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Working at American Pinball

Pintastic New England·video·57m 12s·analyzed·Feb 10, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

American Pinball employees share factory stories, CNC restoration, and Midwest relocation experiences.

Summary

Ryan and Pete, two New England natives, discuss their experiences working at American Pinball's Illinois facility. They cover their transition from local pinball enthusiasts to factory employees, restoration of a forgotten CNC machine from 2006, quality control improvements, the viral 'driving tank' Galactic Tank Force promotional stunt, and the growing community of New England transplants working at American Pinball. The conversation reflects on culture shock moving to the Midwest, the tight-knit pinball community, and the exciting but chaotic early days of their new careers.

Key Claims

  • American Pinball recovered and restored a CNC machine originally used to cut Houdini: Master of Mystery in 2006 that was buried and forgotten in the warehouse

    high confidence · Ryan and Pete describing the treasure hunt in the back room; they found it under trash, reprogrammed/restored it, and now use it daily for whitewood prototyping

  • The restored CNC machine saved two months per whitewood iteration time by eliminating outsourcing delays

    high confidence · Pete: 'we saved two months per Whitewood' by bringing manufacturing in-house instead of outsourcing

  • American Pinball experienced significant turnover around 2020, losing most original staff and creating a 'Wild West' knowledge gap

    high confidence · Pete discussing organizational history: 'there was a lot of turnover around 2020-ish' and 'nobody knew how anything had worked way back in the day'

  • Ryan built and drove a Galactic Tank Force cabinet on a mobility scooter through convention halls as a promotional stunt

    high confidence · Extended discussion of the 'driving tank' project; Ryan acquired a used mobility scooter from Craigslist and modified it to power the moving cabinet display

  • Mike Grant, Mark Seiden, and Aaron Seiden were the first New England transplants to work at American Pinball, establishing a 'base of operations'

    high confidence · Pete crediting Mike Grant as starting the transplant wave, followed by Mark and Aaron creating housing infrastructure for others

  • Peter overhauled the American Pinball back room organization system, improving logistics and reducing waste

    high confidence · Ryan: 'When Peter showed up, he kind of overhauled the entire back room' using his logistics background and OCD tendencies

  • American Pinball now implements overnight burn-in testing and extensive QA on every machine before shipping

    high confidence · Ryan discussing quality improvements: 'we implemented the burn-in we do an overnight burn-on on every game now' and extensive testing procedures

Notable Quotes

  • “I've been a long way. That's what he does at American Pinball now. It's great. Or that's what he tells everybody he does at American Pinball. Every time you ask him.”

    Ryan (describing Pete's role to audience)@ 0:40 — Playful teasing about the gap between Pete's actual work and what he claims to do; sets up the casual, collegial tone

  • “So I'm not going to work in that field. You know, I can't manage chaos, so I just kind of took it upon myself to kind of reorganize things and move them a different way.”

    Pete@ 9:46 — Explains motivation for the back-room reorganization that led to discovering the buried CNC machine and improving operations

  • “We're doing that. And he's like, are you serious? I'm like, absolutely. Yeah. And there's a clip of you in the prototype cabinet like driving inside of it around the office.”

    Ryan (describing the driving tank conversation with Dennis Nordman)@ 15:45 — Illustrates the culture of spontaneous creativity at American Pinball and how ideas become reality

  • “The most fun part about that was hiding it from the CEO. He did not like fun. He does, too. He likes fun. He likes fun a lot. I'm just kidding.”

    Ryan (about the driving tank project)@ 16:10 — Shows the playful dynamic between employees and leadership; CEO approved the project enthusiastically once revealed

  • “And the only thing that I don't like about it is that I don't get to see this particular group of people all the time. Because ever since I've gotten back, it's like I'm home.”

    Ryan@ 17:47 — Emotional core of his decision to move; missing New England community despite loving the job

Entities

RyanpersonPetepersonAmerican PinballcompanyGalactic Tank ForcegameDennis NordmanpersonMike Grantperson

Signals

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: American Pinball restored a 2006 CNC machine from warehouse storage and brought whitewood manufacturing in-house, reducing iteration time by two months per whitewood by eliminating outsourcing delays

    high · Ryan and Pete extensively describe the discovery, restoration, and operational impact of the recovered CNC machine used originally for Houdini: Master of Mystery

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: American Pinball implemented new QA procedures including overnight burn-in testing on every machine and extensive field testing with training programs

    high · Ryan emphasizes 'quality is number one' and describes implementing burn-in overnight on every game and hiring/training dedicated QA personnel

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Growing migration of New England pinball enthusiasts to American Pinball in Illinois, starting with Mike Grant, followed by Mark and Aaron Seiden, then Ryan and Pete, with Derek preparing to follow

    high · Pete credits Mike Grant as starting the transplant wave and describes how housing and support infrastructure created by early transplants made subsequent moves possible

  • ?

    personnel_signal: American Pinball experienced significant turnover around 2020, losing most original staff and creating knowledge gaps that required rebuilding processes and procedures

    high · Pete: 'there was a lot of turnover around 2020-ish' and 'nobody knew what was going on' with established patterns but missing institutional knowledge

  • ?

    product_launch: Galactic Tank Force was the first game both Ryan and Pete worked on at American Pinball, with ongoing development and refinement mentioned

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.172

0:00
I can dispense with asking who'd like or some time in their life wanted to work at a pinball factory. I know you all did. That's why you're here, right? So we'll hear from a couple guys who did it.
0:24
Ryan, Pete. Hi. How's it going, everybody? Hello. It's weird seeing you from this perspective. I'm usually on the other side of the table always. You're usually cleaning the floors in the back. Picking up gum and stuff, yeah. I've come a long way. That's what he does at American now. It's great. Or that's what he tells everybody he does at American. Every time you ask him. They let me keep something.
0:48
So this is going to be very reminiscent of every time I went to elementary school and never did my homework because I've been working on probably like four different projects at work and had to leave it in other people's hands. And also I'm apparently just really lazy. You're not going to be getting any slides. There's nothing. You're just hanging out with us today. I've been asking for weeks. So if you want, like, cool announcements, if you want to, like, see weird tours of David Fix walking you through, David Fix walking you through something, no, we're not doing that. No, no surprise. We're just hanging out. And I'm just really happy to be home and see all you guys again, really. I've been going through the expo, and I've just been every three steps, I see someone, I'm just giving, oh my god, high five, a hug. Big hugs. All I want to do is sit here and talk to every individual person for a half an hour. But first of all, the hallways are too cramped to do that. Oh my god. And the Wi-Fi. There's just no time. So I'm really happy that I can get everybody kind of in the room. This is just going to be an excuse to talk to us. Yeah. And I guess maybe we might have something interesting to say. Thanks for coming. And I don't know why you'd want to listen to us for an hour. But we really, really appreciate it. Yeah. I think we signed up for a half hour and they gave us an hour, so get ready for lots of Q&A opportunity. We'll give you whatever. It's going to be stats and everything. It's going to be fun.

Stern Pinball obtained a government grant to establish a CNC manufacturing farm for their own cabinet production

medium confidence · Michael Grant mentioned this in passing, noting Sam Stern secured the grant, though details are vague and secondhand

  • American Pinball's CEO (Mukesh) initially wanted the driving tank project hidden and approved it enthusiastically once completed

    high confidence · Ryan: team decided not to explain the mobile tank until finished, then 'we showed it to Mukesh, and he loved it'

  • New England Pinball League (NEPL) started as an April Fool's joke at American Pinball employees' houses but became a real league

    high confidence · Pete: 'started a New England Pinball League location just because why not. That was the April Fool's joke. Maybe it's not an April Fool's joke.'

