# EP09 Joshua Yates **Source:** The Pinball Studio Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2025-12-11 **Duration:** 45m 48s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://thepinballstudio.podbean.com/e/ep09-joshua-yates/ --- ## Analysis Joshua Yates of Go City Pinball discusses his journey from casual arcade player in the 1980s to competitive pinball enthusiast, collector, and small-time operator in Savannah, Georgia. He shares his discovery of pinball through classic machines at Georgia Tech (Addams Family, Star Trek TNG), his first tournament experiences, his personal collection of ~14 machines, and a recent five-week camper van road trip visiting pinball arcades across the US that culminated at Texas Pinball Festival. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Josh purchased his first pinball machine around 2011-2012, a Data East Star Wars, which he fully restored including re-rubbering and board-level repair. — _Josh directly states timeline and restoration details in autobiographical narrative_ - [HIGH] There was only one pinball machine on Pinball Map in Savannah when Josh discovered the map—a Fish Tales at a pizza place on the islands. — _Josh recalls discovering pinball map and finding only one machine in Savannah at that time_ - [HIGH] Josh is currently running three games on route in Savannah: Jurassic Park, Godzilla, and Deadpool. Godzilla out-earns Deadpool two-to-one; Jurassic Park (at Two Tides microbrewery) out-earns all of them. — _Josh provides specific revenue comparison data for his routed machines_ - [MEDIUM] Most commercial operators in Savannah make their primary income from video poker machines and Georgia lottery devices, making pinball secondary and less well-maintained. — _Josh characterizes Savannah operator landscape based on his observations of neglected machines_ - [HIGH] Josh took a five-week camper van road trip starting from Savannah, visiting pinball arcades from Georgia to Texas, visiting Game Galaxy in Smyrna Tennessee, and attending Texas Pinball Festival. — _Josh provides detailed itinerary and specific arcade names visited_ - [HIGH] Josh wrote about his road trip experience in Nudge Magazine issue #5. — _Josh states he was published in Nudge #5 with an article about his pinball road trip_ - [MEDIUM] Adams Family pinball machines have increased dramatically in price from ~$4k to over $10k, with rough examples now selling for $8-9k. — _Sterling Martin notes price escalation; Josh confirms he bought his Adams Family earlier when prices were lower_ - [HIGH] Josh's first tournament was an IFPA-sanctioned event at Fernandina Beach Pinball Museum in Jacksonville run by Cody Miller. — _Josh recounts his first tournament experience with specific location and organizer name_ ### Notable Quotes > "I didn't know you could own pinball machines. I thought it was just kind of a commercial thing." > — **Joshua Yates**, ~15:20 > _Marks the pivotal moment when Josh realized home pinball ownership was possible, leading to his purchase of his first machine_ > "Anybody that owns pinball machines will tell you that you buy one and they tend to multiply. One's never enough." > — **Joshua Yates**, ~21:00 > _Characterizes the typical collector experience of exponential machine acquisition, relatable to most pinball enthusiasts_ > "Nobody cares. And that's the worst thing, too. It's like, cause it's just all gets in your head and you get, it's really you getting in your head." > — **Joshua Yates**, ~31:00 > _Reflects on tournament anxiety and how self-consciousness, not actual judgment, inhibits new player performance_ > "It's just like a great community everywhere you go, like total strangers. Like, oh, you're into my nerdy thing too. Yeah, let's go." > — **Joshua Yates**, ~62:00 > _Expresses the welcoming, inclusive nature of the pinball community encountered during his road trip_ > "I don't really make a lot of money on it. I did get somewhere else to put games that I'm out of space for, so I got to keep buying games and put them out somewhere." > — **Joshua Yates**, ~41:00 > _Reveals that his motivation for operating is more about justifying game purchases and gaining space rather than profit_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Joshua Yates (Josh) | person | Pinball operator, collector, and competitive player based in Savannah, Georgia; founder of Go City Pinball; recently completed cross-country pinball road trip | | Sterling Martin | person | Host of The Pinball Studio Podcast; operates Pinball Studio arcade in Savannah; close friend of Josh who has cared for his machines while traveling | | Al Newman | person | Early pinball collector in Florida with garage apartment collection; introduced Josh to home pinball ownership concept | | Cody Miller | person | Pinball operator in Jacksonville, Florida who organized IFPA tournaments at Fernandina Beach Pinball Museum | | Will | person | Vice president of Pinball Studio; pinball tournament competitor whom Josh met at Texas Pinball Festival | | Go City Pinball | company | Josh's pinball operating business in Savannah, Georgia; operates Jurassic Park, Godzilla, and Deadpool on route | | Pinball Studio | organization | Savannah, Georgia pinball arcade venue operated by Sterling Martin; hosts tournaments and community events | | The Pinball Studio Podcast | organization | Podcast series hosted by Sterling Martin featuring interviews with pinball community members | | Fernandina Beach Pinball Museum | organization | Pinball museum/arcade in Jacksonville, Florida; hosted early IFPA tournaments organized by Cody Miller | | Texas Pinball Festival | event | Major annual pinball festival/tournament in Texas; destination of Josh's road trip where he met other community members | | Game Galaxy | organization | Large arcade in Smyrna, Tennessee visited by Josh during road trip; described as sprawling and massive | | Two Tides | organization | Microbrewery in Savannah where Josh operates Jurassic Park machine; noted as busy location generating strong revenue | | Nudge Magazine | organization | Pinball-focused magazine; published Josh's article about his road trip in issue #5 | | Southern Fried Game Room Expo | event | Annual game room/arcade expo in Atlanta area attended by Josh multiple times; features pinball tournament | | Deadpool | game | Stern pinball machine; Josh's first new in-box game purchase; currently on route in Savannah | | Godzilla | game | Stern pinball machine; on route in Savannah; out-earns Deadpool significantly according to Josh | | Jurassic Park | game | Stern pinball machine; on route at Two Tides microbrewery in Savannah; Josh's top-earning routed machine | | Star Trek The Next Generation | game | Data East pinball machine from mid-1990s; formative game for Josh at Georgia Tech; featured original Star Trek actor voice-overs | | Adams Family | game | Pinball machine played by Josh in college; he owns a high-quality example now displayed at Pinball Studio | | Theater of Magic | game | Pinball machine Josh routed early in his operating career; generated good revenue despite requiring trunk mechanical work | | Data East Star Wars | game | Josh's first pinball machine purchase (~2011-2012); he fully restored it; later routed it at his friend's place | ### Topics - **Primary:** Personal pinball origin story and discovery journey, Transition from casual player to competitive tournament participant, Home collection building and restoration, Small-scale pinball operating/routing business model, Cross-country pinball road trip and arcade tourism - **Secondary:** Pinball community welcoming and inclusive culture, Savannah/Atlanta regional pinball scene and infrastructure gaps, Commercial operator landscape and competition from video poker/lottery machines ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.85) — Josh expresses genuine enthusiasm for pinball, warm appreciation for the community, and joy in both his collection and road trip experiences. Minor frustrations about Savannah's limited pinball infrastructure and early tournament nervousness are presented as retrospective learning rather than ongoing complaints. Overall tone is celebratory and community-focused. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Savannah pinball operator ecosystem is fragmented and underdeveloped; commercial operators prioritize video poker/lottery machines over pinball maintenance (confidence: high) — Josh observes that most Savannah operators make money on video poker and lottery devices, neglecting pinball. He found a Batman 66 with unserviced glass and non-functional switches - **[community_signal]** Pinball road trips and tourism are emerging as community-building activity; operators welcome traveling enthusiasts (confidence: high) — Josh's five-week road trip resulted in generous hospitality from arcade operators nationwide; experience documented in Nudge Magazine #5 - **[sentiment_shift]** Josh characterizes the pinball community as exceptionally welcoming and inclusive, with strangers offering free access and hospitality based purely on shared interest (confidence: high) — Josh states: 'It's just like a great community everywhere you go, like total strangers. Like, oh, you're into my nerdy thing too. Yeah, let's go.' - **[market_signal]** Adams Family prices have escalated significantly from $4-7k to $8-10k+ range, indicating strong collector demand for classic Williams games (confidence: high) — Sterling notes Adams Family now going for 'over 10K' and wonders about rough examples; Josh confirms he bought his before the price surge at ~$7k - **[community_signal]** Josh initially intimidated by tournament play but overcame anxiety by participating in low-pressure pump-and-dump format; learned that self-consciousness rather than actual judgment inhibits performance (confidence: high) — Josh describes anxiety at Southern Fried, first tournament at Jacksonville, and eventual confidence-building through participation and realizing 'nobody cares' - **[product_strategy]** Revenue performance varies significantly between Stern games on route; Godzilla out-earns Deadpool 2:1 despite similar pricing and theme appeal (confidence: high) — Josh reports Godzilla earning twice as much as Deadpool at his locations, suggests game design/rules, location factors, or theme popularity drive operator revenue --- ## Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 9 of the pinball studio podcast. I'm your host, Sterling Martin, and today's sponsors for the show, Old Town Pinball. Do you need a new or used pinball machine? Just head over to oldtownpinball.com. Also, The Electric Playground. Does your game need a new topper? Head over to teppinball.com. Today, I've got my good friend, Josh Yates of Go City Pinball out of Savannah, Georgia. He's a pinball operator, a collector, and a competitive pinball player. So today we're going to learn his story and how he found this crazy hobby we like to call pinball. Anyway, welcome to the show, Josh. How's it going, my friend? Great. Thanks so much for having me, Sterling. Yeah, man. This is going to be a lot of fun. I've wanted to have you on the show for a while now, man. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. But, yeah, we're just basically doing this whole journey into pinball. And I know you've got a pinball story because you've been in the hobby for many years. And, yeah, we usually just start off. What was the first time you ever played? Or do you remember the first time you ever saw a pinball machine? Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, as a kid growing up in the 80s, I spent a lot of time in arcades. I loved arcades. um played a lot of video games you know there was often pinball there in the back and um i don't think i played it too much back then i never really was super into it i was more into you know i really liked joust when it came out and i was like into uh you know the mario brothers games and then street fighter and then mortal combat and all that stuff um as far as like a first pinball memory i remember going to a water park in orlando i grew up in florida and uh there was this water park wet and wild and uh i remember taking wanting to take a break getting out of the hot florida sun and uh there was like this cabana that had uh a black hole gotley black hole and i think even at the time that was probably an older game uh so it was i don't i don't know what that what is that like an 80 82 game or something like that this had to yeah something like that i've only played that game a couple times ever it's pretty cool you know i had had speech in it and i had multiball but i you know i put a bunch of quarters in it just killing time not knowing what i was doing just you know flapping the flippers and uh and then all of a sudden this multiball starts and i was like what is this and i that was the first time i realized that there were objectives in pinball i thought you were just trying to keep the ball right right just listening to the cool sounds and seeing the lights and stuff um and then i was like okay wow that was really something and I couldn't figure out how I did it or I couldn't figure out how to do it again, even though I pumped in the rest of my quarters that I had that day. Right. In there. And then, you know, kind of had a good time, just sort of forgot about it. And then eventually I went to Georgia Tech. So I went up to Atlanta for college and that would have been about ninety four. And where I did my laundry at this there was like a rec center there. So I'd go get, you know, there's a change machine there. I get ten bucks and quarters and do my laundry. and then killing time doing the laundry, there were some pinball machines there. And there was an Addams Family. And so I played a bunch of Addams Family. Oh, man. And then they brought in – and I wasn't immediately hooked on Addams Family, but I liked it. I spent a lot of time on it. And then I think next to that they had a Daddy Star Trek. And then they swapped out the Daddy Star Trek for Star Trek The Next Generation, and I was, like, hooked on that. I was like, man, this game is amazing because I love the show. And they had all the call-outs and stuff. I think they had the original actors, like, do the voices. Yeah, I believe so. I believe you're right. Which was really cool. And it's just great theme immersion and everything on that game. I never played the Data East game. I always wanted to. Yeah, I think my favorite Star Trek game was probably the Stern