# Episode 79 - Licensed Themes

**Source:** Wedgehead Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-04-21  
**Duration:** 57m 47s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-16883709

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## Analysis

Alan and Alex (The Waterboy) from Wedgehead Pinball Podcast trace the history of licensed themes in pinball, examining how the industry shifted from original themes to licensed IP dominance. Starting with Data East's 1989 Playboy machine and Williams' early licensed successes, they analyze sales figures across the 1989-1999 period, showing that despite licensing becoming the dominant strategy, unlicensed games from Williams often outsold competitors' licensed titles. The episode concludes by examining the industry collapse in the late 1990s, challenging the narrative that licensing failures caused it.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Williams/Bally's Addams Family (1992) is the highest-selling pinball machine of all time with almost 21,000 units sold — _Alan states this directly when discussing 1992 as the peak of the licensing wars_
- [HIGH] Data East's Playboy 35th Anniversary (1989) was their first licensed game and only sold 2,300 units — _Alan provides specific sales figures when establishing the beginning of Data East's licensing strategy_
- [MEDIUM] Pat Lawler claimed that if Funhouse had been themed as The Simpsons instead, it would have sold 20,000 units — _Alan references this as something Lawler said 'in an old interview'_
- [HIGH] Williams decided to shut down their pinball division in 1999 because their slot machine business was too lucrative — _Alan explains this was a shareholder value decision for the publicly held WMS company_
- [HIGH] Sega's South Park (1999) only sold 2,200 units despite Joe Kamenkow claiming it put 'the final nail in Williams' coffin' — _Alan cites specific sales figures and questions the narrative that South Park defeated Williams_
- [HIGH] Williams sold 13,600 units of Fish Tales (1992), an unlicensed game about lying about fishing exploits — _Alan provides specific unit sales when comparing licensed vs unlicensed games in 1992_
- [MEDIUM] Roger Sharpe passed on making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to instead make Doctor Dude with Greg Freres and Dennis Nordman — _Alan references this decision and notes Doctor Dude outsold TMNT (4,000 vs 3,750 units) at height of TMNT popularity_
- [HIGH] Revenge from Mars (1999) sold 6,900 units with a significant price increase during the industry collapse — _Alan provides specific sales figures and context about the late-1990s market downturn_

### Notable Quotes

> "playing by myself yeah i mean that's modern pinball dude you gotta play it by yourself because you have no friends because you spend all your money on these pinball machines that you never play that are stuck in the basement of your house"
> — **Alan**, early in episode
> _Sets humorous tone about modern pinball collecting culture vs. location play_

> "i think that roger really didn't want his name associated with anything but the best, whereas Data East, much like Floopy Drooper, they're the scrappy little guys starting up, and they're just fucking making pinball machines, keeping the line moving, pumping stuff out"
> — **Alex (The Waterboy)**, mid-episode
> _Captures the philosophical difference between Roger Sharpe's quality-focused approach and Data East's volume-focused approach_

> "it's like when the monsters came out and everyone's like what the fuck is this like in the 90s the twilight zone was old hat dude that shit was old it was a bizarre choice at this point"
> — **Alan**, late in episode
> _Illustrates the counterintuitive success of Twilight Zone based on Pat Lawler's design skill, not the license itself_

> "Pat Lomer didn't sell that many units of Roadshow, though. Those licenses are still helping something."
> — **Alex**, mid-episode discussion of unlicensed success
> _Acknowledges that despite the data favoring unlicensed games, licensing still had value_

> "pinball was shrinking but it doesn't mean like it's dead the only problem is when you have a publicly held company you need to grow forever or like people panic"
> — **Alan**, near end of episode
> _Explains the true cause of Williams' pinball division closure: shareholder pressure, not licensing strategy failure_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Alan | person | Host of Wedgehead Pinball Podcast, owner of Portland Pinball Bar Wedget |
| Alex (The Waterboy) | person | Co-host of Wedgehead Pinball Podcast |
| Gary Stern | person | Last major pinball manufacturer standing; started Data East partnership in 1987, later founded Stern Pinball |
| Joe Kamenkow | person | Lead game designer at Data East; pioneered licensing strategy as marketing tactic to increase sales |
| Roger Sharpe | person | Designer at Williams/Bally; known for quality-focused design approach; secured licenses like Terminator 2 |
| Pat Lawler | person | Legendary Williams designer; created Funhouse and sold 10,750 units despite unconventional theme; also designed Twilight Zone (15,200 units) |
| Data East | company | Japanese video game company that partnered with Gary Stern; pioneered licensed game strategy in pinball |
| Williams/Bally | company | Major pinball manufacturer; dominated the market through 1990s with both licensed and unlicensed games; shut down pinball division in 1999 |
| Gottlieb | company | Pinball manufacturer that entered licensing wars in 1992 with Super Mario Bros |
| Sega | company | Successor to Data East; released South Park (1999) with 2,200 units; claimed to have delivered 'final nail' to Williams |
| The Simpsons | game | Data East's first major licensed hit (1990); sold 5,500 units vs Williams' Funhouse which sold 10,750 units same year |
| Addams Family | game | Williams (1992); highest-selling pinball machine of all time with approximately 21,000 units |
| Funhouse | game | Williams (1992); unlicensed game designed by Pat Lawler that sold 10,750 units |
| Fish Tales | game | Williams (1992); unlicensed game about lying about fishing that sold 13,600 units |
| Terminator 2 | game | Williams (1991); licensed game that sold 15,000 units with Arnold Schwarzenegger call-outs |
| Twilight Zone | game | Williams/Bally (1993); sold 15,200 units despite using a dated theme; success attributed to Pat Lawler design |
| Jurassic Park | game | Data East (1993); designed by John Borg; sold 9,000 units |
| Indiana Jones | game | Williams (1993); licensed game that sold 12,700 units |
| Revenge from Mars | game | Williams/Pinball 2000 (1999); unlicensed sequel to Attack from Mars; sold 6,900 units at higher price point during industry collapse |
| South Park | game | Sega (1999); sold only 2,200 units despite Joe Kamenkow claiming it 'put final nail in Williams' coffin' |
| George Gomez | person | Co-developer of Pinball 2000 platform with Pat Lawler; created Revenge from Mars |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Licensed themes in pinball history (1989-1999), Sales figures and market dynamics during the licensing wars era, Comparison of licensed vs. unlicensed game performance, Designer philosophy: Roger Sharpe quality-focused vs. Joe Kamenkow volume-focused approaches, Williams' 1999 shutdown decision and corporate/shareholder pressure, Data East/Sega's competing strategy and eventual market position
- **Secondary:** Operator economics and location performance of pinball machines, Pinball 2000 platform as industry response to market collapse

### Sentiment

**Neutral** (0.5) — Episode maintains analytical tone while discussing historical market dynamics. Hosts express nostalgia for 1990s era and appreciation for Pat Lawler's design skill. Some criticism of Data East's early licensing choices and lower-quality execution compared to Williams. Skepticism toward Joe Kamenkow's claims about South Park's market impact, but respect for the industry's complexity.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Williams shut down pinball division in 1999 due to shareholder pressure for growth on publicly held company, not because licensing strategy failed or South Park caused market collapse (confidence: high) — WMS shareholders required perpetual growth; pinball was shrinking but not dead (Revenge from Mars sold 6,900 units, South Park only 2,200); slot machine business was more profitable for shareholder metrics
- **[competitive_signal]** Joe Kamenkow's claims about South Park (1999) delivering 'final nail to Williams' are contradicted by sales data (only 2,200 units sold); Williams shutdown was due to corporate financial strategy, not market competition (confidence: high) — South Park sales of 2,200 units vs Revenge from Mars 6,900 units; Alan states 'what does that tell you really?' questioning the narrative; hosts agree shutdown was shareholder-driven
