I know Nino has some thoughts on this and hopefully will share his knowledge and experiences with us.
I have never played a Fathom so won't be much help but have owned a Skateball and still have a fully populated Skateball playfield that I might turn into a game one day as it is a cool game and fairly fast for a 1980's game. By the looks it does have some similarities to Fathom but not sure on rules etc.
I would love a Fathom one day as it looks beautiful and looks like a good playing game.
