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Jack Guarnieri 2016 JJP update

Pintastic New England·video·51m 1s·analyzed·Jun 3, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Jack Guarnieri 2016 JJP factory update: WoZ/Hobbit production, redemption success, quality improvements, industry growth.

Summary

Jack Guarnieri, founder of Jersey Jack Pinball, presents a 2016 update covering factory operations, production milestones for The Wizard of Oz and The Hobbit games, redemption software success, quality improvements via update kits, and personal reflections on his 41-year career in pinball—from repair technician to manufacturer. He emphasizes the industry's growth trajectory and the importance of customer support.

Key Claims

  • The Wizard of Oz sold out in April 2016 with back orders still pending; had ~150 units at end of previous year

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, discussing WoZ production and sales performance

  • Jersey Jack Pinball transitioned from building 15-17 WoZ games per week to building 15-17 Hobbit games per day

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, comparing production rates between game lines

  • The Hobbit has built more than 650 games with approximately 1,000 games on back order

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, discussing current production status

  • The Wizard of Oz redemption machines are earning $300-$700 per week, described as 'unheard of, spectacular' for pinball

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, citing location revenue performance

  • The Wizard of Oz was licensed as the first pinball redemption game in New Jersey

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, discussing regulatory achievement

  • Jersey Jack Pinball is shipping containers of games internationally to Germany, Netherlands, UK, Australia, and France

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, discussing international distribution

  • Jersey Jack Pinball will release a free update kit for The Hobbit to address left ramp ball trap issues and drop target spring improvements

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, announcing product improvements

  • Guarnieri has been working in pinball for 41 years (as of 2016), starting as a pinball mechanic in 1975

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, discussing career history

  • Pat Lawlor, designer of Addams Family, has come out of retirement to work on Jersey Jack Pinball's game number three

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, discussing new design hire

  • Jersey Jack Pinball is scheduling its 2016 open house for September 17th (moved from August due to daughter's pregnancy)

Notable Quotes

  • “My dream would be if there were 50 different companies making pinball machines. I think it's really great.”

    Jack Guarnieri@ 4:20 — Reflects vision for diverse, competitive pinball market; contrasts with prior monopoly era

  • “We're really at the beginning of a boom in pinball. We're not at the middle. We're not at the end curve. It's just starting. Because guess what? The whole world is finding out what we know.”

    Jack Guarnieri@ 3:37 — Optimistic market assessment; indicates belief in pinball's growth trajectory

  • “I'll be honest with you, it really hasn't sunk in that I have this pinball company. It was never something that I had a dream about. Sometimes it was a nightmare actually.”

    Jack Guarnieri@ 11:25 — Personal reflection on company founding; indicates business challenges despite current success

  • “If you have a dream, just do whatever you need to do at 100% and if you don't give up, you're not going to be able to fail.”

    Jack Guarnieri@ 11:43 — Personal business philosophy; motivational message to audience

  • “The Hobbit looks like a bug light. You know, bugs, all are drawn to all lights, and they're just amazed by what the game is.”

    Jack Guarnieri@ 15:39 — Describes strong location/casual player appeal and crowd magnetism

  • “Nothing's perfect. And one of my old sayings was, if it's not broke, it's not pinball, right? But we want your exact pinball to work.”

    Jack Guarnieri@ 14:06 — Acknowledges pinball complexity while committing to customer support

Entities

Jack GuarnieripersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyThe Wizard of OzgameThe Hobbit (Standard Edition)gamePat LawlorpersonJen GuarnieripersonMikeperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball expanding international distribution with regular shipments to multiple countries (Germany, Netherlands, UK, Australia, France); establishing global market presence

    high · Jack describes shipping containers going to multiple countries with 4-6 week transit times

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball experiencing unprecedented production scaling: transitioned from 15-17 games/week to 15-17 games/day for The Hobbit; maintaining separate boutique WoZ production line

    high · Jack explicitly compares production rates and describes dedicated manufacturing infrastructure for WoZ

  • ?

    community_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball actively hosting educational factory tours for school groups (sixth graders designing machines) with merchandise giveaways and Q&A sessions

    high · Jack describes multi-hour factory visit with 150+ students, prizes, and follow-up bookings for future years

