Zaccaria was an Italian company that was, at one point, the country's largest creator of arcade Pinball and Video Games.
The company's roots were in Bologna, Italy, where Marino Zaccaria was the owner and operator of a bar. One day in 1964, Marino installed a pinball machine to entertain his patrons, and was pleasantly surprised with how fast the cash box was filling up. He soon diversified into distributing pinball machines in other bars, and recruited his brothers Franco and Natale to help.
The Zaccaria company was incorporated in 1974, and began by importing pinball machines from the United States. However, the Italian recession of The '70s made importing prohibitively expensive; Zaccaria responded first by refurbishing older pinball machines with new artwork, and then later creating original games of their own. Similarly, when Video Games grew in popularity, Zaccaria licensed games from abroad and developed a few original titles.
At the company's height, Zaccaria was the third-largest pinball manufacturer in the world, behind Bally and Williams Electronics. The company released over fifty games, primarily to Europe, Asia, and Australia. Unfortunately, the company hit rough times in the late eighties; Zaccaria was briefly reorganized as Mr. Game before filing for bankruptcy in 1990.
Today, Zaccaria's legacy lives on in Tecnoplay
of San Marino, a company that imports, resells, and maintains pinball machines, arcade games, and other amusement games in Europe. Mauro Zaccaria, son of Marino Zaccaria, manages the company, while Natale serves as the Technical Director.
Some of their pinball machines are available digitally through the mobile game Zaccaria Pinball.
Original pinball machines produced by Zaccaria (under the Zaccaria and Mr. Game labels) include:
- Aerobatics
- Blackbelt
- Cine Star
- Circus
- Clown
- Combat
- Dakar
- Devil Riders
- Earth Wind Fire
- Farfalla
- Fast Track
- Fire Mountain
- Future World
- Granada
- Hot Wheels
- House of Diamonds
- Locomotion
- Lucky Fruit
- Mac Attack
- Magic Castle
- Mexico ’86
- Motor Show
- Moon Flight
- Mystic Star
- Nautilus
- New Star's Phoenix
- Pinball Champ '82
- Pinball Champ
- Pool Champion
- Queen's Castle
- Red Show
- Robot
- Shooting the Rapids
- Ski Jump
- Sofficini Dakar
- Soccer Kings
- Space City
- Space Shuttle
- Spooky
- Star God
- Star's Phoenix
- Strike
- Supersonic
- Ten Stars
- Ten Up
- Time Machine
- Top Hand
- Tropical
- Universe
- Winter Sports
- Wood's Queen
- World Cup '90
- Zankor
Original video games produced by Zaccaria:
- Cat 'n' Mouse
- Jack Rabbit
- Laser Battle
- Money Money
- Quasar
- Shooting Gallery
