# Episode 432: Kyle Spiteri

**Source:** Pinball Profile  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-11-27  
**Duration:** 15m 33s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.pinballprofile.com/episode-432-kyle-spiteri/

---

## Analysis

Jeff Teolis interviews Kyle Spiteri, a technician at Stern Pinball, during an open house at Player One Amusement Group in Toronto. Kyle discusses his path from self-taught pinball repair enthusiast to Stern employee, shares practical advice for new pinball owners on maintenance and repair, and explains how Stern handles manufacturing challenges and customer support.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Kyle Spiteri is part of a seven-person tech department at Stern Pinball handling customer support — _Kyle states: 'There's about seven of us in the tech department. And, you know, sometimes it can be there's a lot to do.'_
- [HIGH] Stern identified a King Kong production issue where the drive arm would shift and block the gong shot, solved within days with a retrofittable fix — _Kyle explains: 'We found that people were having issues with king kong and the drive arm sometimes would shift over and block the gong... it took just a few days for harrison and one of our incredible mechanical engineers to come up with a solution that was retrofittable to all of the premium and le games'_
- [HIGH] Kyle learned pinball repair through online communities (RGP/Rec Games Pinball Google group) and mentorship from Bay Area enthusiasts before professional roles — _Kyle describes: 'I went online and found this Google group, RGP, Wreck Games Pinball, and I got introduced to some people in my community who helped me along the way'_
- [HIGH] Stern's service department goal is to support customers with parts, instructions, and phone/video guidance regardless of machine location or ownership quantity — _Kyle states: 'Our number one goal is to make sure people have their game up and running, whether it's on location or whether it's in your basement, whether you have 10 games, whether you just bought your first'_
- [HIGH] Basic pinball repair requires only basic hand tools (nut drivers, screwdrivers, soldering capability), not expensive specialized equipment — _Kyle advises: 'You don't need a bunch of fancy tools... You just need basic hand tools. Get in there and try.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "If a human built it, a human can fix it. Don't worry."
> — **Kyle Spiteri**, ~09:00
> _Core philosophy for lowering barrier to entry for new pinball owners afraid of maintenance_

> "We are a manufacturing company that just happens to make games, right? So as a manufacturing company, the goal is to make something as consistent as possible."
> — **Kyle Spiteri**, ~28:00
> _Explains Stern's manufacturing priorities and how this differs from prototype-to-production transitions_

> "The wow moment was the first time I went to Stern and saw the line working full bore... It's always awe-inspiring."
> — **Kyle Spiteri**, ~35:00
> _Illustrates scale and complexity of Stern's manufacturing operation_

> "I mean, she likes to play pinball just as much, but it's like, come on, you're on vacation. Put it aside for a second."
> — **Kyle Spiteri (reporting wife's comment)**, ~40:00
> _Humorous anecdote showing Kyle's passion for pinball and community's integrated lifestyle_

> "The ability to respond i think is quick right we always want to make sure that the customer has a game that is usable and get those fixes them as fast as possible"
> — **Kyle Spiteri**, ~32:00
> _Emphasizes Stern's commitment to rapid problem-solving for customer machines_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Kyle Spiteri | person | Technician at Stern Pinball, previously worked at Pacific Pinball Museum and Marco Pinball, self-taught pinball repair expert |
| Jeff Teolis | person | Host of Pinball Profile podcast |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer where Kyle works in tech support department |
| Player One Amusement Group | company | Pinball arcade/retailer near Toronto airport hosting Kyle's seminar and open house |
| Marco Pinball | company | Parts distributor where Kyle previously worked with Emoto conducting tech seminars |
| Emoto | person | Collaborated with Kyle on Marco Pinball tech seminar livestreaming project during COVID lockdown |
| Pacific Pinball Museum | company | Museum in Alameda, California where Kyle worked on pinball repair |
| Chris Kuntz | person | Pinball repair expert ('the pinball pirate') from Benicia, California who mentored Kyle |
| Maple Pinball | company | Canadian pinball collection/tournament venue with 30-40 weekly players, hosting 2027 Canadian championship |
| King Kong | game | Recent Stern release with manufacturing issue involving drive arm blocking gong shot |
| Uncanny X-Men | game | Stern game referenced as having differences between prototype and production versions |
| Harrison | person | Stern mechanical engineer who helped solve King Kong drive arm issue |
| RGP | organization | Rec Games Pinball Google group where Kyle found early mentorship and community support |
| Pinball Profile | organization | Long-running interview podcast hosted by Jeff Teolis |
| Ontario Open | event | Pinball tournament coming in November in Ontario |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pinball repair and maintenance for new owners, Stern Pinball customer support and service philosophy, Manufacturing quality control and problem-solving
- **Secondary:** Career path in pinball industry (repair to manufacturer), Community mentorship and learning resources, Stern manufacturing scale and operations
- **Mentioned:** Pinball community in Canada (Maple Pinball, Toronto scene)