  • “It's just a very warm and welcome place, and there's so many of us that live out there now, it feels like natural. It's not like I'm all by myself.”

    Pete@ 22:51 — Contrasts initial fears about moving with the emerging New England expatriate community in Illinois

  • “They answer you. They tell you how they're doing and they want you to answer back. They'll stare at you like, wait for us. This is not how this goes.”

    Pete (describing Midwest friendliness culture shock)@ 21:52 — Humorous observation of regional cultural differences that resonates with Northeast transplants

  • “I am not qualified. I dug one Critical Mass machine out of the garbage and taught myself how to use it. I cannot plan an entire shop floor.”

    Ryan (declining to plan Stern's CNC farm expansion)@ 24:36 — Self-deprecating humor about his qualifications; reveals the informal, learn-by-doing culture at American Pinball

  • “And it hasn't caught fire yet, so we're very happy about that. I appreciate that. That's a bar that I like to clear every day.”

    Ryan (about the CNC setup)@ 24:43 — Running joke about workplace safety; fires in the office are normalized as part of the experimental culture

  • “And so they were like, because you work in the industry. I'm like, oh. Yeah, I guess you're right. You get a trading card now, right?”

    Ryan (about being expected at industry signing sessions)@ 26:57 — Captures the surreal shift from enthusiast to insider; the casual way he's integrated into the pinball industry

    • Mark Seiden
    person
    Aaron Seidenperson
    Mukeshperson
    Houdini: Master of Mysterygame
    David Fixperson
    Joe Schoberperson
    Josh Kuglerperson
    Pintastic New Englandevent
    Pinball Expoevent
    Salem Willowsvenue
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Sam Sternperson
    Derekperson
    Jillian Hafnerperson
    Meganperson
    Karen McQuaidperson

    high · Ryan: 'Galactic Tank Force was the first game both of us worked on... cutting the wood for Galactic Tank Force the first day I was in the office'

  • ?

    community_signal: New England Pinball League (NEPL) originated as an April Fool's joke among American Pinball transplants but evolved into an active competitive league with matches in Illinois

    high · Pete describes starting NEPL at Aaron's house in Illinois and competing to prevent Joe Lemire from becoming top seed, indicating organized league play

  • ?

    design_innovation: American Pinball created a mobile Galactic Tank Force cabinet powered by a mobility scooter for convention promotion, demonstrating experimental creative culture

    high · Extensive discussion of Ryan building and driving the tank cabinet at conventions; CEO initially kept in dark about project but enthusiastically approved once revealed

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: American Pinball overhauled back-room organization and logistics under Pete's leadership, improving inventory management and enabling discovery of forgotten equipment

    high · Ryan credits Pete with completely reorganizing the back room using logistics experience; this enabled discovering the buried CNC machine and other forgotten equipment

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball obtained a government grant to establish a CNC manufacturing farm for in-house cabinet production, signaling increased vertical integration in the industry

    medium · Mike Grant mentions Stern's grant-funded CNC farm expansion; details are secondhand but suggest industry-wide manufacturing optimization trends

  • ?

    community_signal: Tight interconnection between New England pinball enthusiasts and American Pinball employment; housing networks and mentorship created path for others to follow

    high · Multiple references to how early transplants (Mike Grant, Mark/Aaron Seiden) created housing and support infrastructure enabling Ryan and Pete to move

  • ?

    industry_signal: American Pinball cultivates experimental, creative culture encouraging risk-taking and innovation; CEO embraces unconventional approaches once convinced of merit

    high · Multiple stories of hidden projects (driving tank), workplace fires as normalized occurrence, and CEO's enthusiastic support for creative ideas despite initial caution

  • ?

    product_concern: American Pinball's early production had quality issues due to lost institutional knowledge and staff turnover, leading to implementation of more rigorous testing procedures

    medium · Ryan notes 'It's much better now than when we started' and Pete emphasizes quality control is 'number one' due to reputation concerns, implying prior issues

