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Episode 1000 (audio): George Gomez

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·52m 29s·analyzed·Sep 16, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

George Gomez on Stern's manufacturing, dev cycles, licensing, and Spike 3 platform at episode 1000 milestone.

Summary

George Gomez, Chief Creative Officer at Stern Pinball, appears on episode 1000 of Kaneda's A Pinball Podcast at Stern's new facility. The discussion covers manufacturing scale (200k+ sq ft, 500 employees), game development cycles (14-16 months standard), pricing strategy post-COVID, licensing challenges, and upcoming product roadmap including Spike 3 hardware platform and multiple upcoming games.

Key Claims

  • Stern's main facility is just under 200,000 square feet with an additional 80,000 sq ft building for CNC machines

    high confidence · George Gomez stated this directly during facility tour discussion

  • Stern employs approximately 500 people across the facility

    high confidence · George Gomez explicitly stated '500' when asked how many people come through the door daily

  • Standard game development cycle is 14-16 months; Jack's game (John Wick) was accelerated to ~12 months

    high confidence · George Gomez provided specific timeline and compared to Monster Bash development at Williams

  • Stern has not raised prices in approximately 2-2.5 years

    high confidence · George Gomez stated this when discussing post-COVID pricing strategy

  • COVID-era supply chain required Stern to pay for parts upfront and take immediate delivery, breaking traditional vendor relationships

    high confidence · George Gomez detailed specific changes in supplier payment terms and inventory management during COVID

  • The James Bond 60th game's high pricing was requested by the licensor, not Stern's original plan

    high confidence · George Gomez: 'we didn't intend to do it. The licensor requested it.'

  • Stern will likely not do another 'call for price' dealer pricing model in the future

    high confidence · George Gomez responded 'Probably not' when asked about future call-for-price models

  • Batman (Stern) had 240 LEs and 80 SLEs produced; other games like a 50-game LE also exist

    high confidence · George Gomez provided specific production numbers when asked about Batman rarity

  • Stern passed on Back to the Future and Beetlejuice licensing opportunities because designers were not interested

    high confidence · George Gomez: 'I can't get anybody to raise their hand' on Back to the Future; mentioned designers must be passionate about themes

Notable Quotes

  • “This hobby is so incredible because of all the men and women who make these pinball machines that we get to critique every single year.”

    Kaneda (podcast host) @ ~0:30 — Opening sentiment about the pinball community on the milestone 1000th episode

  • “Anyone who wants to get into manufacturing pinball, if you do one lap here, it is not for the faint of heart.”

    Kaneda @ ~4:00 — Commentary on manufacturing complexity after touring Stern facility

  • “A lot of times when something fails, it's not because we didn't test it. It's because we designed the wrong test.”

    George Gomez @ ~6:00 — Insight into Stern's quality assurance philosophy and real-world vs lab testing challenges

  • “COVID was an anomaly... this is business before COVID. It's less than COVID, but it's not a recession for us yet.”

    George Gomez @ ~12:30 — Post-COVID market assessment and clarification that demand normalization is not a business crisis

  • “Raising prices... we're sensitive to the notion that the market has a certain elasticity that they can tolerate.”

    George Gomez @ ~14:30 — Manufacturer's approach to pricing strategy and market sensitivity

  • “I don't want people making a game that they don't want to make.”

    George Gomez @ ~27:00 — Design philosophy prioritizing designer passion over forced themes

  • “When I was a consulting designer, I wanted to do The Matrix... and Gary said I want you to do Lord of the Rings.”

    George Gomez @ ~30:00 — Historical anecdote about executive override of designer preferences and long-term success of Lord of the Rings

  • “Iron Maiden was a niche title. I was really scared... mom's not going to let it in the house.”

    George Gomez @ ~35:00 — Risk assessment in licensing decisions and unexpected market adoption of niche themes

Entities

George GomezpersonKanedapersonJack DangerpersonGary SternpersonStern PinballcompanySpike 3productJohn Wickgame

Signals

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Stern operates 200k sq ft primary facility plus 80k sq ft CNC production facility with 4 large router machines cutting playfields; employs ~500 people; state-of-the-art filtration and OSHA compliance

    high · George Gomez detailed facility during tour; specific square footage and staffing numbers provided

  • ?

    product_launch: X-Men and Ali both entering full production on Monday from recording date; John Wick (Cornerstone) currently on assembly line with design team signing off on initial LE units before handing over to production

    high · George Gomez: 'on Monday, those guys are going to be in full production on X-Men and Ali's'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Stern no longer carrying COVID-era inventory buildup; backlog cleared; demand normalized to pre-COVID levels; supply chain has stabilized with return to traditional vendor payment models

    high · George Gomez: 'we don't have the backlog of games that we had during COVID... this is business before COVID'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern implemented 2-2.5 year price freeze; no recent increases despite COVID-era cost pressures; sensitive to market elasticity; avoiding aggressive price increases

    high · George Gomez: 'we haven't raised prices in like two years, two and a half years or something'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern backing away from 'call for price' dealer model for high-end LEs after James Bond 60th backlash; likely not repeating dealer-set pricing going forward

    high · George Gomez: 'Probably not' on future call-for-price models; acknowledged feedback on pricing model

