# Episode 427: Martin Ayub and Pinball News **Source:** Pinball Profile **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2025-09-26 **Duration:** 31m 38s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.pinballprofile.com/episode-427-martin-ayub-and-pinball-news/ --- ## Analysis Martin Ayub, founder of Pinball News (operating since 2000), discusses his 25-year journey documenting the pinball industry with host Jeff Teolis. Martin explains why he started Pinball News during Williams' closure in 1999, emphasizing the importance of unbiased, factual reporting without advertising or sponsorship. The conversation covers the UK pinball scene, the transformative arrival of Jersey Jack Pinball as competition to Stern, manufacturing challenges facing boutique manufacturers, and speculation about future growth vectors for the hobby through mainstream media exposure. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Martin Ayub has been running Pinball News since 2000, covering the pinball industry for 25 years with no advertising or sponsorship — _Martin directly states: 'I've been doing pinball news since 2000. So 25 years, a quarter of a century now.'_ - [HIGH] Williams closed its doors at the end of 1999, marking a crisis moment when many believed pinball was finished despite Stern's founding — _Martin explains: 'the year 2000 was a significant year in pinball. It was actually the end of 1999, at the time when Williams closed their doors. And a huge number of people in Coinop in general...thought, that's it, pinball's done.'_ - [HIGH] Jersey Jack Pinball's success proved Gary Stern wrong about the market's inability to support multiple manufacturers — _Martin states: 'everybody had believed it was impossible to compete against Stern. Gary was always saying, come on in, the water's freezing...Well, maybe at the point when he started in the operator market, there wasn't. But Jack came along with a different idea and was looking more at the home market.'_ - [HIGH] There are approximately 15-17 companies manufacturing pinball machines now, with concerns about market saturation and financial viability — _Jeff mentions 'I think there's 15, 17 companies making pinball machines now' and Martin later discusses: 'we're never going to be able to produce games in the tens of thousands per year. And at that small scale, we're not competitive.'_ - [HIGH] The UK location-based pinball market differs significantly from North America due to real estate costs and business economics favoring food/dining over arcade space — _Martin explains: 'rents are very high, because it's a small country and there's limited availability of locations...Food is where these places make their money...you won't get the kind of huge, great barcades that you do in the U.S.'_ - [HIGH] Modern pinball development requires substantial content creation including professional voice acting, full art packages, and video assets, making licensed IP advantageous — _Martin notes: 'You can't just have a music track playing continuously. You have to have full call-outs from professional voice artists. You have to have a fully professional art package...loads and loads of video assets.'_ - [MEDIUM] Major manufacturers like Stern and Jersey Jack require 30 months of development before a game's 18-month release timeline to fully complete all intended features — _Martin explains: '18 months is the point where it gets released. of course there's a development of the code and assets throughout probably over the next year so you're probably looking at more like 30 months by the time it's complete'_ - [HIGH] Artistic talent is increasingly becoming employee-based rather than freelance, with companies securing exclusive agreements with artists — _Martin states: 'artists are getting snapped up and being exclusive to certain companies now the freelance nature of it is becoming more and more employee based'_ ### Notable Quotes > "I've been doing pinball news since 2000. So 25 years, a quarter of a century now." > — **Martin Ayub**, early in interview > _Establishes Martin's authority and longevity in pinball journalism_ > "So I wanted something which could be updated...The story evolves...what's published is set in stone. So I wanted something which could be updated." > — **Martin Ayub**, mid-interview > _Explains the foundational motivation for Pinball News in the pre-digital publishing era_ > "producing something which is unbiased is often seen as being biased...the people who have a particular leaning one way or the other think that if you're not reporting in news in their particular style then you must be against them" > — **Martin Ayub**, mid-interview > _Reflects on contemporary media environment and challenges of objective journalism_ > "It breaks my heart because, yeah, there are a lot of great ideas and I'm not saying it's easy, but the making the pinball machine is maybe the easier part. It's the manufacturing that is, for many companies, sometimes the nightmare." > — **Jeff Teolis**, late interview > _Identifies manufacturing as the critical challenge for new pinball manufacturers_ > "you better have a hit or else, boy, you're in some financial troubles." > — **Martin Ayub**, late interview > _Illustrates the financial risk facing multiple boutique manufacturers competing in a finite