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.85) — Kyle expresses enthusiasm for Stern, appreciation for mentors, pride in manufacturing process, and joy in travel. Jeff is cordial and complimentary. Minor light tension on manufacturing issues acknowledged but contextualized as industry-wide. No negative sentiment detected.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Stern's tech support department structure: 7-person team managing high volume of calls and emails for customer support (confidence: high) — Kyle states: 'There's about seven of us in the tech department. And, you know, sometimes it can be there's a lot to do. Right. There's a lot of phone calls. There's a lot of emails.'
- **[event_signal]** Maple Pinball tournament in Ontario running with 30-40 weekly players; scheduled to host Canadian Championship in 2027; Ontario Open coming November (confidence: high) — Jeff mentions visiting Maple Pinball during Kyle's Canada trip: '30 to 40 people coming out every week for a tournament that's awesome... it's going to be home for a canadian championship in 2027... ontario open coming up in november'
- **[community_signal]** Stern Pinball tech department actively supporting customer education through factory seminars and walkthrough guidance (confidence: high) — Kyle conducted seminar at Player One Amusement and emphasizes Stern's commitment to customer support via phone, video, and parts
- **[personnel_signal]** Kyle Spiteri's career progression from San Francisco Bay Area self-taught repair enthusiast through Marco Pinball to Stern Pinball technical staff (confidence: high) — Kyle traces path: self-taught → RGP community → Pacific Pinball Museum → Chris Kuntz mentorship → Marco Pinball → Stern Pinball
- **[product_strategy]** Uncanny X-Men experienced differences between prototype and production versions, typical in manufacturing transition (confidence: medium) — Jeff asks about X-Men changes going to production; Kyle confirms this happens to every company during manufacturing phase
- **[product_concern]** King Kong playfield design flaw identified in production: drive arm shifting and blocking gong shot, rendering portion of playfield unusable (confidence: high) — Kyle describes: 'people were having issues with king kong and the drive arm sometimes would shift over and block the gong right and be able to move and it would block the shot you know effectively rendering that whole area of the playfield unusable'
- **[product_concern]** Stern's rapid response to King Kong manufacturing issue: mechanical engineers developed retrofittable solution within days applicable to Premium and LE models (confidence: high) — Kyle states: 'it took just a few days for harrison and one of our incredible mechanical engineers to come up with a solution that was retrofittable to all of the premium and le games that is relatively easy to install'