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.157

0:00
I am so excited to let each and every one of you hear episode 1000 of Canada's Pinball Podcast. It has been a crazy journey over the last 10 years of my life. I've met my beautiful wife in that time period, had two beautiful children, have met my best friend in the world. Derek, you know who you are through pinball, many amazing friends through pinball. And I just want to say this hobby is so incredible because of all the men and women who make these pinball machines that we get to critique every single year. It's amazing because of the people we get introduced to. We are all nerds and geeks. And I think what makes this hobby so special is we've taken something that's very trivial and we've given it so much meaning. And in return, I think it's given a lot of our lives a lot more meaning than a pinball machine could ever do. How many of you thought that this box of lights would give you and open the door to so many amazing relationships and moments? And I just want to say thank you for being a subscriber. Thank you for being a fan. And let's get to 800 and do a thousand more episodes about pinball. As long as these companies are around, I think I'm going to be here critiquing and congratulating these companies on their efforts. Everybody, thank you so much and enjoy episode 1000.
1:45
Come in, George. All right. Here we are in Stern's new facility with Mr. George Gomez, episode 1,000 it should be. So, George, thank you for taking the time. Absolutely. I'm happy to do it. Welcome to the executive conference room at Stern Pinball. Yeah. The conference rooms at Stern are all named after famous Stern games. What's this? This is Stars. Okay. The product development ones downstairs are Flight 2000 and Big Game in honor of Harry Williams, two Harry Williams games.
2:23
And up front, we have Sea Witch. We have Cheetah. And so, yeah, the showroom where you just were, that's actually called Replay. Okay. Is John Wick going to get a conference room one day? There's going to be jokes. There's going to be sarcasm. It's a Friday afternoon. Hey, you know, there's, you know. Maybe a bathroom stall. We need a lot of conference rooms to get to Javavik. Okay. All right. Okay. Well, I just took a tour. Very impressive facility. What's the square footage of this facility? I knew you were going to ask me that. It's just under 200,000, I think. And then there's another building.

  • The next 2 years of Stern's product line is 'locked and loaded' in development

    high confidence · George Gomez stated this when discussing future theme possibilities like Barbie

  • “We're not dumping product at Costco. These games are selling really well and I think by Christmas they'll be gone.”

    George Gomez @ ~40:00 — Response to criticism about Costco distribution and confirmation of strong sales performance

  • “Spike 3... you're going to feel it. Elements will feel incredibly familiar but you're going to see the difference.”

    George Gomez @ ~45:00 — Teaser about Spike 3 platform improvements while maintaining backward compatibility and familiar aesthetics

    • Cornerstone
    game
    X-Mengame
    Aligame
    Batmangame
    James Bond 60th Anniversarygame
    Elviragame
    Ghostbustersgame
    Monster Bashgame
    Lord of the Ringsgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Mandaloriangame
    Supremegame
    Costcocompany
    Joe Kamikawaperson
  • ?

    licensing_signal: James Bond 60th was licensor request (not Stern-initiated); Back to the Future and Beetlejuice both passed on due to lack of designer interest; Batman renewal in question; next 2 years of product locked in; Mandalorian was rare quick-turn deal

    high · George Gomez: 'The licensor requested it' on Bond; 'I can't get anybody to raise their hand' on BTTF

  • ?

    technology_signal: Spike 3 platform will feature different screen size than Spike 2; backward compatible; modular architecture allowing future generations as modules; familiar aesthetic maintained; will be noticeable difference in user experience

    medium · George Gomez: 'you'll probably more than likely get more of everything' on Spike 3; screen size change confirmed; 'you're going to feel it'

  • ?

    design_innovation: John Wick features non-traditional playfield bottom (not classic Italian); initially met resistance from Gary Stern and George Gomez; mock-up testing proved playable and fun; approved for production

    high · George Gomez detailed the approval process for Jack Danger's unconventional playfield design

  • ?

    business_signal: Costco distribution partnership for Stern games performing well; games expected to sell through by Christmas; described as experiment in reaching new demographic; high-income customer base

    high · George Gomez: 'These games are selling really well and I think by Christmas they be gone'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern prioritizes designer passion over forced theme assignments; George Gomez prefers not to 'hold a gun to somebody's head' on unpopular themes; anecdote about Lord of the Rings override vs Matrix request shows tension between corporate strategy and designer preference

    high · George Gomez: 'I don't like to do it, but every once in a while you have to make adjustments'; 'I don't want people making a game that they don't want to make'

  • $

    market_signal: Golden era of Stern LE secondary market (2000-3000+ profit on Ghostbusters/Batman) no longer present; Elvira 400-unit edition after 200-unit edition caused rarity backlash; market shift from reliable appreciation to speculation risk

    high · George Gomez acknowledged collector backlash on Elvira editions; Kaneda noted end of guaranteed secondary market gains

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jack Danger compressing game development timeline (12 months vs standard 14-16); other design teams working on locked-in 2-year product roadmap; mentions of upcoming games suggest healthy design roster

    medium · George Gomez: 'Jack... was on an accelerated schedule' and 'the next 2 years of our product is locked and loaded'

