# Pinball Industry News: April 2020 Re-cap

**Source:** Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2020-05-02  
**Duration:** 104m 11s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pinball-industry-news/episodes/Pinball-Industry-News-April-2020-Re-cap-eidsvo

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## Analysis

Jonathan Houston (Pinball Magazine) and Martin Ayres (Pinball News) recap April 2020 pinball industry news during COVID-19 lockdowns. Manufacturing halted in Illinois and Wisconsin (Stern, Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming, Spooky Pinball), with only Dutch Pinball continuing production. Stern released multiple code updates despite facility closures and launched a social media marketing campaign (Stern Showdown). Shows canceled/postponed; European Pinball Championship pushed to 2021. Operators began rental programs to maintain player engagement during lockdowns.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Illinois manufacturing closure extended through May 29, 2020, affecting Stern, Jersey Jack, American Pinball, and Chicago Gaming — _Official state order mentioned; factual basis for all Illinois operations_
- [HIGH] Wisconsin Safer at Home order extended through May 26, affecting Spooky Pinball — _Official state order; directly impacts Spooky's production timeline_
- [HIGH] Dutch Pinball is the only major manufacturer still building games during April 2020 lockdown — _Jonathan and Martin verify this through process of elimination; other manufacturers (Home Pin, Hack and Spinball) either relocating or in pre-production_
- [MEDIUM] Chicago Gaming shipping Medieval Madness Royal Edition stock that had been partially manufactured — _Jonathan received news; likely pre-manufactured stock being completed and shipped_
- [HIGH] Stern released five code updates in April across Elvira, Iron Man, Stranger Things, The Monsters, and Jurassic Park — _Detailed version numbers and feature lists provided; verifiable through patch notes_
- [HIGH] Stranger Things introduced new 'target game time ball saver' feature in updates 0.87/0.88 — _Detailed technical explanation provided; novel feature not seen before; Jonathan questions operator adoption_
- [HIGH] Zach Sharp (Stern) claimed April 21 that coronavirus had not yet affected Stern's release schedule despite Heavy Metal postponement — _This Week in Pinball manufacturer questionnaire; contradiction noted by Martin_
- [MEDIUM] Beatles Beatlemania nominated for 2020 LIMA (Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association) International Excellence Award — _Official nomination; award ceremony planned August 2020 Las Vegas; Jonathan skeptical of award significance_

### Notable Quotes

> "All bars, cinemas, restaurants and so on are closed. We are allowed to go out for doing shopping... Since the number of infected people has been going down, the leash is less tight."
> — **Jonathan Houston**, ~5:30
> _Context for European lockdown severity and gradual relaxation of restrictions in Netherlands_

> "Dutch Pinball... is the only one who is actually at the moment building games as far as we know."
> — **Martin Ayres**, ~25:00
> _Key insight into April 2020 manufacturing capacity during US lockdowns_

> "It treats you like the player is a complete moron... if you've got young kids and they'd like to, for a home environment it might be good, but then again if you have a game in a home environment I'd expect you to pay well enough to not need such a ball saver."
> — **Martin Ayres**, ~38:00
> _Critical assessment of new Stranger Things ball saver feature and operator concerns_

> "It's not going to make the game any worse or better... It's not like it's winning an award for being the best pinball out there."
> — **Martin Ayres**, ~48:00
> _Skepticism about LIMA award significance for Beatles Beatlemania_

> "Stern have now acquainted themselves with a new PR company... offering George Gomez and Gary Stern... to come on our podcast... which is interesting because obviously we know these people."
> — **Jonathan Houston**, ~50:00
> _Stern's organizational change: hiring external PR firm instead of direct media relations_

> "If you have, I don't have it in front of me, but if you have a game like Ripley's, believe it or not, losing to another title by gaining only 21% of the vote, does that mean that it's not a good pinball game?"
> — **Martin Ayres**, ~44:00
> _Critique of Stern Showdown voting methodology and representativeness of online polls_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Jonathan Houston | person | Editor of Pinball Magazine; based in Netherlands; co-host of this podcast; also DJs and produces music |
| Martin Ayres | person | Editor of Pinball News; based in United Kingdom; co-host of this podcast; tracks industry news and manufacturing updates |
| Stern Pinball | company | Illinois-based manufacturer; manufacturing closed April 7-May 29; released multiple code updates remotely; launched Stern Showdown social media campaign |
| Dutch Pinball | company | Netherlands-based manufacturer; only major pinball maker still building games during April 2020 lockdown |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Illinois-based manufacturer; manufacturing closure extended through May 29, 2020 |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Wisconsin-based manufacturer; Safer at Home order extended through May 26, 2020 |
| American Pinball | company | Illinois-based manufacturer; affected by state manufacturing closure |
| Chicago Gaming | company | Illinois-based manufacturer; shipping Medieval Madness Royal Edition stock during lockdown |
| This Week in Pinball | organization | Pinball media outlet; conducted manufacturer coronavirus impact questionnaire with Stern, Spooky, etc. |
| Zach Sharp | person | Stern Pinball representative; claimed in April 21 TWIP questionnaire that coronavirus had not yet affected release schedule despite Heavy Metal delay |
| George Gomez | person | Stern Pinball designer; targeted for potential podcast appearances by new PR firm |
| Gary Stern | person | Stern Pinball executive; approaching 75th birthday; targeted for media coverage by PR firm |
| Jack Danger | person | Stern pinball designer; streamed Black Knight Horn of Rage with alternative music soundtrack preview |
| Farsight Studios | company | Virtual pinball software company; donated Stern Pack 1 tables free to IFPA members during lockdown |
| IFPA Italia | organization | Italian pinball tournament organization; arranged Farsight table access for Italian IFPA members during lockdown |
| Alessio | person | IFPA Italia organizer; negotiated Farsight tables for Italian players; initiative replicated for UK |
| Dutch Pinball Open Expo | event | November 2020 European pinball show; still scheduled but contingency planning underway for possible cancellation/relocation due to COVID |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Held in late March/early April 2020 just before lockdowns; attended by Jonathan and Martin |
| Midwest Gaming Classic (MGC) | event | Show following Texas Pinball Festival; Stern expected to announce new game but postponed Heavy Metal instead |
| European Pinball Championship | event | Originally scheduled October 2020 in Belgium; postponed to October 2021 |

### Topics

- **Primary:** COVID-19 manufacturing impact on US pinball industry, Stern Pinball code updates and software features, Show cancellations and postponements
- **Secondary:** Operator rental programs during lockdown, Stern Showdown social media marketing campaign, Stern's new PR firm engagement, Virtual pinball access for tournament players
- **Mentioned:** Beatles Beatlemania licensing achievement and LIMA award nomination

### Sentiment

**Neutral** (0.45) — Hosts are pragmatic and informational about lockdown impacts. Some light criticism of Stern's ball saver feature and marketing decisions, but generally understanding of unprecedented circumstances. Hopeful tone about future show schedules and industry resilience. No strong negative or positive sentiment overall—focused on documenting factual industry changes.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** All major US pinball manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming, Spooky) manufacturing capacity halted through late May 2020 due to state stay-at-home orders. (confidence: high) — Illinois manufacturing closure extended to May 29; Wisconsin Safer at Home through May 26; Dutch Pinball confirmed as only major builder still operating
- **[community_signal]** Stern launched Stern Showdown social media campaign during lockdown—head-to-head game voting polls to keep community engaged. (confidence: medium) — Martin questions statistical validity of voting results given player base skew toward newer games; acknowledged as marketing campaign to maintain engagement
- **[community_signal]** Farsight Studios and IFPA Italia arranged free access to Stern Pack 1 virtual tables for locked-down Italian IFPA members; replicated for UK players. (confidence: high) — Martin coordinated UK distribution; Alessio negotiated with Farsight; five tables available free during lockdown
- **[design_philosophy]** Stern's new ball saver feature treats casual/new players as 'complete morons' per Martin's critique; represents design tension between accessibility and player agency. (confidence: medium) — Martin's assessment; feature optional but raises questions about target demographic and operator appeal vs. home player appeal
- **[event_signal]** Multiple pinball shows canceled or postponed: European Pinball Championship moved to October 2021; UK Pinball Open postponed; various other events in flux with announcements pending. (confidence: high) — Dutch Pinball Open contingency planning with three scenarios; Rocky Mountain Showdown, Pinberg, Southern Pride Gaming Expo status uncertain; unannounced major cancellation coming
- **[licensing_signal]** Beatles Beatlemania achieves licensing milestone and LIMA award nomination; Jonathan skeptical of award significance. (confidence: medium) — Nominated for 2020 LIMA International Excellence Award; Jonathan notes Beatles license historically difficult to secure; award credibility questioned
- **[market_signal]** Operators pivoting to rental programs to home players during lockdown as location play unavailable; potential secondary effect of increasing home machine adoption. (confidence: medium) — Jonathan notes operators renting machines for 1-2 months; speculation that players may purchase machines they rented after restriction lift
- **[personnel_signal]** Stern Pinball hired external PR firm (Rebellious PR mentioned) to handle media relations and arrange designer/executive interviews, replacing direct internal PR contacts. (confidence: high) — Jonathan received PR firm outreach offering George Gomez, Gary Stern for podcast; notes this is organizational change from previous 20-year direct relations
- **[product_strategy]** Stranger Things version 0.87/0.88 introduced novel 'target game time ball saver' feature that adjusts ball time based on gameplay duration rather than fixed intervals. (confidence: high) — Detailed technical explanation; Martin questions operator adoption viability; uncertain if feature will appear on future games
- **[technology_signal]** Remote code development: Stern's software team continued releasing updates during manufacturing closure, indicating capability for remote/distributed software development. (confidence: high) — Five games updated in April with detailed feature additions; implied work-from-home/remote office arrangements during closure