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jersey Jack Pinball emphasizing customer support and iterative improvement over 'perfect' initial release; proactive approach to mechanical issues

    high · Jack states philosophy that 'nothing's perfect' and commits to free update kits and ongoing support for existing customer machines

  • $

    market_signal: The Wizard of Oz redemption machines showing strong location revenue ($300-700/week), establishing pinball redemption as viable commercial operator revenue stream

    high · Jack describes redemption earnings as 'unheard of, spectacular' and notes licensing achievement as first redemption pinball in New Jersey

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.153

0:00
Welcome. I didn't have lunch today, so I figured I might as well eat and invite all you guys to be here with us to eat. So thank you for sitting.
0:18
We'll do it all the time, pretty much. Actually, I'm thinking about it. I think I fed all of you last night, too, at the after party, right? So that's not a bad thing. I'm happy to do that. We're happy to do that. Everybody had a good time. I really like this show a lot, in spite of the fact that Gabe runs it.
0:37
You know, Gabe does a lot of work, and he takes criticism. Not well, but he takes criticism, and he takes suggestions, and I think it's a lot of work, and I appreciate what you did. So thank you. It's a bangler's job running a show, and he's the right guy to run it.
1:00
I don't know how that came out. All right, let's see how this thing works. Of course it doesn't work. It works. Okay, cool.
1:11
So this afternoon when I had nothing to do, I spent ten minutes and put this together so that I had something to show you guys. What we have here, a few weeks ago we had a school visit the factory. And our doors are open pretty much to everybody, every day of the week, weekdays. Sometimes on Saturdays we're doing a live simulcast on the 23rd with Buffalo Pinball guys. They're going to come and visit us. But pretty much this was a whole school of sixth graders that came. And they actually designed a pinball machine and they're really into pinball. and they were asking so many really great questions and we had a lot of fun with this. And the interesting thing is that the boys were like ants at a picnic around a lollipop on the floor with Hobbit and the girls were the same way around Wizard of Oz. And it's kind of an amazing thing. Not that the girls didn't play Wizard of Oz So the boys didn't play opposites, but it was pretty cool to see that. And they really had a great time. They asked a lot of questions, and they got a lot of answers. They got some prizes along the way for the tour. And they were there for about three hours. And here they are in my office. If anybody hasn't been in my office, it's about 800 square feet. And they all fit in there, and there was a question and answer. and I was signing play fields for them and trans lights and hats and all that kind of stuff. And everybody got something. And this was their next to last day of school. And this was a big treat to them. So we were happy to do it. And we have a number of different groups come, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts,

high confidence · Jack Guarnieri, announcing company event

Automate It
company
Gabeperson
Pintastic New Englandevent
Steve Ritchieperson
The Pinball Companycompany
Brooke Parkperson
Nick Parkperson
Adam Bordelucciperson
Spooky Pinballcompany
Dutch Pinballcompany
Highway Pinballcompany
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Pat Lawlor, legendary pinball designer, returning from retirement to design Jersey Jack Pinball's third game

    high · Jack states 'he came out of retirement to come back and work for Jersey Jack Pinball' and confirms Lawlor is working on game three

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack Pinball maintaining consistent playfields across multiple cosmetic tiers (standard, Smaug Special, color variants) rather than removing toys for lower tiers

    high · Jack explicitly states 'all our playfields are the same' and that differences are cosmetic only

  • ?

    product_strategy: The Hobbit receiving free update kit addressing left ramp ball trap and drop target spring issues affecting early production units

    high · Jack announces update kit for machines with 500-550 units shipped, addressing specific mechanical problems

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack Pinball confirming third game in development with designer Pat Lawlor; details unspecified at this presentation

    high · Jack mentions 'our game number three which everybody knows about' and confirms Pat Lawlor is working on it

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Jack Guarnieri reflects on initial skepticism/difficulty establishing Jersey Jack Pinball ('sometimes it was a nightmare') contrasting with current optimism about company trajectory

    medium · Jack notes 'There was a time where it wasn't so really good to be Jersey Jack Pinball, but it's really good to be Jersey Jack Pinball now'