    • 3:03
    There's probably another building that's probably another 80,000 square feet, I think, that is where we have the CNC machines that cut the play fields. Okay. And if you have time today, after we're all done over here, we can drive over there and I can show you that. Okay. And that will blow your mind because it's like these, you know, four gigantic production robots that essentially cut two play fields up at a time. Wow. I mean, it's a trip to watch it, you know. Big, big, big going through. Yeah, yeah, big, big, big routers, you know, cutting wood. but it's got a state-of-the-art filtration system because the city, you know, the city wants to make sure we're compliant with OSHA and all that stuff. Right. And there's roughly how many people come through the door here every day? About 500. Okay. Yeah. So lots of mouths to feed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I mean, look, we're a big company. I think we're not, as companies in the world go, we're not a big company.
    4:05
    as we're probably, I don't even know what you'd call us, a mid-sized company, I'm not sure. But the operation of pinball machines is way more extensive than a lot of the audience imagines, until they've seen it, right? You've got to walk the floor. I was saying that to George when we were walking.
    4:26
    Anyone who wants to get into manufacturing pinball, if you do one lap here, it is not for the faint of heart. I mean, there is thousands of parts. There's wires everywhere. But I will say it is a very clean, eat-off-the-floor factory here. I mean, I said it looks like Japan in there. It's very well run, very well managed. And when new games like, you know, on Monday, those guys are going to be in full production on X-Men and Ali's. and of course the design team has been working with them all along right to hand off the product teaching them how to build sub assemblies making sure that they're building them correctly we do what's called a production validation build where they build the game and then we go back out there and we that's how we also discover you know like what tools we need what fixtures we need you know hey this is hard to do can you give us a thing that helps us okay so we go through that process. We're done with that process now and ready to go to production. You caught us on summer hours. Otherwise, you would have seen that crazy buzz of activity. It reminded me of the library at college. I could study in how quiet it was today. I could see how it would be very noisy. And so we just met Jack. When a designer's game goes on the line, Jack looks a little tired. He's been on an accelerated timeline. What's that like for you as a company when a new child is born in the world? So throughout the organization, it's a buzz of activity because the sales and marketing guys are doing their thing. The executive team is doing planning and all that kind of stuff. a design team is really tied up supporting production. Like Jack and his guys live on the assembly line. They sign off on the first, you know, couple hundred LEs usually. And then there comes a point in time where they say the line is building them to our satisfaction. You guys have the ball. And then they walk out of there and then they'll spot check throughout the run. Right. Or they get called out if there's an issue, right, which is not unheard of. And so, but, yeah, it's a buzz of activity between, you know, every element of the company. The procurement guys are making sure parts are coming in. The, you know, I mean, the testing guys are testing stuff. I mean, you didn't see it because it's unfortunately an extension of the Whitewood Lab, but there is a soundproof room that runs test fixtures 24-7. and then basically we test the failure. And a lot of times, we're hardly perfect. You guys know this.
    7:18
    Games come out of the box and this doesn't work or that doesn't work, whatever. A lot of times when something fails, it's not because we didn't test it. It's because we designed the wrong test. It's like it's being used not the way we imagined it was going to be used or whatever.
    7:34
    It's hard for them to test a game in the hands of a hard-working, player like myself who's going to create trajectories that no decent player would ever.
    7:49
    Everyone's too good here. No, I think that it's a complex animal, right? It's like so many parts. So many things have to be perfect.
    8:01
    So, yeah, it's not for the faint of heart. We're all sort of connected to this hobby in different ways. and there's a lot of vocal opinions about pinball, right? I mean, I have one, the community does. Do you wish everyone could just do a lap here? Yeah. And before, like, because we're so triggered. Well, it's beyond that, right? It's like I wish you could walk in my shoes throughout the development process entirely. Like, I mean, if I could. What shoes? Are you wearing Gucci shoes or are they, what are they? I got Adidas. We both have Adidas on. Yeah, yeah, I got Adidas on today. So, no, I think that the thing that there are so many decisions that are second guessed once the game comes out. And there are real reasons that things are the way they are. They're not like we're not ignorant to a problem or we're not ignorant to an approach. Right. It's like, you know, there's there's the complexities of licensing. I mean, I think I think given what you do professionally, you understand how. Sure. You know, somebody I mean, those guys have it's their football. like Gary says. And it's their football, and when they want to go home, they're going home, and you've got to play by these rules.
    9:14
    So, yeah, licensing things is a challenge, mechanical things, physical things. You know, my world, unlike a purely software product like a video game, everything can't be fixed with a line of code, right? Right. Yes. And the development cycle on a game normally is how long? It's supposed to be between 14 and 16 months. Like Jack, for example, was on our accelerated schedule. He did that game in about 12 months, which is basically that's old school. That's like when at Williams, when I designed Monster Bash, that was a 12 month schedule. Yeah. Right. But games have gotten so much more complex that a 12 month schedule is tight. Hell, I think a 16-month schedule is tight, to tell you the truth.
    10:03