- **[design_philosophy]** Roger Sharpe pursued selective, high-quality licensing deals with complete asset packages (likenesses, voices), while Joe Kamenkow at Data East pursued volume strategy with partial licenses, reflecting different risk/reward philosophies (confidence: high) — Sharpe passed on TMNT to make Doctor Dude; Data East made Batman and TMNT with 3,500-3,750 units despite lacking actor likenesses; Roger sold more units on passed licenses than Data East achieved on acquired licenses
- **[licensing_signal]** Data East pioneered licensing strategy in pinball starting 1989, but early licensed games (Playboy, Robocop, Phantom of the Opera) did not sell significantly better than their unlicensed titles, suggesting licensing alone was not a guaranteed sales driver (confidence: high) — Playboy (1989) sold 2,300 units; Robocop and Monday Night Football sold 1,500 units each; similar to unlicensed game sales figures of 2,500-2,900 units
- **[licensing_signal]** Back to the Future (Data East, 1990) suffered from lack of asset quality and famous actor likenesses, impacting game's design execution and long-term appeal despite being major license (confidence: medium) — Alan notes game didn't get 'the assets that we want' and lacks Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd likenesses; game famously 'has not aged well'; sold only 3,000 units despite franchise prominence
- **[market_signal]** Operator economics drive game placement decisions; South Park reputation for strong location earnings contrasts with poor sales figures, suggesting demographic mismatch between casual players and pinball enthusiasts (confidence: medium) — Alex notes conflicting operator reports on South Park earnings; Alan suggests game performs well in casual venues but poorly in pinball bars; operators describe strong earning potential despite design criticisms
- **[market_signal]** Unlicensed games from Williams consistently outsold licensed games from competitors during the 1989-1993 licensing wars period, suggesting design quality and timing were more important than IP alone (confidence: high) — Fish Tales (13,600), Getaway High Speed 2 (13,300), Funhouse (10,750) outsold most Data East and Gottlieb licensed titles; Whitewater (7,000) and Bride of Pinbot (8,100) also exceeded competitor licensed sales
- **[market_signal]** Peak pinball licensing success occurred in 1992-1993 with Williams/Bally dominating through superior design execution on both licensed and unlicensed titles (confidence: high) — Williams sold 21,000 Addams Family, 13,600 Fish Tales, 12,700 Indiana Jones, 15,200 Twilight Zone in 1992-1993 period; Data East and Gottlieb sold 3,000-10,000 units on comparable licensed releases
- **[community_signal]** Pat Lawler's design skill was primary driver of Twilight Zone's 15,200 unit sales in 1993, not the dated licensing theme, challenging assumption that licensing success was IP-driven (confidence: high) — Alan explicitly states 'Pat Lomer didn't sell that many units of Roadshow' and 'pat lawler's name sold that game that's not the license'; Twilight Zone was old IP by 1993 standards
- **[sentiment_shift]** Community narrative about South Park's market impact and Williams' decline does not align with historical sales data, reflecting post-hoc storytelling by industry participants (confidence: medium) — Joe Kamenkow 'loves to proudly state' South Park was victorious, but sales data shows 2,200 units; hosts note conflicting narratives and question the historical record

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## Transcript

 Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Wedget Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Alan, owner of the Portland Pinball Bar Wedget. Joined as always by my good friend and co-host Alex, probably best known to most of the listeners by now as The Waterboy. How you doing? I'm doing okay. I'm not doing particularly good because we're recording this separately. So I had to go play pinball in my basement by myself while I waited for you, which was a very depressing experience. playing by myself yeah i mean that's modern pinball dude you gotta play it by yourself because you have no friends because you spend all your money on these pinball machines that you never play that are stuck in the basement of your house right isn't that the modern pinball experience yeah it's like not out on location competing against other people because one game would take an hour for you and your three friends to play yeah we're going off the rails already i'm supposed to be i'm supposed to be plugging our coffee account for anybody that's unaware we're doing uh we're raising funds over on a coffee, what is it? ko-fi.com slash wedgehead podcast. Yeah, if you want to go over there and give us a tip, it's very much appreciated. We finally determined that our next trip following Boston is going to be down to the great state of Colorado. For anyone listening, if you are unaware, we're completely unsponsored. We don't take any of the sponsorship deals we've been offered. We've shot down because we want to give you our true opinion and we always want to remain free and ad free but this is a way that if you'd like to support the show you can we very much appreciate it so again if you want to go there coffee.com slash whitehead podcast all donations on that page will now get an invite to our private discord so if you want all donations of five dollars or more we'll get a link to the private discord yeah but five dollars is the minimum right they can't donate less than that on the website i don't think i don't know five dollars or more you get a link automatically to the private discord and we talk about all things pinball including all the hot new game gossip that we don't talk about on this show yeah all the garbage that's not really worth airtime but everybody likes talking about anyway we talk about in the discord now yeah like what's the worst game i've played in the last year well i'm not going to get into it on the show but you can ask me directly in our discord and i will happily tell you there plus as is the new tradition waterboy has drawn a limited edition rocky mountain floopy trooper sticker and the first 25 people who donate ten dollars or more will receive two of these stickers mailed to them as a personal thank you that's a pretty good deal you know ten dollars for two pieces of hand-drawn floopy trooper art if anybody's not seen uh floopy you know he has nothing to do with flippy the mascot for the chicago pinball expo floopy's an original character nothing to do with flippy nothing to do at all he wears cargo pants so you can tell that it's floopy he's a lovable little scamp he's the mascot of the of the losing teams at wedgehead's uh howdy partner tournaments and for only ten dollars you know you can receive two of them yeah in sticker form in rocky mountain sticker form i guess this limited to the first 25 people that donate ten dollars or more to ko-fi.com slash wedgehead podcast but into the show this episode is a companion piece to our previous episode number 76 original themes this is the opposite or say the modern way of pinball, licensed themes. Since Gary Stern was the last man standing after William shuttered the pinball division in 1999, pretty much all pinball machines have been licensed ever since, with a couple exceptions. It was a strategy that Gary had begun to deploy starting in 1989, and it was something that worked well for them. Since they were without a direct competitor in the marketplace for almost 15 years, they really reset expectations for what a brand new pinball machine was going to be moving forward into the modern era. since in that previous episode we deep dived into what made the williams original theme so good we wanted to kind of do the same thing for why we ended up here why we end up all games are based on some intellectual property nowadays right yeah it's kind of the standard yeah we just want to see like how do we get here because like the more we dug into the original themes in the 90s and we'll do it again on this episode because i think it's good to highlight years and sales amongst manufacturers at this time because the more we dug into you're like like oh yeah well daddy he sort of pioneered it and like that's the way you do you get jurassic park and then you beat your competitors not necessarily i mean that's not necessarily that's not what happened then that's not how it always went yeah so we're going to start with sort of the beginning of the license wars or the real license wars i mean obviously we've talked about this in previous episode bally originally pioneered licenses in the late 1970s we talked about that in the band pins episode i think but they always made a lot more original themes than they did licenses and that continued even after they were acquired by Williams in the late 1980s. Gary Stern started Data East in 1987. He partnered with the Japanese video game company of the same name because they wanted to expand into the pinball