    • 2:05
    Does anybody have a board game? There's a whole bunch of them in that room. You have to put tokens in the games to play those. You do, but they're really cool. Those guys are awesome. Go play Final Resistance. Yeah. And probably Galactic Tank Force. Are there any on location in New England yet? Anyone have any? Anybody see them in the wild yet? No. A lot of people bought Hot Wheels around here, but I haven't seen any Galactic. I haven't seen them in Maine. So raise your hand if you've never played Galactic Tank Force before. What? Holy crap. All right, well, there's two of them here, and there is a bit of a line, but give it a shot. You have to because, I mean, I'm not in it yet, but I will be in it soon. I'm on YouTube. That's how you know I'm famous.
    2:47
    I did tutorial videos as a flight pilot for Galactic Tank Force. Galactic Tank Force was the first game both of us worked on I was cutting on the white wood for Tank Force the first day I was in the office for American after all that build up and all that secrecy of not even being able to tell all of you my friends that I was moving and then I couldn't tell anyone where I was going and why I mean Mark and Aaron knew because I don't care I violated my NDA and told them just like they did remember how you divulged it to me because I asked you two simple questions. Oh, he tricked me. It was great. He was great. He just completely led me through and just let me – what did you say again? I said, oh, so you got hired? And you're like, yeah, I did. Yeah, but I can't say who. That was it. And I said, well, what did David Fix tell you? And he said – I'm like, well, he said, shit.
    3:40
    That is a true story over a game of NBA Fast Break at the Southern New Hampshire Pinball Club. God, I'm in the wrong profession. That was me practicing my secrecy because I was really bad at it. Yeah. No, I got them good, guys. It was funny. Well, for a year or two before that, my whole thing was I wanted to tell everyone everything I was doing in pinball always because I was trying to get everyone excited for Sonic, get myself hired, get my name out there always, always, always. So I would finish a spinner. That night it would be on Facebook. I would finish the loop-de-loop, and that night you'd see it on YouTube and me literally screaming like a little girl when I thought I was going to get hit with a pinball.
    4:17
    That's still on YouTube if you're curious. including the little girl screen. We don't have that prepared. We don't. I should have grabbed it. There's some video. We should have just done a blooper reel. That's what we're doing next year. There it is. I'll do a blooper reel.
    4:30
    But it was really weird to suddenly have to like clam it all up. And I knew that nobody around here would suddenly believe that I just didn't want to talk about pinball anymore. So I kind of just avoided people for a few months. You have to. And then, you know, the smarter of my friends and family started figuring out. And then this guy just corners me in the back of the club in the middle of the summer. So, Testa, you know how hot it gets back there. So I'm sweating my butt off, playing NBA fast break, and I'm just not ready for that line of questioning. And that was my first time I failed. Then you play fireball and you feel bad for the guy in the back glass.
    5:10
    Terrible. But it has been quite a journey for both of us. We kind of just picked up everything, risked it all. Scary. Very scary. Hopefully have a new life, work out in Illinois, and with a new career that I've never done before. Like what?
    5:30
    I have been doing IT my whole life. This kid's got it pretty good. That's where he needs to go. I just want to introduce everyone to my mother, Karen, right there. Shout out to Karen McQuaid. Karen McQuaid is the reason I'm in pinball, because she would take me to the Salem Willows every time I asked, which was every day, every summer. And she would just sit there and play Funhouse with me. And that's why I have nightmares about Funhouse. Yeah. Because I was small and impressionable, and I thought Rudy actually was the castle and coming to kill me. I'm still not convinced that's wrong. I had dreams he could fly. I don't know why. He'd come out of the game and float and chase me. I was not safe. That was, like, last week. You told me about that. That's not new. Red and tether way more time. So I actually just got the pleasure of bringing my mother over to play Rudy's Nightmare. Yeah, it's really fun. And I'm like, hey, Mom, remember that game that's your favorite thing in the world that terrifies you? Yeah, they remade it, and it's all fancy and amazing and new.
    6:25
    And immediately she doesn't care. She's just like, oh, it's down the middle again and starts swearing and apologizing. And I'm like, no, everyone swears at me. Oh, you're okay, Mom. It's a given.
    6:34
    But so I have been doing it a long time thanks to you, and then there was a little bit of a fall off. But it's still completely different than IT until they make me fix computers in the office. I was going to say it's relative. There's times where you have to do things outside the parameters just to get it done. Absolutely.
    6:53
    I think it was – was it Mark that was telling me that most of the people at JJP are forklift certified because everyone wears a thousand different hats? Or was that just a metaphor? Drew, you want to come lift a forklift for me? I don't know. I'm the only forklift operator in America. He's the only forklift guy. Yeah. But still, it's just crazy. If you had told me five years ago that I would, first of all, leave New England, second of all, do it under these circumstances and just risk anything, really, I've never been a risk taker. I don't like change. I don't like anything that isn't familiar. And then I'm just like, all right, I'll try it once. Why not? Yeah. And I feel like I got lucky that it's working amazingly better than it ever could. I never thought it would either. I love working in pinball. I love that the worst day at work still involves doing incredibly interesting things and doing what I love. And occasionally – I really wish I had this video up – occasionally tricking my boss into using an electric scooter and not telling him there's no brakes. Show the clip.
    7:58
    That is true. And he crashed into a Galactic Tank Force box. We will have that on. We'll have it on a big screen at Expo for anybody who wants to see it. David, sorry.
    8:10
    Honestly, working at American is constantly pushing. What can I get away with today? What can we do different today that we didn't do yesterday? Yeah, just personally. We'll get to the professional stuff. I'm sure everyone has a lot of questions about American and what we've been working on and what we're doing. We'll tell you what we're allowed to. Basically, if you heard David Fix go on a bender and talk about it on a podcast, we can talk about it here.
    8:34
    Otherwise, I'm going to keep my mouth shut, but I'll get as close to the line as I can later. But personally, it's just interesting because every day we show up to work, and we're just like, we're technically at work, but what can we get away with? Oh, lots. They've been giving me keys to the kingdom. I'm up to five fires in the office, literal fires. Oh, yeah, every day. Only one of them required any kind of actual preventative measures, but I have lit five fires in the API office. Standing on stacks of pallets, OSHA nightmare, hanging wires above things. I shouldn't be up 30 feet in the air.
    9:12
    My hands are covered in all kinds of new scars from the lab and all of our janky tools that I'm more or less in charge of getting together. One of my biggest claims to fame around the office is we had a very unorganized back room in factory. Yes. That was before you were there. Before I arrived. When Peter showed up, he kind of overhauled the entire back room. I have a little OCD, and I worked in a logistics company for a couple years, and I just didn't like the way they were running it. And I'm there most of my life anyway. Like every moment of every day is with American Pinball. So I'm not going to work in that field. You know, I can't manage chaos, so I just kind of took it upon myself to kind of reorganize things and move them a different way. And they just kind of said, hey, you know, we like it. Just keep doing it. And now it's all clean. Yeah. But the problem with that is I can't go looking out back for buried treasure anymore. No, I found all the treasure and I buried it. That was literally my hobby for like the first maybe three months where I found myself. It's like, oh, Galactic Tank Force is far enough along that I'm not working on the white wood and the artists are working on it. everything. They're not ready to have me start on my project yet. What do I do? And I basically just started combing through the back and just going through looking for treasure. And one of the things I ended up doing was finding the original CNC machine that they used to cut Houdini in 2006 in a corner of the warehouse completely forgotten about. Yep. Buried underneath trash. It was awful. Yeah. I think there was a drill press on top of it. Yeah. And a ton of screws that we don't use for anything. Just trash. We made a new surface for that. Yes. It was press. But they didn't have a use for it. They didn't see the need for it, and they wanted to throw it away. And Ryan and I are like, we could use this, guys. You know what I'm saying? Exactly. Make play fields and prototypes. So they were currently – a lot of the things at American Pinball since before we got there were like a new group of people inheriting an old mess. Big change. So there was a lot of turnover around – what year was that? 2020-ish? 2020, yeah. And there was a lot of new faces in the office. A lot of the team has not been there for that long. I think we just lost one of the final original members with Josh Kugler.