---

## Transcript

 it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teals you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we've got a great facebook group as well we're on instagram twitter x at pinball profile if you'd like to email us it's pinballprofile at gmail.com and if you'd like to show your support don't worry the show will always be free but we certainly appreciate those wonderful people that have contributed to the show at patreon.com slash pinball profile big shout out to jake c gme law tony v stefan r and erica's pinball journey going through my archives did a few interviews over the last few months time to put them to the podcast at player one amusement group just near the toronto airport we held an open house with a very special guest from Stern Pinball, Kyle Kyle Spiteri joined us. He gave a seminar, did some tech tips, and sat down with me for Pinball Profile. Kyle, welcome to Toronto. Thank you. Have you been here before? I haven't, first time. And what do you think? Beautiful. Lovely. He's got a Tim Hortons cup, like this is perfect. You're like already a Canadian. Yeah, and I've got my little Canadian lapel pin too. I think you got that from Joe Cherovino from Pinball Degenerates. You spent some time Thursday. You got to see Maple Pinball. Yeah, it was amazing. What a cool collection and great group of people 30 to 40 people coming out every week for a tournament that's awesome all ages yeah it's great it's going to be uh home for a canadian championship in 2027 and we've got the ontario open coming up in november i'm glad you got to experience that but the reason you're here is because you do so much with stern pinball but if we go back before that i first saw you on on the map back in South Carolina, in fact, working for Marco Pinball and doing those great tech seminars with Emoto. And was that almost like a resume to get to Stern? Maybe. So that project kind of came about as a COVID lockdown thing, right? We were all on Zoom and being like, what can we do with this time, right? Like what can we do to be productive and useful? So Emoto and I kind of came up with an idea of like, wow, there's a lot of people live streaming Pinball now. let us do our own flavor of pinball live streaming. Let's teach people how to fix. Let's teach people things that I know. Let's try to inspire people to go and work on their games or go buy a game to work on. Teach people, you know, a new skill. It was great. It was very interactive with the people watching in chat and really being able to, whether it's on Twitch or whether it's on Facebook, just get those questions answered. And I have a lot of those questions. So I learned a lot from that. And I guess that's probably one of the big, maybe fears, maybe stumbling blocks, whatever you want to call it, concerns about, oh, yeah, I'd like to buy a pinball machine, but I don't know how to fix it. And everyone's in that boat at some point. What would you say to those people? What I like to tell people in that position is it either goes two ways, right? If a human built it, a human can fix it. Don't worry. It's also to take joy in like that little bit of maintenance. I find that to be very cathartic and I enjoy fixing something. I enjoy taking something and making it better. I do understand like a pinball game is it's an expensive toy for your house and maybe it's a little worrisome. So is a boat, so is a car. Sure, absolutely, but you need serviced, super qualified service personnel to make sure your car doesn't fall apart while you're driving down the highway. Yeah, good point. You know, but a pinball game, it's like well, maybe if you get it wrong the flipper just sucks a little more. You take it back apart, you can fix it, you know, get it right. Well, how did you get to do this? How did you figure all this out? I kind of taught myself. I got my first I hear so many people say that Sorry that just blows me away Let me rephrase I taught myself some but I learned a lot from some extremely smart and talented people I bought my first pinball game and it was extremely broken I went online and found this Google group, RGP, Wreck Games Pinball, and I got introduced to some people in my community who helped me along the way. Building that community, I started to meet other people in the San Francisco Bay Area who took me under their wings and eventually, you know, it was like, hey, do you want a job? Do you want to do pinball repair full-time? Like, yeah, absolutely. So I got a lot of help working at the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, California. And then I worked with Chris Kuntz, the pinball pirate in Benicia, California for years. He's forgotten more about pinball than I'll ever know. He's an incredible resource. So you learned originally, you did what a lot of people do, whether it was any kind of forums and there are a lot, Pinside certainly has a lot and that's where i actually like pin side and some of the other places that can give you that advice you've got some some groups other things i'd like to avoid but the people that help others with the machines and quick fixes or videos it means a lot but you are an expert in that and have done it for so long now it's stern pinball i guess what i want to know for people that are making the plunge they bought the first game oh boy the flipper's dead oh the lights aren't working there's a maybe it's an older machine there's a credit dot all these things where's the first place to go for them that's a good question great question the thing is is like there can be there's