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## Transcript

 pinball lockdown extended through may special guest interview with Jack Guarnieri shortest episode ever hi my name is jonathan houston i'm the editor of pinball magazine and i'm here with martin air the editor of pinball news and we're here to look back on the uh the exciting and uh well, fractious month, I guess, of April 2020. Yes. Well, yeah, I was going to ask you how things have been with you, Jonathan, in this particularly weird world we're living in at the moment. Right, well, obviously we had, well, first we had the Texas Pinball Festival and then followed by MGC. What a crazy period that was. Oh, amazing. A trip and everything and then two fantastic shows in a row. Yeah. All the people we ran into. Yeah, quite a lot of the regulars seemed to be missing, but an awful lot of people turned up, so it was really heartening to see those two events being supported by so many locals. Yeah, so, no, it was great. I'm still jet-lagged, and we're already almost a month. I'm already back home for a month. Yeah, I'm still writing reports and processing all the pictures. It's got thousands and all the video. Oh, my goodness. There'll be so much to go through. But it'll be on the site soon. Don't you worry. Okay. Well, I look forward to that. So, anyway. Okay. So, all joking aside, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm hoping we didn't get to do any of that. That's what we were all hoping to be doing. But, no, as you said last time, we didn't get to go. But, yeah, so, I mean, it's just a little catch-up on the situation where you are in the Netherlands, Jonathan. Are you allowed out of the house? Yes, we are allowed out of the house. It's sort of a semi-lockdown. All bars, cinemas, restaurants and so on are closed. We are allowed to go out for doing shopping and that kind of stuff. Specifically, the standard household groceries, supermarkets are open. And since the number of infected people has been going down, the leash is less tight, let's put it like that. Right, gotcha. Right, so more shops are opening again, and obviously quite a few smaller shops have become very inventive in figuring out ways how they can still run their business under the current circumstances. And aside from, well, in all fairness, I was already working from home when I wasn't DJing. Well, the DJing, obviously, that's completely out the window at the moment. but as far as producing music and working on the magazine, I did that from home as well. And so for me, not much has changed. The rest of the world is staying at home. That's different, but I was already staying at home. Right, okay. But as far as pinball goes, there's no bars or arcades or anything like that open at the moment where people can go and play. No social gatherings whatsoever. We have to stay one and a half meter apart from other people which is like something like six feet or so yeah and um um obviously i won't i try to do my shopping uh usually i used to do that every day and now i reduce that to uh maybe two three times a week and try to stay indoors as much as possible just to make sure because i'm still healthy and i'd like to stay that way yeah sure and uh there are no pinball league meetings, no pinball tournaments. The Dutch Pinball Masters, as we know, was cancelled. But you do have plans looking forward towards the end of the year when you've got the big Dutch Pinball Open Expo show in November. Yeah, which so far has not been cancelled. But we're still keeping an eye on that. I'm involved in the organisation. We had a meeting this week And there's a couple of scenarios because, well, first of all, there's a date set and we reserve the location. Scenario one could be that everything goes ahead as planned. Scenario two could be that government tells us we're not allowed to do so, so it gets canceled. So scenario three could be that the location might be having other customers, let's say a big car dealer or a car manufacturer who was supposed to do an event and wants to reschedule and he wants to do it on a hard date. And then if they bring in more money, then I guess the event will be held somewhere else or not. Right. So you're planning on all the options or working through the possibilities? Well, we're keeping in mind that there are several scenarios that we might have to deal with, yes. Okay. Right. And how's the situation in the United Kingdom? Well, we have a very similar sort of stay-at-home Ryan Policky as you do. We're only supposed to go out for essential shopping and for exercise once a day. We're allowed to do that. And also we can go to work if it's essential and we cannot possibly do it at home. On a personal level, I'm spending nearly all my time working from home now. I'm quite fortunate in that I can do a lot of the stuff I need to do on my own PC and laptop. In fact, this laptop I'm using to talk to you on. So that's quite good. And I only generally have to go into work, which is right in central London, kind of maybe one day a week at most, sometimes not even that. So it's not so bad. And the roads are reasonably quiet, although they have been getting a bit busier over the recent days and weeks. Ever since when the lockdown first came in, the roads were eerily quiet, But now the traffic levels seem to be gradually creeping up as more and more people are either going shopping or going into work. Yeah, we see more people in the streets over here as well. Well, we have the same thing. It's really only the major supermarkets and food stores that are open for business. And they're on reduced hours. And they also, it varies from store to store. But sometimes, you know, there are queues and lines of people outside. waiting to get in because they have a certain number of customers that they're allowing to go into the big stores. Right. And once that's reached, everybody has to queue up outside, keeping, we have two meters apart here. So now all these supermarkets are suddenly had to start using their car parks and parking lots for queues for people to get into the stores and sort of make sort of like, you know, in Disneyland where you have the queuing system. Yeah, for attractions and so on, yeah. Yeah, that's made up here of upturned shopping carts. So people queue up in between those. Right, okay. It's very strange. But, yeah, generally speaking, it's not too bad, and it's going to be going on for a while yet, I think. There hasn't been any relaxation on rules at the moment. So how's the pinball team going? Because, after all, we're a pinball podcast, and we don't care about shopping, sorry. Yeah, well, absolutely. Well, you can't buy copies of Pinball Magazine in the shops either, so that's bad. Well, they weren't in the shops either. You have to go to the website, pinball-magazine.com, for that. But thank you for allowing me this shameless plug. Oh, that's all right. And, yeah, Pinball, well, we just recently cancelled our little get-together we have in the summer in a pub in the middle of Cambridgeshire, so that's gone. It isn't going to be rescheduled. That's just going to be next year now. We already cancelled the UK Pinwall Open, or at least we postponed it. We might try and fit it in later in the year if restrictions allow us to do that, but it's very hard to plan anything like that. I suppose the next big thing is the UK Pinfest show in Daventry. Right. Which hasn't been cancelled yet. It hasn't? No, that's in August, I believe. That's still going ahead. You normally come over to that as well, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's... Didn't buy any plane tickets yet, but still interested in coming over. If the situation will allow us, but, yeah. Well, that's it. And then we have to look forward to later in the year and hopefully the situation will improve. be able to come over for Pinball Expo. Yeah, that's probably usually that's one of the last shows of the season, but it could be the first. Yeah, that's right. Well, it'll be a few weeks before the Dutch Pinball Open Expo. So if we're allowed to fly to Chicago for that, then we should probably be able to do the Expo, Dutch Pinball Open Expo as well. But anyway, We'll wait and see. It's a good few months away, yeah. And as we've seen in the last few weeks, an awful lot can change in a very short space of time. Right, yeah. So, yeah, over here the fear is, while the rules are less tight right now, obviously the incubation period before the illness exposes itself is like two weeks. so basically while the the rules are a bit milder now and more people are getting outside it will take two weeks to see what the effect will be if we see an increase in people needing to be hospitalized and so on then I'm pretty sure that everything will be shut down as quickly as possible to yes it's it's all uh it's all new territory for everyone to to find out exactly how this happens nobody wants a second spike or third spike or anything like that but it's probably going to happen but it will will hopefully be be less than than the initial um number of cases the maximum number of cases you've had so far and it'll gradually work its way down over a period of time but this question is how long is that period of time going to be and what's the impact going to be on businesses which can't reopen or can't operate safely. I'm afraid that the impact on the economy is going to be we're going to be noticing that for years to come I imagine. Oh absolutely. Yeah. Anyway that's let's talk about this coronavirus and all the effects it's been on pinball manufacturing then if we can't play pinball on location, we can only play in our own home, then are pinball companies still making games? Well, in Illinois, they've extended the stay-at-home order, and the closure of manufacturing was due to expire on the 7th of April, which at the time of recording is in six days' time. but that's now been extended to the 29th of May. Sorry, 7th of April. It was then extended to the 29th of May. So that's another... It's affecting basically every pinball company in Illinois. So we're talking Stern, Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and a very similar situation in Wisconsin, where Spooky Pinball are located. They've extended their Safer at Home order through to the 26th of May. So Spooky Pinball won't be opening up their factory for manufacturing either, or their new factory, I should say. Right. So as far as, I suppose, non-Illinois or Wisconsin companies go, I don't think that anyone in Texas is busy making games either at the moment. Right. So that really only leaves Dutch Pinball. Yeah, or as far as I know, still building games. And, yes, they are the only ones who are actually at the moment building games as far as we know. Is that right? I can't think of anybody else who is. No, well, I'm trying to think as well. Home Pin is still recovering or setting up after they're moving to Taiwan. Hack and Spinball is still working on details of the game, so they're not in production either. Yeah, so I guess that sums it up. Although I did get news from Chicago Gaming, that they are now shipping Medieval Madness, the Royal Editions, which I guess had been partly