    11:29
    And so it's really kind of a whole new crew that has all been brought in, and nobody knew how anything had worked way back in the day except for a few people that were contracting at the time. I think Joe Schober worked on Houdini a little bit, but he was mostly a consultant. So really, it was the Wild West. Nobody knew what was going on. Total wild west. And there were established patterns in the way they did things, but no one knew why. So we kind of just – the CNC machine was forgotten about when the last person who remembered that it was there left the company. And now nobody – it's covered in garbage. Nobody even knows what it is. So we grabbed a couple of pallet jacks, and I'm like, let's just move it to the wood shop and plug it in and try to get it running again. and you reprogrammed it and customized it, and now it's a fully functional machine for the most part that we use every day. Reprogrammed is a really strong word. I scoured the rest of the back for buried treasure until I found the computer that ran it in a completely separate corner of the warehouse. It had Egyptian symbols on it. It was really strange. 2006 Egyptian symbols. Gasoline ripcord. But we did get it running, and now as a result, Our iteration time for Whitewoods has sped up by – we saved two months per Whitewood. Oh, my God, yeah. Because we were outsourcing all of that to another company, and they were taking a long time to get us our Whitewoods. You can't even come up with a concept at all. Yeah, Dennis would be – by the time we got the Whitewood, Dennis would have already made 30 changes. He's like, I'm already bored with this one. It's not even built, and it's already – I don't need this. So we're just trying to nonstop speed up the process. he's out there making sure we get as many games built as possible yeah refining processes and changing how we like handle processes and final tests because it was just like make sure it works and get it going but you know we implemented the burn-in we do an overnight burn-on on every game now to make sure it's solid we do extensive testing i'm training one guy right now to learn everything and then he'll train someone with me on something else i don't want too many people at once because when you have too many cooks in the kitchen things kind of slip through the cracks and right now it's really important to me that quality is number one. Absolutely.
    13:40
    That's all we want. That's it. We have a reputation for good build quality, and we want to keep it at all costs. It's much better now than when we started. Much better now. Well, again, a lot of the processes were lost. We had some turnover, and nobody knew what was going on, and so we had to make new ones, but now they're there. And now that all that is in place, I don't have to worry about it, and I can make things like driving tanks. and that was about a rascal that was a thing that was an interesting one so I'm sure a lot of you seen the videos of the driving tank I really tried to get them to ship it here but we I don think we had any no good way to ship it on the we had the shipping we just didn have the game We don have any Of the actual tank models they all bought They're all boxed up. So, actually, they sold my driving tank out from under me at the last show. It was at Texas, and it's driving around, and at the end of the show they're like, alright, park it and take that off, this guy's taking it home. And I'm like, okay, sure, here, take mobile unit one. I had to take the mobile mod off of it and he took the game away.
    14:44
    Well, why ship them back? If you can just get them out to a customer, write that in there. If there's someone in Texas that wants one, leave it with him.
    14:53
    We were going to drive it around, but unfortunately we couldn't. Now that I see the hallways, we definitely couldn't have gotten away with it. But that was one of my first big experiments in what can I get away with. That spawned from a conversation with Dennis Nordman just in the lab and we were just talking about galactic tank force and we were talking about like what kind of cool things it's just wouldn't it be cool if like that's it's the conversation you all have when you're just like hanging out with your friends and like at these conventions and you're playing a couple games you're like oh wouldn't it be cool if we did this or yeah and i don't remember like we're crazy let's do it like what yeah exactly i don't remember which one of us said it but someone was like wouldn't it be cool if we could if this thing looks like a tank wouldn't It would be cool if it could drive down the aisle into the announcement hall. And I'm like, we're doing that. Yeah. Just we're doing that. And he's like, are you serious? I'm like, absolutely. Yeah. And there's a clip of you in the prototype cab like driving inside of it around the office. And he looks like a little child in a wacky racist car.
    15:54
    The funniest thing I've ever seen. Funniest thing. I wish we had that clip. I don't. I don't even have that one. And I don't know where it is. I was like, come on. I promise you a blooper reel for next year. Just all of this kind of stuff up on the big screen.
    16:10
    But the most fun part about that was hiding it from the CEO. Oh, yeah. Because... He did not like fun. He does, too. He likes fun. He likes fun a lot. I'm just kidding.
    16:21
    They basically decided it would be better if you didn't have to explain that until it was done. Yeah.
    16:27
    And so once it was finished, we showed it to Mukesh, and he loved it, and he thought it was incredible. And he's like, this is amazing. Marketing genius. Go drive it around. Go show everybody. But there was a little bit of, we understand that you're driving around the office in a wheelchair because you're testing it out. But he might not understand that. That was the funnest part.
    16:50
    So it's powered by a mobility scooter that I bought on Craigslist. Don't worry. I didn't take it from anyone who needed it. It was sold to me by a construction worker who hurt his leg that was now healed. So it was a success story.
    17:11
    And now it drives a tank around Texas. Healed. He said, I don't need it anymore. It's fine. So, yeah, that's it. And so it has been incredible just the difference in the day-to-day life of going from working for an IT company in Belgium that treats me way too well but I'm not good at my job. And, like, they love when I'm up at 3 in the morning working. That's fun. I miss that.
    17:40
    To going into an office every day to do exactly what I would have done in my time off anyway. That is incredible, and I love it. And the only thing that I don't like about it is that I don't get to see this particular group of people all the time. Because ever since I've gotten back, it's like I'm home. Yeah. And I see all the people, and it's like I never left. At the moment we landed, I thought, oh, man, it's weird being home, but it feels so good to be back. I'm spoiled by Illinois now because the food's pretty good and people are really nice. I miss the, like, just hostility of Boston, you know? I really do. I'm just like, oh, thank God, some hills. Yeah. Trees. Just oxygen. Oh, a boulder or two. If you have a boulder in your front yard in Illinois, that's a status symbol. Yeah, yeah. They don't have rocks there.
    18:28
    If you ever have a chance, just corner Aaron Seiden and get her entire take on it. Just take some of the hotel rocks. They don't need them. They get funny. She has numbered the targets in strip malls because that's the only way to tell them apart.
    18:41
    It's a very copy-paste flat state. Some people want a Bentley. Other people want a rock. I miss the entire mess that is a filled-in marsh called Boston.
    18:53
    Oh, we need a little bit more Boston. Just fill in some more marsh and route the things like it's a whitewater ramp. Yeah.
    19:01
    You ever heard a better analogy for Mass Ave than frigging whitewater ramps? Oh, yeah. It's that meme of – Insanity Falls. Have you seen that? Have you seen the meme of Boston streets that are just wackadoo and, like, New York has, like, the perfect grid? It's all nicely organized. Welcome to Boston. Now get out.
    19:19
    But thanks for coming. Yeah. So what's it been like for you, Peter? Oh, man. I jumped in because of, like, I had, like, two transplants that I could trust to keep me safe. Yeah. Thank you, Mark and Aaron, very much for making this possible by being the first transplants. Wait, is Mike Grant here? Michael Grant. Where's Mike Grant? Now I can rap on him because he's not here. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. Mike Grant started it all off by going and getting a job at American Pinball. and showing us all in New England that this is possible. And then Mark and Aaron followed shortly afterwards and kind of set up a base of operations for anyone who wants to transplant. Yeah, the invasion began. And then the invasion began. And then we started an NEPL location just because why not? That was the April Fool's joke. Maybe it's not an April Fool's joke. New New England.
    20:06
    And then it became, I'm going to show up to NEPL at Aaron's house in Illinois every night and get first just so I can make sure Joe Lemire isn't the top seed. Wow. I have no intentions of coming back for finals, but I want to make sure he's not the top seed. Roll the clip. That is all I did.
