, where so many beginners started coming in that they drowned out those elitist long-time fans, forcing those long-time fans to either adapt or leave--most left).
Regarding PayRange, that actually solves another issue I had forgotten about: There are people who, simply put, don't carry cash on them, and this is an issue that will become more pronounced as the years go on and people do more of their shopping online. Even when there's a change machine available, you still need dollar bills to feed into the machine, and most ATMs only give out larger bills (if there's an ATM on the premises). Very few pinball machines I've seen have credit card acceptors attached to them, and no pinball manufacturer pre-installs them in. It'll be very handy to give people an option to play the machines if they don't carry any cash on hand.
umbilico:
Cool topic, thanks. A thing I've noticed is that people frequently have problems figuring out how to even start a game after putting in a coin. More than once I've seen people at a local bowling alley standing around dumbfounded, pressing the flipper buttons and wondering why nothing's happening. Those were mostly children, and it's a pretty sad thought that they would have just walked away frustrated, pondering the loss of their valuable coin, if no one had been around to educate them in the lost art of starting a game of pinball.
I've always hated autoplunge, and I've been sceptical of the "do some special routine to not start the game in casual mode" thing I've read over at the GoT thread, but come to think of it, I actually like that idea. If you've played frequently enough to actually look at the DMD, you'll figure what to do to get the best experience, but if this is your first foray into pinball, why make things difficult.
Another thing I've noticed is that first-timers will play one game, and one game only. There isn't any "I almost got that really cool thing, let's try again" motivation if you don't know what's going on. As you said, mutliball is hard to miss and can be a good motivator if the player can actually figure out that it started because of something they did, but it's hard to think of any other positive feedback first-timers will notice (apart from redemption, that is).
Figuring out that the multiball wasn't just some random lucky break, though, can be hard, too. I think physical ball locks with the locked ball actually being visible on the playfield can help a great deal there.
Oh, I see adults doing that too, where they don't know there's a start button. It might have something to do with some EMs beginning automatically after you put coins in them, causing the mass media to depict it in that way. Sterns have a "PRESS START" prompt on the DMD, but it only shows up about once per minute for about 5 seconds, and as you mentioned, beginners don't look at the DMD anyway. I feel like, short of a sign card or someone telling the player directly, the machine must have some sort of sound prompt. The button isn't really that obvious either (but I don't know how it can be made more obvious).
Most beginners do not know there are rules to a pinball game. Unless there are scoring reels, they won't know there's a score either. I'd bet they play only one game because they didn't know what was going on or that they felt they didn't really accomplish anything. From what I see, besides an easy-to-start multiball being an incentive for beginners to try for once they stumble across it, some big moving part that gets activated during certain easy-to-start conditions can also do it for people. Lots of people at 82 play Iron Man, for instance, and I'd bet it's because of Iron Monger in the middle. Even more so because hitting Iron Monger enough times begins a multiball (which even the most beginning of beginners figure out). They have AC/DC in there too (I think Premium), and people go CRAZY the first time they hit the bell and it swings, sounding the long "Bong!" noise.
genex:
We always see people putting in like a $5 or $2 on a machine and then play a single one player game. We always tell people they can play multiplayer and most of the time people have no idea that's a thing. EJW here is also super helpful to give people tips etc although I think some people are like "dude, we're on a date, don't show me up!" 
Heh, people do that? I don't pay attention to how much money people put in these machines, so I didn't know about that! Do you mean they just play one game and leave?
Definitely though, multiplayer is not the sort of thing that people recognize right away, even on EMs with multiple scoring reels that read "2 CAN PLAY" or "4 CAN PLAY" in brightly-colored letters.
If it's people playing one single-player game, then someone else playing, sometimes it's up to preference. I personally prefer to play a full game by myself, and whenever I go play with someone else, they almost always want to see me play a full game first before they play.
ryanwanger:
I operate the pins at a barcade that gets a lot of 20 and 30 somethings. Here is what I see:
- People put in a quarter and the game won't start. It's 75 cents.
- People put in enough money, and don't know where the start button is. They try flipping, and plunging. At least once a week I have to show someone how to start a game.
- Most non-regulars are not aware you can play a 2+ player game. I've seen people trade off games, and I've seen people trade off balls.
- The pins are in a separate room, way in the back. People walk in: "Oh my god! This is AWESOME. Addams Family, Lord of the Rings, etc". Then they turn around and leave without playing.
- Same as above, but ending in: "Hey look - GIANT JENGA". They ignore pinball, and play Jenga instead.
- People think their payment only covers 1 ball.
- Game matches, awarding an extra credit. They walk away and pay for a different machine.
- Confusion over ball save. I overheard someone recently remark, upon having her ball saved: "I hate it when it plunges for me when I'm not ready".
- "Wait, there are rules?!?"
- I try to give tutorials whenever I think I can get someone hooked. Almost every time, they'll ask: "Isn't [nudging] illegal?" (To be fair, I didn't know about this until I became a pinball player)
I was talking through a game of Tron...and worked all the way to Sea of Simulation with a group of people watching and listening. Then I told them, okay, I need to shoot the gem shot next (only shot lit, nothing else to do in SOS). I hit Quorra with the right flipper, and hit Gem with the upper left. People gasped. In retrospect, I'm a little disappointed that it was so amazing to them after I had just intentionally played through every mode in the game to reach SOS.