market_ > "It's a lot more niche. And I don't want to say that I don't think there is anything that can do it, but it's been tried a few times before, and the only way these things tend to get popular is through character-based programming." > — **Martin Ayub**, late interview > _Addresses skepticism about mainstream media driving new pinball enthusiasm_ > "Back in the day...John Norris in the Gottlieb days. He was putting one a month." > — **Martin Ayub**, late interview > _References historical design productivity as contrast to modern constraints_ > "Jersey Jack creation was really significant because up until that point, everybody had believed it was impossible to compete against Stern." > — **Martin Ayub**, mid-interview > _Identifies Jersey Jack as a watershed moment proving market competition was viable_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Martin Ayub | person | Founder and editor of Pinball News since 2000; British pinball journalist and community historian; operates without advertising or sponsorship | | Jeff Teolis | person | Host of Pinball Profile podcast; approximately 10-11 years in pinball community; conducts long-form interviews with industry figures | | Pinball News | organization | Independent online pinball media outlet founded in 2000; provides unbiased, factual reporting on pinball industry without advertising or sponsorship; operates pinballnews.com | | Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; acquired business from Sega/Daytona; market leader referenced as 'gorilla' in the industry | | Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Proved competitive manufacturing was possible against Stern; focused on home market rather than location operators; significant market disruptor | | Williams Electronics | company | Closed doors at end of 1999; closure marked crisis point for pinball industry and catalyst for Pinball News founding | | Gary Stern | person | Founder/owner of Stern Pinball; kept business alive after Williams closure; initially skeptical of multi-manufacturer market viability | | Jack Danger | person | Founder of Jersey Jack Pinball; proved market could support multiple manufacturers by focusing on home collector market | | Jonathan Joosten | person | Co-host of Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcast with Martin Ayub; monthly industry news digest format | | Roger Sharp | person | Historical pinball figure; subject of 'The Man Who Saved the Game' film; known to Martin personally | | Peter Blakemore | person | UK competitive pinball player; notable figure in British pinball scene | | John Norris | person | Legendary Gottlieb designer; historical reference for design productivity (one game per month) | | Pinball Profile | organization | Long-running interview podcast hosted by Jeff Teolis; described as 'landmark feature' of pinball scene; features industry guests and community figures | | Pinball Expo | event | Major annual pinball industry event in Chicago; mentioned as upcoming location for Martin's coverage | | Dutch Pinball Open Expo | event | European pinball event; Martin planning to attend and conduct quiz | | Texas Pinball Festival | event | Annual pinball event; Martin considering booking flights for next year | ### Topics - **Primary:** Pinball News founding and motivation (1999-2000 industry crisis), Unbiased journalism and media credibility in pinball community, UK vs North America pinball market differences and business models, Jersey Jack Pinball as competitive disruption to Stern monopoly, Manufacturing challenges for boutique pinball manufacturers, Market saturation and financial viability concerns among 15-17 manufacturers, Modern pinball development: content creation, licensing, voice acting, video assets - **Secondary:** Freelance vs employee artist model in pinball industry, Mainstream media exposure as growth vector for pinball hobby, Historical pinball design productivity and modern constraints ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.72) — Martin expresses optimism about pinball's viability and community despite acknowledging real challenges. Jeff is appreciative and collaborative. Both are concerned about manufacturing challenges and market saturation but frame these as manageable industry evolution rather than existential threats. Some worry about mainstream exposure effectiveness but tempered by acknowledgment of passionate community growth. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Manufacturing at small scale remains the critical failure point for new pinball companies; game design is secondary challenge compared to production scaling and operational complexity (confidence: high) — Jeff: 'the making the pinball machine is maybe the easier part. It's the manufacturing that is, for many companies, sometimes the nightmare.' - **[business_signal]** Jersey Jack Pinball's success in home market disproved Gary Stern's assertion that only one manufacturer could survive, validating multi-manufacturer competition through market segmentation (confidence: high) — Martin: 'Jersey Jack creation was really significant because up until that point, everybody had believed it was impossible to compete against Stern...Jack came along with a different idea and was looking more at the home market.' - **[business_signal]** 15-17 