    20:27
    And then life kind of fell into place. It's a bumpy start. How was it for you? Well, it was scary to begin with. I originally said no to the job offer when I met David here last year through Ryan after I found out he was working for him. because, you know, he told me right away. Surprise. I mean, damn it.
    20:48
    Oops. Yeah, he offered me a job, or he wanted to talk to me for a bit, and originally I didn't like the idea because I'm from here. This is my hometown. I grew up in Salem, Mass. I lived in Boston, in and out. This is my life. This is who I know. My family and friends are here.
    21:03
    It's really scary to think, like, I'm going to uproot my life, even though I didn't have it all together, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do. And I want to give a shout-out to Jillian Hafner, and Megan that I lived with them for the last two years before I moved. And they are the most wonderful people. Neither of us would be here without them. Seriously.
    21:20
    They're the best. And then when I moved to Illinois, I went to live with Mark and Aaron Seiden, and they're also really awesome people. So thank you for that. Thank you for dealing with me, both of you. I really appreciate it. But the move is cool. It was bumpy because you have to adjust to a whole new life, a new group of people, a new area. People are a lot nicer out there. It's a little off-putting at first. It is, honestly. It really is. Like, they're really nice. It's weird when you say hi to a stranger and they say, how are you? How are you? How are you doing? You say, how are you doing? You're supposed to say, how are you doing? And then you move on. No, they answer you. They tell you how they're doing and they want you to answer back. They'll stare at you like, wait for us. This is not how this goes. No.
    21:59
    Yes, I am now uncomfortable. Thank you. You get it. How are you doing? How are you? Little head nod. We're done here. Okay. No. You asked. They're telling you. Midwest is weird. Midwest is weird, but it's cool. I don't know if any of you have been to Expo, but it's a great show as well. And the people there are wonderful, and the energy is big. And Illinois has so much pinball, too. I never really realized you could fit pinball in so many places. I feel kind of spoiled because everywhere I go I see something somewhere. Even if it's like a little venue hall in the city or if it's a laundromat, there's something. It's usually a really good game, too. Like there's a lot of stirring out there, a lot of Jersey Jacks. and we have a lot of locations we play at, and everybody just, it's such a tightly knitted community. And for me, it felt like a warm place to go. It took only a few months to really settle in. Even though I feel like I'm still moving to Illinois every day, I'm still getting used to it. It's just a very warm and welcome place, and there's so many of us that live out there now, it feels like natural. It's not like I'm all by myself. And one of the biggest things was knowing Ryan was going to be there when I was going to get the job, So that was a very comforting feeling because him and I have been very good friends for a long time. And we've been through a lot. It's kind of crazy. And now we get to sit on the opposite side of the panel and talk to you all.
    23:16
    Aren't you glad you recognize my dumb bald head playing Cyclone? Yeah, I was like, I know that guy. I know that dumb head off the Internet. Who's that shiny haired guy? Oh, it's Ryan. I don't know.
    23:28
    So I guess the obvious question is anybody else here looking to become the next transplant? Yeah, who wants up?
    23:36
    We know, Derek. Derek, yeah, we know. Derek's working on it. He's doing a CNC course coming up? You said you're doing a CNC course coming up? Yeah. That's cool. You should do that, man. That'd be great. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Stern just, like, open an entire CNC farm for making their own cabinets or something? Like, I think that's going to be a huge thing. Michael Grant. They got a huge government grant for it. Ask me how I know. That's a weird story. I showed up in the morning and my CEO was in my office and he had catalogs for CNC machines and he's like, build me this. I'm like, what? What are you talking – we have one and you suddenly want to spend a quarter million dollars on a whole bunch more? And then I found out later that day that Stern had done that and they got a huge grant for it. And he's like, oh, he wants a huge government grant. Yeah. That's it. He asked me. That's it. So I told David, he's like, oh, no, just don't pay attention. He asked me how to set it up, and I'm saying, well, I don't know. Yeah, he wanted me to plan it. He wanted me to plan. You want me to build it?
    24:36
    I am not qualified. I dug one CM machine out of the garbage and taught myself how to use it. I cannot plan an entire shop floor. And it hasn't caught fire yet, so we're very happy about that. I appreciate that. That's a low bar that I like to clear every day. Set yourself attainable goals like not burning work down. Yeah. We have a fire extinguisher near every corner, so don't worry, guys. We'll still be there. That's also new since I got there.
    25:00
    By necessity, yeah. The doors. Oh, my God. The sprinklers work, too. That is exactly what I'm saying. Yes, Frank. There's a bucket of water under every game, too, in case, you know. I'm just kidding. I still think that was a questionable idea. Yeah.
    25:14
    So just Derek, anyone else looking to get into it? We have any homebrewers out here? Derek, come on. We've got at least one. This guy. I don't know if you haven't played Warhammer 40K, but go give it a shot. It's got a lot of promise there. I told... Yep. Testa. Test the – there's definitely no pressure for you to get something flipping in here next year.
    25:33
    I hope it's ready. Very ambitious, yeah. And I see Lynn back there. Doesn't matter if there's anything on the play field.
    25:48
    You heard it here, folks. Done. It's on camera. It's our old D&D group. Because I said so. Don't ask questions anymore.
    26:01
    It's going to be great. Every week I'm going to ask you about it. Michael, I'm going to ask you about it every week now.
    26:13
    Well, I know where you live. That's just like us. So I guess if you want to start hammering us with American Pinball questions, we probably can't answer. You can do that. Unless you have any more stories you want to tell directly. I mean, no, I just I didn't even know what to say. I'm just happy to see all your faces. And it feels humbling to be part of this community. And now we're doing something bigger, but we still get to come here and be ourselves. And nothing's really changed. It's the same thing. It's really weird that I'm expected to be at the signing session. That's strange.
    26:44
    Apparently, I was supposed to be there last year and they just they were like, where were you? And I'm like, what are you talking about? They're like, you weren't at the signing session. And I'm like, why would I be? That's an actual conversation I had. And so they were like, because you work in the industry. I'm like, oh. Yeah, I guess you're right. You get a trading card now, right? You get a trading card? So I guess I'll be there. I did work on the Galactic Tank Force. I am in the tutorial videos, and soon I will be in the track mode. Unfortunately, if I had only gotten the job one month sooner, I would be a lock pilot. But I wish I would. I watched them film all the lock pilots, and I'm like, please, let me do it. But I was a little too late. There was originally going to be two whole more squads. There was going to be four full squads of fighter pilots that just cycled through, and then they ended up cutting it back to two.
    27:35
    Jack bit off a lot more than he could chew. That's not true. He chewed it very well. He's great, but it's a lot. But there was a lot that got cut from Galactic Tank Force, and our updates are already at 16 gigs. We have a lot of footage. That's funny for like three people in here. Anyone who's tried to update a galactic tank for us, that's why. Because there's literally that many videos. It takes a while. I am really excited for Expo this year, actually, because all the actors and actresses are going to be there. In full costume, walking around. And so am I. In full costume, driving the tank around, Blue Justice. Yeah. So come on and make it to Expo if you get a chance. Come visit. We would love to have you in Chicago. It's weirdly friendly. You might get uncomfortable. Yeah, but don't worry. They're genuine. They really mean it. They say how are you they they want to know? so Yeah, anyone have any American pinball questions or just want to heckle us some more Derek was a little hey there
    28:31
    What the difference between Jimmy and sprinkles there isn one So okay So this is a little bit of a story Does anyone know the truth We were on Jack Janger stream Oh, my God. For the Galactic Tank Force, like, one of the gameplay reveals. We were playing a very buggy version of the code that was tested, but not enough, apparently. By several people. And I don't know how. We were just talking about Sprinkles because that's on the thing. You've got to keep talking. I think it was you, Lynn. and I think we were talking to you. We were like, Lynn, we know you're listening back home. He was texting me. You were texting him about Jimmy. He was questioning, mentioning the sprinkles. So everyone in this room except for, like, one person that grew up in the Midwest knows sprinkles as Jimmy's, right? That's just what they are, and you never questioned it further than that.
