# Jersey Jack Pinball at Vancouver Flipout Pinball Expo 2018

**Source:** Pinball News (Vancouver Flipout 2018)  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2018-09-10  
**Duration:** 40m 52s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq9NJHY_eOc

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## Analysis

Jack Danger delivers a keynote at Vancouver Flipout 2018, covering Jersey Jack Pinball's history, games, and philosophy. He discusses the company's founding in 2011, production milestones (Wizard of Oz, Hobbit, Dialed In, Pirates of the Caribbean), international expansion, and his vision for family-friendly pinball themes. He reflects on 43 years in the amusement industry and emphasizes competition, quality, and community engagement.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Jersey Jack Pinball has shipped approximately 1,600 Pirates of the Caribbean units so far — _Direct answer to audience question about shipments_
- [HIGH] JJP has built around 2,000 Hobbit machines and close to 4,000 Wizard of Oz games — _Jack stating production numbers during presentation_
- [HIGH] JJP took 27 months to deliver the first Wizard of Oz machines after announcing the company — _Jack's account of founding timeline: announced January 1, 2011, first delivery in approximately mid-2013_
- [HIGH] Jack has been in the amusement industry for 43 years (since September 5, 1975) — _Referenced Facebook post dated during presentation_
- [HIGH] Pat Lawlor is working on his next game for Jersey Jack Pinball to be shown next year — _Jack states: 'Pat is working on his next game for Jersey Jack Pinball, which we'll show next year'_
- [MEDIUM] JJP's model is to show a game and ship it, avoiding long pre-order cycles — _Jack expresses preference for having games in stock rather than 6-month to 1-year pre-order waits_
- [HIGH] The first day of JJP pre-orders generated approximately 130 orders before PayPal account lockdown — _Jack recounting founding story of how PayPal repeatedly locked account due to volume and timeframe concerns_

### Notable Quotes

> "You know, we kind of started with Wizard of Oz, and Wizard of Oz is still my favorite game."
> — **Jack Danger**, ~6:30
> _Establishes Wizard of Oz as JJP's flagship and Jack's personal favorite despite creating Pirates and Dialed In_

> "I'm tired of pre-orders. I'm tired of showing things and then people have to wait like six months or a year. I think it's better you know how would you feel if you walked across the street to a restaurant and ordered something and you're hungry right now?"
> — **Jack Danger**, ~52:00
> _Core business philosophy statement reflecting frustration with industry pre-order model and commitment to availability_

> "There's nothing wrong with that, but I'm not into little guns and blood and everything. I think pinball should be really fun."
> — **Jack Danger**, ~56:00
> _Explains JJP's family-friendly theme selection philosophy, positioning against competitors' darker aesthetics_

> "It probably took longer and cost more because guess what? It's life. It's always going to take longer and cost more."
> — **Jack Danger**, ~59:30
> _Reflection on startup challenges and managing expectations in manufacturing_

> "Competition is good. It raises the bar for everybody."
> — **Jack Danger**, ~60:45
> _Acknowledges rise of competing manufacturers (Spooky, Chicago Gaming, etc.) as positive industry development_

> "We believe our market is going to cost a little more because it takes a lot more to make what we're making."
> — **Jack Danger**, ~61:15
> _Justifies premium pricing strategy amid growing industry competition_