    But, yeah, I mean, look, we don't like to do it, but every once in a while you have to make adjustments. Like the reason Jack got a short schedule is there was a game that was scheduled to be in this slot, and that game got in trouble, so I had to juggle things to get a game ready for production. and Jack seemed to be cruising, you know, because of the lower, you know, the bottom of his play field not being a classic Italian bottom. And he came to me with this early on, and I told him, I said, look, there's not a lot of love for that stuff in this building, right? Gary Stern is just allergic to it. And so, you know, I told him, I said, you've got to get it past Gary and you've got to get it past me. So I said, if you think this is going to work, you better mock it up like yesterday. So, you know, he got that running, and I played it, played it a lot. And I figured once I got done playing it, I was like, if his, you know, cobbled together mock-up works, I know I can make a production quality one work. Right. And I just played the game. And I will say, I was a little nervous it might play a little narrow, right? When you look at it top down, it feels like all the, you know, you're losing it. You couldn't tell the difference. You can't tell the difference. And all the shots are opened up beautifully. And getting out of that danger room was fun. I did it right away. And I think Jack was kind of happy to see a terrible player like me navigate through the game in a way that is just very satisfying. So 14 months. And so here we are, the number one pinball company in the world, largest market share. We walked through. Games are going all over the world. So how do you feel, you know, we're coming out of COVID, right? There was a spike in demand. Yeah. We had a shortage of supply. Yeah. Have we caught up? Are we now? So we, yeah, we don't have the backlog of games that we had during COVID, right? But COVID was an anomaly, right? So what we think, it's interesting because people perceive it as a recession of some sort. And for us, this is business before COVID. Right. So it's kind of like, you know, yes, it's it's it's less than COVID, but it's it's not you know, it's it's not a recession for us yet. It was it almost felt more like pinballs roaring 20s than a Great Depression. I mean, a lot of economists are saying COVID was going to create a recession. But ultimately what happened for your business, it felt like people were stuck in their homes. You had a device. Yeah, we boom is an escapism for them. and it was great. So, you know, it wouldn't be a chat with me and you without, let's talk about where pinball has gone pricing-wise because it is, you know, as we think about opening up pinball to more people, how do you juggle that? We're trying, you know, so we haven't had a, we haven't raised prices in like two years, two and a half years or something, I think. We used to do a yearly price raise and it was mostly you know It kind of like most of the drive to raise price we didn you know what during COVID it interesting because we paid through the nose for product, for prices, you know, for the things that we bought to put in the pinball machines. And not only that, we had to spend money like Johnny on the spot. Normally, if you have a vendor relationship, like let's say you have a vendor that sells you printed circuit boards, You don't pay for that material until you take delivery of that material. And the relationship you have with them is that I'm going to buy whatever it is, 20,000 of these things from you over the course of the year, and I'm going to pay you as I take delivery. So if I need 500 a week, whatever it is, you need to deliver what that is, and I pay you as I receive them. Well, COVID, people said, if you want this stuff, you need to pay for it and take delivery today. So we bought chips. We spent millions of dollars buying stuff just so we were sure we had it so we didn't have to shut down, which created all kinds of other problems because now you're carrying inventory, which is sort of the Achilles heel of manufacturing. You're carrying inventory that you don't want to be carrying, and then you have to work your way through it. So we come out of COVID and we're doing this analysis on what we have in inventory and it's crazy, right? You go like, oh my God, we had to buy all this stuff. So raising prices. Yeah, we don't like to do it. We are sensitive to the notion that the market has a certain elasticity that they can tolerate, right? And you've dabbled in sort of the exclusive collector pricing. and we talked a little bit about this, I think, a few times on Facebook, the James Bond 60th. And I know I bring it up because as a marketer, I'm like, that was a time where you've got the hottest designer in your organization. You've got a AAA license. You've got access to all the movie posters. Right. But a single-level game, a more basic, and to call Keith Elwin something basic is sacrilege, but it was priced really high. And did you guys learn a lesson in that? Did you hear the feedback? Yeah, we heard it. Look, we're hardly tone deaf. I mean, you know, we listen. We listen. Sometimes the opinions aren't informed, but we listen and we hear you. That particular game, you know, we actually didn't have an – you know, we didn't intend to do it. The licensor requested it. Okay. So the licensor came to us and they said, you know, we were kind of hoping that you would do something that was sort of a throwback to the era when Bond started. And since I had already started down the path of the cornerstone with the Connery years, we were like, oh, man, if we had it to do over, we probably would have made that the Connery years and made the cornerstone everything, every bond. Right. But we were down path. And so we were like, okay, well, can we do, you know, we'll do a single level play field. We'll do score reels. By the way, the score reels, I mean, the amount of engineering in the score reels, those things are beautiful, right? They're so smooth.
    16:24
    So, yeah, I mean, where you get in trouble with stuff like that is you say, this is an opportunity to throw a cookie to the dealers. And so if you do a call for price thing with the dealers, you know, man, it's the Wild West show. And you don't know what. And at that point, I don't know that we're controlling anything.
    16:49
    Well, it was interesting because the dealers were set a high price, and then there were a few sold on Stern.com initially for $19.99. And you guys sell just a handful online directly.
    17:02
    Okay, so the feedback, though, we're probably not going to see another call for price in the future. Yeah, probably not. Okay, because I think everyone would appreciate that going away. No, probably not. I mean, and look, we heard you about the, you know, like we didn't anticipate. When you make something that's 200 games, that's rarer than 400 games. So we didn't anticipate the backlash of the 400-game edition of Elvira that came after a 200-game edition, right? So, and I, you know, I was like, I don't understand this. I mean, it's like the other thing that will be the first to tell you that, you know, if you're buying the games to flip them, you're rolling the dice. Right. But it was a beautiful die to roll for many years. And you did give people, there was a period where you would never lose a single dollar on a Stern LE. In fact, you easily could make a few bucks if you got an LE. There was always a race to get on a distro's list. Easily $2,000 to $3,000 were in your pocket if you had a Ghostbusters or a Batman, you know. And it was the golden era for scalping. But also, you know, you think about something like Batman. Those were pretty small numbers. Yeah, 240 LEs and 80 SLEs. Yeah, so they were really small numbers. So, I mean, there should be demand for a game like that. That game – and honestly, it indicates – I mean those things hold their value, right? So – Any more – speaking of Batman because it is – the SLE is still I think one of the rarest. I think – did you make 50 of one game? Am I making something? Yeah, we're 50 and 30. Okay. It was made up the 80. Of the years. Yeah.
    18:53