coin-op business in the U.S. But even then, their first four games were unlicensed. Laser War, Torpedo Valley, Secret Service, and Time Warp. All original themes. Great art packages, too, on all four of those. Well, Time Warp, actually, but the other three, not so much. But it's like they sell moderate units. There are no real big hits in those first four games. You know, like Laser War sold 2,500. Torpedo Alley sold 1,000. Secret Service sold 2,700. Time Warp sold 2,900, right? So moderate, not great. Yeah, for the era, not great. But then we get Joe Kamikow, who's working at Data East with Gary as their main game designer at this time. He starts pushing for them to do licensed themes as a marketing strategy to sell more games. Like this becomes the strategy for not only Data East, but then later on their competitors and now into Stern. Right. And he ends up setting this sort of precedence. You know what their first licensed game was, Waterboy? Checkpoint's not licensed. I don't know. Checkpoint is licensed technically. I mean, but that's later. Yeah, that's I mean, they had to license the Porsches. Well, I thought they just kind of like knocked him off. Oh, it does have actual Porsche logos and stuff on it, doesn't it? Yeah. What was it? What was their first? Playboy, 35th anniversary in 1989. Ooh. Not a game that most people think about. Gary loves making Playboy machines. He's made two of them. Bally made the first one in 1978. Stern ends up making another one as Stern in 2002. This one was released in 89, and it marks their first kind of shift into the licenses. They only sold 2,300 units of them, so it's not like it was a smash hit. I guess it was Playboy's 35th anniversary in 1989. Hugh Hefner I guess was like a big pinball guy which is why he has so many pinball machines is because he sort of was into pinball and sort of like made the license available plus pinball has a history of scantily clad women yeah it overlaps with seedy activity not a great game not one that people really think about no that's their first because they didn't it seems like a big license the ballet game moved a lot of units they got it they didn't really do too much so I'm surprised that are like, oh shit, we got to like stick with that. Yeah. Do you remember what the first Williams license game was? We talked about it in another episode with our friend Greg Ferreres, didn't we? Yep. And with Roger Sharp, I believe, because he's the guy that ended up getting it. But it was Elvira and the Party Monsters released under the Bally name in 1989. This is after they had already combined after Williams had bought Bally and put them under one roof. And this is where the licensing wars kind of really began. you know like we said roger sharp was at williams and bally and joe cam and cows at data east and later sega elvira sells 4 000 units so essentially doubling what data east sells with playboy damn just kind of like right out the gate yeah well i'm actually you know i'm kind of surprised that the disparity is not more like when you compare the quality of like williams to the early data east games some of the early data east games are fun but williams was like an established name and stuff i'm surprised there wasn't a bigger gap between them honestly i know it's double but when you compare that to like some other numbers we've seen i'm just i'm a little surprised well we're gonna get to some interesting much larger discrepancies here coming up okay going back to data east their next four games were all licensed so it was monday night football robocop and phantom of the opera so none of these games actually though really did any better than their first couple of unlicensed games i mean they sold very similar numbers of units so monday night football sold 1500 robocop sold 1500 it's a shame there should be more robocops in this world that game's awesome and phantom of the opera sold 2750 units and joe cam and cow you have it in the show notes is the acronym podo podo dude people love actor the pinball people love their acronyms i was like what the fuck is podo really yeah they really weren't selling like a substantial amount of these licensed games at all again it's surprising that it used to be like this is what we gotta do this is it dude yeah with other companies doing it in the same year with their original themes okay so i put bally sells 2 500 pool sharks and 7 300 whirlwinds at the same time one of the worst licenses of all time roger sharpe sold his roller games sells 5 000 units because williams made it well and because the king designed it yeah but i just think it's interesting that they get something like monday night football they get robocop they get phantom of the opera they get these licensed things it's their new marketing strategy and yet bally's like here's 2500 pool sharks that's that's more than what you sold of robocop cool sharks it's not even like pool sharks is like a highly regarded game sharks playing pool that's why i included it yeah because it's like uh perhaps these licenses were being used at data east more as like a crutch than as like their winning formula you're like they weren't throwing down huge numbers because of the license they were just kind of scraping by with the licenses you know but joe was convinced that the licensed games were the future regardless and all of their games from this point were gonna be licensed games they didn't make any more unlicensed games so next they made back to the future in 1990 and they sold 3 000 units which is pretty good but it's also still not like a smash you know i mean when back to the future back to the future 2 came out in 1989 like this is still like a monster like relevant license that's kind of surprising to only move 3k the problem with some of these data east games and we'll touch on it a little bit is that some of these games don't get the assets that we want as pinball players or collectors want right in 1990 even were they aware like that people didn't have the internet man could they even be like they're like is this uh i'm blanking on the kid's name back to the future what's his name marty mcfly dude yeah you're like is that even the real marty mcfly you're like in 1990 kids know the difference it's not they know that that's not michael j fox and they know and they know that's not christopher lloyd so that's some of the things where it's like in this era like definitely joe was like it doesn't matter you know he's like in the marketplace it doesn't matter he's toy story four in it yeah he's toy story four back in the day for sure the first big hit that they would have would be in that same year in 1990 it'd be the simpsons they sold 5 500 units uh which is their best-selling game to date by a lot i think any company that sells 5 000 plus units that's like a big milestone to them and kind of the history of pinball so they have a smash hit it's a massive license obviously the simpsons is still on the air today but it was culturally super relevant at this time i mean this is a massive license and they sold 5500 units but i also put in the notes just for clarity here williams released funhouse of the same year and sold 10 750 units yeah well they secured the likeness of uh rudy there for that one i just think it's like it's fascinating right yeah it is genuinely you're like pat lawler can give me the most off-putting theme of all time in funhouse and sell 10 000 of them because it's a damn good game whereas like they're even closing in on 11 000 like it's crazy sometimes when it was by far like the biggest single like peak of its popularity rate in those early seasons yep and you're like they'd made 5 000 which is an impressive amount of sales especially considering that game's not super not super fun it's just nuts i did hear pat lawler say in an old interview that if funhouse would have been the same game but it was the simpsons like if they had got that license and i sort of swapped if that was a bart simpson head in the middle of the playfield instead of rudy kind of talking to you that they would have sold 20 000 units easy dude not a doubt in my mind i think if you had the stars aligned like that it's it's not like one of those things you can't just do that at any point in time but if the stars in that time when they were selling that like those number of units the early 90s and they had gotten that license and everything and had that good of a design behind it easy 20,000 game it would be like a t2 situation you know where all everything hit at once yeah and we'll get to that but they end up making data ease ends up making batman ninja turtles and star trek in 1991 the next year batman and teenage mutant ninja turtles were both licenses that Roger was also going after. So this was the time when like Roger and Joe and Roger talked to us a bit about it when we talked to him about those 90s episodes about Joe Cam and Cal and how they're friends, but they were like, you know, friendly rivals and