> "If you ever have dinner parties or you're a cook or you invite people, somebody comes to you and says, you know, why don't you open a restaurant?"
> — **Jack Danger**, ~48:30
> _Analogy explaining why starting a pinball company seemed easy but proved extremely difficult_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Jack Danger | person | Founder and owner of Jersey Jack Pinball; delivering keynote at Vancouver Flipout 2018; 43 years in amusement industry |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer founded January 2011; produces premium games including Wizard of Oz, Hobbit, Dialed In, Pirates of the Caribbean |
| Pat Lawlor | person | Legendary pinball designer; returned to design Dialed In for JJP; working on next game for JJP to be revealed next year |
| Wizard of Oz | game | JJP's inaugural release (2013); ~4,000 units produced; Jack's personal favorite; theme chosen to attract younger players and women to pinball |
| Pirates of the Caribbean | game | JJP premium release with widebody cabinet; ~1,600 units shipped by 2018; features spinning disc mechanical element; strong international distribution |
| Hobbit | game | JJP licensed game; ~2,000 units produced; based on Tolkien IP; in stock and available for distribution |
| Dialed In | game |  |
| Jonathan Yousman | person | Pinball Magazine editor; Jack's unofficial sidekick traveling to shows worldwide; present at Vancouver Flipout |
| Butch Peel | person | JJP technical documentation specialist; created comprehensive manual for Dialed In; assists with factory tours and press |
| Joe Catz | person | Lead designer of Wizard of Oz for JJP; mentioned as collaborator on JJP's inaugural game |
| Vancouver Flipout | event | Third annual pinball expo in Vancouver; high-quality venue with strong community; growing attendance and reputation |
| Pinball Expo | event | Major pinball show where JJP reveals new games; venue for Dialed In reveal; important marketing platform |
| Stern Pinball | company | Established manufacturer; Jack was previously associated; JJP competed against and emerged as distinct company |
| Pinball Sales (pinballsales.com) | company | Jack's earlier company (founded end of 1999) selling amusement games to home market; became largest Stern distributor; declined during 2009 recession |
| IAAPA | event | International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions show; evolved from amusement park operators' show to include commercial pinball |
| Gary Stern | person | Owner of Stern Pinball; Jack worked at Stern factory picking screws off floor late into evenings |
| Heinz | person | Early mentor who taught Jack about fixing electromechanical pinball machines; hired Jack in 1975; passed away ~6 months after 1996 photo |
| Tommy | person | Vancouver Flipout organizer/founder; praised by Jack for event quality and growth; distributor relationship with JJP |
| Jack Danger (son) | person | Jack's son; involved in JJP business; appeared in factory photos with Pat Lawlor |
| Jen | person | Jack's daughter; involved in JJP business alongside brother Jack |
| Wayne Gillard | person | JJP distributor for Australia ('Mr. Pinball Australia'); receives first container of Pirates |
| Martin | person | Pinball Magazine staff; Jack's unofficial sidekick; assists with coverage and reporting alongside Jonathan |
| Replay Magazine | organization | Publication where Jack writes under 'Jack Danger' pen name for 15+ years |
| Jack Danger (pen name) | person | Jack's Replay Magazine byline; adopted as company/brand name despite initial reluctance; stuck as JJP identifier |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Jersey Jack Pinball company history and founding, Game releases and production (Wizard of Oz, Hobbit, Dialed In, Pirates of the Caribbean)
- **Secondary:** Jack Danger's personal history in amusement industry, International expansion and distributor relationships, Family-friendly theme selection philosophy, Pre-order vs. in-stock sales model, Industry competition and boutique manufacturer rise
- **Mentioned:** Pinball accessibility to younger players and women

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Jack is enthusiastic and reflective about JJP's trajectory, company accomplishments, and industry role. Grateful for community support and staff contributions. Some self-deprecating humor and acknowledgment of challenges, but fundamentally optimistic about company and pinball industry growth.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** JJP expansion accelerated manufacturing timelines (27 months for first Wizard of Oz), raising questions about quality control and production scaling with recent game releases (confidence: medium) — Jack acknowledges startup delays and cost overruns: 'It probably took longer and cost more because... It's life. It's always going to take longer and cost more.'
- **[business_signal]** Premium pricing justified by manufacturing cost and quality, but potential market resistance as competition increases and prices rise across industry (confidence: medium) — Jack acknowledges higher prices but defends with: 'you can't buy a Bentley for 20 grand. If you want to buy something really good... it's going to cost a little more'
- **[business_signal]** JJP production scale milestone: ~4,000 Wizard of Oz and ~2,000 Hobbit units, demonstrating sustained manufacturing capacity and market demand (confidence: high) — Jack states: 'We built around 2,000 Hobbits so far, and we built more than close to 4,000 Wizard of Oz games.'
- **[community_signal]** JJP maintains open-door factory policy, conducts regular tours for public, schools, and media; integrates customers and employees in tournament play and community events (confidence: high) — Jack describes school tours, retirement community visits, factory open houses, and employees winning tournaments; emphasizes 'door is always open'
- **[competitive_signal]** JJP differentiating through family-friendly themes (vs. 'blood and guts' competitors), targeting younger demographics and women, as evidenced by Wizard of Oz design philosophy (confidence: high) — Jack: 'I'm not like a blood and guts kind of guy... I think pinball should be really fun' and 'One of the reasons why I did Wizard of Oz, to attract young people and especially girls and women to pinball.'
- **[market_signal]** Shift in industry from single manufacturer (Williams era) to multiple boutique competitors (JJP, Spooky, Chicago Gaming, etc.), with shows increasing from few per year to several per weekend (confidence: high) — Jack: 'Years ago, when there was only one company building games, there were only a few shows a year. Now there's a few shows every weekend.'
- **[personnel_signal]** Pat Lawlor return to pinball game design through Jersey Jack Pinball partnership, bringing legendary designer back to industry after years away (confidence: high) — Jack highlights Dialed In reveal and announces: 'Pat is working on his next game for Jersey Jack Pinball, which we'll show next year.'
- **[product_strategy]** JJP has games in development beyond Pirates and Dialed In, with planned reveal at future show (possibly next Pinball Expo or later in 2018) (confidence: medium) — Jack evades direct question but states: 'It doesn't mean that we might not show a game in October. So you'll have to stay tuned.'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Jack's acknowledgment of initial skepticism about JJP's viability ('laughed at by a lot of amusement industry people') contrasted with current success, indicating industry perception shift toward boutique manufacturers (confidence: high) — Jack: 'They said, you know, you'll be out of business in six months. Christmas only comes one time a year.' But went on to become Stern's largest distributor, then founded JJP.
- **[business_signal]** JJP explicitly rejecting long pre-order model in favor of build-to-stock approach, differentiating from industry norm and addressing customer pain point (confidence: high) — Jack's extended restaurant analogy and statement: 'I'm tired of pre-orders... It's better if I have a game and I can get their game.'
- **[licensing_signal]** JJP pursuing major IP licenses (Disney's Pirates, Tolkien's Hobbit, Wizard of Oz); suggesting active licensing strategy for premium positioning (confidence: high) — Game portfolio includes multiple major franchises; Jack discusses sourcing themes carefully and seeking 'family-friendly' properties

