What it means when Pinball folks say their game is “Bolted to the floor”

I get a kick out of some of the talk in gaming circles. A somewhat common thing you’ll hear about pinball is a game is “bolted to the floor.”

Typically bolting a pinball machine literally to the floor doesn’t sound like a good idea. You need to nudge them, move them, have some give. If they are bolted that’s going to have less give on the machine and movement of the machine, leading to strain on the game.

But the statement isn’t literal. What it means is they aren’t really bolting the game to their floor, they are just saying, “the game is so good, it’s not leaving my pinball collection.”

A few hours from the time this post goes live, we’ll be at TPF (We will be at Texas Pinball Festival on Saturday March 22, 2025, Are you Attending?) checking out pinball and arcade games, all donated for play by either people from their collection or businesses hoping others will buy these and more games from them in the future. I’ll be thinking at some point what of these games, if any, would qualify as floor bolters.

The one I bought myself already last September, My Best Birthday Present in 56 Years: Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast Premium NIB is a floor bolter for me. I’ll be looking at the show to see if there are any cool mods to buy and they will have a few there to play, premiums and pros.

But what other pins might qualify as games I wouldn’t sell? I like James Bond 007 Pro, my only other owned game, but it’s not a floor bolter. My son has a Jaws Premium, and I love to play that game, it ranked 2 on our 2024 Ranking All 26 Spike 2 Stern Pinball Machines but it’s not quite a floor bolter to me. He has no plans to sell, so might as well be bolted.

Of the other 24 modern Stern pins? I wonder what others reading might want to buy and bolt to their floors? Please share in the comments. For me, anyway, I’m not sure there are any other modern Sterns I’m interested in buying, much less bolting. Then again, if the deal was right, you never know. Bolted only becomes a concern after buying. With the vast majority of pinball, I’m happy playing on location.

Stern’s newest pin, Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye (0.85 code) Stern Pinball Pro 2025 Detailed First Thoughts After Flipping on Location, is one that keeps coming up among my sons as something they are interested in. This game seems to have a lot of replay potential in it, but the code is just so early right now, it’s difficult to predict what the game will be like if/when it is finished. This code-not-finished status is the Achilles heel for the newest of the new Sterns. Venom, released in late 2023 is only game as of this writing released by Stern that has had its code finished. Jaws, John Wick, The Uncanny X-men, Metallica: Remastered and D&D? Not yet. Kinda wild that Metallica: Remastered, an update from the vault doesn’t have the code complete version yet.

Stern isn’t the only pinball manufacturer that does this with code at first launch.