manufactured and might have been waiting for something, I don't know, but they can now complete the games and ship them. So Chicago Gaming is shipping Medieval Madness Royal Editions. And I guess those distributors with stock will also be shipping games from other manufacturers as well. I suppose so, yes. Yeah. And also, one thing that I've seen quite a lot happening now is that operators have been offering to rent their games out to people in their own home a lot more than they were in the past. They can't put them on location. they'll um you know if you want a game at home to see you through lockdown then a local operator or even a distributor might be able to rent you a game for a short period of time you know a month or two months something like that just to uh make sure you get your pinball fix right i suppose you have to be really uh into pinball to to rent a game for a couple of months but then again some people might be. Well, absolutely. If you can't go out on location and play, and that's something that... And you still need your pinball fixed, then what are you going to do? Yeah. So, as we mentioned about shows... It could be a good thing, because people might be getting used to having a pinball machine in the house, and once they have to return it, they might want to buy one. Absolutely. Yeah, might want to buy the one that's been rented to them. Yeah, might like it so much. but we were mentioning about various shows coming up one show that's been cancelled I suppose or events been cancelled is the European Pinball Championship which was due to be held in Belgium in October that was going to be a big event I know that that's now been pushed forward a year or back a year maybe so it will take place around at the same time which is the beginning of October in 2021 hopefully yes hopefully Yeah. Shows that haven't been cancelled, I suppose, is a good thing to look at. Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown, according to their website, is still scheduled to take place. It's only three weeks' time. It's kind of like the penultimate weekend in May. But according to the website, it's still going ahead. But we'll see what the situation is. but you'd think if they're going to cancel it, they'd do that fairly soon, because a lot of people will want to make plans for that. Even if we want to go, we can't fly to the US, so sadly. No, we can't go. No word on replay effects at Pinberg and whether that's taking place here, or the Southern Pride Gaming Expo. They're all, as far as we know, still going ahead, but a lot of people are asking questions online online and not getting any definite replies other than we're watching the situation, see what develops. Right. There is another show that's been cancelled which is quite a large one in America but that's not been announced yet and they're still working through the details with their vendors and game suppliers and with the venue so that we can't give details of exactly what that is yet but it should be announced over the next couple of days so keep an eye on your favourite online web resources for pinball and see what's still on and what isn't. Right. Now you would think that with manufacturing being closed in Illinois that stern pinball would be impacted quite a bit by that but I think you heard Zach Sharp talking I have to give credit to this week in pinball um they did a um inventory um questionnaire uh with various manufacturers um how the coronavirus uh impacted their business um everybody got the same five questions to respond to and interestingly uh i think the question was how the uh coronavirus affected the release schedule um and zach sharp of stern pinball said um that so far the uh the the implications of the virus had not affected the release schedule at stern but if it would last for much longer than it would the interesting thing about that is that i think that article was published april 21st um which is like i think it was a common knowledge to say that Stern Pinball was expected to reveal a new game at the Midwest Gaming Classic, which would have been three weeks prior to that. Yes. And Stern already postponed the already announced Heavy Metal game. So it's quite an odd statement from Zach Sharp, I would say, that it hadn't affected the release schedule of Stern yet, because obviously, well, the Heavy Metal game indicates that it actually did. Yeah, I mean, Stern themselves said that they were going to release it, but they've decided to push it back because of the coronavirus. Right. I don't know what that means. And maybe that's looking forward further into future games, which were scheduled for release in the summer or later in the year. They're still going to be released according to the original timetable, unless things carry on for much longer. Right. But in the meantime, Edsterm, they have still been rather busy. They have. Working on, for example, code updates. Yeah, quite a lot of different games. I think we've got probably five different games have had code updates this month. That's the month of April. Starting with Elvira's House of Horrors. Let's do it in reverse order because it's actually the most recent one. 0.95 of that, getting closer to 1.0. So that had lots more speech. A new multiball added called Phone a Fiend. Some more video and lamp effects and bug fixes. So, yeah, 0.95 of Elvira's House of Horrors recently released. If you've got that game, we need to update and get all those extra goodies. then Iron Man remember I think we mentioned in the last podcast that Iron Man had a rather unexpected update version 1.85 and now it's been updated to 1.86 a classic game? it has indeed which is just a few adjustments and bug fixes that were introduced with the new release so nothing too exciting there but you probably want to get that if you've got 1.85 because that's going to make things a little more stable and even more enjoyable. So, yeah, extra goodness for Iron Man there. Stranger Things. Stranger Things, I guess it's still Stern's current title. Yes. So that's had two software updates in the past month, 0.87 and 0.88, which, as you might expect at this stage, they're getting a lot of extra stuff added. So they had lots of additional display and speech assets added, loads of new rules and adjustments and a few fixes to video clips, which had little glitches in them and sound levels so you can hear things more clearly. But also one thing which caught my attention was that they've introduced something called a target game time ball saver which rather than every single ball when you launch it having a ball saver available for a certain fixed amount of time be it very very short or longer depending on how you decide to set it you can also set it on to to try and give you a minimum amount of gameplay not like in previous games where the game would end after the time had been reached but what this does is um after you played the first ball the ball saver on the second ball can be made longer if you if the first ball was too short and then the same thing can happen on the third ball you know if you set like a three minute game time and ball one only lasts 30 seconds then the ball saver on game two can be set to be say 30 seconds as well and then if that ball drains in after that and you've only played like two minutes, then you can actually have ball three have a much longer ball so they would try and get up to the three minute time. So it's a new feature, haven't seen it on any games before. Not sure whether it's a good feature I have to say because it's certainly not a feature I can think that operators would be happy about. No, it's I suppose it's you can set it for like a minute or two minutes, at least it stops somebody who, you know, if a total novice comes up and just launches the ball, doesn't even know where the flipper buttons are or whatever, and all three balls drain within, you know, 30 seconds, then it prevents that at least, because you get the ball back. Yeah, but it doesn't make the game more fun. I mean, yes, it gives you more ball time, but it also treats you like the player is a complete moron. well it's certainly an option you know it's not you're not forced to implement it and it's there as an alternate to a regular ball saver so you know if you've got young kids and they'd like to for a home environment it might be good but then again if you have a game in a home environment I'd expect you to pay well enough to not need such a ball safe but okay it's interesting that they added it Yeah, I think we might see it appear, depending on what the reaction is to whether people decide to use it or not. But it's probably a fairly simple thing to implement code-wise. Right. So we might see it on future games. It'd be there as an option, I'm sure. I mean, why not? It costs nothing, really, to add it in. Other games. Yeah, the Monsters. They've had a fairly minor update. version 1.03 which really sort of adds in some more of these standard features which we're starting to see on the newer games such as the audio equaliser controls the multi-band EQ which are becoming a fixture of modern CERN games that wasn't in the software for the monsters but now is in version 1.03 and Jurassic Park yes, it was at 1.0 now it's 1.01, and that's had quite a few bug fixes, some additional lighting effects, which are always welcome, and some changes to the display information to sort of make it a bit clearer what exactly what going on And they also added a little Easter egg in as well which is probably the time that game was released It was around about Easter Also that code was released I should say It was around about Easter, so that would tie in. And that's in the invalid frenzy mode, multiple mode, I think. So I think if you're one shot away from getting the sort of addable feature, and you might see that Easter egg appear. But, yeah, so that's all code which Stern Pinball's team of software engineers have been working on. I guess it's all been worked on during the lockdown period and they're working from home or from a remote office somewhere. Right, and there's more updates coming along. One update we've already had a preview of. Jack Danger was able to stream Black Knight's Horn of Rage with an alternative music soundtrack. As far as we know, that has not been released yet, but that is expected to be released in a future code update. Yeah, I actually think it is. I think it was included in the last update, but I don't think any fuss was made about it. Okay. I think version 1.01 Black Knight does have that in. I'm not sure whether it was already included I'd say they've tried it and it had mixed reactions to what I've got some people like the less frenetic more, what shall we call it orchestral symphonic music soundtrack to it and other people like the full on metal music that was in the original, but must have the option there. I mean, I haven't actually seen who produced the new soundtrack. Right, well, from what I heard, I'd say it sounds very Game of Thrones-like, so it could be the same producer that did the music for Game of Thrones. Okay. But that's just a guess. So, it's not a... It's certainly very different to the original, I think. Yes, but