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## Transcript

 This is a Pinball News Production. Here's Jack. Jack. Hey, everybody. Hello. Hello. Who's that one of your guys that took lunch before? He locked up and threw us out. Can everybody hear me? All 30 of you? Happy to be here. Thank you Tommy. Appreciate it very much. I'm going to go up here actually. Can anybody, what's the next letter? After the letter Q. What is that letter? Alright, okay. So today we're going to talk about Jersey Jack Pinball and Pirates of the Caribbean And kind of like everything else, I threw something together. If anybody has any questions, just raise your hand school style, and I'll try to answer. Thanks for wearing that throwback Jersey Jack shirt. It always be the old days. Good memories and not so good memories, but it was really great. All right, boys, let's go. Make pinball great again. I love it. You know, we borrowed that, and I had to get a trademark because somebody stole it from us, believe it or not. I didn't want to spend any money, but somebody with a bar in South Carolina, no, where was it? Yeah, someplace like that. They kind of stole it from us. So all we wanted to do was make pinball great again. But I think we're almost at the stage where we can say pinball is kind of great. You know? Go ahead. Ah, so there's Tommy and his wonderful wife. And you guys do a great job. I want to thank you again. We have Mutual Admiration Society. This show has really come unbelievable in three years. I go to shows all over the world. I really lose track of how many shows I go to. But, you know, this venue is really great. There's a good vibe here. Everybody's here to have fun. There's a lot of games, and it just continues to grow. And I'm really proud to have been here in the third year with you guys. And every year, you know, I hope to make it back every year. So it's great. And there's a picture with Jonathan. Where's that pain in the ass? There he is. Hi, Jonathan. How are you? You know, usually Jonathan and Martin, my unofficial sidekicks, we travel around the whole world going on different shows, whether we're in France or in the Netherlands or somewhere in China, wherever it is, it's kind of funny. Did anybody get Jonathan's new magazine? Did anybody get it? Okay, so Jonathan, you have a lot of work to do, my friend. This is not even a magazine. It's a novella. It's, hey, Bill Brandes, how are you, buddy? Hey, Bill. Welcome aboard. Welcome aboard. Arr! So it's amazing. You know, I have my carry-on bag over there, my little backpack. It weighed like eight pounds before he gave me the book. It's 33 pounds now. So I don't even know. And I'm flying out today. I have to board my flight in about an hour, two hours from now. So it was a quick in and a quick out. I've got to be home for a family event tomorrow. I can see why you walk like Quasimodo when you're wearing this. Yeah, it's just insane. I mean, you think I'm kidding you. I can't believe it. I'm not going to get back in. This is it. So, all right. That man is insane. See if you can get this back in there for me. I'll take care of that, yeah. Half hour and I'm talking. It's what I do, yeah. So avail yourself of this amazing publication. He does an amazing job. And thank you, as does Martin. You know, without the people that really support the infrastructure of the industry, nobody knows if the tree fell down in the woods. You guys report that stuff, so thank you. Which week up? Okay. So, you know, we kind of started with Wizard of Oz, and Wizard of Oz is still my favorite game. Everybody says to me, what's your favorite game? Certainly I love Pirates. You know, I love Dialed In. I love The Hobbit, but Wizard of Oz is always great, and it's always a favorite shot of mine, like kind of in the beginning when we were building the game. And we're going to be building them again this year. Tommy, take note of that, because we've been building more Wizard of Oz games. Go ahead. And there's some Hobbits. We still have a couple of them in stock, those I think were Black Arrow games that we built. We built around 2,000 Hobbits so far, and we built more than close to 4,000 Wizard of Oz games. So that's where we're at right now. Dial in. Great game, right? Pat Lawler, bring Pat Lawler back to pinball. And a game where, you know, we let Pat pick a theme and an idea and really run with it. And I knew it was going to be difficult because people wouldn't understand what it is. But it took a little bit of time to do that. And I'm really happy that we went that way. Kind of cool to always see boxes of games. You know, it was many, many years that we had no boxed games in the building. So actually right now, people, distributors around the world that we supply, they're looking for dialed in. We have some in boxes. They're looking for hobbit. We have some in boxes. So it's kind of cool to have games in stock when people want something. We get a lot of people come to the factory, tours all the time. The door is always open. We have people coming all the time. This was a school group that came a little bit more than a year ago and they were studying some physics in a class and their assignment was to actually build a pinball machine. And this group that came, none of them were standing there with phones. You know, they were all actually listening and interested. And at that time in the showroom we had a hobbit and all the boys were all over the hobbit. and we had a Wizard of Oz and all the girls were all over the Wizard of Oz. So that was one of the reasons why I did Wizard of Oz, to attract young people and especially girls and women to pinball. And this is in my office. I get to sign. You see that box in the foreground. Sometimes there are seconds or things that don't make it to the assembly line. And what happens with those things, I sign them, and instead of throwing them