it's a it's a breadth it's a lot to learn right like diving into this there's a big big sea of information lots of things to absorb i'd say start with what you're comfortable with do you learn from reading do you learn from seeing do you learn from doing there's different ways to learn right Maybe you have a buddy who's got some pinball games. Buy him lunch. Have that person come over and say, hey, can you help me with this flipper? Can you teach me how to do this? I'm very hands-on. Having a mentor, having someone I spent so much time with showing me how to repair things really helped ingrain that in my brain. Some people love to watch a YouTube video. That'll give them enough confidence to jump in. I think familiarize yourself enough before you take the step and plunge in. Pinball repair, you don't need a bunch of fancy tools. You don't need a huge tool chest full of expensive, you know, magnetized nut drivers. You just need basic hand tools. Get in there and try. If you fail, someone's probably going to be able to help you come and, you know, fix that flipper if you did it poorly, right? Well, give me some of the basic tools that you think. So you don't need magnetized nut drivers, but nut drivers are kind of important. Screwdrivers are important. Soldering. Learn to solder. Don't teach yourself to solder on your own pinball game. Go get some wire from the hardware store. Cut it. Strip it. Learn to solder them together, unsolder them. Basic tools, I mean, like a nut driver set, that's ideal. Maybe you don't want to spend $80 on a nut driver set. You have sockets in the garage? That'll work, right? Use your socket set. A good Phillips screwdriver. Honestly, one of my favorite tools is those combination screwdrivers where it's got like a Phillips and then, you know, and you can, it's got a quarter inch on one side. And if you flip it over, you've got a 5-16. Well, there you go. You've got the two most common nut drivers and some screwdrivers right there. It's not a huge barrier to entry. It's nice to have nice tools, but, you know, if you just have the basic stuff, you can get so much little stuff done. You know, loose posts, changing rubbers, stuff like that. And we mentioned, you know, your friends and your former employer at Marco Pinball before. There are places to get the parts if they are older machines. Certainly, Stern Pinball is great when it comes to service. And that's one of the things I think people need to realize when they purchase a machine. Like, we're right now at Player One Amusement. You're here for an actual seminar, which is really cool. The service department, and I've purchased a few Stern machines, when I call, it's a great walkthrough. They are quick to help whether it send videos if parts are needed You can rest assured when you purchase an expensive item like a pinball machine At Stern the main goal is we support our customers the best we can I'm not able to fly across the country and fix everyone's problems in person. I mean, that would be fun. Maybe, Gary, if you're listening, I would love to be the traveling tech. But if I can supply all the parts, if I can supply all the instructions to support someone that has an unfortunate issue with a newer game, right? Like that is our number one goal is to make sure people have their game up and running, whether it's on location or whether it's in your basement, whether you have 10 games, whether you just bought your first. Right. I think there's about seven of us in the tech department. And, you know, sometimes it can be there's a lot to do. Right. There's a lot of phone calls. There's a lot of emails. And we try to get to them as best as possible. So I'm impressed. Well, you certainly have a lot of customers. So you do a great job at getting back to them. We're going to take a quick pause because we're about to open the doors here at Player One. A lot of people are coming in. Are you nervous for your seminar? Because I'm going to talk to you after it. I'm always nervous for my seminars. There's too many eyes on me. All right, Kyle, I'll talk to you in a second. Okay. So he's finished his seminars. It's several hours later. But I still wanted to talk to Kyle about some other things too, including, you know, you're there at the time when prototypes are done. You're playing the Whitewoods and you're tinkering with this and that and everything kind of goes as planned. But things can change when they go to production and maybe some things aren't quite like they were in the lab. Can you explain some of those changes? Yeah, absolutely. One thing I like to tell people about Stern is that we are a manufacturing company that just happens to make games, right? So as a manufacturing company, the goal is to make something as consistent as possible. We want to make the best, most useful product we can consistently so people can enjoy it. one of the nice things about like the way we are structured is like being able to be relatively quick and nimble when it comes to fixes recently we found that people were having issues with king kong and the drive arm sometimes would shift over and block the gong right and be able to move and it would block the shot you know effectively rendering that whole area of the playfield unusable i tell you it took i mean just a few days for harrison and one of our incredible mechanical engineers to come up with a solution that was retrofittable to all of the premium and le games that is relatively easy to install it's tough but the ability to respond i think is quick right we always want to make sure that the customer