    Any more Batmans down the road as a possibility as a premium? So all this stuff is a possibility. It's a question of can we do a licensing deal that makes sense. Right. So it's like – and the problem with licensing is that the people at those companies change over and now maybe change over. And now maybe the new people don't want to do the deal that the old people did. Right. And so and that's you know, I mean, we have we have challenges in that situation a lot where, you know, hey, even even in approvals. Right. Like going back to make something that you have full approvals on, you've made it. And somebody might say, you know what? I don't I don't like that deal. I want to redo that deal. Yeah. Well, you know, I heard the the West family is are they a little difficult to get a renewal on that? Or was that just made up? No, I don't know that that has anything to do with it. I mean, we did the deal with Warner, who owned the license, and we never, other than saying, reaching out to Adam's agent and saying, you know, would he participate in, like, the promotion of the game. Other than that, we had no contact. Okay. Speaking of, like, there's a lot of superhero games, and Marvel comes up over and over. And I will say, for those of you worried about another Marvel game, I think when you jump on X-Men, your fears of there being too much Marvel will dissipate quickly. What about Superman? There's a big movie coming out next year. Have you guys – is that in the mix? Yeah, we've talked about DC. I know you can't say. No, no. We've talked about DC superheroes a lot. I hear through the grapevine one of our competitors has a DC deal. Okay. So I don't know what – I'm not sure. um is it hard to if you have like a great relationship with marvel to make a game of a competitor no no they don't like you know they don't even feel like i don't i don't know that they consider that uh each other competition anymore but the way they used to right um the marvel world is so diverse and it has had such success in cinema that you know it's like i don't know uh i don't ever hear that from you know i don't like i mean i'll hear i want to do deadpool t-shirts i'll hear from within marvel i'll say no i gotta protect the the t-shirt guy i wouldn't let him make pinball machines i hear that but i don't hear like i don't hear like i don't want you guys talking to dc okay i never hear that any um i will you you said maybe it was a few years ago um the theme of beetlejuice came up right and you said yeah yeah you know we put it in front of the guys and there just wasn't any interest. We did, yeah. Yeah, and I'm not going to do ... Now that the movie's out and you've seen some of the reaction, any regrets not going in that main direction? I think if you're asking me about regrets, the community has such a love for Back to the Future that I probably would have taken that. We didn't take that ... Did you pass up on Back to the Future? Yeah, we did. We passed on it. Right. What's the thinking there, George? I got to ask. The thinking is, first of all, you don't want people making a game that they don't want to make. Right. So if I poll design teams and I say, give me your top ten, or I come back to them and I say, what about Beetlejuice? And our friend Joe Kamikawa pushed us a lot on Back to the Future because he had a relationship. Yeah, yeah. He was one of the producers of the Broadway show. Yeah. You know, I, you know, yeah, I mean, he's, he's got friendships and, and, you know, he said, hey, you guys really ought to do this. And I'm like, man, I can't get anybody to raise their hand. Right. So I don't like, I, you know, could I hold a gun to somebody's head? Maybe. But, but do you really want that? Right. You know, I mean, that's, so I mean, that's, that's a really interesting scoop. I also think as someone who's directing these designers to be creative and unleash things they're passionate about,
    23:13
    is there ever an instance, though, where it just makes so much financial sense to make this theme that you have to make it? I'll tell you a story. When I was a consulting designer to the company, I wanted to do The Matrix. and I had just done I think The Dark Knight and I called Gary and I said give me The Matrix and Gary said I don't want you to do The Matrix I want you to do Lord of the Rings and I was like no no I want The Matrix and you got to remember that at that particular moment in time I don't even think the second film would come out for Lord of the Rings or Matrix which is good because the first movie is by far and so I was very driven by that Right. And and Gary, to this day, he he you know, he kind of kids me about it. You know, what have you done? The Matrix. Yeah. And Lord of the Rings is one of the you know, one of the jewels in my portfolio. Right. So you go you go, well, OK, let's speaking of Matrix. This is a theme that here we are like 30 years later almost. Right. Yeah. It's still in the mix of like this theme. people want and knowing that you wanted to make it back in the day. I've heard complications like Lawrence Fishburne won't give his likeness, which makes it really hard to make a Morpheus-free matrix. Is it just not a theme that makes sense for you guys for a reason? It's what you and I talked, whatever it was, a month ago, a month and a half ago, and you said something to me which conveyed to me that, oh, you absolutely understand. I'm trying to make stuff that appeals to everybody. Okay. And when, like, I think that, you know, if I had to do over again, I would say there are certain titles. We can only afford to do niche titles every once in a while. Iron Maiden was a niche title. I didn't think the U.S. was going to adopt Iron Maiden the way that they did. I was, you know, the Europeans had been asking for Iron Maiden forever, right? So they were like, Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden. And when we did that deal, I was, like, really scared. I thought mom's not going to let it in the house and this and that and the other thing. Right. So when you look at a company like us, I want – I'm trying to grow pinball, right? We all, as a mantra around here, it's why we'll talk about Costco if you want, but Costco is about growing pinball. It's not any kind of a – like there's some speculation that we're dumping product. We're not dumping product. It's a brand new game. Yeah, and they came to you. I think it's this weird thing where you go on the internet, and Stern's getting chastised for, like, how dare they? Look, their business is failing. They're selling at Costco. And it's like, well, and you said these games are selling out there. Yeah they selling really well and I think by Christmas they be gone And I think that and it an experiment for them and an experiment for us right It an expensive item But that said, we've learned a lot about their demographic in the conversations, and they have a pretty well-heeled demographic. And I think that the game is, you know, we did all kinds of things to the game to make the game, to make the experience of somebody buying the Costco game a great experience. Like, you know, we went to a real wood play field just like the commercial games. We made it so you can load the balls into the game without taking the glass off. You can set up and, you know, you can register the game on IC. We added it without going in the, you know, you can open up that coin door and, yes, the four buttons are there, but you can do the whole thing on your phone. Right. That, by the way, all of that stuff will migrate into the big games to make that experience better, right? Are we going to see any of that in Spike 3? Spike 3, you'll probably more than likely get more of everything, but it'll feel very familiar. Okay. And I know that's around the corner, and you probably can't reveal too many details. Yeah. How proud are you of the innovation you've put into Spike 3?
