AI is coming to take my job, so I’d better start looking for a new one. Luckily, there are a ton of job simulators on Steam, and I’m going to play as many as I can until I find my next career. This week’s job: PBA Pro Bowling 2026, a bowling sim about bowling.
As a new bowler on the amateur circuit, my first day isn’t going well. I’m trying to learn how to hook the ball—to roll it in a curving pattern so it hits the pins at an angle—and it turns out there’s quite a lot to it. You even have to consider the oil patterns on the alley and how they affect the ball. I didn’t know there was oil in bowling, let alone patterns of it.
Much as I respect PBA Pro Bowling 2026’s surprisingly deep physics simulation—I’m a little impatient. I’ve rolled the ball like five times and have yet to make a strike. All I want to do is fling a ball and hit pins and hear that glorious clattering sound, one of the best sounds in all of sports.
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What if I just, I don’t know… roll the ball straight? No hooking it, just aim down the middle. Has anyone in bowling history ever even tried it? Probably not! I try it and make a strike. I try it again and make another strike. Frowning a bit, I roll the ball in a completely straight line again. Third strike.
I try to imagine acting like that at my real job, where every time I finished writing something I made my editors watch me do the stanky leg. I don’t think it would fly.
Is there a weakness to my throw fast and straight technique? Admittedly, yes. As anyone who has ever been bowling or watched bowling or possesses a rudimentary grasp of knocking things over, if you roll the ball straight down the middle and hit the pins head-on, you’ll be highly vulnerable to splits. There’s the dreaded 7-10 split but plenty of other nightmares such as—hold on, I’m quickly Googling—the “Greek Church,” the “Big Four,” and other combinations where you have a couple pins on both sides of the lane with a big gap down the middle.
But still, my method is working: I win my inaugural game with five strikes and a score of 191. And only one nasty split.
I begin working my way through local bowling events with my straight line style. There’s a league night, which sounds fun except I’m not even allowed to come up with my own league name (we’re playing against the Roll Models, a high level pun.) There’s also candlepin bowling and duckpin bowling, but they involve little tiny balls so the physics of the collisions aren’t particularly satisfying.
As I rack up experience and defeat opponents I’m given money to spend in the pro shop. I buy a shirt that has a straight line on it. See what I’m doing there? I’m building my brand.
I even develop an advanced version of my straight line approach I call—hold onto your hats for this one—the diagonal line. Since hitting the pins head on comes with a risk of splits, I start hitting them from an angle.
I’m not hooking the ball, I’m just rolling from the far corner of the lane and aiming for just off-center. And it’s working! I’m racking up more and more strikes and my cavorting after each becomes, impossibly, even more obnoxious.
You think that’s bad? There’s an air guitar celebration I refuse to show you because even though Bo W. Lurr has no dignity, I do.
I also need to admit: helping my career take off is the fact that these generic amateur bowlers are pretty terrible at bowling. I’m not complaining because soon I’ve trounced enough no-names that two huge things happen.
First, I can afford to buy sunglasses from the bowling store, which ratchets up my obnoxiousness to heights I didn’t think was possible. Second, and almost as importantly, I can now compete for the regional qualifiers, putting me one tier away from bowling against actual bowlers in bowling.
A lot of bowling follows. Special events. Bracket tournaments. Literal dozens of dollars earned that makes it possible for me to buy one new pair of pants. And at the moment I need it most, I bowl my all-time high of 236 with 9 strikes against a fake guy named Larry Ronseik who looks like a generic version of me. I’ve done it. I’ve won the central region qualifier. I’ve made it to the Pro Tour.
First stop: a head-to-head match against a simulation of an actual pro bowler, Andrew Anderson. I’m suddenly worried my straight line bowling technique has just been an illusion and this guy is gonna mop the oily lanes with my stupid magenta beard. But I put Anderson down easily, scoring 235 to his… 123.
I hate to admit it, but I can’t enjoy the victory because that doesn’t seem right. I’ve bowled 123 in real life, as a real person who isn’t good at bowling. A pro bowler with a 123? I have a quick dip into the game settings and my suspicions are confirmed. I’ve been bowling on “Rookie” difficulty this whole time. My groundbreaking bowling technique of never hooking the ball may, just may, be a huge crock of shit.
I turn up the difficulty to “Pro,” take a deep, dismayed breath, and face-off against Anderson again. I get absolutely wrecked. I can only manage three strikes, I wind up in a nasty spare situation with a 1-4-5-7 split, and manage to miss all of the damn pins—one of my three open frames in the game. It’s brutal and humbling.
Just out of curiosity, I redo the qualifying bracket just to see if I even remotely deserve to be a pro bowler. My first time through I came in first in every round. This time, under pro conditions, I place sixth overall—which honestly isn’t terrible in a tournament of 32 pretend bowlers. Still, you need to place third to qualify, and I didn’t. It’s back to the duckpins for Bo W. Lurr.
Performance evaluation
Would I like to be a pro bowler IRL?
I met a pro bowler while I was temping. He was also temping. I think it’s probably a tough, not great-paying gig for 95% of them.
Would I make a good pro bowler IRL?
I couldn’t even be bothered to learn how to hook the ball in a game, so I doubt I’d have any shot of mastering it for real.
Is PBA Pro Bowling good?
Yeah, it really is! If you’re into bowling, you should try it, and even for someone like me, who doesn’t usually go for bowling games, I dig it. Here it is on Steam.
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