that they would, you know, Roger always says it like, nah, I didn't, he didn't get anything that I wanted, you know, like I didn't pass. I don't think that's necessarily true. I do think that Roger has his own ideas about what he needed from a license which i kind of you know i tend to agree with him on is like i think that batman and previously like back to the future i think that those games are good examples of like these games didn't come out very good and they didn't get the assets that would have made them really good well like back future has like very famously not aged well in part due to like that lack of assets you're like yes back to the future game but it's like kind of a back to the future because they don't get the licenses they don't get the the voices they don't get the likenesses for the artists on the playfield roger you know said he couldn't secure the likeness rights to jack nicholson and michael keaton for the playfield for batman so he's like well then what am i doing you know like that is not really the batman game i'm not really what am i paying for yeah but joe was like yeah we'll put batman on it people will play because batman people don't really care 3,000 units. It's a different, very different mindset, I think. To me, it feels like Roger really didn't want his name associated with anything but the best, whereas Data East, much like Floopy Drooper, they're the scrappy little guys starting up, and they're just fucking making pinball machines, keeping the line moving, pumping stuff out. Yeah, and trying to find a way to compete. I think there's something to be said for both of those, because when you're the little upstart in an industry dominated by a couple big names, or really one big name at this point, It's like you do what you have to do. And I don't think there's anything like wrong with that. It's just you can see why this choices don't necessarily age as well. And I mean, they sold, you know, 3,750 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They sold 3,500 Batmans, right? He also passed on making Ninja Turtles to let Greg Freres and Dennis Nordman make Doctor Dude. I love that, dude. I'm like, that's the funniest, the funniest game you could be like, no, we've got a better idea cooking. We're making Doctor Dude. i'm like hell yeah you know what they sold 4 000 doctor dude so he was they were fucking right dude they they outsold they outsold the ninja turtles dude at the height of ninja turtles man you know what i mean that is kind of insane so i would have liked to see a dennis nordman Greg Freres turtles game though oh yeah i would have it would have came out better because that game's also not very good right like i mean do you want to come on and do a die on this hill episode for some of these, you know, less loved Data East games, let us know, because we like a lot of Data East games, especially the later ones. But these ones are kind of rough around the edges. They they are rough and we're not going to go into all of them. You know, I'm not going to do this whole era because I do want us to do a proper Data East only episode. I want us to do a Sega episode at some point. So we'll save some of that. But I just thought it was interesting because, you know, Data East then makes Star Trek in the same year and they sell four thousand four hundred units so again this is you're like this is getting better like that's good that's respectable but williams at the same time is selling crazy units of unlicensed games in 91 because here it is matched exactly they sell hurricane which is like the worst of the three roller coaster roller coaster unlicensed python game things and they sold 4 400 units that's what star trek sells yeah insane man and then party zone sells 4 000 units on its own and williams when they were doing their licenses this same year 91 terminator 2 again worlds collide perfect 15 000 units they make a sequel to their own original ip bride of pinbot and they sell 8 100 units of bride of pinbot so they're just crazy cooking dude cooking it's kind of nuts because you it's like they're they're winning even on like the original themes where they're not paying for any licenses they're winning and then when they do get a license locked down they get one that's good and they get you know arnold in the studio to do call outs and shit and they sell 15 000 yep you're like they're getting their money's worth out of the licenses that's the difference but he swings and misses too i mean that's the thing like roger admits it like he he got a bunch of licenses that we're not going to talk about in this episode because it would just be too long and it would fit too well but it's like take you know shadow or congo or ginamonic like yeah there's there's a lot of them that danger of like trying to do things well they're hot right which we talked about with him is that it's it's a very different thing when you're trying to like predict things before they come out and you're like you can have a movie that looks like a success and you don't know till it comes out that it's a dog yeah water world for gottlieb right like same thing yeah so now we move into the peak of the license wars we're going to talk about 1992 and 1993 1992 did any good games come out in 1992 oh baby did they come out in 1992 okay so 1992 marks the release of the adams family by williams valley it's the highest selling pinball machine of all time at almost 21 000 units this is the height of this sort of short pinball resurgence of popularity in the 1990s they also sold 7700 doctor who's and 7800 creature from the black lagoons just under the bally name alone in 1992 and it's a lot of games a lot of games under the williams name they don't make a licensed game that year at all in 1992 but they sold twice as many units of their unlicensed games getaway high speed 2 with 13 300 units and then fish tales with 13 600 units it's insane it's a lot of units of fucking fish tales of a game about fishing game about lying about fishing like you're lying about how big the fish you caught was yeah game about lying it is just kind of nuts i know it's supposed to be the licensed theme uh episode but you're like these are original themes man like when you when you get the pieces together on those you're like yeah 14 000 units fishtails fucking insane so then data yeast at this same time this is their highest selling run this is like williams like this 1992 is a great year for them they start off with hook it sells 6 700 units so damn of a hook of hook this is great geez that game's yeah yes man hey i did die on this hill about hook hook rips okay go back and listen to it lethal weapon three also to die on the sale on lethal weapon three that sells 10 350 units okay okay they're doing yeah see now they're now they're doing good they got the dmds man everything's changing and star wars sells 10 400 units so this is by far their best but i i say that because okay even star wars biggest license in the history of licenses gets smoked by fishtails to be fair to them at this point like 1992 star wars is like kind of died off substantially i think but i mean yeah i guess i guess lying about fishing was just just super hot about fishing what kids were into if you were on the playground 1992 no one cared about star wars you were talking about tall tales about your fishing exploits that's what was happening on the playgrounds in 1992 but then gottlieb also enters the licensing wars in 1992 and they start off with super mario brothers and they sell 4200 units clarify from a previous episode because there was some confusion i think this is not based off of the movie it's based off of the video game for the nintendo i don't know what you're talking about people are gonna write in yeah save your comments i don't care but yeah it comes in swinging with super mario bros 4200 units 500 mushroom worlds all right in 1993 data east made rocky and bullwinkle and sold 5 500 units so a little bit of a pretty steep drop-off but right on its heels they sell 9 000 jurassic parks right damn well that's also because they got the fucking man johnny b over there designing jurassic park john borg john borg some haters would say that it's you know just whirlwind but flipped with a dinosaur that eats the ball but you know i mean whirlwind's a pretty fucking good game so you know i'd say it's jurassic park but good last action hero they make 5 500 units and tales from the crypts they make 4 500 units not bad numbers for trailing off here but also a steep decline from 92 and you remember what Gottlieb makes in 1992 or 1993 here? Oh, they follow up the success of Mario Bros., the video game, with Street Fighter 2, the video game, the pinball. And it says here in your notes that they sold 5,500 units of that thing? Yep. And that they sold 5,700 units of Q-Ball Wizard? Yep. Exact same year. Oh, maybe, because, like, with Pool Sharks, maybe there was just still a high demand for pool-themed pinball machines