    27:28
    I know we can't talk details. Spike 3 is. Will we feel it? Because I always ask people. I think you'll see it. Okay, that's good. Because I've always said to people, did you feel the difference between spike one and two? No, I didn't. You didn't really, but this one you're going to. Yeah, I mean, so the great thing about, so here's some things we did right.
    27:51
    Spike one wasn't around very long, and we quickly found some things that we didn't do so right, And we fix those things. And and when we were fixing them, we said, you know, if it truly is a modular architecture.
    28:08
    Like whole new generations of the platform could be a module. Right. So so elements of spike three will feel incredibly familiar to you. OK. Node architecture. You know, it'll be backward compatible. There's a lot of plug-and-play stuff, right? And now you've just got some scoops. You've just got some scoops. Same size screen?
    28:35
    Probably not. Oh. That's it. Well, you know, what I think people love about Stern machines in a lineup is how they look in a lineup. And I guarantee you that I'm preserving that. Okay. So I am sensitive to the lineup. I am sensitive to the – Screen bigger but translate staying the same size, people, is what I'm going to conclude on that. You might be spot on. I don't know. Okay, all right. And we're going to see this – look, Jack's game is on the line, Cornerstone. The next game will be the first Spike 3 game? Probably not. Probably not? Yeah. Okay. Probably not. Will Spike 3 be introduced with a Cornerstone? Probably. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. This is good. No, I'm excited. Now, talking about themes because it is interesting how this market works. Sometimes there's themes where you hear it and people want to give you money without even seeing it. Can I throw a few themes by you, Mr. Gomez, that I always talk about? Yeah. Lion King. Well, yeah. What do you think? Let's do it. I think Lion King would sell – what do you think? Would it sell enough? You guys would have to tell me. I think that I want broad appeal stuff.
    29:57
    So what do we do well with? We do well with broad appeal. We do well with humor. Get in here and say hi. Hey, Internet, what's going on? Come on the other side.
    30:08
    What's George saying? What's he saying? Well, we were just talking about Lion King. Oh, I love that. That video game kicked my butt, man. I think it was Genesis. Lion King, I threw Barbie out there. I was like, and I'm kind of like, did you guys explore Barbie for the movie? We talked about it. And what happened? We did talk about it. Did Jack not say he loves it? No, I think you got to think about this, right? Like we, probably the next two years of our product is locked and loaded. I'm pulling you in. So probably the next two years of our product is locked and loaded. Thank you. So we're, you know, we're working way ahead of time on stuff. So it's not to say it couldn't happen, but very seldom. I'll tell you an example of something that where we pivoted really quickly. Mandalorian. Right. Right. We Mandalorian wasn't, you know, wasn't planned out two years ahead of time. We saw the show. We said, this is pretty cool. And we said, hey, we've got a Lucas relationship. Why don't you call over there? And we just happened to have a design team that was coming free about to start something. and we said, yeah, we can turn this. Yeah. So we went down that road, but that's kind of an anomaly. Right. Meaning that, remember that we're talking to licensors, licensors are talking to us, right? We go to the licensing show, they approach us, they pitch us.
    31:33
    We get pitched all the time, you know, like, and you wouldn't believe what people offer us. You know, it's like you go, well, I don't know if that's really, you know, a good fit. Are they ever like, when that happens, like when a licensor comes to you, are they ever willing to like invest enough where like, because you're taking a big risk, right? You've got to turn on this big factory. You need X amount of customers. And if they're just like, look, we just want exposure for our brand. Have they ever like created a mutual value exchange? So look, you know, private label deal. Supreme. Like Supreme, right? That's like somebody that says, you know, how much will it be? And for us, we said, oh, we love the notion of a lifestyle brand. It would be a good fit for us. And so we did it. I think it was a success for everybody. Did you have one lying around that I could buy at the original cost of that machine? Because it would be for one of my kids through college.
    32:33
    Okay, so in terms of themes, I want to go back to a couple of themes I've always thrown out there. Big Trouble in Little China. I just heard one of the guys in the studio yesterday say to me, what about Big Trouble in Little China? I'm serious. Is it too niche? It's probably too niche. Okay. Fifth Element. I love that movie. I absolutely love that movie, and I would love to do Fifth Element. I don't know how much of a broad appeal it is, but it's like, man, if we could do Fifth Element. I mean, if you can make Iron Maiden sell. And is there any like – even with some of these themes where you might be on the verge of it being more of a cult classic versus mainstream, but then you hand it to like an Elwynn, right, and you get that audience of fan base because he's the reason why Maiden became Maiden, right? Sort of. If you think about it, he didn't have a reputation at that time. He was his first game. First game. And everyone had sort of seen Archer, myself included, so I hired him. And so we can look back on Elwynn today and say, oh, that was so classic Elwynn and that was amazing. But no, at that time, we didn't know if he was going to last beyond one game. Right, right. What's he on in five now, four? He's on Maiden, Jurassic Park, Avengers, Jaws. and Godzilla. Godzilla, yeah. Yeah. Okay, and he's, I mean, within the walls here, right? I mean, how, do you just feel lucky that you found this guy who designed one game in his basement, basically, and now, I mean, he's just taken on. I mean, I think, look, I, like, I, you know, I came up in the mothership, right? I was surrounded by, you know, I worked with, you know, Richie, I worked with Lawler, I worked with, you know, Nordman, I worked with all those guys, right? So when I built this studio, I said, I want all the good from there and I want to cut out all the bad. And I also know, you know, I kind of know what it is to be a designer and I know the skills and qualities and I look for that. And I've tried, you know, I've got the guys I have are guys I've picked. Right. So my success is predicated on their success and vice versa, right? So I try, you know, I've mentored every one of those guys, and they come to me when they have stuff they don't, you know, they don't know what to do with this. And it's a collaborative relationship. I like it. They like it. It's, you know, it's all good. I mean, you know, you have to remember that, you know, Elwin is one of the best players in the world, even today, you know. And, you know, he says, you know, he thinks he's lost a step, but, you know, I don't know. Right, right. Right. And so I think, you know, I mean, I think you try to build the staff you want, and that's what I've tried to do, right? The beauty of this is we all have different personalities. We have different characteristics. Stylistically, we are different. And he's established a style, and Jack is establishing a style. I think I have one.