    • 3:02
    you know, all kinds of groups that come to the factory. And here's a shot with most of them, I think almost all of them, at the end of the day. and they actually booked another day to come back next year. So the teacher was really happy and the kids were really happy and it was really cool. At these shows, what we see now is a lot of young people, even in this room, right? We have a lot of young people, girls, boys, moms, girlfriends, dads, families. And pinball is growing. We're really at the beginning of a boom in pinball. We're not at the middle. We're not at the end curve. It's just starting. Because guess what? The whole world is finding out what we know. And there's more pizza in the front, by the way, if anybody wants it. Seconds or thirds, whatever. You want to take them up to your room, whatever, it's fine with me. So this is just the beginning.
    3:57
    Having a lot of different people be involved with pinball. Having other companies instead of one company that's a monopoly that built pinball machines for 10 or 12 years. and we have a company now five and a half years old and you have a group of Dutch pinball guys and you have Spooky and you have Highway and you have a couple other people. I think it's great. My dream would be if there were 50 different companies making pinball machines. I think it's really great.
    4:27
    75th anniversary Wizard of Oz game. I think I'll probably have this license when I'm building the 100th anniversary Wizard of Oz game. So we had about 150 Wizard of Oz games at the end of last year before we switched over to Hobbit.
    4:43
    And a couple of people in my company, not my daughter Jen and I, but a couple of other people in the company were, oh my goodness, how are we going to get rid of these games? Well, we didn't get rid of anything. We sold out sometime in April, and we have back orders right now for Wizard of Oz. So what we did was we took a section of the building and we repurposed it, and these are some pictures taken a couple, a few weeks ago that I had on my phone. I should have taken some new ones. But the line, so we built a smaller boutique line for Wizard of Oz alone where we'll be able to build about 20, 25 Wizard of Oz games a week. So I know our biggest distributor in the world is Mike, the donor at Automated Services, and he's here with his lovely daughter, Michaela. and Mike has about 100 Wizard of Oz games on order right now, you know. So we'll be getting to build those in the next few weeks and it's really cool to have the building where, you know, we'll be able to make two different games at the same time. So there's another shot of the line as it was getting set up.
    5:50
    And Wizard of Oz, to me, your first game, I think, is always something that I'll never forget. I'll never forget the amount of trouble, the amount of effort, the amount of energy, the amount of money, the amount of detail, the amount of innovative things that went into this game to really make it what it is. And I still love playing the game. I still love to see the game. I still love hearing from people that have the game. The early adopters had some problems, but we worked through them. The later games, you know, they really had no problem, except pinball problems. And this pizza here, if you want to come in, this pizza down the front, you're welcome to it. Come on in.
    6:36
    This is a shot of a ticket dispenser mounted underneath a Wizard of Oz game, and we have what's called condension software. Are any of the kids playing the tournament today, the large tournament? Yeah, you won. Didn't you win second place? For the plays, right? Cool. So you actually played the Pindemption version.
    6:58
    Yeah. You actually played the Pindemption version of the game. So Pindemption is collapse rules where you could melt the witch quicker, and it's based on time play instead of ball play. So it's primarily for commercial operators to put it on a location, set the game up for two minutes, three minutes, and you can win tickets. This game shows physical tickets, but you can win virtual tickets also if you have a swipe card system. These games, we have about a dozen of them now out on location, and they're doing really well. Really well means they're doing between $300 and $700 a week, which for a pinball machine is unheard of, spectacular money. As a redemption game, it's the first pinball machine in the state of New Jersey actually licensed to be a redemption game, so we're pretty proud of that. And we'll do the same thing with Hobbit as well.
    7:50