in the garbage, They tell me they've become collectibles, so everybody, we were doing a little question and answer about their little tour, and everybody got a little memento of the visit to the factory. One day, these two guys came in, and they're both purple-hot war hero kind of guys, and they wanted to know what was this Jersey Jack pinball that they kept driving by. And I gave them a factory tour and they invited me to come to their retirement community, which is nearby, because, you know, pinball was something that they grew up with, but they hadn't seen them in a long, long time. And the guy that's playing the game there was over 90 years old. And we did a little presentation. We brought the game in there. And they really enjoyed it. And it showed me again that pinball is something that translates itself from very young people to a little bit older people. That gentleman I remember was about 93 that was playing the game. And honestly, you know, they didn't want me to take the game. They didn't want me to take the games. Those guys, they had a really, really great time. and it was kind of cool to thank all of them for their service. Pretty much all the gentlemen in that room, they were in the U.S. military service. Go ahead, you can go. That's a shot from, I think, a couple of years ago. Pinball Expo has been a place where we've shown a lot of our games the last few years. And this, I think, was the time that we should have dialed in. So it was pretty cool to be able to reveal pinball. And really the guys that stream things, you know, the Jackdangers of the world and people like that, and certainly Morton and Jonathan doing their thing and Jared, everybody that does that, it brings more people to pinball. It exposes more people. Because people are not only rediscovering pinball, but they are discovering pinball for the first time. That was the reveal of Dialed In and that's Steve Sabota and he's, this is a picture I call love at first sight. So, you know, he's playing that game with his eyes. There is Pat Lawler. It was really cool bringing him back to pinball. And Pat is working on his next game for Jersey Jack Pinball, which we'll show next year. And that's my son Jack, on the other side Pat. That was pretty much the first day that we started producing Dialed In. And I'm happily, this is a few months ago, I'm happily reading the first printed manual for Dialed In. And believe it or not, we're still sending out those manuals now. It was like 1500 manuals that have to be put in the mail to distributors and different people So if you didn if you bought a dial in who here has a dial in Okay well tell me you got a lot of work to do You know so if you didn get a manual you have an LE or a CE game you be getting your manual soon The manual is just an amazing amazing work by Butch just an amazing resource it really helps us solve problems with our customers if they have service issues or all kinds of questions. You know, we man the phone pretty much 24 hours a day with the service people we have on the phone every day of the week, but if we didn't have that manual we'd need about a dozen people answering the phone. And it's about two or three times as big as Jonathan's magazines. It is and I'm glad I don't have one to put my back because they were dropped on this board table this is down in Aussie land down in Australia and my son was there with me we were there last last I think that was October November when we first introduced pirates I'll be back there for December 1st they have a big pinball show I'll have the first container of pirates in the Caribbean there and it's It's really cool. That continent loves pinball. And that's our distributor, Mr. Wayne Gillard, Mr. Pinball Australia, the gentleman wearing the tie-line shirt. Ah, that's a picture of the spinning disc, it looks like. That's a disc with the two discs, right? And that's on the production game out here. I don't know where this is. I threw some pictures in from different shows around the world. This might have been Flip Expo, right, and Le Trou Pour France, right? Right, you can recognize that. We had pirates there all around our games, all in France. So, yeah. There's some crazy people at, I guess, the Northwest Pinball Show. That's a vow from Shorty's and one of our friends. I think you guys know him somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was good. These shows are great. You know where that is, Jonathan? Where's the guy? You don't know where that is, right? That's in Austria. And that's, you know, one of the distributors and the gentleman that has the museum there. Martin, who is that? What's his name again, the guy with the museum? We'll have to go back to the files. But, yeah. That's in Pennsylvania, Allentown, a couple of years ago. And that's Butch in Allentown this year with one of our customers, one of our employees actually that won one of the tournaments. So they don't just build pinball machines, they play pinball as well. This time last year it popped up on my timeline, today I went to Poland. So we were all in Poland last year, right? Juan and I were captive in Baitam, Poland. And I couldn't go anywhere. I didn't have a car. And everything outside, all the signs, they read CZYZYSYCZXY. And I can't read anything. So I had to stay there. It was hard. I went to the Krakow Pinball Museum and I was in Warsaw and there's a lot of pinball there. For a little country, there's a lot of pinball there. They ripped off my hat, make pinball great again, Krakow pinball. I let them do that. I brought back a lot of really good chocolate for Vinnie in the parts department because one of the things I have to do is bring chocolate back. That's also in Austria with one of our longtime customers there. and that's our distributor in Luxembourg. That's Dave Christensen with his collection. This is at home, so he's great. That's an IAAPA show. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's your dad, right? That was my dad playing the game. Yeah, my dad in that picture was probably about 88, 89 years old. Another IAAPA show, I think. That's our dealer, one of our dealers in Germany, that's Pinball Universe. So they're really great and they have a show at the end of this month where I don't know where I'm going at the end of this month. If I'm going to the Dutch event or their event or I don't know where I'm going. I'm going somewhere, it makes two of us, I don't even know. That's when I was in France in April. On my way up to the north of France I got to stop at the Louvre. So for me, you know, it's not all work, you know, it's terrible what I do, you know, I'm so blessed, I thank God, but I got to spend the day at the Louvre and that was pretty cool. I didn't know you could shoot things out of your fingers like that. Yeah, you know, it was really weird. I just stuck my, you know, it was a weird picture, Butch. I didn't know that was there, and I stuck my hands up like the president of France. Yeah, and I formed a W, which maybe it means wizard. I don't know. Somebody noticed that other than me. I didn't even realize that. Victory. victory victory so I throw in some old pictures that's something that used to be me when I was 14 years old and that's me on social media breaker one says on CB radio it was great it was great to get to talk to people and bring me kind of out of my shell of course the case on my radio is open because I had my hands in it, always modifying things and always tinkering with electronics and learning. So that was a lot of fun. That was in high school. I like the cowlick on the back of my hair. I don't think I have that now. And I was probably doing something with a signal generator or something like that. Who the hell knows? I don't know. That's the guy that hired me in amusement business this was his 70th birthday and this is in 1996 I had one of those Bert Reynolds kind of mustaches yeah and Heinz Heinz taught me about fixing electromechanical pinball machines I was only going to do it for six months do your hands voice yeah yeah I'm sorry you know he asked me some important questions before he hired me he said you You know how was Salo? Yeah. You know, you know, yeah. I like Ohio. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun. He was a great guy. He passed away about six months after this. And, you know, maybe there's a magnetron out there. I didn't see one or a card with us. I know I played a Royal flush and this is circa 1975. One of those great famous sweaters that my mom did to me. I still have the sweater. I can't throw it away. I still have the screwdriver. Yeah, I do have one in one of my tool sets. This popped up on Facebook the other day. It was actually the 43rd year that I'm in the industry, September 5th, 1975. And it popped up on my Facebook. And, of course, I took a picture with the wrong game. Bigfoot. I should have taken a picture with Bigfoot. Everybody wanted to know where that went. But it was very cool. This was at a show in, at the Conrad Hilton in Chicago. No shows were attended by thousands of people. This is just slightly a few years later. If you go back and forth, you can see, go back one butch, you know, you can see that the game really didn't change. Yeah, the machine still looks good. Yeah, the machine looks good. I kind of look okay, you know. You're hanging in there. Still got, still got most of my senses about me. You know, it's pretty good. Oh wow, this is my favorite. So this I know is your favorite. So the timeline of this is March of 1977. It's probably Easter Sunday. Well, I've got news for you. I'll give you the timeline, Jonathan. So this is Easter Sunday, 1977, which is March. And Saturday Night Fever did not come out until November of 1977. John Travolta copied it. Absolutely, without question. You know, everybody in Brooklyn who weighed 120 pounds looked like that. So that was pretty much it. That was my disco days. And, you know, Jonathan, if you played some disco last night, you would have seen me dance like John Travolta. But you missed your opportunity. So the next time you DJ, we'll have to get on the floor and show you what we used to do in Brooklyn years ago. And don't ask him to do car wheels either. Right. That's okay. So, Jen put this picture up a long time ago, my daughter Jen, and you know, you didn't know that I like pirate games, right? So, if you didn't know, this Captain Kidd, who the heck made that one? Not Gottlieb, no. That was like Sagasa, one of those companies that was a Spanish game, and that was at my parents' basement. that is New Year's Eve 1977. So that's where that is. I don't have those pants, belt or shirt anymore. I wouldn't be able to fit in them anyway. It was probably a 25 waist and now I'm a 30 waist so it wouldn't happen. You're 26? No, I could lose a couple of pounds. Thank God you lost that mustang. Well, you know, I did shave it a few years ago. That's 1990 at IAAPA. And that Wally and Dinah Roberts They were big concessionaires They big owners of amusement centers in Coney Island And so this is before amusement games went to the amusement park show This was strictly a show for amusement park operators and concessionaires. There were no video games there, there were no pinball machines there. And this was in Washington, D.C. I took a train ride down for the day and came back up. And I said, how come there's no games here? And now IAAPA is the premier event for our industry to showcase new games out in the commercial side of things. This is one of our open houses at the factory. We used to do this every year until it became crazy because there's no room in the factory anymore for anything. So this is 2015. And it was a lot of fun. These guys, that's Ryan C. on the left from Australia, and that's Charlie from New York in the middle, and that's Dave from Arms Lays. I think this is a couple months ago, I'd like you to visit. As I said, everybody's welcome, whoever they are. Knock on the door, ring the bell, come on in, and we'll show you what a pinball factory is. Dave has been there a long time. Dave's been there from the beginning. You've got a J.J.P. game. He put on your slingshots and pop-ups. Yep. Yeah, great guy. He's always working at the first few stations. This is an IAPA show, and it's Charlie and his brother. Every year that we do IAPA, what do they ask me for, Butch? They ask you for passes, right? Can you get me in the show? Yeah. And then the next thing you know, he's got passes for his wife or something. So one of these guys will be wearing his wife's pass, you know, Joanne. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. Yeah, then they trade off and they meet somebody at the door and hand it to them It's getting harder to do that all week now they scan you and if they scan you twice They want to take your bedroom. So there are any of those thinking benches We get people from all kinds of news media and things like that it happens that Dave's in this picture too This is on the boutique line. We have a small line in the back of the building and at this point we're building Wizard of Oz there. So we'll have the big line building right now building pirates and the small line building dial in right now. But you know we get a lot of press in there. We're involved in a lot of different charities. We never say no and we get involved either donating money or games or games at discount and things like that. This was at, I think this was up in New Robert Englunds where the Patriots play this what customers is involved and aboard Lucy with the 200 foundation so it's pretty cool there's a pride and joy in my life my son and daughter that's Jack and Jen and they both involved in the business and it's very cool to be in the background yeah Vinnie in the background my brother my dad so this was at IAAPA maybe three years ago maybe he's about 89 there 90 he's 92 now he's doing pretty good I talk to him every day he's on Facebook all the time he's tweeting and social media and he makes more sense than some politicians that tweet. He's got his own badge too. He's got his own badge. He's not going in there with your badge. He's got his own badge. This is my granddaughter Olivia and she loves pinball this is probably about a few months ago she just turned two and she goes and climbs under the game puts the game on her climbs on the chair and spots the game as soon as she can reach one flipper she reaches one flipper and flips it and she's she's gonna be a pinball player for sure loves it yeah this is you know somebody asked me what my next businesses, so I threw this in there. I'm going to go to Hawaii if the storms... In fact, Hurricane Olivia is going to Hawaii, so I thought that was kind of funny. This is my coconut stand in Hawaii, so I figure it's going to be easier than having a pinball company. There on the right side is all my inventory. In the middle is my workspace with my machete, and on the left side is my waste product, so it's a pretty easy... It's pretty easy. Tommy, where are you going? Okay, well don't go anywhere. Hi Sue. Got an extra one, Butch. So speaking of Tommy, we found Tommy at his outdoor office before. It's hard to edit. But wait a minute, don't go anywhere. We found Tommy at his outdoor office and he was, and then we found Tommy at his indoor office. Go back, Butch. What did you do? Jack, he's out of water. So he's, yeah, he's had his indoor office there. He was just hanging out. You know, he had to go find some peace and quiet to take care of the customers, what he always does. He said he found us. We're really proud that he's our distributor, and he is great. You know, they take care of everybody as if they want to be taken care of, and it's really a wonderful thing that you guys are involved in. I love you guys. I really do. So I'll text you the pictures. You can put them up on your website, certainly. And that's all I have. If anybody has any questions, I'm willing to... You have a question? I'm just wondering about your themes of your games, and how does that get decided, what your next theme is? And being from Jersey Shore, are you going to do a Bruce Springsteen game? So, you know, what I look for, I look for family-friendly themes. I'm not like a blood and guts kind of guy. I'm not into that. There's nothing wrong with that, but, you know, I'm not into the little guns and blood and everything. I think pinball should be really fun. So I kind of pick things that are fun. And Bruce Springsteen, you know, loved pinball, and he sings about it in a bunch of songs and everything. So if this podcast and its form makes its way to Bruce and he wants to do a pinball machine, just call me. 1-800, what's my phone number? Stand up. 433-JACK. 1-800-473-JACK. So Bruce, if you're out there and you want to do a pinball machine, let me know. Yes? How many have you shipped? We probably shipped about 1,600 so far. Did you get one? Okay. Okay. Well, there's still time for it. It's still time. Next. Jonathan, you can ask questions anytime. Yes, good. I know. It's okay. Wait, let me come up there with the microphone. It will be more fun to ask in the public. So last year at Expo, you reviewed Pirates, and it's taken quite some time to get it into production. Take the mic. Take the mic. Quick. Did you, well you briefly mentioned that Pat Lowry's next game is scheduled for next year, so there's not going to be a refill at Expo this year? I didn't say that, you said that. I think I was getting confused by the word. I don't know. You know, the model that we're on really is to show a game and ship the game. personally I'm tired of pre-orders I'm tired of showing things and then people