# Episode 37 - Brentt Brunner (Great Lakes Pinball) **Source:** Special When Lit **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2019-02-06 **Duration:** 67m 49s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://specialwhenlitpinballpodcast.com/episode-37-brentt-brunner-great-lakes-pinball --- ## Analysis Brentt Brunner, co-founder of Great Lakes Pinball, discusses the company's original-themed pinball machine 'Expose,' his journey into pinball despite being legally blind, and the company's philosophy of self-funding, customer-centric design, and avoiding pre-order models. The episode covers Great Lakes Pinball's technical approach using Raspberry Pi and a proprietary 'Pegasus platform' board, single-tier pricing strategy, and differentiation through accessibility and operator-friendly features. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Great Lakes Pinball will not be doing pre-orders and is self-funding the business — _Brentt Brunner stated directly: 'One thing that we did take from a lot of this is we will not be doing pre-orders. People will not be paying us to fund our business. We're actually cash rolling this ourselves.'_ - [HIGH] Expose will use a Raspberry Pi as the core hardware with a proprietary 'Pegasus platform' board designed by co-founder Jeff Palmer — _Brentt explained: 'We are actually using the Raspberry Pi is going to be the heart of it. We have a custom board that was actually designed by our owner, Jeff... we're calling it the Pegasus platform.'_ - [HIGH] Expose will be a standard-body machine with an original theme, not a licensed IP — _Ken asked about wide body vs standard, and Brentt confirmed: 'It's going to be a standard body.' The theme originality is confirmed through discussion of 'Leroy' the alien character as the face of Expose._ - [HIGH] Great Lakes Pinball plans to release one unified version of Expose that combines features of what would typically be Pro, Premium, and LE tiers — _Brentt stated: 'We are going with one game. One thing we want to do is make the one version that we're putting out valuable enough to where people will buy it... We're going to try and sandwich what we would see as three different models all into one.'_ - [HIGH] Brentt Brunner is legally blind and uses LED lighting kits and apron lights to play pinball competitively — _Brentt confirmed his legal blindness and described using lighting aids: 'I went to Steve at Pinball Refinery. He actually set up, created apron lights for me... And then Scott from Pin Stadium, he came out with his and I installed his in a couple of machines and that really helped out as well.'_ - [HIGH] Great Lakes Pinball's board (Pegasus) will use soldered-through (not surface mount) components and will be available for purchase as replacements — _Brentt addressed repairability: 'It will be, as far as I know, it will be soldered through... One good thing about the board is we will actually have them for sale if something ever happens.'_ - [MEDIUM] The pinball buyer demographic is primarily men aged 30-50 — _Brentt stated: 'If you look at the demographics, it's usually guys between the ages of like 30 and 50, I believe it is.'_ - [HIGH] Great Lakes Pinball has four core team members: Jeff Palmer (founder/brainchild), Chris (engineer), Brentt Brunner (customer service/networking), and Brad Chippy (programmer) — _Brentt explained the team structure: 'Jeff Palmer, who's the founder... And we also have Chris, who's an engineer... and then myself... And then we also have our programmer, which is Brad Chippy. So you have a team total of four? At this point right now, yes.'_ ### Notable Quotes > "I decided to get into pinball because I have an eye issue. I'm legally blind and I decided to get into pinball to help with my hand-eye coordination" > — **Brentt Brunner**, early in interview > _Establishes Brentt's personal connection to pinball and motivation for accessibility-focused design_ > "One thing that we did take from a lot of this is we will not be doing pre-orders. People will not be paying us to fund our business. We're actually cash rolling this ourselves." > — **Brentt Brunner**, mid-interview > _Core differentiator for Great Lakes Pinball business model, directly addressing failures of prior startups_ > "We're going to try and sandwich what we would see as three different models all into one." > — **Brentt Brunner**, pricing discussion > _Unique pricing/product strategy; single unified version rather than tiered models_ > "If anybody out there is thinking about doing this, think really hard because you will have to dedicate quite a bit of time into making this right and making your investment count." > — **Brentt Brunner**, original theme discussion > _Honest assessment of the challenges of creating an original-themed pinball machine_ > "One thing that we're focusing on heavily is our experiences with pinball. what we found in a machine that we didn't like, what we've had to add to a machine to make it work properly, things of that nature. We're trying to make it very customer-centric and operator-centric" > — **Brentt Brunner**, differentiation discussion > _Articulates Great Lakes Pinball's core philosophy and competitive positioning_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Great Lakes Pinball | company | Pinball machine manufacturer co-founded by Brentt Brunner, Jeff Palmer, Chris, and Brad Chippy; developing the original-themed machine 'Expose' | | Brentt Brunner | person | Co-founder of Great Lakes Pinball, legally blind pinball enthusiast, DJ, and customer service/networking lead for the company | | Jeff Palmer | person | Founder and 'brainchild' of Great Lakes Pinball; engineer and designer of the proprietary Pegasus platform board | | Expose | game | Original-themed pinball machine in development by Great Lakes Pinball, featuring character Leroy; standard-body, single unified version with Raspberry Pi and Pegasus board | | Leroy | product | Alien character that serves as the face/mascot of Great Lakes Pinball and the Expose machine | | Ken Cromwell | person | Co-host of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast; interviewer of Brentt Brunner | | Bill Webb | person | Co-host of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast; interviewer of Brentt Brunner | | Special When Lit Pinball Podcast | organization | Pinball podcast hosted by Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb, based in St. Charles, Illinois; has sponsors including LearnMods.com and PIN Stadium | | PIN Stadium | company | Sponsor of Special When Lit's Twitch streaming channel; manufacturer of apron/playfield lighting kits for pinball machines | | LearnMods.com | company | Sponsor of Special When Lit's 'Drain It or Save It' segment; pinball mod retailer | | Steve Bowen | person | Owner/operator of Pinball Refinery; created custom apron lights for Brentt Brunner | | Chris | person | Co-founder/engineer at Great Lakes Pinball; handles creative/technical engineering work | | Brad Chippy | person | Programmer for Great Lakes Pinball; handles code development for Expose | | Melissa | person | Operator of Cointaker; provided LED lighting kits to Brentt Brunner | | Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer frequently pursuing licensed themes; mentioned as industry standard for comparison | | Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer mentioned for recent original-themed release | | Highway Pinball | company | Startup pinball company mentioned as cautionary example; attempted Angry Birds Pinball licensing that may have failed | | Dutch Pinball | company | Startup pinball company mentioned as cautionary example of market entry challenges | | Angry Birds Pinball | game | Pitched/announced pinball machine by Highway Pinball; discussed as example of misaligned licensing strategy with target demographics | | The Beatles Pinball | game | High-end licensed pinball machine mentioned as example of expensive, tightly-controlled licensing deal | | Metallica Pinball | game | Stern pinball machine mentioned for dark playfield design issues that affected Brentt's ability to play | | The Munsters Pinball | game | Recent pinball release mentioned; used as example of visual field limitations and Bill Webb's wife's gameplay | | Pinball Life | company | Pinball parts and mods retailer mentioned in product placement discussion | ### Topics - **Primary:** Great Lakes Pinball business model and philosophy, Expose machine development and features, Legal blindness and accessibility in pinball, Original vs. licensed themes in pinball - **Secondary:** Pre-order model failures in pinball startups, Hardware platforms (Raspberry Pi, proprietary boards), Pricing strategy and market positioning - **Mentioned:** Pinball machine customization and upgrades (LEDs, Mylar, protectors) ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Brentt is enthusiastic and confident about Great Lakes Pinball's approach. Ken and Bill are supportive and encouraging. Conversation is friendly and collaborative. Some cautionary notes about startup challenges are balanced by confidence in the company's planning and differentiation. No significant negative sentiment detected. ### Signals - **[announcement]** Great Lakes Pinball, a new pinball manufacturer, is publicly announcing its entry into the market with Expose as its debut title (confidence: high) — Full interview dedicated to Brentt Brunner introducing company, team, machine, and business philosophy; appears to be formal podcast announcement - **[product_strategy]** Great Lakes Pinball is pursuing a single unified machine version that combines Pro/Premium/LE features rather than releasing multiple tier variants (confidence: high) — Brentt stated: 'We are going with one game... We're going to try and sandwich what we would see as three different models all into one.' - **[business_signal]** Great Lakes Pinball is self-funding development rather than using pre-orders, positioning this as a key differentiator from failed startups (confidence: high) — Brentt: 'We will not be doing pre-orders... We're actually cash rolling this ourselves.' Ken acknowledges this 'adds credibility to what you're doing.' - **[design_philosophy]** Great Lakes Pinball's design philosophy prioritizes customer and operator experience by including protective features (Mylar, protectors) and repairability (soldered-through boards) out of the box (confidence: high) — Brentt: 'We're trying to make it very customer-centric and