    29:19
    It's not. Turns out I looked it up. It's not. Is it based on the Jimmy fund? It sounds it once you suddenly get the question gets put to you. Isn't that a racist sound? And then you're like, oh, that might be. And then you panic and Google it like I did. No, it actually had to do with a linking with the Jimmy Fund as a fundraiser way back in the day. So that is where that came from. Although I did briefly panic because people thought it had unfortunate overtones. And I panicked because I thought I had made a huge mistake. Oh, no, you opened up a box. Thanks for bringing that back up, Derek. That was an A-plus heckle, honestly. why there are no chocolate sprinkles chat was roasting us oh god i'm like now google it i'd never expect you to be i'm not sorry about much it's fine you he's got three games here that are all original excellent he has nothing to apologize for if you have not played haunted cruise frozen and the new magic forest magic forest okay i got it right um you need to go over the homebrew room and play all of those yeah what is the name of your platform?
    30:27
    Pinball AR. Pinball Augmented Reality. If you guys like the Williams 2000 system, you're going to like his game. And he's doing even more than they did. Yes. So, yeah, it's seriously mind-blowing stuff. Oh, yeah.
    30:40
    What? What game, Mike? Oh, that's a huge reveal to me. I had no idea. It's called King of the Arcade. Woo! King of the Arcade. There's videos of it I've seen. I want to see some skee-ball action. We're still working on a couple things right now for the table, but eventually I'll Here, have a mic. Tessa doesn't need a microphone.
    31:01
    I don't need a microphone. This is going to kill everyone's ears. I'll have to hold it this far apart. You're at a wedding and you've been drinking. Hold it. Three games slam tilt in the other room. I have a couple more things I want to put in there before I release a video.
    31:17
    No, no, no. Bake it until it's done. When you're ready, you're ready. I kind of want to do that. As long as it's within six months. I know. Michael, if it makes you feel any better, I haven't shown anything I've done for homebrew. I've worked on two games. I haven't even seen it. I haven't even told Ryan. And him and I are like besties at work. I show him everything. It's rude. That was all my secret. Yeah, I do. But I'm not ready to show it off yet. But maybe next year. Well, it should be here hopefully next year. Are you going to hold him to that?
    31:47
    I work a lot, Jillian. That's technically next year. There are a whole bunch of different strategies for that. I had everything I did out in the open. I wanted everyone to see it as it was being built, and Mark literally live-streamed his entire build. I remember there were a few times that it was like 2 in the morning, and I'm literally the only one on the stream watching him code, and I was still entertained as shit.
    32:17
    But some people hide it until it's completely finished. Sometimes you don't hear a thing about it, and then suddenly there's a game, an entire game. It scared me. And sometimes you have a flipping whitewood, you bring it out, you get a little feedback, you go hide for a little while, and then you bring out version two. There's no right or wrong answer. I think you kind of beat yourself up for your work. You feel like it's not what you want. It's not good enough. You're not happy with it, but other people love it. Yeah, if you don't hate your own homebrew, you're doing it wrong. Yeah. You're going to hate that game. You're going to hate your own game. I hate every game I've ever worked on. Well, you shouldn't say that. No, I do.
    32:56
    Everyone, all the creatives and all the, like, they all, they get it. You stare at, like, the same game for a year, two years, three years of your life. Yeah. Every single problem with that game is your problem. And, like, eventually you get tired of your game, which is why you see when you get people like Dennis Nordman on these panels and you ask him, what's your favorite game you ever worked on? He always says, the next one. Because he's done. with what he's already worked on. He's like, all right, Whitewater, it's done. It's over. It's done. Next thing, please. Yes, it's a masterpiece. Yes, we all love that game. He's over it. He doesn't care. He's already moved on to the next three. And his next few are actually really exciting. I'm very excited for Dennis' next couple of games, and I'm excited to be working on them. You guys are going to get blown away. Yeah. And then my game is finally in full development. It's okay. So, aw, thanks. Yes. No, it's really cool. The stuff that Ryan is doing, it's really impressive. I hope so. Reinventing the game. I don't know. I mean, I like it. I feel a lot of pressure because I've never released a game before, and I feel like if I don't have a good one my first try, I won't get another shot. That's not true. I've been assured by many, many people that is not the case. No, no, no. That's just my own craziness. You've made Sonic, and people love it. Yeah. Love it.
    34:18
    This is your second game. All right, cool. There we go. No pressure then. I'm just going to phone it in. All right, we'll tell you the theme. Get ready for Led Zeppelin 2.
    34:28
    David's calling me. Hold on. It's a no stairway sign. How is there no physical stairway in that goddamn game?
    34:40
    That's why he doesn't work there anymore. He moved on to better places that let him do what he wants.
    34:48
    I cannot tell you that. I wish I could, but I can't. there you're going to hear that a lot sorry the also the answer is i don't know tomorrow i i literally don't know the answer to that question i literally do not know the answer to that question that's why i can't answer the other one because i do not know very specific so i can tell you the way we that way we work at american pinball is um when i when i got there and i was doing interviews they said like how what the the first thing that i noticed as a as a new game designer is my interview was not for a game designer when i had my final interview with the owners and with everybody and david fix i was interviewing for a project manager position and i did not know that going in i had my pinball resume all set it's it's surreal having a pinball resume on your computer as a very legitimate document that claims oh i'm the two times napl champion and someone actually cares about that yeah like that matters on my resume blew my mind And yeah, but it did. Like I'm a competent, competitive player, and that mattered on my resume for this job. So I figured it's going to be all about my designs, about my creativity, about my experience with pinball. No, it was all project managers. If you had infinite resources, how many games could you get out in a year to commercial success? And I'm like, ooh. And then I'm like, you know what? I actually think I know the answer to these questions. Like at first I deer in the headlights. I'm like, what? that. What? But then I was like, no, one a year. I could do a game a year. If you gave me my own team, I could do a game a year. And then you have another team, and we leapfrog each other, and you get a game every six months. And anything more than that is just you're going to make bad games. Anything less than that, and come on, hurry up. But we have multiple projects at the same time. So I didn't know I was giving the correct answer at the point. So when I got hired, and I got taken out to dinner by Art, one of the owners in Nermal, who's a really good friend of mine, the son of the owner. Shout out to Nermal Vasani. He's amazing, and I love him. He's a really great guy. He is hilarious.
    36:46
    Nobody in this room has heckled me harder than Nermal does every single day at work. Oh, no, I love it.
    36:53
    And then David throws things at me. It's a great hostile work environment. Yeah. Blame twice for help. So he told me when I got the job and he was trying to let me know of what they were going for with the company, and they were like, we're not making – our goal is not two games a year. our game is our goal is six games every three years and he's like do you understand the difference and apparently not a lot of people do but the way my brain is wired that is a very different sentence to me so if i'm working on two games a year i'm working on two games and i'm getting them out i'm always working on two games at a time i'm leapfrogging them like that if i'm working on six games in three years i'm working on six games at once and they're just like coming up ready every six months. So I immediately was like, oh, well, there's going to be a lot of times where we're waiting on parts or we're... Prototyping. Or it's in Art's hands. Yeah. Or we have to wait for the next guy to finish something to do some... Yep, Casey's busy. Before you move on, yeah. He can't code my game because he's coding Tank Force. Or waiting on a mech prototype or something, anything. They're still dumping assets into Tank Force. Every time you see a code update, there's going to be more videos. Oh, way more, yeah. So what do you do? Well, you work on the next game in the line. Yep. And what do you do when that one's waiting on something too? If you're only working on two, you're done, and now you're sitting there doing nothing. If you're working on six, you keep going down the line until something's ready. So I bounce back and forth between working on a game that we can all flip in our lab. Oh, that was fun. To working on my napkin doodle over here that I've just thought up last Saturday. I came up with one idea for a cool shot. I threw it in the simulator, and I like it. and now I'm building a game around it in the most ad hoc, crappy way possible and calling Nermal, you, and Steve Bowden into my office and being like, tell me this is stupid. And then I show them something. I literally say that to Steve all the time. I say, tell me this is stupid and I shouldn't waste time on it. This is stupid. You shouldn't waste time on it. Peter's the only one who ever says that. But then I say, let's build it because I want to see if it works. Your gameplay is bad and you should feel bad.