active pinball manufacturers currently competing; growing concern about market saturation and financial viability as small-scale production cannot achieve economies of scale (confidence: high) — Martin: 'There isn't a big enough market...we're never going to be able to produce games in the tens of thousands per year. And at that small scale, we're not competitive.' Jeff: 'I think there's 15, 17 companies making pinball machines now.' - **[community_signal]** New player demographics include younger competitors who outperform veteran players, plus growing female participation in competitive tournaments; suggests sustainability of hobby through generational succession (confidence: high) — Jeff: 'The kids not only are enjoying pinball, they're dominating pinball...A lot of women...the women's tournament here...they're the next generation' - **[sentiment_shift]** Pinball News operates as an archive resource for historical event documentation; community members reference historical events seeking archival confirmation of details, indicating value of comprehensive record-keeping (confidence: high) — Martin: 'the number of times I see people talking about an event that happened in 2010 or something like that and trying to remember details...I can just say have a look here, here's a full report' - **[market_signal]** Pinball development cycles require 30 months of development for 18-month release timelines, demanding substantial financial commitment and team dedication from manufacturers (confidence: medium) — Martin: 'there's a development of the code and assets throughout probably over the next year so you're probably looking at more like 30 months by the time it's complete...that's quite a commitment for any company to take a team and commit them' - **[personnel_signal]** Artistic talent increasingly transitioning from freelance to exclusive employee relationships with manufacturers, reducing availability of independent design work and potentially limiting design diversity (confidence: high) — Martin: 'artists are getting snapped up and being exclusive to certain companies now the freelance nature of it is becoming more and more employee based' - **[technology_signal]** Modern pinball games now require substantial production of professional-quality content including voice acting, video assets, and comprehensive art packages, making licensed IP economically advantageous (confidence: high) — Martin: 'You can't just have a music track playing continuously. You have to have full call-outs from professional voice artists. You have to have a fully professional art package...loads and loads of video assets.' --- ## Transcript it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teals you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on twitter x and instagram at pinball profile we have a great facebook group as well and if you'd like to show your support don't worry the show will always be free but it certainly helps keep costs down and and all the stupid production costs behind the scene thanks very much for our patreon donors and i think of lua w and gme law and bart v and derrick s and so many others thank you so much patreon.com slash pinball profile i am not kidding when i say i have been trying to track this man down for at least eight years and it's not a matter of no it's just that he's so busy and you know who i'm talking about because maybe you're at Chicago Expo or some big events like the one right here at the EPC. And this man is always working, whether it's taking photographs, whether it's recording seminars, really archiving great pinball history throughout the years. He is an OG. Martin Ayeb joins us right now. How are you doing, Martin? Thank you very much, Jeff. That's a very nice introduction. And thank you for all the work that you do with Pinball Profile. I think that's a a landmark feature of the pinball scene and has been for many years. So congratulations to you. And I'd certainly encourage people to join the Patreon and help support it. That's very, very nice indeed. Thank you for the compliments. And it means a lot coming from you because you've been doing this not only longer than me, but longer than most people. How long have you been in the pinball scene? Well, I've been doing pinball news since 2000. So 25 years, a quarter of a century now. No one else was doing it back then, really? to the extent that you're doing it? No, not online. That was a key thing. Most of the news that was then published tended to be printed material. So it was Jim Shelburke, for instance, from the Pin Game Journal, was doing fantastic work. And a whole bunch of other publications were bringing pinball news. But obviously they have lead times. And also, once they're published, they can't be updated. The story evolves, and it does, as we know, in the pinball world, what's published is set in stone. So I wanted something which could be updated. But the original reason, and you haven't asked the question, but I'll give you the answer to it anyway. It's great talking to a fellow broadcaster. That's exactly why Pinball News started. And that was, the year 2000 was a significant year in pinball. It was actually the end of 1999, at the time when Williams closed their doors. And a huge number of people in Coinop in general, the collector market