operator-centric so it's easier for the professionals... he doesn't have to start ordering parts immediately just so he can protect the longevity of his game.' - **[design_innovation]** Great Lakes Pinball is developing a proprietary 'Pegasus platform' board built by founder Jeff Palmer using Raspberry Pi with over-specced capabilities to allow future expansion (confidence: high) — Brentt: 'Jeff built this board himself, designed it himself... we're calling it the Pegasus platform... We actually overdid what we needed to for an initial pinball machine. That way there's room for expansions.' - **[rumor_hype]** Rumor mentioned that Stern Pinball may be releasing an original theme, though Brentt cannot confirm this (confidence: medium) — Ken asks: 'Now, there's rumor that there's going to be an original theme coming out of Stern. Is that going to happen? I don't know. I can't speak of it.' Brentt declines to comment. - **[sentiment_shift]** Community sentiment appears to be shifting toward appreciation of original themes rather than exclusively licensed IPs; multiple recent original-themed releases mentioned (confidence: medium) — Ken: 'in recent years, there has been kind of that original theme that has kind of crept back into pinball, and we're seeing that now.' - **[community_signal]** Pinball community and manufacturers are learning from failures of Highway Pinball and Dutch Pinball, particularly regarding pre-order models and market positioning (confidence: medium) — Discussion of failed startups leads Brentt to conclude: 'One thing that we did take from a lot of this is we will not be doing pre-orders.' - **[product_concern]** Recent Stern machines like Metallica have dark playfield areas that create visibility issues for players, leading to aftermarket lighting solutions (confidence: medium) — Brentt describes Metallica: 'if a lot of you people know the play field is kind of dark in areas. I couldn't even see the top third of the play field really because it was so dark.' - **[licensing_signal]** High-end licenses (like The Beatles) provide strict control over brand usage, while budget licenses offer more creative freedom; licensing is expensive and affects startup feasibility (confidence: medium) — Brentt: 'licensing is expensive... Some people think... they're going to control every aspect. Some people do... But there are licenses out there where they say, that's great... But for something that you want that's going to hit it really out of the park... you've got to have a deep pocket for that.' - **[market_signal]** Pinball machine buyers are primarily male, aged 30-50, making licensed properties aimed at younger demographics (like Angry Birds) poorly positioned (confidence: medium) — Brentt: 'Who buys pinball machines? If you look at the demographics, it's usually guys between the ages of like 30 and 50... Who plays Angry Birds? Younger generation... Are they going to want to plop down $5,600, $6,000 for a pinball machine? Right. I'm not so sure.' - **[content_signal]** Special When Lit Pinball Podcast is launching a Twitch streaming channel with sponsors, indicating growth and professionalization of podcast platform (confidence: high) — Ken announces: 'And secondly, we've got PIN Stadium... they'll be sponsoring our special one-lit pinball streaming channel, which will be on Twitch. Now, we haven't launched the channel yet officially, and we've got a ridiculous announcement to come in regards to launching that channel.' --- ## Transcript Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Hello, Pinball Land, and welcome to episode number 37 of the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. I am Ken Cromwell. And I am Bill Webb. We've got an awesome show in store for you today. We've got Brent Bruner coming in from Great Lakes Pinball. Before we introduce him, though, Bill, I wanted to take a quick minute and introduce a couple of sponsors that have come on board to help out a little special one-lit pinball podcast. And the first is going to be LearnMods.com. They're going to be sponsoring a segment, the Drain It or Save It segment of the show. So we appreciate that. Secondly, we've got PIN Stadium, and they'll be sponsoring our special one-lit pinball streaming channel, which will be on Twitch. Now, we haven't launched the channel yet officially, and we've got a ridiculous announcement to come in regards to launching that channel. So for those of you that really like kind of having the special guests in the studio and the effort that we take to kind of bring you exclusive content, you're really going to appreciate what's going on with the streaming. But I did want to take a minute and just welcome Lermods.com and Penn Stadium to the special Wendland Pinball Podcast team. Rob and Kim and Scott, thank you very much. We definitely appreciate it and love having you guys in. So without further ado, let's introduce this gentleman as somebody that's not only a co-founder of a pinball company, and he's not only a famous world-renowned DJ, but he's also a personally nice guy, and his name is Brent Bruner. Brent, welcome to Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. Well, thank you very much, gentlemen. How are you doing tonight? Good, man. What's going on? How are you? Not much. I think world-renowned is a little heavy. let's just say people in bay city know me hey hey and that's that's far enough across the world for me we'll calm it down to national well listen brent um for those of of our listeners that aren't exactly sure who brent bruner is and what great lakes pinball actually is can you give us an opportunity to kind of clue us in who is brent bruner well actually i'm a michigan boy born and raised and been in pinball for about five years actually. I decided to get into pinball because I have an eye issue. I'm legally blind and I decided to get into pinball to help with my hand-eye coordination and I got my first pinball. I had 125 bucks and a broken laptop. Got me an Evel Knievel solid state which was great. I swapped out the MPU board, shopped it out watched a lot of youtube videos and just got hooked from that and we started buying other fixer-uppers flipping pinball machines and then we just got to what we got to i've gone through probably about i think the last count was to get to the lineup i have now is about i went through about 30 machines in and out of the house um and we've got a decent collection now here in the coin cellar, which is my basement. But Great Lakes Pinball really came about of three friends and our love of pinball. Jeff Palmer, who's the founder, he is the brainchild of the whole situation. And he's probably one of the most intelligent, creative people I've ever met. And we also have Chris, who's an engineer who does a fantastic job with creativity as well. and then myself, I came in doing a lot of customer service work, a lot of networking stuff, getting to know people, setting up relationships. And then we also have our programmer, which is Brad Chippy. So you have a team total of four? At this point right now, yes. We have some other vendors that we've been working with, but the core unit is four. You're a co-founder of a pinball company. I mean, that's not something that you hear every single day. No, like how did that come about? You guys, you know, before you guys were sitting around having beers, playing pinball, and, hey, I'd really like to incorporate this kind of idea into a pinball and just snowballs from there. How does that kind of transpire? It really started out basically that. We were playing pinball. We all had a lot of ideas. Wouldn't it be great to do this machine? Wouldn't it be great to do something like this? And that's how it started out. So we basically just started piecing things together, figuring out what everybody's strengths were. And then all of a sudden, Jeff said, let's do it. Let's hit it. And we started work on Expose. Surprisingly, I mean, you recognize or you let us know that because of an eye issue, you are literally legally blind, correct? Yeah, that's correct. Because when I think, and pardon me for overthinking this, but when I think of somebody that's legally blind, pinball is not the first thing that comes to mind as far as somebody that's playing. It takes a lot of hand-eye coordination. How does that affect your ability to play pinball? Well, see, the older machines, it was really easy, especially with the incandescent light bulbs. We started out with the early Bally and Williams. And as I progressed into the stuff from the 80s, we added LEDs to help me see better. Melissa from Cointaker was actually great I contacted her and she really hooked me up with a lot of kits for my games Earthshaker Roller Games, a few other System 11's that we had And these are LED lighting kits you're talking about? Yeah, we bought a ton of LED lighting kits and then when I bought I bought my first Stern new in box was Metallica and if a lot of you people know the play field is kind of dark in areas. I couldn't even see the top third of the play field really because it was so dark. So, you know, tracking your ball and everything was a pain in the butt. So I went to Steve at Pinball Refinery. He actually set up, created apron lights for me. He built a kit for me and I installed it and actually worked out great. And I was using those in my machines for quite a while. And then Scott from Pin Stadium, he came out with his and I installed his in a couple of machines and that really helped out as well to bring things to the forefront. So my scores got better and that's what really pushed me into it. When I could actually perform better and could see the ball and I started putting up higher scores, that's what really pushed me into it and got me hot and heavy into pinball. So for instance, when you're looking at a play field, what do you see or what do you not see without any other aid? Well, let's put it this way. A lot of people are familiar with the Munsters play field, okay? Right. Just came out. I just put my pin stadiums on mine. And about, I would say, at the stairwell spot is. I really can't see too much farther than that. So I can hit the ramps behind there and also hit Herman and Grandpa and the lily ramp or whatever. and I have no problems with those, but anything toward the back of the play field, I just can't do and I have to trust my instincts where to go. Okay. That's incredible. It is incredible. I mean, and again, when you think of sight