one out of all of them probably, though. Oh, the Steve Ritchie one? Yeah. That one's great. That's a great flow on that game. What a great shooter. Yeah, I want to get that game back one day eventually. Haven't you won that game twice, I think? Yeah, the pro. I want to get the premium or the LE this time, though. I want those baked potatoes. So after discovering Star Trek, what was going on after that? Well, then – so that was kind of at this rec center when I lived on one side of the campus. It was called East Campus, and I moved to the other side. And then – so we'd go to the student center, the student union basically to get the mail and everything. And then – and I was young going into college, and so I was never old enough to drink, and I stayed on campus and didn't have a car. So Friday nights and stuff, I'd be at the student center. they had a bowling alley and then that's where they had a lot of the pinball machines they had a big arcade and everything in there and that operator was bringing in all the newest stuff all the time oh that's awesome so you know think about that you know 94 95 96 like all the way some of the best years some of the best years you know where there was attack from mars um theater magic like all the john poppity games oh man broke up soccer um the shadow was one of the a favorite of mine you know i own a shadow now just because i fell in love with it playing it in college right um but yeah all that stuff and they even brought in um i don't think i don't think i remember really any segas but they were bringing in got leaves too i remember playing like teed off and playing uh stargate a lot um actually like stargate i thought that was one of the better it was probably definitely one of the better got leave besides star trek did they get any more daddy's games i'm trying to remember if i i remember playing any more daddy's i surely i don't know if i played it in college i think it was a little older than that but i do remember playing the daddy star wars and that ended up being the first game i ever yeah oh really yeah okay cool when when did you start buying games was that like later on it was much later so um you know i left college and then sort of forgot about pinball didn't really see it around anymore i think that was kind of around the pinball crash right i think you know star wars episode one had just come out and then that was sort of it and then i moved to athens after college and there wasn't really any pinball there. Actually, no, I take that back. There wasn't a Gottlieb Amazing Spider-Man in one of the bars. Out of all the games. Yeah, and I remember a buddy of mine and I, we would go to this bar and it was like the one game there and we would kind of play the equivalent of dollar games. We didn't know what dollar games were, but I think we just, you know, whoever lost bought the next round of beer or something like that. Right. No, that's awesome. So about what age did you think about buying a game? Okay, so then I would go back home to Florida and visit a friend of mine. His name is Al Newman. He was like an early collector. He had had this garage apartment, like apartment over his garage, and he had all these games up there. I was like, I didn't know you could own pinball machines. I thought it was just kind of a commercial thing. He had a collection of pinball machines, and some of them are the ones I remember playing in college. He had a Tales of Arabian Nights up there. He had an Adams family. He had Attack from Mars and all that stuff. Right. I was like, wow, you can own these in your house? And so I had so many questions. You know, I was like, I want to get one of these. And so I'm looking on, you know, Craigslist back at the time. And I think this was probably around 2011, 2012 or something like that. And then, yeah, somebody selling a daddy Star Wars. And I was a big Star Wars fan. I was like, cool, that sounds like a great machine. I'll, uh, you know, want to get one of those and put it in the house and right. Sure enough did. And then, um, you know, figured out how to work on it. I had done a, uh, full like topside teardown, re-rubbered the whole thing. Um, tried to figure out why the left slingshot wasn't working and discovered it was a transistor that was burnt out and trying to figure out what I wanted to do about that. I ended up, I was actually scared of, um, uh, doing board work so i sent that out to somebody right for me on that now that's how i was at first too uh one guy was like all you gotta do is replace this one transistor and that'll work and i'm like i am i was too scared to even unplug it yeah and uh he's like just send me all the boards and i'm like i'll do one at a time i'm like i'll get all this mixed up he's like man i will help you plug all this back in it's not that hard yeah and most of them are keyed anyway so yeah but And yeah, it's an experience the first time for sure. Yeah. But I had gone to school for engineering, and so I discovered I was no longer an engineer by the time I bought a game. I had opened a restaurant. But it sort of was scratching that itch of why I wanted to become an engineer. So I was working on these games. Right. And I was like, man, I really kind of dig this. So I started – one thing leads to another. Anybody that owns pinball machines will tell you that you buy one and they tend to multiply. One's never enough. Like you'll see a deal or something on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or now Pinside. And you'll be like, oh, yeah, I can get another project in here. Oh, they only want $700 for this Evil Knievel? Sure, I'll take that or whatever. So then I just started buying like every project game I would see and like fixing them up for the most part. I bought a few nice games. I thought I had to have like a really nice Addams Family when I first got into this, and I bought a really nice Addams Family. It is very nice. Yeah. And now it's at the pinball studio. Right. On loan. And we all get to enjoy it. Yeah, man. I appreciate it. It's a beautiful game. Yeah. I bet you got it before the hype got too crazy with the prices. I mean, these things are going for over 10K now. I don't even know what a beat-up, magnet-burn, blown-out playfield Adams family is going for now. Like 85 or 9? Really? Because I remember when they were going for 4, and I was like, that's too much money for a rough game. uh yeah and then i paid i don't know what i paid for that game seven or something or or uh and i had it shipped from up north somewhere i was like wisconsin or something okay yeah that was the only game i'd ever have had had shipped yeah i did and i had a good experience with it i wouldn't never not do that again but then right i kind of ended up buying too many games so i'm not not really i was selling a lot of games online at first like i was not against like shipping a game and now i just don't even want to deal with it. And thank God I never had a problem with any games getting damaged because I really didn't know what I was doing back then, packaging them up. Yeah. But, but yeah, so now I have, you know, in my, in my workshop slash apartment studio apartment, I've got, I think 14 games or something like that. And damn, you know, they're not all working and they're in various states of being projects. Well, they all look to be in good shape for the most part. You know, the ones that play, play great. uh, for the most part. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, yeah. And that, so then, you know, getting that and I got so I got the star Wars game It was just like going back to that Right And I wanted to play more So I got really into the Farsight Studios pinball arcade on my PlayStation Yeah. You know, I could download all the old Bally Williams games. Right. And, you know, I kind of, I bought every game that you could get on that thing and was playing those all the time. And then, and that made me, you know, really get into it, like wanting to get really more into pinball. Right. And I found out about – in Atlanta, they were doing the Southern Fried Game Room Expo. So I went up there when they first started doing that, and I've kind of been to almost all of those shows. I missed last year. Yeah, I missed last year too. Yeah, that was pretty cool. And I saw that they had a tournament area, and I was very intimidated by it because those guys knew what they were doing. Right. And they were kind of off on their own thing, and the people looked very serious doing it. And so I was intimidated, and I think I went to that show, that expo, I don't know how many years before I finally decided to heck with it. I'll go in there and enter the tournament this year. Was that your first tournament at Southern Pride? No, I think I dipped my toe and I went down to Jacksonville because I got on the IFPA calendar, and the closest thing was down in Jacksonville. Okay. And this guy, if you know, Cody Miller is down there in Jacksonville. Yeah, I don't know him personally, but I've heard his name. He operates games, and he was doing some tournaments down there. And there wasn't big turnouts back then, but I went to my first IFPA-sanctioned event. It was down there, and it was kind of at the Fernandina Beach Pinball Museum. I think it had just opened up. I think I've heard of that as well too. I don't know. Is it still open? I don't know. I haven't heard much about it. I think when I first jumped in the hobby, I discovered that, like looking around like, where's the places to play? I think Cody went in there and asked if they wanted to run tournaments and he ran a few tournaments for them. And I don't I don't think he continued to do it. Right. But, yeah, we went in there and it was just sort of open qualifying. And then, you know, he took the top four people to the finals or whatever. I didn't make finals. That was my first tournament ever. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had a good time. And Cody was really nice. And, you know, I was like, OK, like and I think that made me get over my fear of like competing because he was just so open and friendly. And so that's when I decided I think next time I went to Southern Friday, I'd play. And that was a pump and dump thing. And that's like actually a little less stressful even though you're in that room with all the very serious people playing pinball. There's not like a bunch of people like watching you play. You're not playing in a foursome. The first time I went to Pinburgh, we were doing that, and it made me very nervous. It's very terrible. I used to not like the four-player games, but I kind of enjoy them more now. I do now. I mean, after after Pemberg and I did so bad there just because nobody even really cares. Nobody's really watching you that closely play. But you think they are. Right. And it's and I let, you know, definitely the nerves. And, you know, it's such a big tournament, too. And like, it's just sort of overwhelming. The first time I ever played, it was the same thing. I was just like nervous, like, oh, they're going to think I'm terrible and all that. I'm like, oh, yeah, I learned later on. Nobody cares. And that's the worst thing, too. It's like, cause it's just all gets in your head and you get, it's really you getting in your head. Oh yeah. And, uh, I was just nervous as hell the whole time. I played like crap. Yeah. And it's easy to say like, just have fun. Uh, but it's harder to do, but you know, knowing that now, like that's when I, that's when I do play the best is when I'm just like, don't care. Let's just have fun. Uh, if I play well, great. If I don't, you know, it's fine too. Right. Yeah. That's what I try to tell everybody when they come and play in the tournaments, you know, that's probably like the number one thing I hear the excuses. I'm not good enough to play in a tournament, but just go there, you know, just, and try to have some fun. Don't worry about winning and all that. You know, that comes later or I guess it could come first, but yeah. Um, so you're collecting pinball machines and you got a pretty good collection. Yeah. At what point did you want to start running a route and like what games did you start with? Yeah, so I wanted to play more pinball, right? I wanted access to more pinball besides having to buy them and find somewhere to put them in my house because I was quickly running out of space, ran out of space with that house. And so that's when I discovered Pinside had a map, and there was the early days of pinball map, and I was like – there was one pinball machine on pinball map in Savannah. Wow. And it was on the islands, and it was a Fishtails. Okay. At this pizza place. It's not there anymore. Okay, I was like, I think there was one at Sandbar at one time or something. Yeah, I can't remember the name of the place. It's like in that shopping center that Wiley's is at. It's a steakhouse now. Okay. But there used to be like a pizza bar there. And so I go in there for lunch one day and I'm like, cool, I'm going to go play Fish Tales. I'm going to get a slice of pizza or whatever. And then the game is just off over there in the corner. I was about to call it, man. I've done the same thing. It was totally, yeah. And I was like, well, crap. and um so yeah i mean so i had a disappointing slice of pizza and went home uh very sad no no more extra pinball and then uh you know and since then there's been a few more um operators that are kind of getting back into pinball uh putting some pinball machines in in locations in in savannah but i think you know that probably it's not what they specialize in from my understanding is that most of those operators make a lot of their money on video poker machines, which are semi-legal in Georgia. Right. And I think a lot of them run the devices that run the Georgia lottery. Right. And so that's their bread and butter. And so they're putting a few pinball machines out here and there when people request them. Is pool tables under the same thing? Yeah, same license. Okay, that's what I figured. And so they're making all their money on that stuff. And so, you know, pinball being harder to operate, needing a lot more tech time and stuff on it. They're just not taking care of those games. And I was kind of bummed out by that. Whenever I would find a game, it would be, you know, rough to play. Right. And, you know, like there was a beautiful Batman 66. That game was a lot of money when it came out. And, you know, we go to play and it looks like nobody's ever taken the glass off of it. Damn. You know, the play feels like totally black and everything and half the switches don't work. I've seen a few games like that in Savannah. Yeah. I mean, it's great. It looks like they're getting played a lot. So that's cool. Yeah, they're making money, I guess. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to dip my toe in it and I'm going to route a few games. I know a few guys that have bars or I know a guy that runs one of the small breweries here. And I talked him into letting me put some brand new sterns in there. Okay. So I'm running a Jurassic Park and a Godzilla and a Deadpool around town. and I don't really make a lot of money on it. I did get somewhere else to put games that I'm out of space for, so I got to keep buying games and put them out somewhere. And I got to justify the cost of buying a new in-box game, which the first time I ever – I've got a pretty decent collection. I've gone through a lot of games, but I never bought a new one until I decided to start putting them on routes. Really? Okay. I would have been nervous as hell with my first new in-box game. Well, I mean, I was too, yeah. definitely, because it's more money than I usually spend. I usually buy broken games and fix them up. Absolutely. And I had my first game out on route. Actually, I put my first game that I ever bought out there. I put that Daddy Star Wars out at my buddy's place and then I added Theater of Magic to it. Theater of Magic made some pretty good money, actually, but that Trunk Mecha was always working on it. Right. Yeah, the Sterns just seemed to keep working for the most part. Yeah, and then I was having all these opto problems and everything else. I can't imagine Star Trek The Next Generation on the phone Mine works great now after Neil went through it But some of those games have tons and tons of optos It's crazy That game's worth some money too And they're not making any more of them So I decided to pull that one home And that's when I bought Deadpool, I guess. That was my first game out there. Deadpool, okay. Yeah. That's a good one to put on route for sure. Yeah. But I've got it set up next to Godzilla, and Godzilla out earns it two to one. Really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You just need two Godzillas. Right. I checked about that. And actually, and probably because the location's a little busier, my Jurassic Park out earns all of them. but it's at a different location. It's at a pretty popular little microbrewery in town, Two Tides. Right. Okay, cool. Very cool. Do you think you'll ever put any more games on round or just three the sweet spot? Well, I mean, it's nice for me because I like to travel and stuff, and you've been kind enough to kind of look after my games while I'm out of town. But, you know, I don't think I have space or the inclination to kind of become a major operator in town and do all that, but I do like having some games out, and people tell me that they enjoy playing mine because they're actually working, you know, as opposed to a lot of fun. You've got the best games downtown by far. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I do like to take pride on keeping them in good shape. And, you know, I put QR codes on all of them so people can report problems and hopefully I can get out to them as soon as possible if anybody has a problem with it. Right. And you've also serviced some games, right? So every once in a while someone will reach out to you to service a game? Yeah. So I set up this website. So that business is called ghost city pinball. And I set up this website and I'm like, Hey, you know, if anybody wants, uh, pinball machines at your business, you know, like fill up this contact form. And so the only contact form, um, contacts I ever get are like, Hey, do you fix pinball machines? Uh, I've got one in this, you know, hasn't worked for years. It's been in this garage and, uh, that's probably the only email I get on my website is, do you work on pinball machines? And, um, you know, when, when I feel like I have the free time, I will go out and take those jobs. And sometimes I'll refer them. There's a guy across the river in Bluffton that works on stuff. And so I'll refer him some work. I think I've referred some work to you. Um, and, um, you know, we know enough people around here. If we can't get to it, we can probably point them to somebody like people on Tybee will contact me. And I think, um, I've asked Neil if he'd go out there and help them and stuff. And he's right. And I think Marcos has put together a list where you can go state by state and see everyone that services games or the people they've approved. Yeah. But, yeah, that's pretty cool. But, yeah, I actually did a real thorough shop job to this woman's Terminator 2. She brought it to me. So I had room in my shop because you had bought that Grand Lizard that that guy bought. Oh, yeah. Dude, I love that game. So when you, when you got that grand lizard out, I had spot, I had a spot on my shop. And so she was able to drop off at Terminator too. And I did a full, like, um, kind of a full job, shop job, shop job on it. And, you know, Ellie did it for her and man, she's just over the moon for it. She's here in Richmond Hill too. I just dropped it off. Uh, kind of not far from you. Awesome. Yeah. Tell her to come to a tournament Well I did She like she like would you ever like bring some games down do a tournament I was like it would be way easier to get people to come to Sterling to get 10 people to drive 10 minutes over to Sterling than to get one person to take 10 games over to your place or whatever. It's fun to do some tournaments. Have you ever thought about doing a tournament? I have, yeah. There's always something I'm working on, and I've been traveling a lot lately. I got a camper van. I guess we're probably going to get into that because I did a little pinball road trip. Oh, for sure. I want to hear all about it. Yeah. But, yeah, I bought this camper van, I guess, kind of the first part of this year. During that snowstorm, I remember I went to go pick it up. Right. And it was an old Amazon van, and this young couple had bought it, and they were like YouTube influencer kids that were like – Oh, really? They did all these series of videos of him building out the van and then them going and like going all these like breweries and stuff all over the country and down into mexico and everything and so okay they traveled all over the place and then i think they had a change uh a family situation change or something and then they put it on the market and sold it for way too cheap and um and i saw it and i was like yeah what take my money like how soon can i get there or whatever and uh right yeah i had been kind of looking for that i've been sort of thinking about kind of doing the whole camper van life a little bit. So unfortunately, my girlfriend works remote and I sold the restaurant. I basically got out of the restaurant business and I had some time on my hands to figure it out, like what am I going to do next? And we've been on a couple of road trips just this year. I think the first one was five weeks and we uh it took us from here savannah georgia to ashville on up to columbus ohio by way of you