actually... I'd welcome it, let's put it like that. Yeah, if you find that the Anthrax-esque soundtrack of the original is a bit too full-on, then you can always switch over to it. But it's something which you have to go into the menu to change, I think. It's not something you can select at the game when you start the game, you have to go into the settings. Yeah, absolutely. We'll go back to some of the earlier games that Data East used to do. Like Weapon 3. And Countdown. Checkpoint. Checkpoint, where you could choose different soundtracks as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in other stern news, this was, well, sort of a newsworthy tidbit. The Beatles, Beatlemania has been nominated for a 2020 Lima Licensing Industry Merchandiser's Association International Excellence Award. And they will be handed out, if all goes as planned, in August in Las Vegas. Now, the game has been nominated, but personally I'm not so sure whether it's such a big deal. I think anybody can imply. And then there is a committee, and if there's not enough entries in a category, then you might already be applicable to be nominated. I'm not sure, but I think it's a rather strange category or award, actually, to be giving out. But apparently somebody figured that they need an award show for that. Well, it's quite an achievement, I suppose, to get the Beatles license onto pinball. I know a lot of companies have tried it in the past and never achieved it. So, there is that going for them. Right. And I would assume that somebody in the License Industry Merchandisers Association would have, you'd need to be a member of that association in order to be nominated for an award. So, I'm sure that would probably go to, what, Capel Pinball and or Stern? Yeah. So I guess so. And well, Kapow, if I'm not mistaken, is based in Las Vegas. So there's probably a short connection to the Lima Association or whatever it's called. So, OK, well, kudos for them for getting nominated. Good luck. It's not going to make the game any worse or better, if I may be so blunt to say so. I mean, yeah, sure, it's great that it wins an award, but it's not like it's winning an award for being the best pinball out there. Even the best Beatles pinball out there. Yeah. Okay, so, but Stern are also doing other stuff on their social media. Right. Apart from working at home on code, they've also been doing this Stern Showdown thing online, which I haven't really been following. It just seemed like it was just a means of getting the public involved in voting for the best pinball game ever by doing a sort of series of head-to-head battles between individual games. Yeah, which are already pre-set up. So you have like Lord of the Rings battling versus Mustang and then the public gets two days to vote for which is their favorite game. And on the social media, Stern is showing the percentages of which game came out the best with what percentage, which made me wonder whether there are any conclusions to draw from such a percentage. I mean, if you have, I don't have it in front of me, but if you have a game like Ripley's, believe it or not, losing to another title by gaining only 21% of the vote, does that mean that it's not a good pinball game or does that mean that maybe not too many people are currently familiar with Ripley's Believe It or Not, you don't know that so there's some people might say that well people voting on this might be people that are only for five years active in the pinball community so they might not be familiar with all these older titles that's true but I guess they're trying to get enough people involved that it gets a good spread of pinball fans and older and newer and probably you know there'll be a lot of people who don't get to play the very newest games either you know who probably aren't at all familiar with games like Jurassic Park or the Munsters or Stranger Things yes so how can they vote on those games when they haven't even seen them. Yeah, that's also true. So in the end, okay, Stern Showdown, but what's it worth in the end? Sure. It's just a bit of fun just to keep people interested and tie in with Stern and keep checking the social media. Well, yeah, keep people occupied during the lockdown, take their mind off, or not so much take their mind off Corona things, but more draw their attention to Stern stuff. So it's just a marketing campaign, basically. Yep, nothing wrong with that. Who knows, perhaps I'll win an award for it. Wow. Okay, I think that's about everything we've got on Stern Pinball so far. Yeah. So let's move on to... Oh, I do have one more thing, which I'm not sure that Stern Pinball would like me to address. But it's interesting that I received an email from a rebellious PR company. Oh, yeah. And they were offering George Gomez and Gary Stern and other pinball designers at Stern to come on our podcast, which is interesting because obviously we know these people, and if we want them to come on our podcast, they're just a phone call away. But apparently Stern have now acquainted themselves with a new PR company, and the PR company figured that it would be a good idea to offer these great people to come on our podcast. So that's something that they are working on internally. And I'm sure that in the near future we'll try to have either George Gomez or Gary Stern on the phone, especially Gary Stern, since he has a 75th birthday coming up. And I think nobody is planning to let that go by unnoticed. Especially not at Stern. No, I'm sure their PR company will run the case straight away. But it might mean that, who knows, we might be getting more press releases from Stern Pinball, and they might be coming rather than from Shelley or from John. They might be coming through a PR company from now on. Well, let's hope they get a little bit different than the standard one that they've been using for the past 20 years. Oh, well, don't mess with the winning formula, I suppose, is probably an answer. Okay, so any more on Stern before we move on? I think that's it. I think, well, they did something with online tournaments with virtual Stern Pimple Arcade and that kind of stuff, but really didn't dive into that that much, so I can't really tell much about it. Well, I can maybe just shed a little bit of light on that in that one thing which I saw was the IFPA in Italy with Alessio there, who runs the IFPA Italia. He worked out a deal with Farsight Studios to get the Stern Pack 1 available to Italian IFPA members for free during the lockdown. So I actually contacted him and arranged with him to do the same thing for UK players. So UK players who are registered with the IFPA and have a profile there, they can contact me and get them signed up through Farsight and they can get access to the Stern PAC-1 tables for free and you weren't even going to mention that I wasn't, well I sent it out to everybody in the UK but that's something which I have to give credit to Farsight and to Alessio from IFPA Italia for arranging in the first place So I've been working with them to get that done. And it's a nice gesture from Farsight to get these, I think it's five tables away for people to play while they're stuck at home. Right. It's very nice. Okay. So moving on, which company would you like to talk about first? Oh, I don't know. Let's talk about Stern's new neighbours, shall we? Right. Elk Grove Village. Well, that would be Jersey Jack Pinball. Hmm. Yes. So, some interesting news from there. I think... To say the least, yes. I think pretty much every show that... Well, not every show, but almost every show that we've been to in America has had Jersey Jack Pinball turning up, normally in the form of Jack himself. Right. But but also either with or replaced by Butch Peel. Right. Who was such a long-time member of the Jersey Jack team and such a very helpful and very talkative chap. And then it was a real sadness from me, I have to say, to find that he had been let go from Jersey Jack Pinball. who's no longer part of the team there. Right. Yeah, that's very unfortunate. There have been some allegations on what happened, but as far as I understood, none of the parties involved are commenting on any of the allegations of what went on and so on. But obviously, yeah, it's a pity to see that Butch was let go. He was a great, well, initially he got on board to, I think, write the manual for The Wizard of Oz. Yes, that's right. But aside from that, he was a very big help to people who had technical problems, which would be reported to Jersey Jack, and either he called them and help them fix the issue with their game. And there's actually a lot of positive feedback on the work that he did for Judge Jack, helping out people to make sure that they can enjoy their game. So I was surprised, as everybody, I suppose, to see that he was let go. and all I can say is I wish Butch the best in his future endeavours, as that's politically correct to say, I suppose. Yeah, let's hope he's not out of pinball for very long because he's a major asset, you know, he's hugely knowledgeable about the games and such a likeable person to talk to and engage with and would always sort of, you know, go the extra step, would engage with you directly to resolve all your problems, as you said, as far as doing extended email conversations or phone calls or even send a video of how to fix a problem, as well as doing all the manuals for the games so far, which, as anyone who's picked up any of the Jersey Jack manuals knows, are so hugely comprehensive and detailed and accurate that it's a full-time job in itself, you'd think, just by looking at what comes out or what's included in there. Yeah, certainly I hope to see Butch again once pinball shows are allowed again, hopefully in some other capacity. Or even if he doesn't want to work in pinball anymore, then I'd still like to run into him, you know, because he's a very nice guy and it's always nice to see him. So, yeah, I mean, it's not unusual for people within the pinball business to come and go and move around from company to company. We've seen that a few times. You know, Barry from American Pinball left there and moved over to Jersey Jack very recently, a couple of months ago. So I don't think that's related, even though they're kind of in a similar capacity there. Barry is a sort of engineering guy, support, and is well regarded as well within the pinball industry. But he is located in Illinois. And Butch, of course, wasn't. I think he was in New Mexico, as far as I remember. So maybe that distance was a problem. But anyway, we won't speculate on that any further because we don't know the facts. but anyways I'm sure we're both very sorry to see Butch out of Jersey Jack Pinball it won't be the same without him right Jersey Jack Pinball did hire someone else as well they hired Ken Cromwell as their new communication specialist ah okay interesting we haven't heard from him then yeah I was going to say because it seems to me that there was something to communicate but we didn't hear about that so oh well um the first day on the job is always a tough one i guess yes particularly if that's what you've got to deal with but they have jersey jack have been busy doing other