issues, pinball just seems like it's already a challenge for somebody that doesn't have sight issues. So, you know, I think it's awesome that being legally blind hasn't set you back in regards to enjoying something that you love. And now you're taking that love of pinball and you're into a pinball company. It's just an incredible story, I think. In five years, pushing it that much further. Yeah. Let's put it this way. Once I latch on to something, it's no holds barred. You're all in on it. I like exactly all or nothing. I like pushing the limits of things. That's how I became a DJ. I started out at a radio station when I was in high school and just kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. and I still do a lot of shows today and have a great time with it, do bars, weddings, parties, stuff like that. And it's all about attitude. If you've got the right attitude, you can do anything in life. Yeah, that's very true. I completely agree. That's very true. Now, I know that the both of us, we talked prior to the show, and we both had ideas, hopefully one day implementing to help others that are limited in regards to their physical ability to play and enjoy pinball, to kind of aid those people. And I do want to touch on that later on in the show. But I also, I mean, Exposé is the name of this pinball machine that Great Lakes Pinball is currently working on. Can you talk a little bit about maybe how long Exposé has been in the process or exactly how you come up with Exposé as an idea for a pinball machine? Because all we've really seen at this point, and we can talk about your artist as well, is just kind of a rendering or a graphic of like a little alien guy. I think his name is Leroy. That's Leroy. That's Leroy, right? And so he's been kind of the face of the company, so to speak, in regards to the pinball machine or the face of Exposé. How long have you been working on it? I mean, what can you tell us about Exposé? Exposé was an idea that we came up with last year when we first started getting all the logistics together for the company. and we threw it around. I don't want to pull the curtain back too much because it's a big surprise and I think people are going to be really happy with it. But Exposé came about of, once again, us sitting around, throwing ideas back and forth, and just basically laying out the plans for it and the storyline and the characters. And I'll tell you what, it was a lot of fun coming up with these, and I think the fun that we had creating it is going to definitely come out when people are playing it. Well, you know what? The best products are those that are built out of passion. So, you know, with the way that you're talking, it seems like there are good things on the horizon. I know one question that comes to mind. Be a wide body or would this be a standard body? Is that something you can discuss? It's going to be a standard body. And then what kind of hardware did you guys plan on running? Is that you plan on using like the P-Rock setup or something proprietary that you guys are in the works designing? We are actually using the Raspberry Pi is going to be the heart of it. We have a custom board that was actually designed by our owner, Jeff. So you'll have a Raspberry Pi, which a consumer can replace if they needed to, but then you'll have a proprietary board also that will be implemented within the pinball machine? That is correct. All right. So with Expose as the title, I think at this point it's safe for us to assume that this is an original theme. This is not anything that's licensed. So I think the immediate question that I wanted to kind of ask you is, do you feel like your decision to go with an original theme, has that put you at an immediate disadvantage? I mean, because the general consensus seems that those that go with licensed themes, because they're just more popular and people are aware of them, it seems like they're more successful in general. I wouldn't say disadvantage. I think that's a little harsh on that end because I would definitely go with challenging. And challenging is good because when you're challenged with something and you put enough time and effort into it, you're going to come out with something that you like. And as long as when you have an original title, if you make it relatable to people and study trends, study what people want, listen to interviews, you can come up with stuff and mash it all together. And it's just going to be something that everybody is hopefully going to love. So would you, is it safe to say that there's been some form of market research involved in your decision on your original theme, whether that be technical market resource research, or is something that you've just all kind of gathered on what the people want? I would definitely say we have done some market research. You have to, when you're putting in an investment together like this, If you just go at it guns a blazing, you could have some issues. But when you keep an eye on what people are looking for, what is trending, things like that, it pushes you that much closer to what people are looking for, what they're going to buy. Well, because it was interesting. We just saw recently, actually within the last couple of days, this week in pinball, they had shown a pitch that Highway Pinball had for Angry Birds Pinball. And at the time, it seemed like, I mean, if you had a tablet or if you had a phone, you were playing Angry Birds. And it seemed like their natural reaction to that was, obviously, this is so popular. We're just going to implement this into a pinball machine, not really considering maybe demographics. Whereas people that were playing Angry Birds weren't necessarily the target market or the demographic for pinball buyers. So, I mean, would you say that your original theme, pinball, will that appeal to people that are playing pinball? Absolutely. Absolutely. I did see the Angry Birds pitch, and I thought about it. And who buys pinball machines? If you look at the demographics, it's usually guys between the ages of like 30 and 50, I believe it is. Who plays Angry Birds? Younger generation, things like that. Are they going to want to plop down $5,600, $6,000 for a pinball machine? Right. I'm not so sure. Well, I think we all play Angry Birds, but the difference being, to your point, it's not something that I feel translates well into pinball because I'm playing Angry Birds on a completely different platform. But on the other side of things, I think it's kind of stereotypical to think that those guys that are in their 30s to 50s only want older themes that make them feel young. I think that there's got to be a gap that can be bridged by having something that feels familiar but being able to take a fresh take on it. And in recent years, there has been kind of that original theme that has kind of crept back into pinball, and we're seeing that now. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how this translates and trends later on in the coming years, in all honesty. Well, the original themes, I mean, you saw a lot of that coming out of the 80s and 90s Ballywilliam era. And then they lit up with the licensing in the 90s. Right, licensing in the 90s and today. And you see, for instance, Stern Pinball, they go after license after license after license. Now, there's rumor that there's going to be an original theme coming out of Stern. Is that going to happen? I don't know. I can't speak of it. I dialed in recently from Jersey Jack was an original theme that I love that pinball machine. I love the way it plays. the theme itself missed the mark a little bit for me just because uh it's not that it wasn't implemented well it just didn't call to me but that being said the machine shoots so fun and show well like i i don't necessarily feel like you know the theme holds it back i've i've owned it um so and i would also imagine brent and not to go on a tangent but obviously as a startup company it's got to be a little bit more affordable to go ahead and put your efforts into an original theme versus trying to get licensing assets. I mean, I don't know anything about licensing, but I can imagine it's not an easy, affordable undertaking for an established company, much less a startup company. I can definitely tell you licensing is expensive. Sure. And then you're also, people think that when you get a license that they're going to control every aspect. Some people do, I should say. That's not very true with all licenses. Now, with certain high-end licenses like the Beatles, I'm sure they were very in tune with everything that went into that machine. But there are licenses out there where they say, that's great. You want to use the brand, use the likenesses, that's great. We want the advertisement. If you shop around, they're out there. But for something that you want that's going to hit it really out of the park, that's going to reach the masses, you've got to have a deep pocket for that. Well, one of the nice things about having your own theme and coming up with everything is that all the animations, I mean, you're not dealing with voices or likenesses and all that other stuff. So you are, you know, creatively, sky's the limit. Nothing can hold you back. Exactly. And it's also, like I said, it's a lot of fun. When you're spitballing ideas back and forth, it can get kind of crazy. I'm just thinking on the other side of that, though, going with an original theme also presents a line of challenges because you really don't have any direction in which to go on or to expand off of. So I mean it it lies heavily on your creative efforts to not only come up with a theme but but animations if that what you guys are using whether it be a DMD or an LCD or artwork telling a story So it's more affordable. It seems like there's the energy and the thought process that has to be put into the pin is probably as equal as it would be to like to put money into the pin. I don't know if you can comment on that, Brent. I don't know if that makes any sense, what I just said, actually. I think it does because what you're trying to say is with that creative freedom also comes more challenges of animations and sound. Right, because you're starting everything from scratch. Artwork and coming up with your own rule set for a theme that you've created within yourself, within the group of you. Once again, it comes to that creative freedom coming at a price. Right, exactly. It is very hard work. I'm not going to lie to you. If