for some reason. Like, what the fuck, dude? Why are people buying up? They're like, oh, sign me up. Give me another dozen cue ball wizards. I got some thoughts at the end of this episode where I'm going to tie in some of my own personal thoughts to make more sense of this from an operator's perspective. But we'll keep chugging along and sort of end out this era. Because what was Williams doing at this time? They were selling 6,800 Bram Stoker Draculas, one of the greatest games of all time. They sell 12,700 Indiana Jones, and they sell 11,700 Star Trek Next Generations. They also sell 7,000 Whitewaters. Under the Bally brand, they sell 15,200 Twilight Zones and 7,000 Judge Dredds. Damn, that's a lot of games. Selling tons of units, right? So here's the interesting part. One, they're selling 7,000 of my favorite game, Whitewater. I love Whitewater. i think it's fantastic it's an epic game that's for a different episode but you're like dude they're smashing the licenses from data east right like so what's data east doing i mean i guess jurassic park outsells it but then when you look at just the licenses you're like well indiana jones the star trek are at almost 13 and almost 12 there and then they're fucking selling 15 000 units of twilight zone twilight so that's like the equivalent of when this game came out it's like the equivalent of like remember when the monsters came out and everyone's like what the fuck is this like in the 90s the twilight zone was old hat dude that shit was old it was a bizarre choice at this point so it's not like the theme the twilight zone sold those games pat lawler's name sold that game that's not the license there it's people being like you know what pat lawler games We just got Addams Family. We got Funhaus. These games are fucking earning money. Like, we're buying it. Like, that's how operators are buying it. Pat Lomer didn't sell that many units of Roadshow, though. Those licenses are still helping something. Well, yeah. I think it's more about the hot run and the time period. That's why I truncated this to 92, 93, because then we start comparing later runs. It's hard. You can't really compare numbers across years. Let's do it year to year because it changed so fast in the 90s. It was slow in the 80s, then it ramped up, and then it started dropping. Yeah, if you compared pinball sales from 2019 to 2021, it would be absolutely insane. It's like, yeah, things change. This is where we get to sort of the pinball Armageddon, where the end of pinball, I sort of call it. This is what people thought was happening at the time because people were like, oh, shit, right? Williams parent company WMS decides to shut down the pinball division in 1999 because their slot machine business was just too lucrative. Yeah, it's too damn easy to make slot machines. As a publicly held company, they wanted to appease their shareholders and help raise the WMS stock price. Right. So they end up shutting it down. Right. I keep teasing a pinball 2000 episode, which we will do one day in the future. I say this to listeners because it is a great story. but essentially George Gomez and Pat Lawler developed the modular platform pinball 2000 with augmented kind of reality projection onto the play field and it sold very well like the weird part is like this is the last things Williams did and the story is often told as create something special to save the industry and kind of they fucking did right like they made this amazing thing they sold 6,900 units of the first pinball 2000 game revenge from mars and that's with a big price increase they raised the price a lot and pinball machines were not selling in the late 90s so in 1999 they sell 6,900 units with an original theme an unlicensed sequel to their own attack from mars it actually sold like double what attack from our sold it It sold 6,900 units of Revenge for Mars, which is funny. Yeah, that's kind of insane. But then Star Wars Episode I was the second game, and it sold 3,500 units. Again, at this time, that would have been considered extremely good for 1999 standards, where the bottom had fallen out of the industry completely at this time. But Sega, which was previously Data East, would release South Park in 1999, And Joe Kamenkow loves to proudly state that this is one of their all-time biggest successes, that this was the game that put the final nail in Williams' coffin, leaving Sega now as the victorious company at the end of the century. But when you look at the sales, they only sold 2,200 units of South Park. So what does that tell you really? Yeah, you're like, this didn't really make an impact on anything. No, it's like Williams' shareholders decided to close the company. to close the pinball division about like the it's like yeah pinball was like pinball was shrinking but it doesn't mean like it's dead the only problem is when you have a publicly held company you need to grow forever or like people panic yep and it's like well pinball wasn't gonna grow forever in this time period so wms panicked and closed the doors and it fucking sucks but i don't think it was a result of any licensing decisions or anything like that definitely wasn't the result of like the guys working on the games or anything like that either. Yeah. I mean I think it just very interesting from what I heard conflicting reports from operators in the modern era But I think the historical record has basically said and i have no reason to really doubt it necessarily but it like that at the time maybe they didn't sell a ton of these south parks but the operators that did buy them said that they earned really well some modern operators today will tell me the same thing others will be like that game doesn't earn shit i think it has a lot to do with where it's at and where it's at because i think yeah i think what it is mostly with that game in particular is that obviously it's a it's a huge license like it's well known that's understandable the game itself not great right but it's it's easy and it has the theme and so i think if you're sticking it somewhere where people are but they're not necessarily pinball players i think the game does very well probably extremely well and that's where the reputation comes from now if you're in a place where you're a pinball bar in a pinball city full of like your clientele is pinball people pinball people are like nah i don't like this right like us pinheads are like nah this game sucks for the most part i'm sure there are fans out there majority right i know there's at least one person that likes it yeah because he might come on and do it on his hill but other than that I don't think I've run into anybody that actually enjoys South Park. So, I mean, it's not a great game. No, I would say it's kind of dog shit. That's like one of those games that I'm like, I mean, it's like every shot on there is like four times wider than it needs to be. It's very odd to me. It's a strange, yeah, it's a strange one. And that's why I think it's just like annoying to be like, oh, this is the game that like, you know, South Park won. And you're like, no, it didn't. It just happened to be the game that came out. well like williams was having their own drama happen yeah that's how i see it you know i think that's sort of setting the the record properly straight i think and that's not to pass judgment on sega or data east because like we do love a lot of those games like every time we go out to the next level like we play the shit out of those games so like a game it's kind of kick-ass dude a lot of them are really fun yeah southparks just does is it that's the problem yeah funny part but that does kind of bring us so with with williams closing and everything that kind of brings us into the modern era right with stern sega at this point like over the course of south park's run changes their name from sega to stern right um and this is for anybody that unaware sega was previously data east and gary stern has been running the company under various ownership this entire time yeah and so like basically williams closes in 99 right sega turns into stern sega wants out of their partnership and so gary buys the pinball division and renames it you know after himself or after his dad right the family name so now it's stern and they're alone in the pinball market for like 14 years basically from 99 to like 2013 and all of their games that they would release except for two were licensed games and early on in stern they do try a little experiment they make two games they make striker extreme and high roller casino and i think these were meant to be kind of cost-cutting experiments by gary since they were just they were a monopoly at this point they were the only game in town i think they didn't sell that well it's hard to say because this is the point of time where like because stern is now a private company you hear us talk on the show a lot back in the day all of these pinball companies were publicly held companies. So because