First solid-state game from this manufacturer produced with 7-digit scoring. Skateball reportedly had a faulty design that allowed players to score excessive points, lowering operator profits due to many free games being awarded. Players could easily hold the ball on the right flipper and make it roll in and out of the right inlane by briefly releasing the flipper button. This caused the bonus to raise to the maximum award which would award a special upon reaching 60k. Operators reportedly tried a number of different solutions to solve the problem. This game originally was to be Model 1150-E Bally's 1978 'Skateball' but did not get produced at that time. Artist Greg Freres did the art for the 1978 backglass. The original playfield for that game was scrapped, but Bally kept the backglass art on the shelf until an opportunity came up to resurrect the theme for a new playfield. Since Greg was busy on another project by this time, only his backglass art was used on this 1980 production run while Kevin O'Connor did the playfield artwork and Margaret Hudson did the plastics artwork.
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