wasn't as big back then, but Coinop thought, that's it, pinball's done. Even though Gary Stern was still there, they just started Stern Pinball at that stage, taken over from Sega and Daytrees before that. But a lot of people had kind of written off pinball. And I thought, no, you shouldn't write off pinball, because pinball's still a vibrant, alive, exciting community. and it's full of people who not only want to play pinball but also want to celebrate it through shows and through tournaments and through leagues. Just because the main company has decided to shut down, all those machines that are out there, they haven't all gone away. And all the people who love pinball, they haven't gone away either. And they're eager to know exactly what's going on in the pinball world. So I drew on my background, shall I say, of my career background of working for the BBC and working in the news department, which is sort of tantamount to producing the truest, most unbiased and most accurate reporting we can possibly do. It's so funny you say that in 2025, right? Well, I know. I think it's still true. Well, even more true now. And because, as you say, there are so many different opinions and so many different outlets that you can use, producing something which is unbiased is often seen as being biased oh okay really well the people who have a particular leaning one way or the other think that if you're not reporting in news in their particular style then you must be against them you know even if that's actually the truth and it's unbiased so that's why people tend to go to i don't want to name outlets but But, you know, you know what they are. Yes. It's easy, especially for me in North America. Yes. Much more in North America than it is in the rest of the world. But so I wanted Pinball News to be accurate and cut through a lot of the online chatter, which was then mostly on Ret Games Pinball and is now in other forums and discussion areas. So forums and Pinside. Well, yes. But a lot of that is rumor and conjecture. Yes. And that's fine. That's good fun. Yes, everyone enjoys a bit of that. Sure. But it's not, you know, when the truth comes out, that's all forgotten. No one ever remembers that. Sometimes it doesn't fit the narrative. Well, that's true. Yes. And it can be unpopular by not following that narrative. but I think it was important then and it's just as important now to have something which you can refer to as telling the whole story in as much as it's known at the time not guessing, not following rumour, not trying to set the rumour up either clickbait they call that now don't they? They do and I've never I hate that with a passion we're in the same anything that says um you won't believe yes what happened next yes find out what happened um no um so i'd much rather do a longer form article that gives you all the facts as as far as i know them and doesn't try and lead you down a path to misinformation What amazes me about this passion for now a quarter of a century, Martin, is you come from the UK. And if you were to say, oh, I was born and raised in Chicago, I'd get it. That's where all the games were being made and stuff. But I didn't realize the popularity. I certainly know of things like the UK Open and great players like yourself and Peter Blakemore and others from the UK. But I didn't know pinball was that big. And for someone like yourself to be that interested, what is the gaming like in the UK back in the day, back in the dark times around 2000? Well, it certainly wasn't anything like it is in America. That's true, simply because we don't have the number of machines on location. This was back in 2000. It was location. Pimple was the thing. Home pinball was much, much, well, hardly known of, but certainly represented, you know, 10 to 15 percent of the market rather than 60 to 70 or 80 percent as it might be now. Could be, yeah. Yeah. So location was where people played games. But the UK, by its nature, being a small country, has an issue with putting pinballs in bars, for instance. Really? Yes. Not illegal or immoral or anything like that. Simply earnings. Compared to darts or something? Compared to putting a dining table there A dining table where people Food is where these places make their money You know they don make the money on the alcohol that much but dining and food sales are key to a lot of these locations. So it's space. Yes, and because rents are very high, because it's a small country and there's limited availability of locations, so you won't get the kind of huge, great barcades that you do in the U.S., the things like... Just wouldn't make money. Well... You'd have to have a really strong investor that is passionate and, you know, that real estate could be property, it could be a different form of business. Well, exactly, yeah. Housing is a big taker-up of land at the moment. There's a big drive on to build more and more houses. But no, it simply doesn't work from a financial point of view. You don't even get bars, sports bars of the same kind in the UK, simply because it doesn't make sense to have a huge great area and just have lots of empty tables around the place, which at certain times of the week are very busy, but most of the time are empty. You can't have that. So, yeah, that was the scene in the UK. It was much