If they STILL don't know there are rules, or they can't hear you, they'll focus entirely on the on-playfield action and ignore any sounds or DMD animations. The people gasping, I'll bet, are people who weren't paying attention to what you were saying. Playing through the modes means nothing to them if they don't know what a mode is.
Thanks for listing these things you observed too. Glad to see that you're looking for ways beginners get stopped, sometimes before they even play, in order to prevent them from happening. That being said, nothing stops someone who prefers Giant Jenga or other redemption games--the allure of winning an iPhone is pretty tempting, and most people don't know they're rigged. (I could write an equally long post about beginners at redemption games, but here's not the place for that.)
phishrace:
I play regularly at a location with lots of young kids and they make all the same mistakes. So it's not a generational thing, it's a noob thing. The best you can do is to help them along. I won't push the start button for them, but I will say 'Push that flashing yellow button' while pointing at it. They learn.
Strategy-wise, if given the opportunity, my first advice is one flip at a time. When they have that down, then I'll tell them to shoot the flashing lights. People of all ages catch on quickly. That's the beauty of pinball. You can learn and be a respectable player at it from when you're old enough to see over the lockdown bar until you're old enough to collect SS. Give them a few clues and if they're inclined, they can usually run with it.
I noticed children catch on FAST and only need to be told something once to remember it when you're teaching them about pinball machines.
You know what I think? When people get older, they see media with pinball in them or pinball elements (whether it be movies, TV shows, video games, what have you) and create assumptions about what pinball is like based on those depictions. A lot of these weird beginner quirks, I feel, stems from those depictions (such as there not being rules, not knowing a game does not begin automatically, that nudging is illegal, and them being excited at multiballs and big moving parts because they are not commonly depicted in fiction).
But children don't have that ingrained in them yet. Instead, when you show them the way, they'll trust you on it, and they'll see that it works and it becomes their way. They don't have an assumed way, which I'm sure is why I try to tell people about start buttons or Fire! buttons or whatnot and they brush it off.
recordboy:
1) always see new players flipping the flippers constantly even though a ball is no where near a flipper.
2) see new players pull back and plunge the ball and simply watch the ball drain, not knowing there are flippers to keep ball in play.
3) see new players simply choose a game due to THEME and THEME alone.
4) see a new kid player whos parent looks at all the games and chooses the EM bcuz it 25 cents to play over other pins, and try to brag it up "hey little johhny, look how cool this game is, lets play this". and i saw them look at pricing and that was why the parent chose that...lol
Wow! Even I don't see beginners doing this sort of thing too often. I figured at least everyone who's heard of pinball knows there are flippers, and the only time I see someone mash flipper buttons constantly are little kids (like, around 6 to 8 years old), and they only start doing it when they've been draining rapidly.
Choosing a game due to theme, however, is perfectly valid if you're not familiar with them already. If you know nothing else about these games, the theme is the first thing you'll see.
And I didn't think there'd be many parents who'd refuse to pay 50 cents for a game but still pay 25...A parent unwilling to part with 50 cents, I'd figure would also be unwilling to part with 25 cents. I didn't play pinball when I was little because my father didn't want me spending ANY money at arcades. He'd drop me off in an arcade and just tell me to watch people play the games there because, to him, it's just as good. Sometimes, he'd give me 4 quarters and expect it to last the full two hours I was there, or maybe he figured that, because he never liked playing games at arcades, he assumed I wouldn't either.
keithm:
If I ever had the opportunity to stock pins in a public place I'd do as much as I could to get people interested in playing them. Powerpoint presentations offering the most basic rules of a game (Metallica: Bash Sparky 5 times to start multiball, etc.) Cool posters offering the most basic tips on playing, such as simply trying to catch the ball so you can aim shots.
Then you hopefully get people drinking their beers, chatting with friends, glancing at these things on the walls and they start thinking about playing a few games to try them out.
I think signage could work very well. Apron cards don't really stand out much compared to if the basic rules are on a wall or above the backbox. Illustrations would really help too, since, in this case, someone who's never played Metallica before might not know who Sparky is (even though in hindsight, it'd be pretty obvious he's the guy in the electric chair).
onetaste:
It was a lot easier for noobs to develop the passion back in the EM & SS days. Credits were cheap and you got 5 balls, plus you could look at the PF & work out what to do. Today games cost $1 for 3 balls and beginners get hosed within 2 mins while pros can play for half an hour.
What do you think of putting a solid state on site on 25 or 50c and let people learn the basics on that?
Yeah, the general impression of pinball by the general public fits MUCH closer to an EM than anything made afterwards, so they can figure what's going on easier. And with 5 balls, even a first-time player will get to be at the machine for a good while, especially with all the bumpers and slingshots everywhere.
If it weren't for the polarizing theme and the unusually high price, I would've been interested in seeing how well Whoa Nellie! would do on location. I think it's, by far, the easiest pinball machine to understand for a beginner released in the past three decades.
Putting EMs on location could work, but it'd have to be something like The Amazing Spider-Man, something with a theme that's still relevant today. It'll be more approachable, but people are going to gravitate towards something recognizable and in their immediate interests with flashy lights like The Walking Dead. Heck, The Wizard of Oz, with its large monitor display and neon-like color-changing LEDs, is always an eye-catcher.