things even though their manufacturing is not up and running in illinois and um i think their their operation in new jersey um has been shut down anyway while they moved so i don't think they're currently producing games but They do have games in stock. We do know that. Right. And they've also been working on a new, well, they've actually finished working on, they've released a new topper for Willy Wonka games. So this is illuminated. Is that the third topper for Willy Wonka already? Is it three? I don't know, two. because I know that they released a second topper which we talked about like two months ago so yeah that was the collector edition one I think wasn't it yeah and so this is another one yeah this is an optional extra I think it's a $300 add-on if you want to buy it compared to some toppers that's a bargain but it is illuminated and has animated waterfall effect on the water as it flows down, or it's water actually, probably chocolate isn't it really, as it flows down on the topper and a nice picture of Willy Wonka himself and it looks nice and bright and illuminated but some people are saying that should have been included with the collector edition and they think the one that's with the collector edition is inferior. well that's the same what we talked about two months ago with the other when the other topper came out that was already suggested that it should be on the collector's edition oh well you can't please everybody I suppose no buy the game for what it is and not what you think it might be in the future right although that's presumably not the case with the software but we can talk about that later if you'd like although Well, if you hear what I'm hearing, then I guess you know what time it is. Oh, I know. He's calling, is he? Well, I got a phone ringing. Oh, is that that, or is that something else? Well, there's only one way to find out, I suppose. Okay, well, perhaps we can actually get to it this time before he rings off. We're interrupting our very important podcast. Well, who else could it be but... Hello, Gary, come on in. Hello? Hello? Where are you? Where are you? Gary, we're here. We can hear you fine. How are you doing? I'm outside of Jersey Jack's house. I'm trying to get in. I'm banging on his window. He's ignoring me completely. Probably because he knows it's you. No, we're good friends. He slept at my house one time. All right. What, outside? inside I'm outside but he slept inside right well it could be that Jack's on the phone and that he can't come to the window right now oh pish I was going to make him a proper English tea well lucky him well oh well well I'll just go I'll just go down the road to his neighbour and knock on their door do you want to pass the phone to Jack Jack and then we can talk to him while you're busy. I can't. You'll have to call him back. Can't you put it through the letterbox? Oh, I can do that. Contact this contact this awesome. Great. Okay, then we can talk to Jack. Yes, I can do that. Let's see if Jack has something interesting to say. Sorry, I apologize to our listeners already. We were expecting Gary Flower to be on the phone and hopefully have some interesting news. Apparently, that's not the case. No. Very easy. Hey, what's this? Somebody just put a phone through my, uh... Oh, hello, Jack. Hey, Jack. Who's this? How's it going? Hello, Jack. It's Jonathan Martin here from our Pitball Podcast. Do I know you guys? Yeah, you know us. You know us. You miss us. Oh, I miss you a lot. This time last year, we were drinking champagne and eating Willy Wonka chocolate in France. Yeah, those were good times. I know. Can you imagine? It was a year ago. He launched that game. Yeah, that was so great. That was a lot of fun. And Franck Michel, our host, that was the best. That was a great show. Oh, what a shame we can't be doing that again. We will be doing it again. We just can't do it right now. I'm very hopeful that the world will come back as we knew it and maybe even a little bit better if that's possible. We might appreciate the things that we missed. Right. Well, we started this podcast before Gary called. And we were talking about how the situation is in Jonathan's home country and in my home country. What's the sort of lockdown situation or indeed the pinball situation where you are? Well, Americans being very free, in some places they're actually protesting the lockdown. Yes, we've seen that. Yep, the government imposing their right. um some places uh are reopening things like starbucks and golf courses and things like that are opening in limited ways which is great and everybody is going to be practicing uh clean hand washing and social distancing and things of that nature to try to uh prevent any of the virus to spread anywhere but right now you're you're in um you're in new jersey yes i'm in my adopted state of new jersey correct and uh new jersey i think this weekend they open golf courses not that i golf so i think you you can golf in a foursome if the four people are quarantined together otherwise i think um you're able to be on the course one at a time uh walking the course or in a golf cart. Right. I've been trying to bring some things back to something of normal, you know, to get outdoor activities as the summer approaches. Right. But what about manufacturing and pinball business and locations? Are any locations able to open any bars, any arcades? I guess that's not something which is possible just yet. Yeah. So I speak with many people during the day, maybe 20 people, 25 people, typically operators, people that have barcades, some home customers, other manufacturers, distributors. Everybody's chomping at the bit to get back to something abnormal. Everybody's going a little stir-crazy in quarantine. Right. They want to get back to business. Right. So does that mean business is slow? And how has business been for Jersey Jack Pinball? Actually, it hasn't been great, but it hasn't been bad. I think in the past week or so, we sold about 30 games. And they pretty much all going to home customers who are adding to their collections Unfortunately it not any commercial customers buying from us at this point but there are commercial customers looking forward to when they reopen they working on their games and they doing different things to prepare in their different states and their locations so it's it It hasn't been where the David Fawcett is off. There's been some action, which is good. It's encouraging. You know, we're doing what I guess they call contactless delivery. We're not doing, you know, in-home delivery kind of thing. Our distributors, some of them are involved with that, and it seems to be working out. They're making the best of a not-so-great situation. And when all this sort of starts to ease up a bit and you can actually get back to making games, do you have a plan in place for how you're going to sort of implement social distancing while at the same time being able to design, build, ship and service games? Yeah, I mean, that's the plan that we've been working on. And you could tell that other factories, not just in our industry, but big factories. You're talking about people that build cars and things like that. This is a concern for everybody. And the good thing is we're not in it alone. We don't have to figure it out on our own. We could look to guidance from what other bigger, huge companies, multinationals are doing. I've seen, certainly we've all been to supermarkets where we see a barrier, a plexiglass barrier between the cashier and the customer and the sanitization processes that happen. And yesterday in New York City, they announced the trains, which they call the subways, they'll be closed from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. for sanitization of the subway cars. So it's something that has to be done to safeguard the public and try to do the best job you can do to prevent the spread of anything that anybody could catch. Right. Now, you're in a rather unique situation, I would say, as the company is supposed to be moving to Elk Grove Village. I can imagine that whole situation is not helping. Well, you know, it's common sense it's probably not helping. But, you know, we're doing everything we need to do to try to be on track as much as we can. and, you know, work through the different things that need to be worked through. And we have a great staff of people that are dedicated, and we're, you know, working hard at it. Do you still have any manufacturing capabilities in Lakewood, or has that all been shut down and shipped? No, right now Lakewood has been moving to Illinois, and there are games still in Lakewood that we're shipping, and customers are actually picking up from us. So that's ongoing for a little while longer. Right, but you wouldn't be able to, you know, because this is changing on a state-by-state basis, so if you were able to start manufacturing in Lakewood, but you couldn't in Elk Grove, that wouldn't be any help to you. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know exactly that town right at this second, but we expect everything to shake loose very soon and get back to a degree where it's a little bit normal. You know, it's not going to be like you turn a light switch on for anybody and everything goes back to what it was before. So it's going to be a process. And we're working through those processes, and I think it's going pretty well, I mean, considering everything. Now is presumably not a good time to be thinking about launching new titles either. Well, you know, I see there's a demand. There are a lot of customers asking me daily and asking Jen daily, when is your next game coming out? Because they have an appetite for the next game. And, you know, all I could say is that we're working on it to get it out and get it in the marketplace and get it everywhere it's going to go. So it's nice when people ask those questions. It's not like they forgot about us. They're very interested in what we're doing. Right. Oh, of course. But one year ago, we were launching, while you were launching, I should say, the Willy Wonka game. But that was being launched at two pinball shows simultaneously. And with no pinball shows out there and no trade shows either, it's going to be difficult to promote new products without those kind of outlets. Right. Well, you know, in the traditional old-fashioned sense, which we are old-fashioned a little bit, that might be true. But today, with all the social connectivity and the streaming and everything that's available, we really could create our own show and launch a product. And while it might not be exactly the same, there are many trade shows. I mean, this weekend, Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, normally they have thousands of people at their shareholder event. They're having a virtual event. So in the absence of a real live touchy-feely event, you can have a virtual event. And it can be not exactly the same, but a lot better than having nothing. So there are a lot of options out there. A lot of people discovered that they can work from home. They might not want to go to the office in the future. A lot of people discovered that they can buy almost anything