smaller, much more focused on arcades. Where was your passion that turned you into pinball? Well, I got into pinball originally when I was at college, and we used to play it in our student games room there. And that... What was the game? Oh, well, we used to have a range of games, but the earliest games would have been games like Jungle Lord, 8 Ball Deluxe, Dolly Parton, Evil Knievel, Harlem Globetrotters. And still 40 years later, still love all those games you just mentioned. Yeah, absolutely. But that's what got me into it in the first place. But that was only almost a function of need, because being a student, I didn't have any money. And I enjoyed playing video games, playing Frogger and Pac-Man and Space Invaders and all that kind of stuff that was around at the time, Donkey Kong. but you can't win a free game no whereas with pinball you can so it doesn't cost you anything if you're any good or you could get a match and get lucky yes well we used to have um like two or three machines in our games room and they always had a maximum number of credits on there of something like 25 or 30 and you'd quite often go in there and the number of credits on the machine would be up there at 25, 30, because everybody would play it, and they'd leave it with more games on it, more credits on it, than they arrived with. Kind of a pay-it-forward thing? That's right, yeah, yes. And I used to do that as well. So in effect, it could cost you nothing. You're a better person than me. I remember being in high school on lunch hours and putting up credits on machines and saying to somebody, look, here's a great deal. Here's four games. Instead of give me a dollar, just give me 50 cents. and they think they're great. What they didn't know is I had to get back to class. So I was making money anyway, but I would have just left it. Oh, no, no. You're a good man. Well, that kind of ties into everything that I do because nothing I do is ever about money. I've never involved money in any of the pinball news stuff. So I never charge for anything, never take any advertising, never take any sponsorship. You do a lot of work and you must have a lot of expenses. Well, I mean, there are expenses in coming here to Rockford Brook. Yes. But I enjoy it. Yeah. It's part of my whole hobby and my passion. And if you don't spend it on that, what do you spend it on? You can spend money on things you enjoy. Yeah. Of course. And I've booked, I've already got my flights booked for Expo. I have a flight booked for the Dutch Pinball Open Expo. and I'm looking now at booking flights for Texas Pinball Festival for next year. And you're going to archive a lot of the seminars that you've always done? Everything. The key thing to me is that nothing ever gets deleted. So you can always go back to a show that I covered in 2004 or whatever, 2005, see what games were there, see who won the tournament, see who was playing because some of those people are still playing these days. Martin that is why this pinball profile is so important to me because I forget and you probably forget too is that it's easy for us broadcasters if you will to think oh everyone's been listening forever but I've met people and I do this all the time where they say I just got into pinball three years ago I found your podcast or I've watched the stream and they had no idea there's this long archive so you always got to remember you've got new people coming in and that's the great thing about pinball, whether it's competitive, whether it's just casual play with all the different companies, there's always new people coming in. And it's not just us older men that are doing it. A lot of women. We've just been covering the women's tournament here. And the kids, the kids not only are enjoying pinball, they're dominating pinball. Yeah, darn good at it. Damn them. Exactly. When is it going to be an over 30 only? We haven't got a chance anymore. But it's exciting because they're going to just spread. They're the next generation, definitely. but yeah the number of times I see people talking about an event that happened in 2010 or something like that and trying to remember details of it and say wasn't that held at so and so and what game was there and I can just say have a look here, here's a full report of exactly what went on there all the games that were there and what was launched, where it was and now more of course it's becoming more video based rather than just stills But it's still a big requirement for still photography, I think. The stories, the photography, everything that you can find on pinballnews.com is there. It's archived. It's just really so important to this community as people want to research and stuff. And, you know, again, I'll give another example of people just coming into pinball. When pinball, the Man Who Saved the Game movie came out, the story about Roger and Ellen Sharp, you know i obviously know roger very very well and he was always worried that oh i wonder what the pinball community is going to think because it's kind of a bit of a story about ellen and how we met and stuff and i said i think that's what the charm of the movie was we all know the pinball stuff and yeah we didn't want to see a pinball documentary we wanted to know more about the man but that got a lot of non-pinball people interested