anybody out there is thinking about doing this, think really hard because you will have to dedicate quite a bit of time into making this right and making your investment count. Because if you think you're not going to be happy with it, there's no sense in bringing it to market. When you talk about bringing it to market, was there a reason why you guys decided when you sat down and thought of the idea of a pinball machine, instead of kind of putting a whitewood together and something that flips in your basement and to bring around to pinball shows and show the pinball community as like a hobby. I mean, is there a reason why you decided to go full-fledged into pinball manufacturing and just taking the machine from an idea and attempting to bring this out to the public? We had discussed just going and doing a one-off, but what fun is that? We would like other people to enjoy exactly what we're doing, and we think they're going to welcome this product into their homes. I really think Expose is going to open up something different for the pinball community, and I hope it does. We've seen some startups that haven't gone the way that they anticipated coming out, and I think it's easy for us to kind of Monday morning quarterback it and look on the background and say, well, they failed here and they failed there. On any other company that's existing, have you guys really taken anything into consideration and maybe made conscious efforts to not do something one way or to follow the leader on another? Well, talking about other pinball companies, they all start out with the best intentions. I agree. And I really think that I don't think Highway or Dutch Pinball, they had any idea that what was going to happen happened. One thing that we did take from a lot of this is we will not be doing pre-orders. People will not be paying us to fund our business. We're actually cash rolling this ourselves. themselves. Hey, Brent, I think that's huge because what we've seen with these companies that have failed was because of the pre-order model. And I can't speak for certain, but I can only imagine that if you are creating something and you get this influx of cash that supposedly should be going towards the manufacturing efforts of your product, I think it's only human nature to kind of think that you're going to have more money coming down the road and maybe not all that cash is dedicated towards the pinball effort, and you start getting a little bit laxed on discipline and spending that money. So to hear that you guys are bankrolling this puts all the risk on you at that point versus asking for anybody to support with pre-order dollars. So I mean, right alone, I think that adds credibility to what you're doing. Well, thank you. We really appreciate that. And it's something we're very proud of. We've all been blessed with great jobs, and we want to give something back. We want to turn something that we've been very passionate about into a reality. In fact, even our wives are helping us out. They're the ones who are designing our booths and stuff like that, and they'll be at the shows working the booths as well. It's really a family affair. Well, the fact that you've got the wives on board and you're using your own money says a lot because most wives, well, maybe I'm speaking for my general perspective here, aren't supportive of this hobby per se. My wife thinks I'm in the bathroom right now. So it's like, yeah, that's perfect. Mine thinks I ran across the street to go get gas. I'm just going to tell her I got the car washed and there was some bird stuff on it. Exactly. Yeah. Let's put it this way. When I started into this and I started putting money into machines and stuff like that, my wife, God bless her, she dealt with it. I'm not going to say she tolerated it all the time, especially when I'd be like, you know, I'm going to sell roller games so I can get a different machine. And I'd get that eye roll. Didn't you just put it in the basement? Oh, yeah. You know what? We've been through that same struggle as well. You know, a month, month, month and a half later, I stealth all my machines in and out while the wife's at work. As far as she knows, I still have the same couple of machines that I've had for the last two years. And I've gone through like 40 or 50 over the last 18 months. She's just not down here enough. Well, let's put it this way. Munsters, before we started this interview, I actually had to shoo her out of the basement so I could do this interview because she's trying to hit grand champion on Munsters right now. Oh, man, I love it, man. It's like a hungry pinball wife. That's a good woman right there. That's very, very good. I like that. You know, I had a box of mods sent to the house from Pinball Life. Guess who brought them in when she came home for lunch? I don't know. That's right. Oh, the wife. See? That's good. And nicely done purchasing the mods at The Pinball Life. But I do encourage you there, Brent, to check out LureMods.com because they also have a nice assortment of pinball mods for your play field and for your lighting. Tons of stuff. Actually, I'm on their website right now. Oh, well, good. I'm glad you're paying attention to the interview, man. Thanks for your undivided attention. It's okay, Zach. I mean, Chris. Oh, he said Zach, Chris, and Ken. Whatever it takes. As far as Great Lakes Pinball goes, I mean, in your opinion, what's going to differentiate Great Lakes Pinball from every other pinball manufacturer that's currently making pins? Well, there's a lot of great pinball manufacturers out there. And I couldn't say I couldn't see enough good things about all of them because we're all trying to do the same thing. But one thing that we're focusing on heavily is our experiences with pinball. what we found in a machine that we didn't like, what we've had to add to a machine to make it work properly, things of that nature. We're trying to make it very customer-centric and operator-centric so it's easier for the professionals that are putting these machines en route and it's easier for the guy who's taking it out of the box in his basement. That way he doesn't have to look at it and go, okay, I need to order this, this, this, and this to protect my machine. Well, we want to try and add those things on there so he doesn't have to start ordering parts immediately just so he can protect the longevity of his game. As you said that, I immediately think Cliffy protectors and Mylar and all those kinds of things. So, I mean, is it safe to assume that in some way or form you're kind of addressing those concerns to a certain extent before these machines go to the consumer? There will be some protection on each machine. We will be Mylaring up. Oh, reference. So, Brent, and I'm sorry, I don't mean to go back to this, But I mean, this has been on my mind just because I've used the Raspberry Pi and a lot of different projects. And I'm just thinking about having the Raspberry Pi in a pinball machine, which makes total sense. But I'm also I'm really curious about your proprietary board. That's not a P-Rock or anything like that. Right. So can we talk about this a little bit more or is that something that we're going to kind of wait and see what happens? I can't give you the full technical experience of it because that would be more Jeff's route. But I can tell you, Jeff built this board himself, designed it himself. It is on, we're calling it the Pegasus platform. And it's just an amazing board. We actually overdid what we needed to for an initial pinball machine. That way there's room for expansions on it. The good thing about what we're doing is we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. And starting from scratch, we can actually invent what we want to and set it up so that when we go to expand later and we need this on the board, it's already there, it's tested, and we can just start at it right away. Is it going to be repairable for somebody that is able to do that kind of thing? Because I know concerns now lately, it seems like with boards moving forward, is that where they're working, they ultimately need to be replaced versus being worked on. And I know a lot of people prefer to be able to work on something, have something hands-on that they can repair versus having to order a replacement. Yeah, like have the solder through instead of the surface mount solder. Right, right, exactly. It will be, as far as I know, it will be soldered through. We're not doing sockets, as far as I know. But one good thing about the board is we will actually have them for sale if something ever happens. But we're putting a lot of testing efforts into this board. so we can make sure what we're selling to people is going to last. Okay. I know another question that a lot of people are going to have in their minds is going to be regarding getting into the pinball marketplace. Price is obviously something that is a main factor in somebody's decision to purchase a pinball machine. And you see prices kind of all over the place. And we're going to touch on pricing a little bit later in the show with some of our pinball segments. But, you know, you've kind of got your your it seems like fifty five hundred bucks to twelve thousand five hundred as far as buying new in box pins. Are you at this point able to comment or kind of clue anybody in as to where you guys plan on entering as far as pricing? One hundred million dollars. Oh, nice. Just a bit outside of that. Hey, just a little bit. One hundred million for expose. You heard it here on special wind lit pinball podcast. that is the titanium model. Well, and that makes sense too, because are you going to go in with one model? Are you going to be going in with multiple models? Are we going to see a, a basic and a middle tier and an upper tier and a super upper tier and the million dollar tier. And here, honestly, on the titanium series, it's got magnets in there. So when you're on the moon and you're playing, the lack of gravity doesn't affect the ball. See, it's a concern. That's what we're talking about. Thinking for the future. Absolutely. I mean, Mars on pinball is not just a crazy thing that's never going to happen. Actually, we are going with one game. One thing we want to do is make the one version that we're putting out valuable enough to where people will buy it and they won't have to go, oh, I wish I had the premium because it has this or it has this. I wish it had this. We're going to try