and have anything delivered to their home. So it's been very interesting. It's been a learning experience, I think, for everybody. Right. now in the past you said that when it comes to launching a new game you'd like to be at the point where you can announce a game and have it ready to ship obviously moving companies and having the coronavirus with basically currently no manufacturing possibilities that has to be of some sort of impact because or cause a delay because Because you don't, currently you can't build any games to be ready for shipment when you announce a new game. Right, but the plan is still to announce and ship games. That's the plan. And, you know, since I started the company, we never had anything go our way very easily anyway. So nobody expected or welcomed the current situation. And there are always surprises, the best-run businesses and best-run things, best-laid plans of mice and men. There's always some kind of thing that you don't count on. So you roll with the punches and you do what you need to do. And when you have really good people working all together as a team, you overcome those obstacles. they're difficult but you know personally if I wanted something easy I wouldn't have started a pinball company to be honest with you right okay um now you mentioned people working for you um speaking of people working for uh I always say with me I never say for me but you know I try to I try to say with me. Right, okay. Pardon me if I interpreted that incorrectly. But there was a bit of a news story earlier this month, and I'm not sure whether you want to address it or not, but we already discussed it in our podcast. One of your employees was let go, and that came as quite a shock. Would you be willing to comment on that? Well, you know, we have people that come and go. Some heralded and less heralded. It's a business. I don't think it would serve any benefit for me to comment on it. I think the people involved, whatever, if they'd like to comment on it, they could. You know, I'm not a person that feeds into a lot of gossip and things like that. So, you know, I don't really have any comments on it. But you must have a degree of sadness. I mean, you and Butch have been together and been working and doing the shows and been such a good team for so long. It just seemed so strange when we found out that Butch was no longer working with JJP. and it didn't seem to be an obvious reason why, but I'm not going to ask you about the reasons why because I'm sure that will come out in due course. But you must have a certain degree of sadness that what seemed like such a great team, you're not a team together anymore. Yeah, I mean, that's true. You know, in the company since its founding back in 2011, 2011, there were other people that I was very close with, and they were out of the company for one reason or another. And at different times in the past, I had some pretty high highs and some pretty low lows with different things. And, you know, in the course of a company, in the course of life, things like that happen. You know, I'm planning on remaining friends with Butch. I love them and I think the world of them and you know your friendship is your friendship and your business relationship and work relationship is different sometimes they they cross or they're indistinguishable but still in all we try to keep it in a professional professional way right um okay so um how do you see uh the um getting back to the current situation um any uh of course with the coronavirus going on uh there's not much well we can't foresee the future in any way but let's say by the end of May the whole coronavirus situation is reduced to a point where manufacturing with social distancing would be allowed any idea how long it would take you to get the new facility up and running? I've always gotten in trouble when I had timelines especially when not everything is under my control. And pretty much, you know, I don't know really who could actually say with any level of certainty exactly a date. You know, it's just like they keep asking Dr. Fauci when this will be over, or they keep asking other experts that are a lot smarter than me about different things. and everybody likes to know these answers. The best answer I can give is at the appropriate time that it's ready to launch our next game, that's when our game will be launched. You know, if it's a little sooner or a little bit later, what I found in a very humbling way is that our customer base is extremely loyal and they love what we do. and they've waited in the past a little bit longer to get what we create. And while I don't want to take advantage of any of that, certainly there are circumstances that extend way beyond our ability as individuals or a company. I mean, we're dealing with a worldwide pandemic that nobody knew about X months ago and that everybody's trying to work through. So certainly, you know, we're working through it the best we can. And, you know, we're very optimistic about what we have in the pipeline coming to us. I think the best products that we're going to build are ahead of us right now. I don't think they're behind us. I think what I see, the best games are coming. Okay, and you also talk to your distributors as well as operators has this particular period been quite reasonable for them as far as home sales go? With people being stuck at home a lot more than they would in the past have they found that that's been a good opportunity for them to sell more of your company's games to home buyers? Yes, overall the answer is yes um some of our distributors that uh had more of our stock were able to turn around and execute on delivering games quicker than some of the distributors that didn't have much stock or had no stock and had to pull from the factory and there was some people it sounds funny but there were some people that wanted games like you know i want a game tomorrow i want a game today i I want a game by, you know, the end of this week kind of thing. Yeah. And they just had an occasion or they had a reason, obviously, for buying it, and they wanted it. So it did benefit, and it still benefits our distributors that are stocking distributors. And in the course of all this going on, you know, we added a distributor in Pennsylvania. We added Cointaker. Yes. So that was also something that helped with home sales too because there are different customers that – different relationships, different people, different reasons why people buy from one person and not another person. So you have to have a little bit of variety. So I think that was something that we did that was pretty good. Good. Good. And on a personal note, everyone safe in your family from the virus? Thank goodness everybody's safe. You know, I'm quarantined with my wife and she hasn't killed me yet, so that's a good thing. She's been trying for so many years and it still hasn't worked. Yeah, I'm still pretty quick. I'm still pretty quick on my feet, you know. But she's amazing. I think the most difficult thing has been not being able to physically hug my grandchildren. That's hard. We've seen them from maybe 10 feet away. And, you know, yeah, I'd like to hug Jen and Jack, too, certainly. but little Gary and little Olivia it's harder when they're young they don't exactly understand what's going on not that we understand what's going on not sure any of us do so this too shall pass and you have to have patience and you know it's one more thing that one day I think we'll all laugh about but you know certainly the virus itself has proven to be something more formidable than a lot of people thought. And again, people just thought it was like the flu and it just comes and goes. And certainly some people, and I'm definitely not a doctor or an expert, but apparently some people have gotten it and had very mild symptoms or they didn't even know they got it. Some people got it wound up on a ventilator and died in three days so um uh you know it's it's not not something to fool around with right okay uh one of the uh well the impact of the of the virus was um we briefly talked about it um uh there's currently no pinball shows um now you were quite a traveling man, so to speak, globally, I would say, because you visited so many pinball shows in the past. Is this a bit like detoxing for you in terms of pinball shows? I think it's detoxing for all of us. I mean, I talked to a lot of the tournament players and a lot of the barcade owners, and it certainly has changed everybody. in a way where we might be physically distanced, but in some ways by keeping in touch with all these people, I don't feel socially distanced because I talk to so many people that are involved in pinball every week. Yeah, it's not the same as seeing them, but we do a lot of FaceTime and we do some Zoom calls and we see each other And, you know, some people are just, hey, this is what I'm cooking tonight. What are you cooking tonight? Or this is what I'm doing. What are you doing? So in some ways, thank goodness for technology, for sure, because if it was this kind of pandemic without social media and everything like that, people not aware of what's going on and not being able to shelter in place and things like that, the death toll would be much greater uh the whole process much would be much worse because you wouldn't be able to socially reach out to people you wouldn't get the communication you wouldn't be able to do much of anything so while it's bad um in a lot of ways the physical thing you know i can't be with you guys and uh do the things we do um at least we can not only talk we can see each other and communicate and do things like that so i i always say it could be worse and and let's just hope it doesn't get worse let's just hope it keeps getting better right so when when all this is over and and god willing that's not not too much longer do you think everything will go back to the way it was as far as you're concerned as far as you know i mean traveling around the world doing the promotions, visiting shows, visiting distributors, visiting operators, or do you think that things will always be changed from now on? So the short answer is I think it will go back to what it was, but it will be changed a little bit. And, you know, being young enough or old enough to have, quote-unquote, or lived through 9-11, what happened on September 11, 2001, that changed a lot of things. It changed the way we travel. It changed some people's attitudes about things. It shut a lot of things down. Certainly in the U.S., especially if you were in the New York metropolitan area, where we were more affected and we knew people that were lost in the tragedy, it affected us a different way. In this case, I just guess, my best guess is that until there's some kind of medication that you're able to take prophylactically to prevent it or a vaccine, you probably won't see everything back to close to what it was in the beginning. And again, you know, I'm not a doctor and I don't know, but that's just a little bit of common sense and a little bit of what people are saying to me. Certainly, if you have a barcade and you have games next to each other and you have social distancing, you