    39:04
    You're not very good at this. I think the coolest thing is going into the office and seeing the different things that are being built at the same time. You have games that are older that have new things being implemented or future games, prototyping. There's always something going on at all times. I think we have four or five different games in the lab right now. Yeah, and different... In various states of whatever is going on with them. Yeah, different versions, different things. We're working on all of them. Yeah, day to day. It's just crazy bouncing around from napkin doodle to fine-tuning of a mechanism and back and forth and everything in between. But it keeps it really interesting. And that does stave off a little bit of the I hate my game. Because if I start hating this game, I can work on this game instead.
    39:52
    And that happens a lot. So yeah. Any more questions? Keep them coming. Yeah, please. I mean, we're just going to take whatever you say as a seed and start rambling. I wanted to ask – Hello. Hey, baby.
    40:07
    Hey. I like that. Hey, dude. I wanted to ask for like – in your lab, like how often does a napkin doodle actually get approved or they're like, yeah, this is actually a good idea. We should build this.
    40:20
    So far, all the time. Nobody has said to me that my napkin doodles were not worth working on yet. there was one that got much farther than a napkin doodle that we decided to put on the shelf but not thrown out and we just went a different direction with it everything else they're like oh yeah we trust you go for it and then I show it to them and they're like that's cool or I like that or they're like alright but this doesn't keep working on it but we can keep the original thought and just change a couple things and that's all it takes is like three people to really start talking about it and then suddenly it's now something we're doing. Yeah. I think there was one example where I made something in the little VPX sim that I like to use as my napkin doodles, and I brought Nermal in, and he said it was stupid. And I was like, good, because that's all I was trying to do was waste your time today. Cool. Thanks for coming. I made a ramp that took up like two-thirds of the entire play field, and I wanted to see if he thought I was serious, and he did. I actually got him with that one. He actually liked it. That's the problem. So if you ever see in like 10 years, because it's not in any of my current projects, if you ever see one ramp that takes up two-thirds of the whole freaking game, that's the one. He approved my three-foot ramp. I made a three-foot ramp for the middle of Hot Wheels. It's like maybe we can do something fun with it. And he was like, oh, yeah, I like this. And it goes way beyond the glass and stuff.
    41:50
    Why limit yourself to inside the pinball machine when you can physically attack the player? immersion yeah the balls get lost and everything and it's really great this flipper is really scary when you fire it but i mean i have a it's pretty cool i have a final resistance on order and i'm afraid to take the glass off because that gun's just gonna end my life is that kevlar shout out to scott i wouldn't be here without him he's got scott's a cool guy congratulations on his latest release yes congrats guys so many good games are coming out i know this was the year for pinball it's intimidating it's scary but it's fun now getting into it because you have all these options. You can walk up to anything. You can play Pulp Fiction, Foo Fighters, Scooby, Godfather. When have we ever had so many games come out around the same time where everybody's throwing a game into the ring? Not since the 90s, right? More than that. Not since 1978 at least. I love that you know that, Dan. Thank you. I counted 1978. How many games came out in 1978?
    42:47
    At one time In one season In one three weeks is what it was this time One industry show there were let not say released but showing at the show Yeah, football playing games. Would be 11, I think it was. 11. And what would we do this time? Eight, nine? Texas was, yeah, like nine. Yeah. It's unprecedented in these times. It's hard. And it's really intimidating when you're Mark or I on the cusp of releasing our games and joining that pool of talent that is already there. You guys don't have to buy our games. Please buy our games. You have options.
    43:27
    And then you have the flood of games that are hitting the market because people want to buy the new ones. Yeah. Buy my Deadpool. Please. Because I need to actually pay for the Final Resistance. Oh, yeah.
    43:39
    You can sell Twilight Zone. No, I can't. Oh, there's that Sonic pinball, too. I just want to get rid of that. give a shout out to Leslie Thompson who did the work the restoration work on my twilight zone we unfortunately a lot of you know we lost him due to COVID in the NEPL circles um and that is unfortunate so that TZ is never leaving my house or if it does it will be only able to go to an NEPL member it has to stay in the family that will never be sold to anyone who is not an NEPL member and I will make that NEPL member sign a thing that says they can only sell it to NEPL members as well. And if that's not if for any reason the NEPL ever goes away, they have to prove they were an NEPL member.
    44:21
    We'll have rings made. Also, my mom bought me plastics for it, so that's cool. She put a plastic set for Twilight Zone in my stocking. It was cute.
    44:31
    Come on, guys. How cool is that? How cool is your mom? Does your mom buy you Twilight Zone restoration plastics? Because mine does.
    44:40
    She called me one day. She's like, what's a transformer? Why do you want it? Oh, it's a robot. I do like that.
    44:46
    Oh, mom, just leave that one. Just get me a gift card. It's fine. She hates gift cards, so she's like, no, I'm buying you the thing you want. She won't give me gift cards, which is fine. I love it. It's wonderful. I think we have some time for more questions. I just don't want people to get them out there. I know this gentleman. Right over here. So you had mentioned earlier about the build quality reputation in American Pinball. We have two of the games. Which ones? I love Hot Wheels. Really. One of the things that we noticed on top of the build quality was the customer service.
    45:22
    And I know Dave Brennan's not with the company anymore, but he was amazing. We miss him. He's a wonderful guy. He was amazing to reach out to.
    45:30
    At one time, I was in touch with him about a problem. I got it solved, and about three hours later, my cell phone rang, and it was Dave calling to make sure that I got the problem fixed. But since his departure, it feels to me that there's a little less of a public display about the customer service, about the technical. And is that something that, I mean, obviously you're going to continue to try to keep that build quality and customer service there.
    46:04
    Is there a plan for an outlet? or a way to make it a little more obvious to the homeowners? Can I take this one? If you want to. I also have things, but go for it. I was going to say that service is very important to me, and I know for Ryan as well, but we do have a service tech now, Kevin Paxton, who does our service tech emails and phone calls, but I also will show up at people's homes and fix their games for them. That happens. It does. Don't tell the public that. They will start calling you, sir. Well, I mean, I live in Illinois now. I need to just stress that. So I'm not coming back out here for that.
    46:39
    Oh, okay. I have not been to Canada. We obviously lost a huge asset when we lost David Bryant. But he had to do his own thing that was right for him, and I respect him for doing it. We all miss him because he was great. He actually helped me get my job as well. He – just an anecdotal random thing because I told you I was going to ramble. I will answer the question, I promise. Fine. We'll get there. He actually printed me up little survey cards at Expo to try to get it – to try to get Sonic produced, but before I had any affiliation with Sonic, he said, this has nothing to do with American Pinball. This is just because I like you and your game. Dave Brennan's a great guy. He was running the service department a certain way, but he was the only one doing it.
    47:20