know indiana and virginia and everything and then tennessee we went in and out of tennessee a few times down in alabama arkansas uh oklahoma and then ended up at texas pinball festival and so we hit all the pinball places along the way um and i took i took my film camera and we took photos of everything and just met so many cool people. And I got to write about it, and it was in the last issue of Nudge Magazine, Nudge number five. And, yeah, it was great. It was just like an awesome time to do that and just see the country and meet all these people that have this common interest. Oh, yeah, it sounds like you had a phenomenal time on the trip. Yeah, I would just kind of reach out to people when we're passing through somewhere. It's like, hey, I'm doing this pinball road trip. I'm coming through. and I might be doing an article for Nudge Magazine. They'd be like, oh, yeah, come on in. We're not open today or I'll let you in or you don't have to pay the admission. Everyone's just like, hey, I'm into pinball. And they're just welcoming you with open arms. It's just kind of a great community everywhere you go, like total strangers. Like, oh, you're into my nerdy thing too. Yeah, let's go. It was a lot of fun. Is there like one major highlight of the whole trip that you – I mean I'd never been to Texas Pinball before, and that was like super cool. And, you know, all the new games and stuff. The one year I don't go, you go to the Texas Pinball Festival. Yeah, yeah. You know, and Will was there. Will has been on this show and who's the vice president, as he calls himself, of the pinball studio. And so we had a good time hanging out with Will. I didn't get into the tournament on that one, but he was grinding away at that tournament. Those tournaments are intense there, man. They go on forever. you gotta be dedicated yeah that was cool yeah highlights i don't know um was there a favorite arcade you visited maybe i mean the i think probably the biggest one i went to was game galaxy in um smyrna tennessee okay that one was massive just a sprawling thing it was very cool um you know there were some highlights there were some low lights you know there was there was a place that were like you know we didn't care for very much i kind of wrote about that in the article um did you get to go to that uh what is it is it next level the one that's got all the like memorabilia and stuff on the walls have you ever seen anything on that arcade yeah yeah i think we did go to next level yeah that one that was cool and um yeah and there and i just went to a lot of cities i'd never been to before that was really cool it's like i really enjoyed cincinnati like what a cool town i like road trips because you get to see everything in between you know when you fly somewhere it's just yeah they're in the you know back home yeah and doing the way we did it you know like we we only like to drive about two hours or 200 miles a day and so um and a lot of times we would do that off interstate you know we would just take state roads and stuff oh yeah back roads and stuff so you could see the real country that way awesome yeah yeah it sounds like that trip was freaking awesome yeah it was awesome yeah we kind of made our way back on the Gulf Coast and went to some cool places. We went to Emoto's Place in Gulf Shores, Alabama. I've really wanted to stop there. Captain Crazy's Paradise. They have cool merch too, man. I bought their hat and their t-shirt. They have a cool logo. I've got to make it out there eventually. That was fun. They have those golf simulators there too. I saw that on one of her social media videos. I've never tried one of those. It looks interesting. you shoot it at like a projector screen or something yeah that place was cool oh there was like Cactus Jacks in Oklahoma City that place was fun yeah they had a great lineup and I think Dungeons and Dragons had just come out and Brandy my girlfriend loves that game she's a big D&D nerd anyway and so we played that like everywhere all over the all over the country it seemed like everybody was getting it I need to play that game some more I probably haven't played that game but like three or four times I delivered it to the pinball palace and I didn't even play it that day I've only played it on location so I never really got to sit and spend a lot of time on it anywhere because I think it's such a deep Dwight Sullivan rule set you really have to spend a lot of time on his games to sort of put them a click in your head it sounds like a game you want to play at home so you can kind of get deep into it and I think it tracks your progress if I remember correctly. Yeah, and I think there's been some rule changes and I haven't played one recently and I'd like to see kind of where it is now. Awesome. So you mentioned to me previous to the show that you may have did another road trip too? Yeah, so that was spring. Summer we did another one. I think it was about six weeks and we went up kind of all the way east coast. We went up through Maine, Montreal and back. And we hit pinball places on that one too. and that was really cool. We didn't do as much pinball I think on that one, but we hit some really sweet spots. I think some highlights was Arcadia in Portland. I'll tell you about this bar. There's a lot of pinball bars that have a lot of things in common. Kind of nerdy. A lot of guys maybe that look like you and me there. This one in particular was a younger crowd and it was a sexy bar. It was a place where you would take a date to. I mean, I don't know. I've never been to one of theirs. Yeah, right? I was like, how did they pull this off? They made a pinball bar sexy. And I showed up there and I didn't realize it was like a league night or something and they had already started. But everybody there was super friendly and just chatting with people. And it was just good drinks there too. It was a very cool place. That place was a highlight. And then the other highlight was in Montreal, a place called North Star and the owners were like just working there behind the bar and they're just like really cool people. Canada has interesting rules I think as far as I think the owner told me that they weren't allowed to have match like they weren't allowed to have free games because of the laws there I think. I can't remember and maybe that might have been part of it. I think the extra balls were turned off for the same reason which was interesting. yeah extra balls i guess it's like or maybe like gambling in a way yeah they can't like give anything away for playing an amusement game or something okay yeah very weird yeah i can't award you anything but uh that place was i don't know just cool vibes like like i went there in the middle of the day and they were like they're playing jazz in there which was also like very different from any other pinball bar and i really liked it you know that sounds cool man and uh yeah and just the owners were so cool and like um you know they had cool merch too i think the uh the the owner said he had designed like the shirts and stuff and i bought a couple shirts i figured i put on some jazz oh yeah very smooth yeah i don't know if i could play pinball to that you have to be the right kind of pinball the weirdest thing