they were publicly held companies, they had to report for their tax purposes and things like that. They have to and their shareholders, they have to report what they're building and how many and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, you have to have public public record of all that stuff. This era, though, is when it goes private and that changes everything. So we there's like a fog of war. We don't know how many units from here on out they're selling. It's just an estimation. But I would say that I don't think that Striker Extreme and Highland Royal Casino were big hits because they kind of go right back to having every game with a license right afterwards. They go right back to it. So around this time, Jack Guarnieri is a distributor. He's selling games. He's buying and selling games to operators. And I believe this was actually Stern's, he was actually Stern's largest distributor at one point in time. And he sees the opportunity in the marketplace to sell directly to pinball enthusiasts in the home market so he starts a website pinball sales.com and he really plants the seed for the sales directly to homes rather than to operators putting these games out on location this is the change right like and i've seen gary stern and documentaries from this time or like news clips or whatever when he's given interviews and like it's very clear like when gary talks about the games they're making at this time and what they're thinking about like these early 2000s games he's still thinking about location play he's still like pinball's a location business that's the way it's always been that's sort of the way he always saw it being yeah it's dipped a lot there's less operators whatever it's a lull but pinballs had lulls before well frankly it's a really weird pitch it's a shift in gears to think about it a different way because you're like when you're selling like consumer good like like home use goods or whatever you get into this whole thing where it's like pricing is your number one concern you got to get the price down like form factor you need a small footprint all this shit that's completely the opposite of what pinball is so it would be real weird to be in his shoes and be like we got to be selling these things at home if if you thought that way you'd be like well like how well and they've they tried way back in the 70s like that's when they started back then trying to sell home machines but they're always cheaper right they were always some like form and they still kind of do the the cheaper model today but what jack saw before gary and before kind of everyone else was maybe pinball's not that popular amongst the general public anymore right like it's no longer this big cultural zeitgeist where people go out and they play pinball and it's well known But the people that like it really, really like it. Like they're obsessed with it and they would buy these games. And that's who we need to sell to. We need to change the shift of focus from operators to selling to people and home collectors and putting these games in their home. And in 2013, he starts his own pinball company, Jersey Jack Pinball, and they released their first game, Wizard of Oz. I think it just he saw before Gary that Gary took a lot longer to appreciate and understand that the market had changed. You had to market to collectors. Jersey Jack did. And Stern really learned how to shift their focus now that they actually had competition in the marketplace again. What do you think about when Jersey Jack came in and all that kind of stuff? What do you think about that sort of take and that sort of shift? well i think it is interesting because i think it's it's very different selling to operators versus home collectors it's like you do need to kind of like sell the game before people actually play it you're never going to like have a chance to really win people over and so it's created the whole modern market of like selling games based off of fomo you know the fear it's like you got to get this thing like right away you're going to be one of the first people which i'll never really understand because like you can always pick these even the rarest of games i mean i guess fucking jjp pirates or whatever is is a shit ton of money now but that's like one game other than that every other every other modern pinball machine you can get for basically msrp at most so i'm always just like i don't understand the fear of like we gotta buy this thing immediately you're like no if it's a good game it'll still be a good game in five years but that's a result of like the home collector market that i can't that doesn't really exist otherwise they want you to feel like you won't get that if you don't buy it now you won't be able to get it or it'll be like pirates like hey i could have bought it for whatever eight or nine thousand that they were selling them for at the time it but now it's 25 000 or whatever and i think jack was really good at identifying what people say they want regardless of if it's is or isn't what players actually want i think he basically just like went and looked at the laundry list of like old guys being like this is what stern should do and he made that all a reality and just put like a super high bill of material game out into the market with just kind of uh this like wizard of oz is not a theme i'm exceptionally passionate about it's just kind of like generic boomer theme to me it's like a big family-friendly theme everybody knows it i don't think a lot of people have strong feelings one way or the other on it and then it's wrapped up and it's like oh we have this giant screen because at that point stern was still using dmds and they came out with the huge lcd backbox screen and it's a wide body it's jammed with mechs and it's got full rgb lights and it's just got it's got everything that everybody online had been saying they wanted and a lot of people do like the wizard of oz game a lot it's not my cup of tea but he definitely objectively they threw the fucking kitchen sink at this thing and it made a big splash so you're like it was a success in that mark and i think just going directly after just being like fuck it we're gonna whatever it costs we're gonna do this and i think they actually did sell those things at a competitive cost originally yeah business almost went under and had to be rescued or bought out or whatever after the first couple games they were under charging at the time because they were still i think he saw the vision but i think he also underestimated how much money these home collector guys would actually spend when you get into that market of like you're now selling like a luxury good and that's why i'm like like thinking about it from like gary's perspective and be like well i'm not going to sell things like how you sell a video game console that doesn't work for pinball and you're like no you're not selling a video game console like you're selling like bespoke furniture or something where you're like the buyers don't give a shit they think it's cooler if the game is so expensive nobody else can afford it but them that like adds to it for them which is so bizarre and i think that's one thing that jack they figured that out a bit you get into all of like your your profit margins on stuff and it's like if you can sell you know whatever if you're if you're making a thousand bucks a game selling them as cheap as you possibly can and you're like well what if we just like raise the price we sell a quarter of them but we make four thousand dollars a game yeah and you're like shit it looks like you're making just as much money and there's like less to worry about yep the scale it's just a very different business model than anybody else had ever used before i think and it it's it remains interesting to me personally that's why i included on this episode i think it was a good chance to kind of talk about jack when ari and sort of like because i think he really did like i think he's the one that sort of saw it before gary saw it before everyone else saw it And now he's been proven right. He started trying to do the direct consumer sales before other people were doing that. I didn't know that. I knew he was a big distributor, but I never really knew when the shift came to like actually selling just easily to consumers. And it's because he saw it. And then like Gary and Stern for a long time were kind of like really resistant towards it. They were just sort of like, yeah, I mean, if you sell some of these, if you're a distributor and you buy them and you sell them to home collectors, okay, whatever. I'm not really, I don't really care. And I mean, there's a big part of like Jack didn't feel respected enough, which is why he started his own company. He felt like he didn't get enough say in games and like the way Stern was making games. And he's like, well, dude, I'm selling all these games. I'm doing all this legwork. And, you know, I know your market better