    And since his departure, yeah, we have another service technician, and we have a whole new, like we said, we're trying to put in more processes. So he didn't have a process, really. He had his own process, and he was very good at it. But we're not him, and no one is him. So what we're trying to do is move to a more traditional ticketing system so we can keep track of everything. Our issue after he left was that we had a lot of things falling through the cracks because it was still hallway conversations, David calling you personally. There's no paper trail for that. We can't pull that up a year later and say, oh, yeah, your Hot Wheels had this problem. How is that? Because it's just on David's phone. So we're trying to work toward a more service ticket system. We actually have bought a service ticket computer system that Kevin's been using to add things. And we are having a little bit of trouble convincing people that they have to go from just call and be done with it to, all right, fill out the service ticket, and then we'll call you, and then we can track it all, and then you can prove you called us when, where, whatever. But it's not the way it used to be. It used to be catalog style call up and just human to human. And that's still there. Oh, yeah. We're just putting one more step in the way, and it's confusing people, I think, is what's happening. I've stepped in, too, on service. I now call people back and kind of fill in the role the best I can. Anybody that has issues, they can call me through American or my personal number, and I will actually walk you through things. It's that important to me.
    48:49
    No. That's the only reason his cell phone's not ringing right now. It's on airplane mode. although you gotta there's something with the tilt on the hot wheels it's too tight if we fix it kevin might know how to fix that no i'm kidding i don't have the key or i would have fixed uh yeah no i can take a look at it yeah it's all good i have the most hands-on experience like uh at american in the back room with the game so it's more like it just makes sense for me to help people in any way i can we also starting to put out tutorial videos for our common fixes.
    49:22
    So, for example, we uploaded, we released a few hot fixes for Tank Force, and we have individual videos on how to install those as easy as possible, and Peter's your star for those videos. That was very interesting. Probably the highest rated content we've put out in quite a while. And people responded well. I thought I looked goofy and silly like a used car salesman, but people really reacted well to it, to the point where I think it's a permanent thing. I mean, yeah. Oh, good. I'm really glad. We have a couple more coming. We have some older videos coming out for older games, and we're going to just do a whole catalog of stuff. Because I think it's important to have the information out there instead of trying to search pin side forever, trying to find a guy who had the same problem, and hopefully that's the same thing you're dealing with, you know, or just call us. God bless pinballers16 for having the same problem you do 14 years ago. Yeah, right. And posting the solution. He asked the question and 10 years later no answer. We will always be in that person's debt, But you're right. That should never be the problem. No, no, no. I mean, it's cool. It's really cool. But, you know, we know them. So, please, we're friendly. We'll help you. Does that answer your question well enough? Yeah. Seriously. Anytime. Any others? How much time do we have?
    50:33
    Did you have a question? Oh, he never said he'd answer the phone. You can just call him. Oh, no. Five minutes. Cool, cool. Five more questions? Five minutes? Do you have a question? Sure. Yes. Growing up, what was your favorite pinball game? All right, you go first. Well, growing up, I grew up on the East Coast with the Willows and everything. So Funhouse was the first game I learned to play. Yep, Karen. Get yourself a hot dog. I learned to play that thing all the way through, and I watched older people, like kids and stuff, play it, and it just blew my mind. Then Circus Voltaire came out, and I got hooked on that, and that's my favorite game still to this day. So the 90s, Bally's games are my definite favorites. And Cyclone's another favorite because I bonded with it with Ryan. That's how we became friends, playing Cyclone together. We've got to play that. There's one here. There is one. We've got to shoot the loops.
    51:31
    Yeah, I know. It's weird. So it's the one growing up, right? Because like many people, my favorite game has changed over and over and over again, and now I'm lucky if I can narrow it down to five. But I'm going to say it was always the Willows, my mother bringing me to the Willows. I'm sorry, Mom. I hate Funhaus so much. I hate Funhaus. I think it's the worst. It drives me crazy. He's scary, and then the scoop does nothing. I'm like, whatever. But I love that you love it, and that's why I played Rudy's Nightmare with you, even though I'm like, I hate this game. But Funhaus was four games down from Twilight Zone. Oh, yeah. And Twilight Zone. The loudest game in the arcade. For a little while it was. I could hear it outside. It was new and it was exciting. I felt like every time I played it, I discovered something new. Because I was a little potato version of Ryan. Tiny version. I was bad at pinball.
    52:26
    We've all had that time in our lives where we used to look at pinball high scores and be like, That's cheating bull crap. Nobody got $300 million on Twilight Zone. I can barely get $10. And now we're like, oh. You're double flipping. We were just bad. You can get that. I still feel that about Adam's Family Billions, but whatever.
    52:46
    So I obviously wasn't that good, but I was good enough to hit a few things, and I would just go for something different every game. And I felt like there was always just a little more to discover, one more. If I could just do a little better, if I could just hit that thing one more, I can see something new and cool and interesting. And there was just so much to discover in Twilight Zone that I didn't get bored with it. and that's kind of what hooked me and what made me want to create that kind of feeling for someone of exploration and of discovery that pinball can bring and that's why I want to make sure that we keep doing interesting things and making new mechanisms instead of just making shots that feel good for competition players like us. I still want to bring the mystery of the demo crane. That was one of the other ones that really inspired me. My mother brought me to a pizza place on Route 1. I think it was Prince Pizza. They had one pinball machine. At the time, it was a Demolition Man. And all I wanted to do was see what the heck that crane did. I'm like, what is that? I'm like eight years old, and I'm just, what does that crane do? And I remember putting some money. She gave me 75 cents to shut me up. No, she was always wonderful and supportive and would have let me play anyway. But, like, I remember just trying so hard to figure out how to make the crane do something, and unfortunately I failed. But, like, just trying. I was excited to try, and I want to just keep that going. Yeah. Good question. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Okay.
    54:18
    Unfortunately, we don't have any more time to answer questions. Well, that's up to David. Do we have one more? One more. I just got the no-no. Well, Tess is the only hand up, so. Okay. Speaking of build quality, what clear coat do you have? No, you're not. Get this man out of here. Jillian.
    54:39
    Jillian. DuPont clear coat, triple layer clear coat. DuPont clear coat. So for anyone who doesn't get the joke, that's not actually a dig at our Americans build quality. No, no, no. That's a reference to the homebrew panel from last year. Oh, my God. Seven-ply. There was unfortunately a guest that would not relinquish the microphone and tried to take over half of the panel even though he wasn't on it. It's a meme this year. That's it. That's all it is. Yeah, it was awful. Our clear coat is done by our company, Botter, that we contract with, and they do amazing, amazing work and make it look like glass, and I can't wait. It looks like a diamond plate. I just found out I can get my own crap coiled by them. I can just bring it up there. Yeah, we can just do that. I can just do that. That's one of the cool perks of working at Pinball. You just have resources now. Yeah. Apparently there's a powder coating place in our backyard too. Right across the street. Yeah. So, yeah. Sorry, we're getting excited here. Yeah, exactly. So that will do it. We'll be here all weekend. You can ambush me in these tiny hallways. There's literally nowhere for me to run. If you have any questions about the games, feel free to ask us. I'm happy to teach anybody how Galactic works and explain the shots. And I also want to thank everybody for coming to the panel. Yeah, thank you guys so much for coming. listen to us ramble for an hour. And none of you left. I'm really happy with you guys. Thank you.
    56:04
    It's really fun. That's it. And thank you to my mom for coming to visit and support me. And thank our friends. My partner Bree who has been nothing but supportive and has made the... She also gave up her entire life and estate to move and do the whole same thing that I did. She did a big sacrifice. And I want to thank Ryan McQuaid for being a great friend and encouraging me to make a big move and really helped me change my whole life. There's a lot of people that are taking a lot of risks. We're only some of them. People are hiring us, putting money and resources into us. People are uprooting their lives to come be with us. And it's really nice having the support and faith of everyone here that we're going to not screw it up. But if we did, you'd take us back. I feel like I'd screw up a little bit. If I screw up everything, I can come back here.
    56:53
    Oh, no. Oh, no, it's Boston. I forgot. You're banished. You left. We're from the Midwest now. All right. Anyway, so that'll do it for us. Catch us later anywhere. We'll be here all weekend. Thank you so much.
    57:10
    No, too much.