holy cow i had no idea it was illegal in new york and this and that, and just there's another avenue where more people are coming into pinball. I wonder what the next kind of wave of getting people into pinball, because it's an expensive hobby, Martin. You and I know this. To own a game, it's not something you can do. To go to different events, there's a lot of expenses. What's the next thing that's going to maybe bring people into pinball that had never seen it before? Well, that's a good question, Jeff, and I'm not sure I have an answer for it. I saved the good questions for you because you're a man who's been around, and you've seen different waves, you know, like you saw the troubled times of when arcades closed in the 2000s, but they came back. Gary Stern kept it going, and then Jersey Jack said, you know what? Here's the next level of games. And now all these, I think there's 15, 17 companies making pinball machines now. True, but it is a worry, the number of games now that are going into the home, because they aren't seen by the public, only seen by the owners and their friends. And it does reduce exposure. But I think there's plenty of opportunities for tie-ins now. With social media, there's far more. But unfortunately, it's spread a lot thinner. That the thing So yes all these companies are all out there well most of them are out there putting stuff on social media And to tie in with the licenses which they got You just said it right there, the licenses. You know, when we were talking about the games that we loved, and you mentioned Jungle Lord and 8-Ball Deluxe and Black Knight, there are no IPs with those, but when they come out with, oh, I don't know, King Kong, Godzilla, Harry Potter's coming out, Dune and all these titles that already have a fan base that might be the key. Yes although it would be nice to think there's still plenty of opportunity for unlicensed titles to cut through it's a tough one though but in a way King Kong is unlicensed certainly in the way that Stern have used it so there's creativity there in taking a theme but not actually using a license but the The downside, of course, of that is you have to create so much content now for pinball machines. Because of the display. The display and the sounds, yeah. You can't just have a music track playing continuously. You have to have full call-outs from professional voice artists. You have to have a fully professional art package across the whole thing. And, yes, loads and loads of video assets. and that is certainly something which has helped by having a license. It's amazing that they can turn these games around and I'm thinking of Stern and Jersey Jackson, one of the bigger companies, that they can, from the beginning, from getting the license and everything, can turn this all around, manufacturing, code, art, everything, 18 months. It seems pretty whirlwind. Well, yes, 18 months is the point where it gets released. of course there's a development of the code and assets throughout probably over the next year so you're probably looking at more like 30 months by the time it's complete it's got everything in it which was ever intended to be in it and that's quite a commitment for any company to take a team and commit them to everything that goes with having a team for 18 months even before the game comes out so they need to be well financed And you can see why that's done to varying degrees across different companies. Now, Stern are obviously the gorilla in this, the 200-pound gorilla, 300-pound gorilla, whatever they are, mentioning that as King Kong. But because they've built up the market for themselves in a big way, and everybody's been following them, and all credit to them. You know, Gary has, with help from investors, he needed help from investors to get where he is now, and not just investors, but savvy business people. As he always said, he's a manufacturing business. A hundred percent. Which is something that so many pinball companies, wannabe pinball companies, suddenly find out that they've got this great idea for a game, and, yeah, they can put together one or two prototypes, and then you try and scale that up to producing hundreds of them. It's a different perspective. It breaks my heart because, yeah, there are a lot of great ideas and I'm not saying it's easy, but the making the pinball machine is maybe the easier part. It's the manufacturing that is, for many companies, sometimes the nightmare. And it does sadden me that some of the companies we've seen go by the wayside and you know what they are. And it's just tough, and it's tough because there is more competition now. There's only so many people buying pinball machines, and all these new companies come up. But, again, they're all taking that slice of the pie, and it gets thinner and thinner, and you better have a hit or else, boy, you're in some financial troubles. Well, we do have to worry about reaching the point where some of these companies are not financially viable anymore. we're in fairly early days of pinball small scale manufacturing, boutique pinball companies and they're probably still working through their launch venture capital you know but down the line they're going to get to the point where someone's going to say look we're not selling enough of these games how can we change