and sandwich what we would see as three different models all into one. I kind of like that because I've had that conundrum many times on – and typically, I'm like the middle tier guy on most of these machines because quite honestly, I usually am not in a position where I can afford the higher end model. And for whatever reason, I feel like I'm missing something with the lower end model. So I just kind of go with – kind of like when I'm contracting out a quote for something, right? I kind of go with them in the middle. And that's kind of how I am with pinball. So to kind of know that with Great Lakes Pinball as it stands right now, that I will be able to buy a machine and I won't feel like I missed something that somebody else was able to get or miss an experience that somebody else is going to have on a machine. Or an artwork package. Or an artwork package. I mean, I like that. I like knowing that everybody that purchased the pin that I own, we're all in the same boat and we're all having the same experience. And, you know, hopefully we're all paying about the same amount of money. So with that said, would you have options available for your games when you purchase them, or is it literally coming out of the box? Everyone's getting the same game, doesn't matter? It's coming out of the box. Everyone's getting the same game. Okay, very cool. We have thought about it, and really we want to be as fair to the consumers as possible. And what you just said hits the nail right on the head. You're not missing out on anything. You're going to get what your buddy's getting as well. It's a great game that's going to last for quite a while. I like that as well. Now, one other question that I have with just starting out, how do you guys plan on distributing these? Are you guys going to look for traditional distributors? Are you going to try and go a more unique way, sell them yourselves, or what's your plan there? We're going to look for basically your traditional distributors. Okay, so a distribution model. And I think it makes the most sense. It's hard to be able to service everything on your own. Distributors are, you know. A good distributor is really important when purchasing a pinball machine. Yeah. And for as many times as I've bought new in box, I've dealt with some great distributors and so have the other guys. So we kind of have a feeling of who we want to go with and who we're going to talk with first. We just actually secured our headquarters last Friday. We just got our building here in Bay City, Michigan, and we're going to be moving our facilities in there soon. and out of that same facility we are also going to be starting an arcade. We want to start bringing pinball to the mainstream again and this area is screaming for more pinball. You've secured a building in which you'll be doing more production. Will you also be doing manufacturing out of this building? Yes. And then also you will be facilitating the public's need for arcade pinball and recreation. So you'll actually have... That's correct. Wow. And a built-in test location. Yeah, that's what I was saying, too. You can throw that game right there on test, which is pretty huge. We have actually quite a few pinball leagues in this area, which is great. Some you have to go half hour, 45 minutes for. But, I mean, the need for a place to go and play pinball in this area is out there. There is a place in Midland, Michigan, which is about 20 minutes away from us. They do pretty well. We would also like to bring something to our neighborhood. Good for you. So, you know what, supporting the community and supporting pinball. Yep. You know what, Brent? It's exciting to see what happens with Great Lakes Pinball. Is there anything that you can suggest to anybody else that might have an idea for a game that they might want to one day bring to the manufacturing side? Any tips of encouragement or any reasons for them to run away? We've got to cover all facets here. I could give you a lot of reasons to run away. Right. It's stressful. I keep hearing that. It's time-consuming, and it is also very, very expensive. However, when you see something that was in your head go into a program on the computer where you figured out your play field and then you watch that play field being cut on a CNC, everything is worth it. You know what, just to see something like that, I can only imagine how awesome that must feel. Now, granted, there's a price tag attached to it. It's like an ultrasound. Look what I've created. Yeah. It's now coming to fruition. But you also created a child. Yeah, but this is a lot cooler and it doesn't crap on me. Right. I understand the whitewood better than the ultrasound. Yeah. At least I know where I think the slings are going to go. So that's good. So, Brent, regarding the reveal of your first title, Exposé, is it possible that we're going to see this revealed in 2019? You're definitely going to see Exposé come out in 2019. and I think everybody is going to be blown away by what we have, and I hope everybody is happy with what we have. We're putting our blood, sweat, and tears into this, and it's going to be a beautiful machine, and it's going to flip really great. Hey, man, we're excited. Now, listen, I want to tell you this. I want to tell you how much we appreciate you coming on the show. I think it was important and interesting for those that are listening to learn a little bit more about this company as you guys are making some headway here. I also appreciate the fact that you're really not at liberty to talk too much about what's happening. And we totally respect that. Do us a favor, man. Let us keep checking in. And if you've got anything that you'd like to talk about or share or if we can help the public know about more that's happening at Great Lakes Pinball, consider Special When Lit as a source for you to do so because we'd like to have you back on. Oh, that'd be great. I'd love to come back. Actually, the next time we come on, I'd actually like to have the whole team on if that's okay. I would love to have the whole team on. In fact, we should do kind of impromptu and maybe we do a little panel discussion similar to what we did with Munsters if you guys would all want to sit down and kind of talk about this pinball machine as it launches That something that we really really been passionate about doing And maybe give some consideration if you guys are up for it. That'd be fun. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like I said, and I've told you this before, Ken, I really appreciate everything you guys are doing for pinball. And you guys do a great job. I'm very happy for this to be the first ever podcast I've been on. Well, thank you very much for that. by the way, for us to have the honor of interviewing you. And the trust, man. We do appreciate it. At some point, we're going to sit down and have a beer face-to-face versus over a podcast, but you sound like a good guy, man. You've got a good head on your shoulders, and the sky's the limit. So the ball's in your court at this point, and real interested to see where you go with it. Now, before we let you go, you've got a couple more minutes? I've got all the time in the world. Would you like to play a little Drain It or Save It? I would love to. It's time for this week's edition of Drain It or Save It. Drain It or Save It is brought to you by our friends at LearnMods.com. LearnMods.com specializes in quality custom playfield mods and lighting for your pinball machine. Visit LearnMods.com today. You know, for those of you who don't know, Drain It or Save It, essentially I'm going to bring up three topics for Bill and for Brent, in which case they'll get about a minute that they can say that they would drain the topic because they don't particularly care for it or agree with it, or they would save it because it's something that they like or they support. I will give my quick thoughts at the end of that segment, and we'll leave it at that. You guys ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Brent, you ready, buddy? Absolutely. All right, man. So the first thing I wanted to bring up today for Drain It or Save It, top 10, top 100 lists, and specifically the pin-side top 100. It's something that we've all kind of looked at. Do you drain that list or do you save that list? And let's go to Bill first. Bill, drain it or save it? So I'm going to have to drain it. And the only reason why is because I think that it's more of a guide than the actual Bible of the best machines. Because there's machines that are ranked well below, you know, well into the hundreds that I think should be higher up. And there's games that are in the top 100 that I think that should be lower. I think it's just a good guide. And it's also, you know, if it's a lower production game and it only had a handful of votes, it doesn't warrant the score that it might be receiving. Okay, so you're going to take a pass. You're going to drain the Pinside Top 100. What about you, Brent? Pinside Top 100, go. Honestly, I would drain it as well because I've used it purely as a guide. I've had some games on there that were 70s, 80s. I loved them. First of all, Guardians of the Galaxy has dropped so far, but I still love that game. Aerosmith, same way. It was rated as a turd, but I really love that game. All right, so we've got two drain-its on the Pinside Top 100. I'll hold my commentary for the end. We're going to go to the second category here, the second option for both of you. We're going to start with Brent, and that is powder coating pinball machines, specifically pinball armor, lockdown bars, rails, coin doors, that sort of thing. Wire forms. Wire forms as well. Brent, powder coating on pinball. Go. You've got to save it. I mean, some of the artwork that they're doing now with powder coating is magnificent. but there's a caveat to that you have to pick the colors that are going to be pleasing to more than just yourself because if you pick hot pink for your ghostbusters and try to sell it it's probably not going to work out attaboy i like that what about you there bad boy bill powder coating i like it um i would save it because it does add to the game once again you know i think brent has a point you can't just go throwing you know pink on a game unless it's you know my little pony which doesn't exist yet so not yet you know or or just be able to say listen i'm gonna add five hundred dollars worth of powder coating to take a thousand dollar