than you know it. And so he starts his own company. He kind of might have considering like now Stern does what? Two thirds of their sales to home collectors. One third commercial. Yep. And so you're like, Jack probably did have a better idea of the market than Gary, because I think there's something to be said for being closer to the buyer. Like he was the one interacting with these people. It's just an interesting shift. And like, I just think that like the difference between selling to a home collector and selling to an operator is that operators really aren't that picky. Like if you have an arcade or you have a route, you're an operator. You just need new games, period. You know? Yeah. So you can sell an operator on a new gimmick or a tech advantage, just that alone. Like, hey, this has an LCD screen. Those other ones don't. Yeah, this one updates automatically on Wi-Fi. Yeah, and so that'll sell Unison operator. We buy, you know, Roadsy buys every Stern and every Chicago gaming game at Wedget, both licensed and original themed games, because they've earned our trust as manufacturers for their quality and price points. if chicago game is like we're making theater of magic next right well fucking we'll do it buying one give it to us we're buying it no doubt yeah like literally anything literally like any of those and if honestly if mark ritchie made a new original theme game and chicago made it we're buying it man i mean that would make me very happy if they made like firepower three dude that'd be sick um but like that's just the way it goes and because i think it's like most themes don't actually matter that much to operators i mean i put in here we bought venoms we bought monsters we bought foo fighters we don't my this roads or myself we don't have any attachment to any of those licenses at all you know what i mean like in fact for most operators we put more faith in the designer's track record and the manufacturer's track record much more than any particular license we're like stern's gonna give us three or four games a year and we're gonna buy them because we need to have new games because they're releasing new games and these games are popular and if we don't have them people are going to go somewhere else to play them so we got to buy them that's how it goes it really doesn't matter kind of what the license is and so i you know it's like if Keith Elwin designed an unlicensed monster game or a kaiju battle game with zombie yeti doing art and stern released it we would buy all of them and route them it would and so would other operators if Keith Elman designed an original theme or whatever you'd buy it because we just trust the names behind it it doesn't even matter what the license is on there yeah and reputation matters more than theme theme plays a much smaller role than I think most people think it does because it really all about what earns and what doesn earn for location play like I would say like Iron maiden one of my favorite bands but there a shitload of people out there that bought an iron maiden that hates iron maiden because the game was great dude yeah you should remember that like it's this is also true for home collectors right jurassic park that game's gonna sell because it's jurassic park that's a huge license massively nostalgic for the right age group for home collectors and buyers jurassic park does well because big license right it's perfect but why does godzilla sell that well collectors hated the idea that stern was making a godzilla pin until they played it now it's considered by that same pin side crowd as the consensus best game of all time his next rumored game is king kong is that really an a-list license in the year 2025 wouldn't beetlejuice be a better choice will it matter fuck no it won't matter it won't matter it won't matter the thing is that you're like you guys will buy anything as long as it's not like something super polarizing a real generic theme will like sell dude if he if he did giant monkey man you know like monkey monkey break city and it was zombie yeti on art and it was stern making it and it was Keith Elwin people would fucking buy it they doesn't there are a few King Kong heads out there but it's not huge like you're a massive Godzilla fan you are you were before the game that's not that's just like you love kaiju games you love Godzilla but like the general consensus when that game was rumored was everyone was like I don't know it was definitely lukewarm there were a ton of people you can still go back into the pin side threads when it was a rumor or whatever and it's like a lot of guys being like i don't know why they would do this theme like what what is it gonna it's gonna be based on the new movies those are bad as the old no one cares about the old ones and then it's like a lot of those people complaining you go to their little collection list on pinside and they have the game now and you're like yeah man that's because like this shit doesn't matter if the game's good ultimately like pinball players will play any game if it's good like we'll play anything 100 and that's the thing like the original themes that you can sell original themes if the game has to be good nothing we got into in like the last episode so much The difference, though, with licenses versus original themes is that if you have a big enough license, you can sell mediocre games pretty easily, especially like I was getting into with the with the Jersey Jack talk earlier, like to the home collectors where you're selling things based off of FOMO and people are putting all their orders in before they've ever flipped the fucking thing. Yeah, exactly. That's like how you sell almost all of your games as a boutique manufacturer now. I mean, that's the goal, right? You need to drum up so much hype that you can sell all of your games before anyone even has a chance to play it. And it's kind of, to me, I'm like, well, if that's your business model, that's kind of, it's surprising me that people keep supporting that when that's obviously like evident that you don't really have faith in the product. If you can't, if you can't keep selling it when people actually have a chance to play it, you know, it's not that good. Like we've said it on the show before. We're like, hey, we think Taylor Swift would be just a massive license and it would sell massive units even if it was not good because of the license. It could be South Park's layout and it would be like still a monster seller. I'd probably still buy one. And the same could be said for other rumored licenses like Pokemon or like that Jersey Jack's next game is Harry Potter. It doesn't matter what Harry Potter is. It's going to sell well, even if they aren't good games. Now, if they are good games, they're going to sell bananas. It'll sell well for Jersey Jack. They're going to go bananas, like, if they are actually good. Because the problem is, like, it sort of becomes, like, I always call it, like, David Hankin math. Like, people are like, well, you know, I like Star Wars, so it'll be good. You know, like, and they haven't played it. Like, and you're just sort of like, well, maybe it'll be good. Yeah, they kind of, like, they check enough boxes that you can get excited about it, and then you just buy one anyway. If you like the theme enough, you look past, like, it's like, you can look past the weaknesses. you're like i really like this thing so like it's fun for me even though it's not that good of a game ultraman yeah although yeah i don't yeah that one's pushing it well i think like what we're talking about is like i think licenses create like you you know a good jumping off point though too like it gives the designers and the design teams like a sandbox to work within I think it's I personally we touched on our last game the original themes episode it takes a lot more work and talent from every member of the team to create a truly great original theme in the modern era than a licensed theme I think like yeah for sure especially like when if the expectation is to have like a screen with animations and like what everybody wants like all these deep modes and like a story in their game and everything trying to do that from scratch you're creating a lot more than when you're like oh we have a movie we have the five big scenes we make those the modes we kind of know what the center mech is going to be already you can have like a much more simplistic game and you're like yeah but we delivered we checked all the boxes so people are going to like it and you're like when it's the original theme you don't get that yeah Chris Granner used to have to create like banger original soundtracks he didn't get to just be like here's john williams star wars or jurassic park scores to make his games great like he had to compose that music himself you know what i mean it's not just like plug this shit in like banger right like greg freres Python Anghelo john yowsey they were able to craft their own original