know, it would seem to say people have said to me, well, I guess I have to put the first game in a row on and then the second and third game are off and then the fourth game in a row are on. And then, you know, so there are a lot of challenges. But I think people are very resilient. We're still here. And we're going to be here. We're going to come through it. And, you know, we're going to make the best of it in the meantime. But, yeah, will there be shows again? Absolutely. Will we all be together again? Absolutely. I'm an eternal optimist. I really think, you know, we could look back at this at some point or other and it's, you know, if you use it as a learning experience or, you know, you have a lot of families now together. I get a lot of pictures of our customers playing our games, spending time with each other, having conversations with each other, doing different things that they never could do before. So they're using it as a time to benefit them. and that is just sitting around feeling bad for themselves. You personally will be back. You'll be traveling as much as before. Maybe. You're not seeing this as an indication of how nice it would be not to spend so much time doing all those things. No, no, I love to travel. I love to see everybody. I mean, you know, hopefully United keeps my status. That would be nice. We'll see what happens. I think you're safe. I mean, you know, typically flying around more than 150,000 miles a year, you know, was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it and I look forward to it again. And it's something where a lot of our customers around the world, I'm still in touch with them pretty much daily. Not every single one of them daily, but, you know, we have a distributor in Italy that we just appointed in early part of this year. and they got hit hard, and, you know, then other places, other parts of the United States, other parts of the world, you know, they're all experiencing, they're all going through the same thing. Right. Now, since we're all going through the same thing, obviously the design section of Jersey Jack Pinball was already located in Bensonville can you tell us about how the stay at home situation has affected the design team or maybe it hasn't I don't know whether they are able to work from home and continue their work there or can you enlighten us on that? I can tell you that they're all technologically very savvy and they're a group that's very resilient and they're all communicating with each other and working together, collaborating you know that we've had members of the team before for example like JP right there in Holland and other people that have collaborated before. So now they've figured out that there's a way to do what they do, just maybe not sitting shoulder to shoulder for a little while until they get back to doing that again. Right. Okay. Well I think we can thank you for your time today Jack It been enlightening and it good to hear that everything still going well with the company and with you and your family And we all looking forward to coming out the other side of this and picking up where we left off, I'm sure. Thank you. And, you know, I appreciate the time as always. And we're good friends, the three of us. I appreciated all of the energy that you've put into doing not just the podcast, but everything pinball is supporting it and growing it. And, you know, when this is all over, there'll be a lot of work to do because, you know, we need to kind of catch up. So it'll be a lot of work to do at different locations and different venues and different shows. And I'm sure the community will bounce back and maybe be better and bigger and more resilient than it was, a little wiser too and more appreciative. I'm very humbled for a lot of the things that I'm not able to do right now and, you know, just wishing everybody the best. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Jack. Thank you, Jack. Okay, well, so that was a bit of a surprise. A bit of a surprise indeed. Well, thank you, Jack Warnieri, for calling in. And I hope you enjoyed that. moving on to other pinball companies Boogie Pinball yes well we saw they're still setting up their new manufacturing facility yes which is still in Benton but they enlarged so to speak and I noticed that their former location is becoming a fitness center that's right yes so if they want to do some exercise not that they need it and well they know where to go yeah i'm sure there's no shortage of heavy weights to be lifted uh around the spooky pinball factory as it is but yeah if you want to get a more comprehensive workout then yeah that their old place is exactly as you said turned into a fitness place right although i'm guessing it's probably not open at the moment at the moment probably not now um so but in the meantime like you said uh um well it's mostly the emery family um who have been uh setting up the new shop uh obviously other workers are not allowed uh in i suppose uh but the family themselves are able to uh try to to get as much done as possible which is a good thing. And we had a new code update from Scott D'Anesi for Total Nuclear Annihilation. Yes, that's right. Version 1.4.0 which has, surprisingly, has quite a few bug fixes. It was kind of assumed that there wouldn't be any bugs, but when the code gets as complicated as it is these days, it's bound to be introduced somewhere. but also includes new light shows, support for different types of mechs in the game if people want to fit those, and also has improvements to the way the LEDs are driven which apparently makes them better, I'm not quite sure in what way, brighter, less flickery maybe but also includes the latest version of the underlying P-Rock code because of course TNA is a P-Rock based game and the software for that does get updated every now and again and this new version of 1.4.0 of TNA includes the new P-ROC code for a better experience all around. Right. So I have a TNA. I haven't updated it yet, but I did understand that the new code includes the possibility to select whether you have installed certain colored plastic protector sets. I think there's a green plastic protector set available, and that green that lights up when the general illumination, or due to the general illumination underneath the plastic. But apparently you can select special settings. Keep in mind which color of plastic protectors you have installed so that they come out the best. Yeah, that's right. The GI can be dialed in, as it were, for your chosen color, which is part of the add-ons I said support is added for, and also for clear drop targets, I think, as well. Right, which could be interesting. Also, the clear drop targets will need an extra LED to light up, but I'm sure kits will be available to do that. And I guess that's all the news there is on spooky pinball for now. I think it is, yeah. So let's move along to American Pinball, who are also, you know, obviously being in Illinois, are in shutdown and not producing games. They haven't produced, I don't think they've gone into production with Hot Wheels at all, have they? As far as we're aware. but they are still doing stuff with Oktoberfest because that's the game which I guess I assume they've sold the most of actually maybe not, maybe Houdini but they are running a high score challenge on Oktoberfest for those people who have won or have access to one and they were also doing that for Houdini I think they did it for both games oh right, ok, I've only seen the Oktoberfest one That one goes on until the 4th of May, which is a couple of days' time. So it's called a high school challenge, but in fact all you need to do is to post a picture of your highest score on Oktoberfest on their Facebook page. And at the end of it, they'll pick one at random and give them a nice selection of American pinball swag of various kinds. Right. Okay. Well, if you have an Oktoberfest game, then at least there's something to keep you busy during these days. Go and win some American Pinball swag, I suppose. Yep. You've certainly been with a chance. Right. So what's also interesting is that pinball designer Joe Balfour and programmer Josh Kugler, both working at American Pinball, were guests on the Super Awesome Pinball Show. And I have no problem plugging that podcast or show, whatever you want to call it, because I think it's a very good one. And obviously they talked about the Hot Wheels license, how that came to be, and also some notes on future games, whether they would be licensed or not. I think it's best instead of repeating what they said, that people should just listen to the Super Awesome Pimple Show themselves. I think we're talking about episode 8 that has the interview with Bolzer and Kugler. So once you're done listening to us, and only after that, then go ahead and listen to the Super Awesome Pimple Show if you haven't done so already. Good call. Good. Okay, so that's the thing about it for American pinball. Again, not a lot going on in the pinball business at the moment in most companies. Certainly one where nothing much is going on as far as production goes is Deep Root, who we mentioned before. And I think in the last episode of this podcast, we talked about Dennis Nordman having left there. I think that was something which Kaneda mentioned in his podcast. Is that right? My memory is a little hazy. It's funny that you mention that. I saw something online where it was mentioned that when we discussed Dennis leaving Deep Root, that we did not mention that we got that information from Kaneda. Funny story is, we didn't get it from Kaneda. We already knew about it, but we didn't report on it yet. I've known about the troubles, if you want to call it that, between Dennis Nordman and Deep Root, I think, since October of last year, where I was. Good sources told me that there had been quite some arguments between Dennis and Deep Root. I think that might have had to do with the game that Dennis designed that Deep Root said they weren't interested in. And Dennis wanted to shop around that game and wasn't supposed to or wasn't allowed to do so. Right. I think that what I heard, and it's all, yes, I'd like to stick to the facts, and the fact is that that's what I heard. it's still hearsay but that's apparently one of the nails in the coffin of that collaboration I would say and so like I said obviously Dennis leaving around I think Thanksgiving it was or early December something like that that's not because something happened one day and that No, that had been brewing quite a while and ultimately resulted in Dennis leaving the company. And like I said, I was aware of that. And also before Kaneda mentioned it on the podcast, I already knew that Dennis was gone. So I'm all about giving credit where credit is due. But if I know about something, then I don't feel like crediting. another podcast that also brought the news but wasn't the first to tell me. Right. Okay. Fair enough. We cleared that up. But Dennis is currently working on a new game whether it's the game that he was offered to Deep Root or not, we don't know. But he's working on a game at home at the moment. He posted a few teaser pictures of him making ramps for it on