i ever experienced well i didn't experience it uh i was looking for a place to play in greenville south carolina it's up near North Carolina and there's this place called Pinky's Revenge. And I'm just like reading some reviews on this place. I went to that on your recommendation. Read the reviews, man. It's crazy. It's like, I went there. It was a really hot situation. A lady was walking around with a python. Yeah. Oh, that place was great. We did hit that on this East Coast trip. We did go to Pinky's. Okay, cool. And they let us stay the night there, first of all. Really? Which was cool in the van because we're always just kind of looking for a place to crash that we don't have to pay for. Right, right. You know, because our van's kind of self-sufficient. It's got solar panels. It charges itself. And, you know, we just have to, like, dump the tank every once in a while. It's got to be creepy back there at night. No, it was actually really cool. All right. So for those that don't know, Pinky's in this area of Greenville, it's an old mill. It was an old, like, textile mill that was closed. And then they've done a bunch of – they're trying to reinvigorate the area. And there's, like, a microbrewery there and a wood-fired pizza place. Axe throwing. Yeah, something like that. There was a – and they were just closing up because I thought it was such a cool thing. I was like they had a model railroad museum back there. I've seen that. I've never went back to it, but I keep seeing the sign. I walked back there, and they were kind of like locking it up as we were going in there. It's an odd place. Like when you're driving back there, I thought I was going to get robbed. But great games there, and the bartenders were super cool. And I think – what was it? I guess it was Pride Month or something. And I don't know what the clientele is normally like there at Pinky's and if they just had a pride event or a parade or something in Greenville. It's usually pinball nerds. But it was – all right. Pinball players. Well, this night, it was very – it was very like – it was karaoke night and it was like obviously queer karaoke night. And we had the best time. It was amazing because they were all just like crushing show tunes and like weirdly good at like pop punk songs and stuff. And it was like – we just had a great time. And I think we stayed there until we closed it down. And we're like, hey, we're definitely not driving anywhere. Are you guys cool if we stay in the parking lot here tonight? And they're like, oh, yeah, totally sure. Yeah. Yeah, they got quite the setup for music. I never been there for karaoke but I seen their big projector and DJ setup and stuff It a cool place That the only other Spy Hunter I ever played on location pinball pinball spy yeah they had some weird stuff there too i think which i always like seeing on these road trips because you don like to see the same you know you don like to play godzilla everywhere you go in every city they'll have like independence day yeah stuff like that they did have an independence day and i hadn't played one of those in so long since i was in college probably you know you know i like that game that game is kind of cool me too um i've seen one for sale a few times now yeah damn i'd like to get that game yeah i mean it's kind of a rare one and it's one of the i think better that era sega you know i like twister too most people hate twister that's one you don't see a lot i think i've only played that once or twice i saw it at a show yeah i played it up in uh shit uh near baltimore somewhere in maryland oh what the hell is that place called neil would know he's played tournaments there crab that crab crab town What is it? Is that what it's called? Brantown, USA. That's a cool place. If you're ever out that way, definitely go to that arcade. It's like a really good seafood restaurant on one side. On the other side, I don't know, 50-ish pinball machines. Neil told me about that. I was in D.C. or something for a weekend. He said, yeah, go to this place. I look it up, and it's in Baltimore. Baltimore's not far from D.C., but it's not in D.C., and it's not really as far as I wanted to drive to go play pinball. Yeah, even I was staying with my buddy in Baltimore, and it was still a drive from there. But it's a cool place. It's got a bunch of those weird titles you don't see every day, too. Hell, that was the first time I seen F-14 since I was, like, younger. I remember seeing F-14, and I was like, oh, cool. That's right. That was part of your pinball story. Yeah, that was actually kind of, like, made me want to look for one. Like, oh, I'm seeing one for the first time. Let me try to find this game. I, you know, had Back to the Future for a couple years by then. yeah i have an f-14 project i still haven't started you still haven't messed with it wow no i've i've just had a lot of projects and then the travel you know has kind of put a damper on all the project activity well the traveling sounds fun though man you've uh do you think you're gonna go to texas this year you're gonna take take the year off oh yeah i think maybe try a different show we'll see yeah yeah i've been doing a lot of photography stuff and I've been traveling some for that and going to workshops and some photo festivals and stuff. So that's kind of been taking a lot of my calendar time up, travel time. But, yeah, we'll see. I'd like to get back to Expo. I'm definitely going to go to Expo this year. I need to go to that one. That's the only big show I've ever done is Expo. If I can get into the Pinball Olympics. If I can get Brandy and I into the Pinball Olympics. That's what everyone tells me. They're like, that's better than the damn show. Yeah, I mean, it is a great show. Don't get me wrong. Expo is probably one of the top tier shows. Or it's a fun event at the show that you don't want to miss. Yeah, but there's nothing like Pinball Olympics. That is a must do in your lifetime. I've been twice and Brandy wasn't able to come with me last time when I went, but she's definitely interested in it. And so we want to try to get in. You got to be hitting that F5 key, I think, when those tickets go on sale now because everybody knows about it. The first time I went, it was like, okay, you probably had an hour to buy tickets, and now it's like you have one second to buy tickets before they sell out or something. Yeah, on Pinball Life, right? I think that's how you buy them over here. Yeah, it's on the Pinball Life website. Yeah, I need to go one year. Maybe I'll try to hit Expo this year. I don't feel like I need to do any of the factory tours. I did that recently. You've done those, yeah. It was cool. I don't need to do it again now, so I'd rather just go do the fun stuff. Yeah, I think I did all the factory tours and previous expos except for Jersey Jack because I think they had sold that one out and I didn't get a pass to that one in time or something. If you've been to a few of them, you get the gist. Yeah, I get the idea. I've been to American Pinball. Oh, wow. Okay. Never been there. Won a few. They got to see it before it was – well, I guess it's still there. Yeah, I don't know what's going on with these guys. They're building those ski ball machines or