    36:10
    And so it's this mix, right? You don't want – like I saw the excitement for Jack's very different play field, which I love. but you can't make every play field like that right now that's not a you know that's just not sustainable yeah right yeah but can you throw a curveball at it every once in a while absolutely yeah and what's the collaboration like here at stern so i i know i hear stories back in the day it was a little bit more like silo like people didn't want to like yeah they were competing against each other and is it more collaborative here like well elwynn way more collaborative way, way, way, way more collaborative. That's why the games, the quality of the games, the studio is vested in the game. So it's, you know, everybody plays everybody's stuff. Everybody comments on everybody's stuff. Everybody, you know, when that guy's doing a thing that can improve what you're doing, you know, it's not unusual for him to, you know, for those two guys to talk and say, hey, can I do that after you're done? And it works. And so it's way more collaborative. That's when I talk about the good and the bad at Willie, you know, with seven street gangs. I don't have any street gangs. Right. I mean, I got, yes, I got, you know, Team L1. I got, you know, Jack has worked with a couple of different groups of people.
    37:36
    Brian has worked with a couple of groups of people, although, you know, Brian and Dwight are a thing. Right. And so it's, you know, I've worked with everybody. Right. So I get, you know, I'm whoever's in the shoot, you know, when I have to be up, right?
    37:52
    What's the one thing you wish you could do better as a company? Oh, my God. Why don't you ask me what thousand things? Yeah, I know. But if you had to pick one tomorrow that you just feel like, if we could do this better, I'd be happy. I'd sleep a little bit better. It's a tough one because every day. It's a different. No, every day we come to work to try to make ourselves better, right? So to be better at what we do.
    38:23
    And I wish my – if I could do anything better, I wish I could fix the challenges of licensing. If I could wave my hand and say, take a giant problem away from me, fix the licensing environment so that, you know, I have some licensors that after they've worked with us a couple of times, Marvel is a great example. They worked with us a couple of times. There's an element of trust, right? They know that you make world-class pinball machines, and they know that they don't know anything about making world-class pinball machines. So they are going to let me make world-class pinball machines. When I tell them this needs to be this way or it doesn't work, they understand. Right. This needs to be this way or it doesn work they understand Right Right But so that that a unique relationship because we done so many games with them and you know we we gone at it and pulled it off So but yeah, if I could fix one thing in my world, it would be make every licensor easier to deal with. And I would be very happy. OK, I was just hoping he was going to say better lighting. I can imagine how that's a headache and handicapping the creative team when you're dealing with – I mean, I go through it all the time with clients too. It's like – and there's a saying that I think I've just been saying this at work. Would you rather be right or get paid? And I think when you work with a license holder, it comes down to that sometimes where we have to do it this way and we got to keep everything moving because ultimately they're going to sign off. so pinball in five years i mean i mean you you guys this this thing is you didn't build this factory and this beautiful like studio and this it took 14 years 14 years so where do you see the hobby going around the corner i know that's sometimes hard to predict but also sometimes it feels like the product does sort of stay pretty much the same at this at the same time i mean i think look i i think i i think one of the most transformational things that i've brought to the product is connecting the games. Insider Connected is transforming the way that people interact with the games. And not only players, but operators. I'm driving traffic to locations. Every time I run a quest, I don't know if you've seen that electric bat episode, but those guys did an episode. We did the WIC contracts quest, and they literally had people going, where's the WIC game? I need to get my badge, right? So we run quests. We drive traffic to locations because not everybody's got a WIC game at home, right? So they're going to go find a WIC game to do that. So that is literally increasing the earnings of that location by, you know, something that we did, right? So we have a lot more stuff like that where we're trying to grow the community.
    41:30
    That in and of itself, just Insider Connected, just sort of modernizes a pinball machine, right? And it brings it into, you know, you've got the Internet. Right. It's like in 2022, people enters the age of the Internet. I was the last, you know, I tell people I was I was that must have been the last IOT thing in the world. Right. I mean, it's like but the beauty of being the last IOT thing is that I got to see what everybody else has done. And I said, OK, I'm going to make it, you know. Is there ever a worry, George, because for this hobby and for the product to go out the door, people need to buy a new inbox? And if you're making a game with Internet Connected and you're adding a lot of replay value elements, is there any concern that we're going to make a game that once you have it, there's going to be so much replay value that I don't need a new one? Yeah, so I'm going to put a phrase in your head.
    42:29
    What is the addressable market for pinball? The addressable market for pinball. The addressable market for pinball is not exactly the market you have. It's the market you don't have. So the addressable market for pinball is enormous.
    42:49
    And so even if the existing market is keeping their pinball machines longer, there are new people that are coming into the hobby every day right when you see an opportunity when you see something like costco you say this is a gateway drug this is i'm putting i'm putting pinball machines in the hands of people that don't know anything about pinball and after they've enjoyed that jurassic park home for six eight months a year whatever it is or even sooner they may look and say oh stern pinball they make oh they make bigger games let's go see what one of those is like right so so it's it's about we are all about how do we grow the market in pinball that's what insider connect is about that's what things like costco are about um i mean really i'll put something else in your head um there's a generation of kids today because 70 of the products are going into consumer environments not commercial environments there's a generation of kids is growing up with this in their house. And to them, they're not going to discover it when they go to college. It's going to be a standard part of their entertainment fair, just like whatever entertainment thing you grew up with was a part of your entertainment when you were growing up. So I think in some ways, just that is a bit of a Trojan horse relative to the success and future of the hobby.