his Facebook page. Right. So it looks as if it's some way off, of course, but we don't know what's going to happen to that game. But he's also doing his doll houses or miniature houses as well. Right. So, yeah, rumor has it, as we discussed in our last podcast, that Dennis was supposed to be working for Chicago Gaming. But if you listen to a lot of podcasts, Chicago Gaming basically said that Dennis is a freelancer and he can work for anybody. which doesn't mean that he's not working for Chicago Gaming, but in theory he can work for anybody. Yes, quite right. Apparently, I think the best way to say it is he's not employed by Chicago Gaming because he's a freelancer and that allows him to work for anybody, including Chicago Games. Yeah, and as we know, Chicago Gaming do occasionally get freelancers in to do various bits on their games, as they did with the topper for the Medieval Madness game. Right. They don't necessarily need to be employees of the company. They can just put the work out and get a freelancer to complete it for them. Yeah, so it might be a possibility that we could see a future Dennis Nordman game coming from Chicago Gaming. Maybe not. We'll just have to see. Right now, like you said, the game is being developed developed and it might still take another year before that even is close to production. We do know Chicago Gaming are working with other companies in order to get pinball designs manufactured. Right. Particularly with Ben Heck and Spooky. Right. So, of course, they've also got quite a relationship with Dennis as well. So, who knows, maybe there's a little grouping going on there to produce future games with Chicago Gaming. I think it would be very interesting. And speaking of grouping, I think it could even be more interesting if, hypothetically speaking, what would happen if certain pinball companies would combine their forces? That could be very interesting. yeah well they already are with the Spooky and Chicago Gaming collaboration it started how far could it go you're right so oh well that's probably everything I have to report on Chicago Gaming yeah so moving on to events down under I suppose and in Australia with Haggis Pinball where, although they've been reasonably quiet on the social media front, they have still been putting out, well, they've certainly put out one video recently. Right. That was Damien, and he was talking about playfields. Yes, apparently. Tell us what he said. Well, the Celts playfield, as we informed you earlier, they showed their standard play field, which is basically a wooden base with a, I think it's an acrylic layer that's on top of it, and they're sort of like put together. I'm not sure whether they are glued together, but at least they are. No, I don't think they are. No, but they're put together, and they did the sledgehammer test on that, if you remember. And right now they're actually offering three different variations of that playfield, with the one that I just discussed being the second. But they're also going to be offering a traditional plywood playfield at extra costs. and they're also going to be offering the playfield that we just discussed with an additional clear coat. Apparently some people are used to playing pinball on a clear-coated playfield and that has a different effect on the ball than an acrylic layer on top of a playfield. and some people prefer to have the ball traveling on wood so that's why they are offering these three variations and well hopefully they can get into production anytime soon so that they actually can start delivering games and so on and I'm personally curious to pre-play all three playfield variations just to discover or whether there are actually differences in how the surface of the playfield interacts with the ball and so on, or the ball with the playfield, whatever you want to, you know. Yeah, well, I'm sure there are differences, but whether they're noticeable or not is another matter. But yeah, it would be nice to do a direct comparison of the three, you're right. And that was the only news. The clear coating. Yeah, that's all that's... Yeah, I think David said it was like $500 extra. I don't know if it's Australian dollars or US dollars. $500 increase in... What? Extra charge for... It's for the clear-coated version. Yeah, so apparently... Well, you can imagine it takes extra time to clear coat and dry the clear coat layer. Right. So that's what that charge is. and that was for the third of the playfields that you mentioned the clear coated acrylic layer didn't actually say what the extra cost of the clear coated plywood layer is but you did say there would be an extra cost for that oh well well that's that's about it from Down Under I suppose any other updates moving back to the US Circus Maximus is on my list who are kind of affected by the coronavirus mostly because there are no pinball shows going on and if you've been to pinball shows you know that Circus Maximus is a vendor as well where they are selling lots of pinball parts and with no shows, that sort of income is drying up quickly. That's right. And of course they're not actually selling games at the moment. They're developing two different titles, the Kingpin and the Python's Pinball Circus. Kingpin is the one that they're actually actively developing in order to produce funds to carry on with the pinball circus game. But I guess they can't show what they're doing so far at any of the pinball shows. And as you said, the inventory they have, which they can't sell at pinball shows, they can sell a certain amount online, but it's only a small percentage of what they normally sell in any given year. So if you are after any particular parts, then go to the Circus Maximus website and see if you can find the parts there and buy them online rather than going to a pinball show. They probably have even more available online than they have at the shows. And they have a lot at the shows. They always have a big stand there. So go online, have a look and see what they've got and buy some parts and keep funding their development on Kingpin and Pinball Circus. Right, okay. Well, there's a couple of manufacturers left, starting off with Homepin. We briefly mentioned them. We did mention them earlier. Yeah. As you may remember, they moved to Taiwan, not so much due to the coronavirus, but more because of the Chinese government and the regulations for companies driving them insane. so um but uh obviously that means that they have to start or put their factory together completely from scratch and the news this month was that it took a while but finally the last container with tools parts and the sample machines arrived from china now that leaves them with a lot of time to sort out all the bits and pieces and putting them away in the correct place and position and so on. And aside from that, their current priority is to continue manufacturing replacement pinball machine PCBs for older games. and they might even be expanding their range of these boards and new types may be announced soon. So at least they're busy, obviously, but it will take some time before we get to see, to manufacture new games. Yeah, that seems to be the way of the world at the moment, doesn't it? So they're far from unique in that position, but good luck to Mike and the rest of the team in putting together their factory in Taiwan. Right. Having moved everything from one country to another, there seems to be a lot of moving going on as we've seen. Right. Okay. So now we also mentioned Dutch Pimble earlier. I tried to reach out to Barry and he said, well, basically I tried to reach out to him yesterday and I didn't catch him. And I was supposed to call him back today, but only after this recording, so that makes no sense. But as far as I know, they're still continuing to be working on games and shipping them, although they have been relatively quiet on their social media as well. Yes, I haven't seen anything. Yeah. I don't have any other news on Chicago Gaming that we already have discussed. No, we already covered them. And I haven't seen anything from Multimorphic on any of their social media channels. I haven't been in touch with Jerry, but I don't think anything much is going on down at their factory. Right. I know that they are trying to build modules for Heist from home, because they're very fortunate that the module obviously is a lot shorter than a complete pinball play field. So hopefully they are able to put some modules together and sell these. The response to the game has been very, very good. yeah I think there's a lot of people who have been really won over to the whole idea of the P3 pinball platform by that game it's kind of what they were hoping for I know talking to Jerry he wanted this to be a sort of breakout game not in the sense that it's a bat and a ball game but I mean it's one where it actually breaks people out from their preconceived notions of what the P3 can do and see it as a real full-function game. And I think that's been quite successful in that, from what you said and from other comments I've seen posted on various forums. Right. So, I think that wraps about it up. Well, you know, for the... We trailed this as the shortest episode ever at the start, and it can't be. It must be one of the longer ones. Well, yeah, okay. Well, it was a good teaser to keep people listening. well yes apologies if you would have felt duped by that but uh feel free to uh skip to the end and uh oh you are at the end all right okay in that case um too bad yeah yeah um i'm trying to think of one other bit of news um that that crosses my mind uh riot pinball was supposed to be showing uh their uh viking themed uh game at the texas pinball festival but obviously that didn't go ahead. Well, I don't know all the news about whether they would be building those games themselves. I think I read somewhere about that they were planning to do a production run of 10 or something. I'm not really sure, but maybe that's a story to catch up on next month. Yeah, we'll look into that. So, yeah. and well that's it for now so thank you for your time and attention and as I mentioned earlier now go listen to the super awesome pinball show yeah and see how it should be done right well from my end I thank you for your attention and stay safe everybody yes absolutely don't risk anything stay at home if you're under lockdown and if you're not keep away from each other and a good social distance and whatever you do treat everybody and everything as if it's got the virus and uh and make sure you don't spread it to anybody else either except for the pinball virus oh yes well we've all got that already so you wouldn't be listening so yeah as jonathan said thank you very much for listening uh stay safe and we look forward to seeing you or speaking to you again uh in a month's time when we look back at the month of may and everything that happened in the pimple world during those 31 days. Yes. So, until then, from me, Martin Eyre, and from... Jonathan Houston. We wish you... A pleasant month. Stay safe. And hopefully we'll see each other soon. Bye. Bye-bye.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 7ef79a7f-5862-4141-b337-eb5a4f96b5f1*