something. Yeah. well uh is there a any pinball new pinball games on the radar you want to purchase or you pretty much filled up yeah i'm i'm kind of like i probably need to move some stuff out in fact um brandy's favorite game of mine is world cup soccer and so um i needed a space to set up a getaway high speed 2 project that i just bought so world cup soccer made it made its way over to her house on temporary, probably permanent forever loan. So, yeah, I need to move some stuff first. But it doesn't seem like a good time to sell games. I was trying to sell an Evil Knievel for a while, and nobody was really into it. Dude, it's tough, man. You've got to give them away, like, anymore. And it's like, man, I'm losing a buttload of money on this. Yeah, everyone was beating me up on price. Like, I'll buy it for half of that. And I'm like, well, somewhere in the middle. I did sell a game last week. Did you? You might be mad. What did you sell? Pulp Fiction, Ellie. No. But I did get what I wanted. That was like the only game recently. Nine. No, what game? Oh, okay. Oh, I thought you meant you were getting enough game. No, I'm lame this time around. Well, you're in line for Beetlejuice. I'll get Beetlejuice and probably whatever Ellen's working on. You need the space and the cash for that Beetlejuice. Oh, yeah. Damn, hobby's so expensive. It really is. It really is. Yeah, I think I'll probably sell a couple games this year to kind of freshen the lineup. That's my thing. Like, I feel like they're all replaceable for the most part, other than, like, ultra-rare games. But, I mean, if it's just a regular old Stern or, I mean, even Pulp Fiction, that's not a hard game to really come by, I don't feel. But, like, Grand Lizard, that was kind of a weird one you don't see every day. No, and I've been enjoying playing that at our leagues and your place. That was a good buy, for sure. Yeah, it was the right price and I think it was an easy shop job. Yeah, it wasn't bad. Oh, yeah, there was like a short in the head. It was a pain in the ass to find the short, but once I found it. Now that's my new thing. Like if you're looking for a short like where the head folds down, look all in there where it could get pinched. Was the wire pinched? Is that what it was you found? Yeah, it got pinched and like 50 times it got pinched. But yeah. Now I've got a millionaire out in my building. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. It's not mine. It's another guy in the group. That's actually not a bad game. I played that. There's a place in Asheville that had it. And I don't think I'd ever really spend any time on it. It's rare, too. It has this reputation as being the worst System 11 game. Oh, it does? And I was like, well, I've got to see if it lives up to the hype or down to it and the notoriety. And I had fun playing it. The call-outs are terrible and the theme has gone awful. I usually love the games that people hate Like Spy Hunter I freaking love Spy Hunter I like the weird games It has a weird skill shot that's kind of fun I thought it was It's not the best SESM 11 game I'll play a taxi all day over that God Sold my taxi to Pinball Palace I'm an idiot Well you can still go play it You can come play mine I have a feeling I'll probably own another one Mine's not as pretty as yours but it shoots better I think Yeah, I'm shot like shit after I rebuilt it. Shouldn't have ever touched it. Everyone told me don't touch it. It plays great. But that's how it goes. Yep. I'm kind of scared to do any more restorations after that. Oh, well. I kind of want to do. I kind of want to put a play field in T2. Oh, really? It doesn't look bad. I would leave it. I'm just crazy, man. Also, that game is like, it's not a ton or anything. I don't know if I'd do that for a T2. I just love the theme. It's the theme. I'm like, I really wish another manufacturer would pick up T2 because, dude, that theme needs to be revisited. I think that game, just as is, is just a classic. It's a real classic. It's flowy. There's not a whole lot to do, but it's flowy. Yeah, I mean, code-wise there's not much to do, but great theme integration with the music and all of that, and even made the canon kind of fun. Yeah, the single canon instead of two of Star Trek But yeah, I think it's a pretty cool game And you've got the custom callouts by Schwarzenegger So when did you start Ghost City? How many years ago was that? When was that? I had to start that for To put games out You have to incorporate You have to get this license with the state of Georgia So when did I start doing that? You know, that's probably 2012, 2014. Oh, okay. So it's been quite a few years. That era. Yeah. Yeah, because I had the Star Wars out for a while. Man. At Data East. I've seen Star Wars once at Texas Pinball Festival. Oh, really? And I played that game a bunch of times. They made a ton of those games. I think it's cool. A bunch of people hate that game, too. Or I feel like they hate it. I don't love working on those Data East games of that era. I do. Yeah, well, that's all you had. That's how you learned. Yeah, yeah. So I was like, that was the only thing I was comfortable with touching. But yeah, I hear that from a lot of people. I hate working on them. I worked on a customer's daddy's Star Wars after I sold mine. I was like, oh, cool, I'll get to play it some more. But I was just cursing that game by the end of it. It had so many problems with it. Every time I fix something, I would find something else wrong with it. Have you ever done a play field swap on a game? I have some playfields to swap. They're definitely in the queue. And if you run out of projects, in my apartment, I don't have anywhere to paint. but I've got a, uh, I've got a fathom cabinet that I need to paint. So yeah, if you want to collaborate on that, maybe, maybe, maybe it'll live here at the pinball studio. Yeah. We can work out something. Okay. You don't want me to put the play field apart or I mean together. Well, I can do that. I can do that in my studio. I can, I can do a play field swaps, but I, um, I don't have a garage or anything. Yeah. Paintings, uh, it makes a mess. Yeah. Yeah. Well, is there anything else you wanted to cover in your pinball story? Yeah, I don't, I don't think so. I just wanted to say thanks for having me and thank you for hosting and kind of building the pinball community down here in our part of Georgia. I'm trying, man. Yeah. It's tough. It's been really great to see. I've met a lot of cool people at the pinball studio. That's what I like. You find all these people that live in this area that you never would have known played pinball. You kind of become friends with all of them. It's awesome. How do they get a hold of Ghost City Pinball? So you've got social media or website? Yeah, sure. I'm at GoCityPinball on Instagram. I'm pretty responsive on that. And, you know, there's a Facebook page, and it's all GoCityPinball. GoCityPinball.com. There's a contact us form. You can reach me there. Awesome. Well, go like and subscribe to GoCityPinball. And I hope you come on the show again, man. Cool. Thanks, Charlie. Yeah, anytime, man. Absolutely. Thank you. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 5d574002-5106-4b8a-b2bc-9ece8b8f0c5f*