loss on this game and be okay with it interesting enough all right so you guys are both going to save powder coating we're going to go to the third topic and this is something that's a little bit uh controversial and i've had collectors say that they don't care and i've had collectors say that it's a major decision in purchasing a pinball machine and that is the re-import and that is a machine that was manufactured here in chicago has gone overseas out of the country and at some point comes back into the country so we're going to go to bad boy bill with re-imports all up to you buddy go ahead i would save it only because i have seen some really really nice re-imports that are nicer than some of the stuff that i've received that stayed in the states it's just you know it doesn't matter where it went it just matters the condition of the game okay what about you brent re-imports I'm going to save it as well but there's also something you've got to look out for if the game is still in great shape yeah the wiring the power supply may have had to be changed as long as everything is put back together nothing wrong with it alright so you guys are both going to save it so you guys were both in agreement on draining the Pinside Top 100 you were both in agreement in saving powder coating and you were both in agreement in saving re-imports we are now besties I felt like, yeah, we were copying off of each other. At least we got the same grade. So either we're going to pass together or we're going to summer school together. It's one or the other, Brent. Well, one of you are going to have to take two dates to the prom because I've yet to weigh in on this. So I'm going to go ahead and give you my lightning round on this. And that's first the Pinside Top 100. I'm going to save the Pinside Top 100, and I'm going to tell you why. The Pinside Top 100 seems to me that whenever I get the itch and I'm looking for a pinball machine, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best machine available but it's a popularity contest it's what people are trending towards and for me somebody that doesn't hang on to pinball machines for very long that appeals to me i like to know what people like what what they've rated high because i know at that point i've got a machine that might be easier to sell with that as a reference or also something that's good trade bait so i'm going to save the pin side top 100 secondly powder coating pinball oh man i'm a big big proponent of saving that and and specifically I had powder-coated my Ghostbusters Premium when I had it, and it was just this sweet metallic purple that I sent out. And it came back, and it was just awesome. And actually, shout-out to our buddy Joe C., who does some powder-coating on the side for us. I love the work that he does, not only in pinball, but he's helped me out on arcade stuff. And for me, I think that that can really set apart machines that look alike. And then having something that's kind of blinged out with a little powder-coating, tastefully done, is awesome. Finally, re-imports. Absolutely. I save the re-imports. There's nothing better to me than somebody passing on a machine that's in good shape because it was re-imported. Listen, guys, these machines came out of Chicago, Illinois. They happened to travel overseas, and they came right back to the place in which they originated. No reason for me to go ahead and skip along on them, unless you've got some corrosion or other playfield issues. The one thing that I don't like about the reimport typically is that single slot coin door, in which case I will change that sucker out quicker than you can say reimport. But it's a coin door rewiring a transformer and maybe resetting the CPU. Absolutely. They came from the place in which pinball originated. Let's bring them all back home. So, yes, I'm going to save everything today. I'm in a good mood. So, yeah, fun time, guys. we had touched on this earlier in the show, Brent, and I wanted to take this time and kind of talk about those that have limitations physically which hinder their ability to play pinball. And it might be somebody that's lost a limb or somebody that has sight issues. I personally have not seen a wide range of things to help those people to play pinball. Now, we both are passionate about, and I know you are too, Bill, all three of us are passionate about bringing pinball to others and furthering pinball. And making it more accessible. Championing pinball. Right. And just creating more exposure. But I think a greater effort would be to bring pinball to those that are already passionate about it, but they just have limitations that prevent them from enjoying pinball like we do. and Brent I think this is an excellent opportunity to kind of throw the show to you because for somebody that that is legally blind and has overcome you know sight limitations you are a pinball enthusiast and you're loving playing pinball you just got a Munsters new in box and you're working for a pinball you're co-founded a pinball company I mean so that alone I think is so inspiring but what kind of ideas do you think can be implemented to those that just aren't physically able to play pinball. And I've got my ideas, but I'm just curious. Let's talk about this for a few minutes because I think it's so important. Well, one of the first ideas I had was, say you and I have a friend who's a veteran who lost a hand and he would love to play pinball. First of all, like say maybe a box with two flipper buttons in it, you would have to make obviously a modification in some way, shape or form to either the left or the right flipper, or put either a Y adapter in there so the box could slip in there. And you could use your palm for one flipper and your fingertips for the other flipper, just like you use for the double playfields. Yeah, right. So that's one big idea. And that could be basically universal, really. But the one big problem would be adapting that flipper. So like I said, it couldn't be something that could just be put on any machine. but that's just my dry thoughts on the whole situation. Yeah, I think, Bill, you've got kind of similar ideas as well, right? I kind of had this thought one time when I had a hand injury of, you know, wow, I won't be able to play pinball because I damaged my finger this week. So I was thinking about it. How would you play pinball if you couldn't, you know, have access to one of your hands? So one of my thoughts was building a clamping system that would just, you know, clamp right onto the side of the cabinet so it's universal for, you know, standard bodies, obviously wide bodies, you'd have to get an extension for it or be able to extend it. It would clamp on, go over both of the flipper buttons, come to a center point where you could use just two fingers to play. And then when you wanted to play a different machine, you twist it off, you unclamp it real quick, and put it on the next machine, and away you go. Yeah, I think those are both serviceable options. is that the one thing that I thought might be something that's easily done and accessible and affordable would be just like a simple lockdown bar replacement. If somebody lost an arm or a hand and they weren't able to hit both flipper buttons, to be able to install two flipper buttons centrally or on the right or left side of a lockdown bar where somebody can play one-handed with two fingers, you could have a lockdown bar for wide bodies and you could have it for standard. but you could also have the, you know, the Molex connectors that connect per manufacturer. So at any given time, you know, you could maybe have three or four different lockdown bars in your artillery. But anytime you got a pin, it's just a matter of switching the lockdown bar, connecting a Molex connector. You've got two buttons that are right next to each other on the lockdown bar. So it'd be easy to play with one hand. And you could also use that design to take advantage of the action button that you see on the newer pinball machines in the middle of like Sterns and JJPs, JJPs where you could have three buttons centrally, your left flipper on the left side of the action button, your right flipper on the right side of the action button. So you could actually play pinball with three fingers adequately and still have that experience. Back in the day when I was making some portable golden tee cabinets where they were kind of like bar top units, where it was just kind of like a mini pedestal that had a track ball and some buttons and you could put it on a bar or a counter and you could hook it up to your LCD and you could play golden tea. But it occurred to me that that same design, if put on the floor, somebody that was maybe a veteran or just was born with limitations where they didn't have arms or hands or somebody that had a horrible accident that just weren't able to do that, you could absolutely play effectively with your feet. I mean, you could roll a trackball and hit buttons with your feet. And I don't think pinball is any further out. I think that there are ways that you could have flipper buttons where somebody could play with their feet. And, you know, where it might sound trivial for those, we take it for advantage. We take it for an advantage that we have full use of our arms and limbs and, you know, in most cases, like our sights and everything like that. But pinball warrants being driven in a direction in which we can help those that normally wouldn't be able to play pinball. and uh you know for us i don't know if if at any one point we'd be able to kind of collaborate on something and at that point it's not about profiting it's not about making money but it goes into what we've all been driven in this hobby and that is making pinball accessible and and expanding its its players and its fans and and i think the the market with physical limitations is there um to expand on you know you know even if it's just one person that benefits from an idea like that, that's one person that gets to experience something in which they would have been taken out of because of their limitations. And we're in a world where your limitations should never hold you back. They should make it more of an accessible world for you. Bill, that sounds cliche, but I think you're right, man. I mean, and Brent, let me throw it to you. Actually, I had another cliche to say as well, so go ahead. No, go for it. I'm just thinking like you always hear, well, if we only had one person that did this, and And a lot of times it's just kind of a natural thing to say. But legitimately, let me ask you, I mean, if we all had collaborated and we came up with one idea that made sense and somebody was able to utilize that and change their whole outlook on leisure time and a hobby and a passion, it actually is worth it. It really, really is. We had sponsored an event for a veteran who was having a hard time walking at my work. And we got this gentleman an electric wheelchair. Was it a big monetary contribution? I don't think it was too drastic in the grand scheme of what we do. But to him being able to get around and being able to go places that he couldn't because now he had the ability because he really couldn't walk, that made a world of difference to him. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, pinball is a luxury for anybody. I mean, let's be honest. And for anybody to be in a position to buy a pinball machine and play it, it's a luxury. It's not anything that's dire straits. It's not going to make or break you as success in life. But just because somebody has a physical limitation, I don't think that should limit them from enjoying something that we kind of take for granted. And in all honesty, Brent, maybe you can speak to this. I think like three simple ideas that we had here today are not cutting edge revolutionary ideas that would take huge amount of of crowdsourcing and funding to do. I think it's very accessible. I think I could make something like this in my garage in a weekend and actually be able to to offer it to somebody. So, I mean, how do we spread the word on this? How do we get somebody on board? I mean, how do we fundraise for this? I mean, because that's something that I would love to do something like that. If we could put something together, I would be all about it. Because one of the cliches is, oh, I like playing pinball because it's just me and the flippers. Well, you know what? I would like to give somebody else that smile on their face if they can stand there and play pinball and have a great time with it and just escape all the issues that they have. That's why a lot of people play pinball, because it's fun and they can get away from everything. And if you give somebody that kind of oasis like we have, we can enjoy all the time. It helps people through a lot of things. I couldn't agree more. And you see charitable organizations like Project Pinball and that sort of thing where they're bringing machines into children's hospitals and that sort of thing. And that's touching. And I've always had respect for that. And, you know, maybe we can collaborate off air and try to figure out something that we can do. And you know what? It's not like it's our idea where, hey, nobody copy off us. We're not looking to make money on this. We're just looking to expand pinball. If somebody has the means and they like to contact us at special and lit pinball podcast at Gmail dot com or maybe you know contact you know Great Lakes Pinball with with Brent and Brent you can give your information on how to be contacted here at the end of the show unless you want to give that information now I can give that information now You can contact me at Brent That B at GreatLakesPinball And that is T You didn get a skip in your podcast app B-R-E-N-T-T at GreatLakesPinball.com. I think it'd be really fun and effective for us to kind of figure something out or at least be able to help spread the word if anybody wants to take the ball and run with this, but I'd like to be involved. And I would say that not doing it for myself, but selfishly, it would be rewarding to know that we were able to kind of bring something to somebody that normally wouldn't be able to experience it. So I think that's huge. And Brent, I appreciate you talking about it. Oh, absolutely. I mean, absolutely. It's huge and creates so much more credibility for you talking about this just because you've overcome something that most people would consider debilitating where they wouldn't consider pinball. To all those people that think that they can't do it, go to your, find your local pinball shop, go play a tournament. I was terrible at tournaments when I first started. I'm still terrible, but guess what? I love playing and you can meet a lot of great people and have a lot of great laughs playing pinball. And nobody cares whether you drain the first, the first two balls right away. Nobody cares if you drop out in the tournament first. It's all about having a great time. And I hope we can find something for our folks that are disabled and want to play pinball. I think it would be a great effort to further the popularity of pinball. So it would be fantastic if we could come up with something. And in this week's A Pinball Mystery, Mr. Bill Webb will take control and bill you want to talk about low production machines pinball machines commanding high dollars yes so you know this kind of came up when i was on pin side and i saw domino's pizza pin one of 50 for five thousand dollars now i've played domino's it didn't really speak to me as a theme or the play field not that it's a bad game just you know didn't speak to me but because it's a low run game does it warrant five thousand dollars magic girl very low production game i've never played one does it really warrant twenty thousand dollars or even fifteen thousand dollars because it's a low production game and half the stuff doesn't work kind of makes you wonder where this is kind of heading well now you're looking at like a twilight zone prototype for 60 at a bargain price five thousand dollars a bargain price sixty five thousand dollars yeah You can have a Jeep SRT8, or you can have a Twilight Zone prototype that needs to be shopped out still. So I think where you're going with this is like rarity doesn't necessarily equal value or money in regards to sales, right? I don't know if it really does. I mean, it just seems to be getting kind of out of hand now, you know? I mean, here, would you rather have a prototype Redboard Twilight Zone, or would you rather have an absolutely beautiful home use only example twilight zone for 12 grand i'll be honest with you i mean the prototypes i think are fun for the collector that is that niche market for the prototype but as somebody that's a consumer i owned a prototype earth shaker and it was fun to have one of 12 or whatever it was but i i think i'd rather own like something that went past the prototype phase unless it had some options historical value that weren't in the production machines now that's where i can see where something's valid for instance jersey jack's pirates of the caribbean with the uh you know the the three concentric rings and instead of the one um twilight zone that that would have the extra magnet um attack from mars with the center spaceship that actually worked. If they had one that would... Brian Eddy, that would absolutely be awesome. Okay, but let's go this route. What would that rare prototype be, Red Board, with an attack from Mars with the center hovering UFO, really be worth? And for those of you that don't understand the reference, when Brian Eddy was on our show, he said that the prototype attack from Mars had a mechanism for the mothership in the middle that would actually extend out and creep across the play field in which you would be able to hit that roaming saucer from a dropped target. It never made it into production for cost reasons, I assume. But yeah, I'll tell you what, Bill. As exciting as that sounds, it's not $65,000. You know what? Here, I'm not trying to crap on this dude's pin side at all. If he got $65,000 from someone to absolutely love the Twilight Zone theme, Loves Pat Lawler Design. That was the first game they ever played. They have the means to be able to spend that, and it doesn't make a dent in their pocket, but just to be able to say, I have the first prototype. Can you blame them for trying? I mean, with the way prices are out of freaking hand right now, I do not blame that guy for trying. And think of it this way. That $65,000 thread that's on Pinside has pages upon pages upon pages. that thing is constantly bumped and it keeps coming up to the front and i'll tell you what's going to happen bill somebody's going to have money that doesn't hinder their ability to make that purchase um where money's no object and going from 65 000 to 25 000 on that probably isn't that huge of a deal for somebody that that thinks they saved them forty thousand dollars oh absolutely and you know at the end of the day if they're happy and they don't care about the money then everyone wins um now you were you also referenced like dominoes which was a contracted game uh through spooky pinball yes and again that's not like i don't think it was meant to be like a full featured game but because of the numbers the production numbers being low you're just not buying the increased price how much was the dominoes that you said you saw uh five grand not and not that i'm not it's not no it's not it's really not just for what you get in that game to me it doesn't speak to me that said there could be somebody that absolutely loves dominoes lives off of it and could be theme crazy um and wants a very simple pinball you know it's all knowing your audience and catering to that sure um you know one of the other ones that came up in the last couple months was that uh sega night driven that was a prototype okay and the guy wanted something like 20 grand but it had different artwork uh different playfield features you know I mean, not crazy, but it was completely different than everything that came out. Does that still warrant $20,000 on that game? Right. So, I mean, you're looking at production numbers on pins that went to production, and then you're looking at prototypes. I mean, so I can agree with you where just because something is rare doesn't necessarily make it valuable. Well, and here, I think, you know, with the Super Bowl ad that came out yesterday with the Super running around the pinball play field, that's even shedding more light on the hobby, which will, and I hate to say this but if you got a hundred people that watched that ad and said, listen, I would love a pinball machine for my man cave Really though, I mean let's just say 20 million people watched 10 million of them are guys a hundred of them that's a very small number it is not More people probably watched the commercials in the Super Bowl because it was