has a game that is usable and get those fixes them as fast as possible you do a great job with that so there were things that changed going to the line and uh it's not probably that game as well i mean maybe i would assume uncanny X-Men, you know, was different when you're playing the prototype than it goes to production. These things happen. It happens to every company, I just want to say. So I'm not bagging by any means on the mothership that is Stern Pinball. But I'm just saying this, as you mentioned, these are manufacturing problems in any sector. Yeah. I mean, it could happen in car manufacturing. It could happen in... Oh, I've had a few recalls. I think I know what you're talking about. You know, medical device manufacturing or pinball. Well, thankfully, the gravity of, you know, a mistake on our end is not the same as a car or a medical device where people's lives are on the line. But you haven't read Pinside forums. We we. But the thing is, is like everyone that works at Stern is very they love pinball and we love what we do. So the goal is to always make the best and try to fix and make sure everything works as well as it can. I have to tell you, you know, I saw you years ago at Marco in South Carolina. I was amazed how big that was and just seeing all the different parts and everything. I'm equally amazed when I go to Stern on the factory tours. But seeing again like you mentioned it is a manufacturing company that just happens to do pinball Wow There a lot of moving parts there at Stern a lot of employees as well What was the wow moment for you when you got to Stern Like holy this is bigger than I thought The wow moment was the first time I went to Stern and saw the line working full bore, right? You go in there and you see someone at every station, there are playfields lined up and people are pushing them down the line. Playfields are laying at the end of the line, people lifting them up, putting them onto the rotisseries for finishing, it's always awe-inspiring. I mean, I feel lucky and amazed every time I go in the factory and watch it working, right? And seeing how many people and how many steps it takes to go into, have a game start from a blank piece of wood into a finished playable pinball game. Everything is a wow. I mean, I don't know if that's a cop-out answer or not, but it always amazes me to go into that place and just watch how dedicated and, you know, how much work goes into making these products. So you've mentioned you were in San Francisco years ago, of course, I saw you in South Carolina, now you're in Chicago. You're a bit of a world traveler here in Toronto. I think you got a trip to Austria coming up. It's nice to get around and travel, and especially when there's a lot of pinball involved. Absolutely, that's a fun thing about traveling, is I always have to make a minute for pinball. So much to, sometimes my wife's chagrin is like, hey, I want to go to this bar just because they happen to have Medieval Madness or something. We have to stop in, right? Okay, fine. This is your wife saying this. Sometimes, yeah. I mean, she likes to play pinball just as much, but it's like, come on, you're on vacation. Put it aside for a second. Yeah. But yeah, I feel lucky that I've been able to travel for work. I'm lucky that I've gotten to move and do different things. You know, growing up in California is awesome, but it's nice to see how the rest of my country is, you know, moving to the South, living in the Midwest now. I love Chicago. I love the food. You know, you're still pretty lean and mean here. I know when I go to Chicago, I pack on the LBs for sure because of, oh, I don't know, the deep dish pizza, the beef, the Italian beefs, the hot dogs. The Italian beef, the hot dogs, Garrett's popcorn. I'm gaining weight just talking about all this. You're keeping it tight. Well, I think it's since I'm so tall, I have a lot of room to spread it all out. Actually, I need to ask you a question now. I'm switching the interview hat. Catch up on hot dogs. Don't even bother. Come on. Wait, don't even bother doing it or don't bother asking? Come on, man. Ketchup on hot dogs? Watch a Clint Eastwood movie when he just gets in disgust. I mean, he really should have borderline shot somebody when he does that. No, it's a mistake. Mustard is the only thing you put on it. And you can go crazy on other stuff, but ketchup's a no. Fair enough. Kyle, thanks for coming to Canada. Thanks for doing what you do with Stern Pinball. And thanks for coming on Pinball Profile. Thank you so much. It's an honor. I never thought I would see the day. But it's really awesome to be here. Toronto's an amazing city. Anyone who's listening is like, man, should I go visit Toronto? Should I go see the beautiful province of Ontario? Yes, do it. It's lovely here. It's nice. Summer is pretty good, too. You're in Chicago, so I don't need to tell you about winters. But anyway, Kyle, all the best. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Jeff. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Twitter and X and Instagram at pinballprofile. We've got a great Facebook group as well. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. And if you'd like to show your support, don't worry, the show is always free. It's patreon.com slash pinballprofile. And thank you so much to wonderful people like Ken G, Lua W, Jerry S, Derek S, Sean I, and many others. Enjoy my time with Kyle Sveteri from Stern Pinball. I'm Jeff Teoles. Bye.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f3c231bd-e8e2-4101-9f2e-37705c22122e*