    Here's another shot of it. More was it was. This is a polar bear and a snow-stolen Antarctica. So Hobbit. You know, I seem like I've been talking about this game forever. Come on in, have pizza, whatever. I seem like I'm talking about this game forever, but it's working out really well. This is a guy who runs another pinball show. Does anybody know who this guy is? Paysack. Mike Paysack. That's him, yeah. And he shows up different times of the year at our factory wearing different wacky kind of shirts. So I think this was around Fourth of July or maybe it was Memorial Day. I don't remember. It was a couple weeks ago when he was over. And right now with Hobbits, we're building 15, 16, 17 games a day, which is really cool. because at the beginning of Wizard of Oz, we were building about 15, 16, 17 games a week. So it's a big difference. We've built more than 650 games right now. We have about 1,000 games that are on back order. So did anybody order a Hobbit and still waiting for it? Cool. Anybody, you ordered a Hobbit and waiting for it? Get it next week. Next week you're going to get it. Good. Anybody order a Hobbit and get it? Okay. So that's good. Okay, good. We're still selling Hobbits every day, which is pretty cool. I expect that it'll be another few months that we'll be building Hobbit. Just got a text that was important. Stop texting me. I had to answer it. Sorry. I hate that. I hate when you see couples in restaurants and the texting and the knock there in the restaurant. That's another seminar.
    9:43
    So this is kind of what the building looks like. Part of it is a lot of games packed, ready to go. We've been shipping containers of games to Germany, to the Netherlands, to the U.K. Australia just got a container shipped the other day. Another one went to France. So, you know, these things go in the water. They take about a month, five weeks to get there, six weeks, four weeks, depending on where in the world they're going. and it's pretty cool to see them all lined up ready to go. It's a lot of fun to see that and be where we are right now. I'm really happy about it. Different models of the Hobbit we know, the standard game, the Smaug Special Edition,
    10:26
    and this is a Smaug, different things about the game. Everybody kind of knows that. What we do different, if anybody doesn't know, all our play fields are the same. So you have all the same amount of toys between the different models. We don't take anything off of them or change the play field around much. It's pretty much cosmetics between the games. I don't want to really confuse what the market is on the game. So if you wanted a gold game with the smell graphic, that's what you bought. if you want the LE and you want everybody on it, all the characters, you bought a different version game.
    11:06
    And this is kind of cool, you know, if I go in the building on a... I'm there pretty much every day except when I'm not. So if you go in on a Saturday morning and, you know, everything's running and it's burning in over the weekend, it's kind of cool for me to walk around there and see what was created because of our customers and because of demand. It's been five and a half years. I'll be honest with you, it really hasn't sunk in that I have this pinball company. It was never something that I had a dream about. Sometimes it was a nightmare actually, but I really didn't have a dream that I'm going to have a pinball company. But I have to say, if you have a dream, just do whatever you need to do at 100% and if you don't give up, you're not going to be able to fail. And this company is a testament to the customers that believe in it and believe in me. And the testament to the people that work for the company for the product we build and are very proud of it. This is an interesting picture. So there are a few things on the Hobbit that need improvement. And if you have one, you know it. So the left ramp, the way we built them in first caused a ball trap. and the beasts themselves. Maybe we'll close those doors because there's a lot of noise out there.
    12:30
    Thank you. Thank you very much. So the ball seems to get caught in some of the beast necks.
    12:38
    And our drop targets you know Wizard of Oz we had one drop target On Hobbit we have 11 And they all cycle up and down like really crazy So if you played a game like Jumpin Jacks that has you know 10 drop targets you'd think it was down once or twice in the game. These drop targets, that's a lot better. These drop targets really cycle hundreds of times during a game. So the springs on them are really, they're springs that was always on drop targets in pinball. Well, they weren't good enough for us, so we redesigned new springs. and so we have a few items that we're going to be sending to all our customers that got Hobbits already and we've made these changes in the factory. So we'll have a Hobbit update kit.
    13:28
    We'll have a Hobbit update kit so that anybody with 500 or 550 games, we'll send that stuff out for free. I'll probably make a real formal announcement even though I'm being recorded right now. This will be on social media in 30 seconds and everybody will be emailing me, where the hell is my update kit? That's the wonderful thing about social media. It's really wonderful because without it we wouldn't have a company. Anyway, the point is that we want to always improve what we do. We recognize that making a pinball machine is really, it's a process, right? So nothing's perfect. And one of my old sayings was, if it's not broke, it's not pinball, right? But we want your exact pinball to work. And we want to support the product because you deserve that. You paid a lot of money for it or it's on location. I don't really want the ball getting stuck somewhere where mechanically it's going to get stuck