so boring Exactly, but my point is it's not out of reach to think that that commercial spiked the thought in someone's head Hey, I need to get a pinball machine. How many people are going to buy a pinball machine from the Super commercial? Well, here, what was it that drew you in to wanting to buy an Earthshaker? It wasn't a car commercial during the Super Bowl. No, but you played it. Well, I played it when I was younger, right. Okay, listen, in 2013, a friend of mine gave me an F-14 pinball machine. Yeah. Right? I had no real thought of pinball up until that point, except he knew through us talking 10 years prior that I liked pinball. Right. I got a 14. It was okay. And I was like, wow, damn, I really need to get a Terminator because that's one that I just peed money into, just dumped that money. That's when the thought came back into my head, wow, I really miss pinball. And I could blame my wife for this. I said, listen. Yeah, but that was a direct – that was a machine that sparked another machine. The super commercial, I don't see really making any impact on purchasing decisions for a pinball machine. See, I'm going to disagree with you because the third thing – Here, if it's out of sight, out of mind. Drain it or save it. Out of sight, out of mind. Literally, if it's put back in your head, hey, wow, I used to love playing pinball. I don't even know if most people would have recognized, other than pinball people, if they would have recognized that that was a pinball-themed thing. Because this is my first quorum with the commercial, and I see this time and time again. And even Two Brothers was guilty of this when they were sponsoring the show. When they did pinball advertising and pinball graphics, Like the placement of objects of pinball made no freaking sense to a pinball player. Like you don't have slings on the top of a pinball machine. And you don't have, I mean, it's just, so the layout, as ridiculous as it sounds, it just upset me. It was dumb. Listen, I give that Toyota commercial a lot of credit. They stole the pop bumpers that Deep Root plans on using. Is that what it is? No, I'm kidding. I'm just completely kidding. And then they had the rotating mech. Like, listen, Bill, this was the coolest thing about the commercial was the end. And I'm not saying that jokingly. At the end, it said simply on the DMD, it's back. And I thought they had a double message. And the first message was, hey, super, it's back. And whether or not they made effort to do this or not, pinball is also back. So for those of you that haven't watched that commercial, to see that at the end, it's back, I thought that was the coolest thing. As far as the graphics and the machine, what was going on? The car was rolling over inserts like they were rollover switch inserts or something. Like high speed. Right. I don't know. So I guess I appreciated the effort. But again, it wasn't meant to appeal towards the pinball aficionado. It was just taking advantage of something that's popular right now in a level of resurgence. So in that level, I can respect it. But, yeah, man, I'd be shocked if 100 more pinball machines were being purchased because of that Super Bowl commercial. But it's simple numbers. It is just simple numbers, dude. Let's say 10 million are guys, and 100 people out of that 10 million said, hey, I used to play Terminator 2 back in the day. That's a game I want. Or I used to love pinball. It's like a residual effect. Then they're going to go on eBay and say, wow, this flash is only $2,000. Money now. This Flash is only $2,000. It's only $2,000. Money is of no object to them now. Now's a good time to take advantage of pinball resales from the dumb seller coming in after watching the Super Bowl commercial so you can sell your Flash for $2,000. Hey, and if you do, I would love a cut of it. Now, that said, you know, but the guy is not going to care because, you know, it's, you know, an emotional tug at his heartstrings. Right. I think a lot of pinball purchases are emotional, and that's why there's such a big deal with, like, release schedules. Like announce a pin and then ship the damn thing and don't wait for six months or a year to put it out because all the hype is gone. So I think that what we need to do at this point is build on the hype of the Super Bowl commercial and everybody needs to list anything that they want to sell for like $1,500 over what the normal retail is because there are Super Bowl commercial watchers that are just going to buy that up. Yeah, you never know, man. I've heard of crazier things. Listen. Of course I'm being – Listen. All right. So, you know, last thing, and then we'll wind this segment down. I'm having fun talking about this, actually. Listen, this might be the most confrontational we've ever been in 37 episodes on a subject. Perfect, because I completely disagree with you. I completely don't care. That said, no offense, you know. No, I respect for how you feel, and I respect the way that I feel. I respect it, too. We can go on being friends, and we'll just stop doing the podcast. I'm just kidding. That's fine. But. We wouldn't be the only ones. Oh, so that said, literally, when I was a kid in second grade, I got this white go-kart that my dad bought for me, right? Okay, yeah. And we weren't – Because there was a Super Bowl commercial about it. Because there was a Super Bowl commercial, you know, Super Bowl 19 or whatever. About a shopping cart that was white, and then you thought about go-karts. All right, so now that you're done poking fun, I got holes in me. No, but literally, so, you know, sentimental story. My dad bought me this go-kart. It was a white Indy-style bodied go-kart, and I had it for about 10 years. Then it was stolen out of my shed, right? Oh, that sucks. It does suck. Now, that said, would I have gotten rid of it and sold it when I got my license and everything else? Probably, but this was right before I got my license and everything else. Okay. Every couple months, I go online to look to try and find a white Indy-style go-kart that matched what I had. And guess what? It could say $2,000. And guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to go home and tell the wife, tough luck. I just bought this thing. It's coming. It's going to hang in the garage. Okay. So I don't care. You are very nostalgic, too, though, because just recently you almost purchased the vehicle in which that you Antonio Cruz around with in your youth. So now when you put it in this perspective, I can understand kind of where you're going with it. And that was the white Blazer. Yeah. You had a white cart and a white Blazer. And the white Blazer you almost purchased back, and then it just didn't work out. You know, they wanted too much money and the thing was beat. I had a Blazer that I put 30,000 miles on in 10 years. 20,000 of those miles were the first year I drove it driving to stereo shows. After that, it stayed parked, only got pulled out in 60-degree Carl Weathers. Sold it to a mom for her 17-year-old son. He destroyed it, got a DUI in it. Truck is still in Wisconsin. Would love to own it, but they're trying to cash in on that sentimental value. Because of a Blazer Super Bowl commercial from last year. And I'm willing to overpay on that Super Bowl commercial $2,000 on said truck, which has now beat us not. It has tripled the amount of miles that I sold it with, and they still want more money for it. And I'm like, listen, this is my hard number, and I can't justify spending more money because it's going to cost me $12,000 to get it back to where I want it. Right. That's the only reason. But it tugs at your sentimental heartstrings because you had it. I think pinball does for a lot of people, and it kind of ties in with your argument, where people that might have played pinball in the past will now consider owning a pinball machine after watching the Toyota Super Bowl commercial. Absolutely. Okay. Fair enough, Bill. Do I think it's going to happen? You never know. So the first 100 listeners – I think it's fair to say that there is at least one game that was sold because somebody got excited about pinball that they had forgotten about from the Super Bowl commercial. I'm going to go 100. Okay. So when we get our first 100 listeners from the Super Bowl that hear this. Right. That bought a game because of the Toyota ad. Naturally, you go right into podcasts. Email us so I can tell Ken, you know, I told you so. Right. I told you so. Sorry. A little Randy Travis song there, but go ahead. If you know somebody that purchased the pinball machine after watching the Supra commercial in the Super Bowl, please email bill webb at special when lit pinball podcast at gmail.com so that he can let me know that i was completely in the wrong of assuming anything else this has been episode number 37 a special when lit pinball podcast we want to thank brent bruner for coming in brent it's fun talking to you i can't wait to see what happens with great lakes pinball why don't you do us a favor and again one more time let anybody know how they can get in touch with you or how they can find great lakes pinball in general if you go on facebook just search for great lakes pinball and you can contact us through our Facebook page and also GreatLakesPinball.com Guys, go to Great Lakes Pinball on Facebook and like the page and follow the page so that you guys have those updates in real time because I expect that we're going to be seeing some updates sooner than later in regards to where you guys are as far as product development and launching this pinball machine expose. And you're going to want to be around for that. Absolutely. You know what, I did want to say real quick we're over 300 likes on Facebook which might not sound like a big deal to a lot of people that are listening. But for us, that's a pretty big deal. I mean, 300 likes is absolutely respectful on Facebook. I've never been one to really look at the analytics for Facebook, per se. I just kind of analyze the podcast numbers and the listens and just in general. But thank you for the 300-plus likes. And here's to another 300 as we proclaim ourselves as the hardest-trying podcast in 2019. Absolutely. So for Bill Webb, I'm Ken Cromwell. Everybody have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And don't forget to take some time out of your day to play some pinball. So long, everybody. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: a9817716-2dae-4bbb-96bf-5098021cff4e*