have to wait like six months or a year I think it's better you know how would you feel if you walked across the street to the restaurant and ordered something and you're hungry right now and the guy says okay give me five dollars for this twenty dollar meal and come back in three months and I'll give you your dinner so it's a wacky thing in general we're all wacky you know we want our toys I think it's better if It's better if I have a game and I can get their game. That's what I'd rather do. Right now, it doesn't mean that we might not show a game in October. So you'll have to stay tuned and see what we do next month. But you're very astute to ask those questions. Thank you, . Oh, thank you, John. Very astutely evaded, too. Yeah. It's not even an answer, eh? I think we've got a little bit of a hubster. of the company. Oh, that's pretty well documented. You don't know it though. My flight leaves me a little bit. So, you know, I have a company called pinball sales.com. So that company I started like in the end of 1999 to sell amusement games, not only pinball, but other games to the home market. And really at the time, nobody was doing that. And I was laughed at by a lot of amusement industry people. And they said, you know, you'll be out of business in six months. Christmas only comes one time a year. You know, fast forward, from the bell tolls, you know, we became Sternpinball's biggest distributor in the world. We sold thousands of their games over many years. Around 2009 or so, in the recession, we went from selling more than 1,000 games a year to about 50 games a year. A lot of people thought it was the economy. I kind of thought it was games that maybe didn't appeal to all of our customers. So in 2010, I was thinking about, you know, doing this thing. And here's what happens, you know. If you ever have dinner parties or you're a cook or you invite people, somebody comes to you and says, you know, why don't you open a restaurant? That would be the greatest thing in the world. And I'll come there and, you know, it'll be great, you know and so a lot of people would tell me why don't you open a company and build pinball machines you know so you know it like me telling you right now you know climb to the top of this building and leap off and do a somersault and then land in this little glass of water I knew it was extremely difficult I used to be at the factory with Gary Stern, 8 o'clock at night, picking screws off the floor and throwing them back into the bins. So I wasn't really completely uneducated, educated so anyway by January 1st of 2011 I went on a little podcast and I announced that I'm going to start Jersey Jack and I didn't want to name it after myself a lot of customers that's my pen name in replay magazine I've been writing for more than 15 years of replay I didn't like the name either because I'm from Brooklyn so when they named me that I didn't want that name so they gave me the name it stuck that was it now you signed it on everything then nine days later a lot of people wanted to order game that nobody saw we didn't have a factory and I said okay let people preorder this thing and help. It probably not going to happen. I never doubted it but I thought it was kind of like far reaching you know and I picked the number $6500 which was probably like as much as a pinball machine cost in those days. And the first day we got about 130 orders people you know put down 250 bucks and PayPal locked my account and thought it was a scam and then explained to them what I was doing. The next day we got like 150 orders they locked the account they said I explained what I was doing again and they said well you can't have a PayPal account because you have to ship something in 90 days you can't ship something in like a year and a half so you know I brought in a lot of good people from the industry to design the game you know Joe also was here before. He was the lead designer of Wizard of Oz. It wasn't a one-person thing. It was a lot of people thing, a lot of collaborative effort. And it was difficult. Mike's story that you heard before, for those fortunate enough to hear his story, there's a lot of easier things to do than starting a pinball company. And luckily, the people that bought games in the beginning and waited, we thought in a year and a half we would have games. It wasn't a year and a half, it took 27 months. We lost a lot of money in the beginning because the game took longer to make and cost more to make. Because guess what? It's life. It's always going to take longer and cost more. We put more into the game. And the testament to what we put in the game is out there. To me, it's still a great game. Somebody told me yesterday, you know, I've been playing My Wizard of Oz for a little while and I put it on and it's amazing. Amazing. I forgot how amazing it was. So it changed a lot of things. Years ago, when there was only one company building games, there were only a few shows a year. Now there's a few shows every weekend. There was nobody making pinball mods. There wasn't everybody and their grandma thinking, well, if that idiot can start a pinball company, I can go start a pinball company. So competition is good. It raises the bar for everybody. Yeah, prices went up, but you know what, you can't buy a Bentley for 20 grand. You know, if you want to buy something really good, like our games, we believe our market is going to cost a little more because it takes a lot more to make what we're making. So it's a little bit more difficult, and we appreciate the customer's loyalty. So that's kind of like the very short version of that story. I'm not ready to yet sit in the rocking chair and look back in the rearview mirror. maybe about 40 years from now, Jonathan will say to me, you know, one of those big gigantic books that I make, let's write something about how you crazy start a pinball company. I