this and the answer may be that we can't the market is saturated we're never going to be able to produce games in the tens of thousands per year. And at that small scale, we're not competitive. And it's a challenging market, not only for buyers, but also for talent. You know, there's the people who are designing games and people who are coding games and people who do the artwork for games. You know, companies are having to look into new areas now because to get, like, an artwork package for a game, artists are getting snapped up and being exclusive to certain companies now the freelance nature of it is becoming more and more employee based i i guess there's some security of being an employee but and i have a sales background obviously for what i do for a living i feel there's some handcuff to that i mean you're only as good as the company is and and good luck but uh boy i kind of wish there were some more freelance people out there i really do i wish i wish there was that availability and i've said this on other podcasts pick whatever designer i'm not going to name any specific designer whoever your favorite designer is imagine if they could make a game for whoever is ready to put it on the line because whatever that designer that is your favorite they're in a cycle and they're waiting for the other designers to be done or so you might only see a new game from them maybe two three years but imagine if oh they could whip up a game every year every six back in the day. Think of Jon Norris in the Gottlieb days. He was putting one a month. Yes, that's right. And also, I think having more availability of design encourages new talent to get into the business. And I think that's something which we've seen recently. But as far as I'm concerned, you can't have too much new talent and new ideas being brought in and trying new things. Because many of the things we take for granted now in games were once new ideas and someone had to invent those. And we're not at the point where there are no new ideas in pinball. Yeah. Let's shift gears a little bit because, again, your history knowledge is better than most people, if not all people, when it comes to certainly the last 25 years. And I've only been doing this for, let's say, 10 years, 11 years, back in the pinball scene when I found it online, thank God, and found the community. But in the last 25 years, you know, with some of the things you've covered, what are some of the things that you look back and go, wow, that was a special moment? I think I'd have to say the, well, from the very start, really, when Stern were the only company out there and Gary Stern was doing what it took to keep the business alive. And then I think the Jersey Jack creation was really significant because up until that point, everybody had believed it was impossible to compete against Stern. Gary was always saying, come on in, the water's freezing. And saying that if there were two companies, then they'd both go out of business. There isn't a big enough market for that. Well, maybe at the point when he started in the operator market, there wasn't. But Jack came along with a different idea and was looking more at the home market. and it took quite a long time for Gary to appreciate exactly what Jack had seen. So that was a real game changer as far as I concerned It kind of shattered the mirror and said that no you can set up another company to manufacture pinball and make it work but you have to be different. You have to appeal to a slightly different audience. You have to operate as a maybe not the be-all and end-all of the pinball market. And of course, now we see that. Well, this side of the pond, for sure, right? I mean, especially where you live in the UK, I mean, operating pinball machines. I think I talked to Andrew Foster. I think he's got some games out and about some places. Yeah, well, we have our Pinball Republic. Yeah, great club. Yeah, that's one. And there's obviously Peter Blatmore, of course. That's special in the theatre. Yes, that's right. And there are plenty of other locations around Tilt Pinball in Birmingham as well and Chief Coffee, which specialise in having pinball as part of their offer to their customers. But still, it's a home market, isn't it? It is still a home market. All those people who are doing that, they're all passionate collectors. You don't tend to get many locations. There are a few pubs, but mainly in, I'd say the largest one of those would be like the Brewdog chain, which obviously has a presence in the U.S. now with a brewery in Columbus, Ohio. but they are a major pub company in the UK and spreading out across the whole world and the founders of that company were very keen on pinball so quite a number of their bars will have pinball but they are not owned or run by the brewery or by the pub company they're by operators within that and they are, when I say operators they're actually pinball fans Back to the question I asked you earlier, what will be the next thing? I don't know if this will ever happen, but there are certain television shows, whether it's on Apple or Prime or Netflix or whatever it is, that might, I mean, I don't know what kind of production is involved, but there are certain types of shows that really get keen interest in certain hobbies or sports, if you will, that