characters and create iconic art packages without the character designs from marvel you know what i mean yep and that's not to mention the programmers designers and engineers making these games like it's just harder dude it's harder to like do that shit from scratch definitely take something that's popular or even borderline popular some of these themes that come out that's the other thing too is like everyone's just like well yeah harry potter's coming out or they've made star wars or they get stranger things that they focus on like remember these big ones like yeah but like look at the number one game of all time it's godzilla people were not stoked when godzilla was announced it was not the number one most desired theme of all time that's for sure that's what i mean so i think it's like licenses are a shortcut to making like an interesting game and a shortcut to selling their games quickly, which is imperative when you're selling so many games to the home market, for sure. We're not arguing that. That's not what this episode is at all. We're just saying, like, the market's changed, and that's sort of why we get this. But it didn't always have to be that way. And, like, I just kind of have my final thought here. I just wanted to go on a quick rant because I think about this a lot. I think about, like, yeah, like all these old games, like I like these original themes. I think sometimes like the theme integration is just so much better. And I think it's because pinball machines used to succeed with original themes because they used to be sold to operators. Operators would buy them and then the games would get to sink or swim based upon their own merits on location. Players were asked for a few quarters to give a game a try and then see what they thought. If they liked it, they came back and played it some more. the buy-in for the consumer was low much in the same way that the buy-in for the consumer of a tv show or a movie or a band is low like how much does it cost you to enjoy a new song or a tv show or a movie right like you probably have streaming services so you could just check it out like it's essentially free more or less or very cheap even a video game right like the buy-in for the home collectors though as a pinball buyer is it very high it's absurd when you think about it compared to other hobbies and that's why it's insane to me that people will buy games before they've had a chance to play them because you're like you're dropping like seven grand on this thing or 10 or 15 000 or whatever so it makes sense getting licenses slapped on top of shit now right because they're doing the David Hankin math at that point well i like star wars you know i like pinball like yeah it's gonna be good you just sort of yada yada it yeah that's good this will work out but what's interesting to me is how nobody like loves cover bands you know or nobody loves bad sequels and reboots of classic movies or how almost all licensed video games are considered to be weak or not good at all right like every time a video game comes out you're like wait this is based on Ghostbusters? This sucks, dude. Like, this game sucks, like, right? Like, they want original themes on their video games. People want original screenplays as the movies. People don't want Tombstone the video game today. They want Red Dead Redemption. But why do the video games get their own characters and storylines and IP and we don't as pinball players? I mean, pinball people would flip out for either of those nowadays because of the licenses attached. But the problem really is that both of those licenses, Tombstone or Red Dead Redemption, they're great because they're original works of art. That's what makes them special. That's why we are drawn to them in the first place. What is a license but just an original work of art that we identify with? There was a time not that long ago where that was also the case in pinball. The licensed games that Data East were pushing out were seen by the majority of players and operators as inferior to the games that Williams was making at the same time. And while I think that we won't see this change in a major way for a long time, my little secret fantasy is that location pinball becomes popular enough again that these manufacturers can afford to gamble on developing a great unlicensed original themed game again. And that it can find its audience one dollar at a time just like it used to. That's what I'm hoping for. I think it'll be a while, if ever. It's a little optimistic. You know, you got galactic tank force, dude. Again, man, this is the thing that we talked about on the original themes episode is like, don't point to an original theme and go, well, there you go. No, no, no, no. There's your slop. Ignore the fact that the game crashes every time you try to play it. It's an original theme. No, game has to be good. I think that's what it says is like, like I said, there's the work. Here's a thought experiment for all you Keith Owen fanboys out there. Think about this. if Stern made their next game and it was a Keith Owen game and they got zombie Eddie on the art package the shit you guys love I mean you're not really that attached to Godzilla quit pretending you're not the water boy you're not a weeb dude you're not out here like you don't have you're not your base was not covered in Godzilla shit like water boys is you know that was great for water boy that that game comes out you know that's like a like a gift from the heavens right but like for the majority of you you were like I don't know about this one well I think Jurassic Park's a pretty good example because you're like that game is almost an original theme it's like they got the name they got the uh call out and past that it could it's generic dinosaur the music oh it does have the music which is strong yeah but that's like as close you're like man that thing's like really coasting on the name alone and you're like in that game is uh like number third on the pin side list and like a huge seller and many people's favorite game of all time yep and you're like yeah man like you the theme isn't that important i don't think i think at the end of the day like what will earn long term on location or what sticks around in somebody's house and their home collection and how it rates on pin side and what people argue about in forums about the greatest games is the cream rises to the top dude that's it like if it's a great game it's a great game it's not the theme that the license that made it better it's just not it's great when those two things combine you have a great license and the game is every once in a while you have a game that's like lord of the rings where it's like a beloved license it's like a friendly game that everybody really enjoys is a fucking big successful set like sometimes things line up but when it's funny like looking at the list of the most popular games you're like none of these were like the big popular themes some a lot of the big popular themes a lot of those games come out and people are like lukewarm on them right like because you know maybe they're not the best games in the market yeah and i just think it's funny because like this is the world we live in we all know it it's not changing so we're not changing anything we just wanted to explore it i thought it was a good companion piece to our previous episode and just sort of talk about how we got here how we went from that with original themes and how we got here to everything's a licensed theme and it's funny because now it's like everyone's like, I get it all the time that people are like, well, what's your dream theme? And I'm just like, I don't want a license, dude. My dream theme is like getting an artist that I really love and letting them go buck wild on something. It'd probably have alligators and shit. You already got your dream theme, Congo. Yeah, that's true. I do love Congo. Yeah, I think it's good to go back. Some of the numbers talk about it. And you can, like we said, history is written by the victors. And I think that has skewed a lot of this, as well as the home collector buy it and buyer the home collector market has now like permanently shifted it we hope that you enjoyed this episode we hope you go out and you play some pinball on location that's what we're always talking about that's the message of every show so go out and play some games go and play some licensed theme games if you're in a pinball town you can't spit without finding one of these now they're everywhere so they're not gonna be hard to find we don't even need to tell you to use the pinball map wherever you've seen a pinball machine just go there and they have some licensed games for you to play so go and play them but until next time this is alan and alex want to thank you for listening to the show and until next time good luck don't suck © BF-WATCH TV 2021

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f2b26c5f-4265-4ed9-aa2f-e56887f3b65f*