    44:20
    I understand the community. We're a tight-knit community. You guys are passionate, beyond passionate.
    44:29
    I get this feeling that you think that when I'm trying to grow pinball, I'm not paying attention to you and you want my attention. Are you a subscriber of the Canadian Club, Jordan? I'm not. We've got to get you in. It's $5 a month. Yeah. Question, this is just a – what do you think the ideal amount of gains is for a home? Do you think there's like the right – I know you want to sell as many as you possibly can. I mean, I don't know. It depends on your home, right? I live in 1,100 square feet. I've got seven pinball machines in my living room. Okay. Do you even need them in your living room? You got them? I have them everywhere. I own – I think I own 30 pinball machines, but I have seven in my apartment because that's all I can fit. Right. But I think it's your situation. It's like when people say to me, man, that's crazy. I don't want that game. I say, if you don't want that game, don't buy that game. It's like if you can't afford that game, don't buy that game. I don't want you to make – it's sort of like play it at your buddy's house, play it down the street at the bar, play it wherever you're going to play it, played in league, you know, don't sweat it. Don't sweat it. There's one out there, and it's okay. You start out with, and most, you know, we've done a lot. We spent a bunch of money.
    45:56
    A lot of the things we know, you know, we've hired real marketers to study the environment, right? I never got a phone call when the brief went out to hire real marketers. RFQ. You didn't get the request from the phone call? I didn't get it. I mean, this might have to be my plan B. So I think, you know, I guess we're not entirely flying by the seat of our pants. We spent some money and figured out and, you know, we learned a lot of things, right? We learned how people buy them, what people hate about it, what, you know, about the buying process. There's a lot of things we have to improve, right? When you – we come in here every day.
    46:35
    We work – every element of this company works the business every freaking day, right? So there's a bunch of guys out here, right here in this building, that are trying to figure out, how do I improve the buying experience? How do I make them cost what they need to cost? How do I get more of them out there? What does white glove service look like? What's last mile delivery look like? What is any of this stuff? What do we have to do to grow pinball, to make the experience better, to make, you know? Lower the prices. No, I had to say it. Yeah, yeah. I got these. Okay, George, I want to thank you for taking the time today. This is episode 1,000. I've been doing this for 10 years. I don't know what we're going to do. A rich use of time. But I apologize to all the people who have done this. Thank you. And thank you because I do think that all of us content creators would not have nearly as much to talk about if this company did not crank out a machine every three to four months, which is absolutely incredible when you look at how hard it is to get a game to market, work with licensors, and keep making it creative and fresh where we're still buying. You guys, I try to be as transparent as I can possibly be. I'm not going to give you company secrets. I'm not going to divulge strategy.
    47:57
    That's what you come to me for. I will leak all that. But I'm telling you, I wish people would just plain ask me sometimes rather than speculate. There's always going to be an element that's like, I don't know, they want us to fail so they must be in real trouble. They've got a thousand games at Costco or whatever. I don't know. It's like I'm just trying to grow pinball. I don't think you guys are in too much trouble. There was a beautiful Porsche that George picked me up. So things are going well. You didn't tell people about that. We actually have a seven and a half foot diameter pinball. Yeah, so there's a humongous. Yeah, it's going to be like, you know, it's a giant chrome pinball that's going to be in front of the building and installing it on Tuesday. It's going to be, you know, it's illuminated and everything. And it's going to be a photo opportunity when people visit us. We just did a big, huge art panel, which tonight, if you're hanging around, drive by because that thing should be illuminated. You can take pictures of it.
    49:00
    Of course, there's big illuminated signs that are about to go up. We're redoing elements of the building to try to make it fit us better because this was a shipping warehouse before we took over. Is there any truth to the rumor that you guys are trying to sell Stern Pinball? Is it always for sale if the price is right? Or it's a privately held company, right?
    49:29
    And where these rumors come from is people see our success and they understand that there's a lot of investment money in the world. And so it's an obvious sort of leap to imagine that somebody wouldn't be interested in us, right? Right. So, that whole thing, I'm not an owner of the company, so it's way above my pay grade. Do you have any plans to retire soon? I'm good for a while. Okay. You look really young, by the way, George. Well, thanks. You're taking care of yourself. I don't feel like I'm taking care of myself as much as I should. I'll tell you that. I'm 69 years old. I'm going to be 70 in June. right and we all have the genes of mr george gomez you do not look going look i'm going gray man controlled glx time i'm out of i'm covid uh played havoc on my uh my my workout habits you know and so i'm trying to get back into it yeah yeah well you look great thank you for being such a great host um and thank you for you know oh you know what uh steering so we're sending you home oh This is really cool. What do we got? Days of Future Past. And this comes with the game? I bought everything that I could buy from Marvel directly. Okay. And so the guy that is getting the 8-11 is getting a hardcover with all of the related stories. He doesn't even know it. He doesn't know it. Yeah, he doesn't even know it. Who is it, Ed Robertson? Who is it? And then, I don't know, somebody bought it on our website. Wow. I think. Okay. Yeah. So I don't even know who it is. But whoever he is, yeah, his plaque is special. Okay. So his game is going to be one of one. You know? I love the detail. Yeah. And so, and folks that bought the LEs might see some of these. I don't know. Okay. Kind of like those Deadpool swords. Everybody, thank you, George. Thank you. Appreciate it. Anytime, Chris. Anytime. Just call, you know? Yes. We talk on Facebook at random hours. you're always up early. You're up when my kids are up. Yeah, this business, man. You're a 6 a.m. guy like me. All right, everybody. Take it easy.
    52:18
    Baby