don't know if I want to really go down that road, but, you know, maybe, maybe not. Sooner, I don't know. We'll see. We're all young. We have some time, hopefully. Anybody else? So, yes. Well, they can go two ways, right? They can go up or down. I guess they can go sideways, too. So, yeah. So, look, you know, I think the cycle of pinball we're at is right about here, going that way. You know, economy or not, the good economy is great because, you know, most of what we sell, we sell everything nobody needs, right? Unfortunately, the operator side of the industry, it's, you know, more operators are adopting pinball machines and they're making money with them, but they're typically operators that love pinball anyway. So they buy something for X thousands of dollars, they operate it, it's a component of their business, and then they might sell it later pretty close to what they bought it for. You know, it's not a lead item. If I put a pinball machine into a great family entertainment center, a game like The Wizard of Oz at a really good amusement center might make $100 a day. But a cream that picks up tickets might make $1,000 a day. So if the cream is $5,000 and the pinball machine is $5,000, which it's not, the return on investment is what people care about. But there is a place for pinball. Going to China is good. I mean, we can't even build enough pinball machines to satisfy the world markets that we have now. So if tomorrow China said to us, the country has won, said, hi, we want 10,000 pinball machines. That's a problem. I've got people that ordered 1,000 pirate games that are still trying to get out of the building. So we can't build them fast enough, and that's a good problem. It's a problem. It's a good problem to have. I mean, I could have games written over your Bible, so it could be worse. But I think you're going to see a lot more pinball shows and more people coming into the hobby side of things, more families. years ago these shows were what I call us freaks and geeks, you know, primarily guys that didn't shower in a week or two playing the pinball tournaments and, you know, if there was one girl at the show, like every guy was like following the girl, you know, now you see women, families, children, gee, you know, it's becoming more mainstream, so that's a good thing, you know, that's a good thing. Yes? So the visuals, you're talking about the animation on the screen and everything like that. One of our people is a really talented guy, JP, that went from Holland. And he's been with us from the beginning. And he's just an amazing asset to the company because he does all that. He does the work of 10. He does the work of 10. The guy's amazing. Let me ask you one more question. Listen, he's okay. He's all right. He's all right. He's okay. Yeah, he's just okay. Yes. I have a question, but internally, what's driving the logic inside of the shelf PC? What, you want to answer that? Yeah, I can. I mean, I can answer it, but you've got to do something. I paid for this trip, so say something. I think you're killing me from switching slides here. Killing me? Yeah, it's a commercial off the shelf CPU board. the Intel processor and we're changing that a little from time to time because they're so quickly obsolete, you know, the CPU boards. But yeah, we're running them off of commercial, a lot of USB control, the lights USB control to the I.O. board which then, you know, has all the field effect transistors on the VTTs that drive all the coils and the motors and the lights and everything else. Yeah. And that's why you can update with a USB stick and download an update. Just put it in through the coin door and it'll download the software script, connect it right back up into the box and you'll see the USB ports all over the place. In the beginning, you know, I was criticized for putting a computer in the game. And maybe rightfully so. You know, other people had other ideas to put a dedicated board in there because maybe that computer in years to come is going to be obsolete and everything like that. You know, maybe in years to come there's going to be a little chip in your head this big also. I don't know what's going to happen in years to come. But you know what I know? You know that out there we're fixing pinball machines that are like 60 years old, 70 years old. So in the long run, some enterprising individual will figure out what the heck to put in the game. There's a lot of motherboards in the world. Somebody will figure out what to put in there instead. Or keep it running. Or make it into an electromechanical unit. Anybody else? Jonathan, you talked out. You're okay? Good. So I just want to thank everybody again. And for me, some people say to me, gee, you came out from New Jersey, and it's a long way to come. I came from New Mexico. It's not a long way to go. Yeah, you came from New Mexico, but you're not going home, though. You're going to saunter down to Seattle. I've got some friends I can hang out with. Yeah, you're going to go to Seattle. You're going to be at Seattle Pinball Museum. You're going to take care of repairing some of Charlie's stuff there and help him out. I'll be in his picture. Do some hand-holding with him and his dog. And his lovely wife. So me, I get to come out here for a half hour, and I get back on a plane today. And I'll land in New Jersey, hopefully at 6.30 tomorrow morning. So, you know, but I do appreciate being here. Thank you. You guys, if you get a chance, talk to anybody in a purple shirt around here. They're fixing games. They're doing all this for you guys, for people like Jack and I, be able to come and just hit the ground and start start bingling and talking with people of like mine that's because tommy creates a place for us all and all these guys are working hard

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 47d4cf59-56ad-4091-a85f-7384642dddc5*