you never knew existed. quite honestly a show like ted lasso which by the way also jason stake is a big pinball fan put in the wizard of oz game in that game he showed some people some pinball and even kind of stopped and wrote and highlighted it but but that got a lot of soccer interest the rexham thing gets a lot of sorry i said soccer forgive me a lot of football interest in north america and stuff so shows like this get people fascinated by that there's other shows you can think of whether it's cooking shows bake-off shows whatever it is they create some sort of buzz or interest obviously there's uh instagram maybe it's some sort of interesting tv production or where you get to see the variety who knows you know yeah i'm not sure that tv has that kind of pull anymore once did and it's a lot more fractured and and spread across so many different outlets now It's very hard for any one program or show to make an impact on popular culture by itself. It's a lot more niche. And I don't want to say that I don't think there is anything that can do it, but it's been tried a few times before, and the only way these things tend to get popular is through character-based programming. Yeah, that just has a side hobby. You're right, because, I mean, we love the pinball streams, whether it's a new release, whether it's a competition. But that really is geared to the already existing pinball fan, and there's nothing wrong. It's exciting, and there are so many pinball videos that are archived when you want to learn a new game or something like that. But it doesn't really speak to new people, and you kind of have to find it on these Google searches, the Twitches, things like that. I wish there was something a little more mainstream. Who knows? Maybe that'll happen. Maybe it won't. We do our part. I do it with Pinball Profile. You and Jonathan Joosten do it once a month on the Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcast. That's fun. It is fun, yes. And again, it comes back to the point of not addressing or not being based on rumours, but to deal with what's happening in the industry, industry news over the past month. And, yes, we might mention a rumor if we think it's significant and believe there's some validity to it, or at least it's based on something. But generally, we are, and now with so many companies, as you said before, 17 or so different manufacturers, not all manufacturing continuously, but some are bringing out games every now and again. But there is a lot of news to report, and we find it hard to keep up with what's going on across the whole industry. So I'm sure that other people do as well. So we thought, well, what better way than to do it like a digest of what's been going on in the pinball industry from all these manufacturers over the past month in a relatively compact way. It can roll on a bit if we've got a busy month. But we never quite know what we're going to get. We always try to hit the first of each month to cover the previous month. But if we've got a particular reason to delay it for a launch of a game or a particular event, then yeah, we will. So yeah, that's why we do the Pincast, and it seems to get good appreciation. I mean, we don't get the kind of listening figures that you do with Pinball Profile. I doubt that. It's a great podcast. That's very kind. It's just another extension, another means of reaching out and getting factual news out to pinball fans and maybe a few new fans as well. Yeah, absolutely. So again, check that on your favorite podcatcher, the Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcast with Martin Abbe and Jonathan Houston. How's he doing? I haven't seen him in a while. Very good. Yes, yes. We've been talking about plans for Expo. Good. Now I've booked my flights and also we will soon be talking about the Dutch Pinball Open Expo as well, where we'll be doing our quiz again, giving away lots of lovely prizes. I don't want to keep it because you're a busy man. I know you've got to photograph the women's tournament and do some other things here. It means a lot to me that you came on the podcast and I love the work that you do. Well, it's an absolute pleasure, Jeff. You've been asking me to do this for a long time and I've always missed it. But you're busy. I've never not wanted to do it. You're just busy. Yes, that's right. We found time. We found a good, I don't know if it was 20 minutes that was the original slot. I lied. We probably overrun that a bit, but that's the way we tend to go. But it's been a real pleasure. Thank you for everything you do for the pinball world and for the wider world as well. And thank you for inviting me on Pinball Profile. All the best. You've been listening to Pinball Profile. We're on Twitter, Instagram, at Pinball Profile. profile we've got a great facebook group as well you can email pinball profile at gmail.com tell us who you'd like to hear and if you'd like to show your support don't worry the show will always be free it just certainly helps the expenses thanks to rodney c thanks to cliff a thanks to colin m and so many others we do appreciate it with martin a of check out pinball news.com i'm jeff teolas I'm just second-hand I'm just second-hand _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: d04c98f1-f07b-4550-8f6c-f5905541e784*