and it's kind of silly and all that. So we're to take care of that problem. Here's a shot of me and I'm with Brooke and Nick Park, so at the Pinball Company. They're great distributors of ours. That's in St. Louis. I've been traveling around the world pretty much every weekend, every other weekend, I'm somewhere else. The really good thing about this show is it's kind of like the last show for the summer, I think. I don't have anything next weekend, the weekend after or whatever, so there's a little break in the action and I was out there and those guys do a really tremendous job for us. They had a really big open house and it was really great. These are two crazy guys. The guy from Shorty's, Abu, and one of our other crazy customers who I love. This is at Tacoma at a show. And really the excitement that players have, customers have, they don't have to buy a Hobbit or a Wizard of Oz. They play the games and they love the games and it's really great. We don't, you know, I don't have to say that, you know, you have to buy a game to have fun, especially when they're on location.
    15:30
    There's a show at Allentown where Hobbit was, and the game is just people pile around the game. It's like one of my customers, an operator said it's like a bug light. You know, bugs, all are drawn to all lights, and they're just amazed by what the game is.
    15:49
    Actually, that's my dad playing Hobbit. the amusement park show. So somebody's supposed to stay in there.
    15:58
    That's at one of the shows too before the show got started. So what I did differently today was I kind of decided, let me show you guys some pictures that I haven't shown.
    16:11
    This is me on social media in 1971. Newspaper. So this is me next to my a CV radio that cost me 25 bucks. It cost my mom 25 bucks. And, you know, it's kind of what the internet is today, only it was a little bit different. You know, you got to actually verbalize and talk. And, you know, being a kid in Brooklyn, I met a lot of friends that I still have today. And it was a lot of fun. And my son Jack, the poor kid, kind of looks like this guy in the picture now. And he's 26. So I think in this picture I probably weighed about 115 pounds and it was a lot of fun. I don't think I still have that cowlick in my hair, but this is at one of the science fairs, an electronic shop. And an electronic shop, in high school I went to South Shore High School and they had like a really high end electronic shop where I learned a lot and I built a lot of things.
    17:13
    And my only problem was in one of the semesters between a marking period, I just decided not to go to any of my other classes and I decided just to stay in the electronics shop because I loved it so much and my teacher, Mr. D'Amico, rest in peace, actually let me do that. So at the end of the marking period, I was called down to the principal's office, Dr. Lawrence Feigenbaum, who was kind of like the Wizard of Oz, this little guy behind a big desk and you know I got a 99 in electronics, which I should have, and I got a 40 in everything else. And he said, Guarneri, what's the matter with you? And I said, you know, I just want to do electronics. Well, you can't, you're not going to get out of high school if you don't do all this other stuff. So I did all the other stuff and I got out on time. And there's another picture of me. This is probably 1975 when I first got a job working for Jetco amusements and that tool cases Jensen JTK 17 that they still make at that time it probably cost me 180 bucks for it which was probably more than two weeks take home pay today I looked online the other day for this tool kit and it's a thousand it's like twelve to thirteen hundred dollars today it's kind of crazy so that was a lot of fun I was going to take a job for six months before I was going to college to become an electrical engineer. I was going to Hofstra University and I decided, you know what, I'm going to take six months off and I'll go get a job doing anything. So the quick story is I went, answered an ad to be a clerk at a shipping company and I got the job and the guy said to me, what do you really want to do with your life? I said, you know, I want to do electronics, something in electronics. So he walked over to the shelf.
    19:09
    And he turned an AM or FM radio on and off. And he said, this is the most you're going to do here with electronics. So I left. I said, thank you. I guess I'm not taking this job. So I got back on the train to go home. And there was a newspaper folded up on the train seat. And it had an ad in it for what was called a pinball mechanic. Pinball mechanic. I had a friend at the time that was working for a company fixing pinball machines from an electronic shop. And he wasn't really that smart. And I said, you know, if he could do that, I could do that too. I answered the ad, and after a couple of days of running back and forth to Times Square, I was hired, and I was hired by a gentleman who's actually a picture of I don't have right now at the moment, but his name was Heinz. And he was a German guy that was in the business preparing games for 30 years. Now, I'll mark how old I am. I'm doing this now 41 years, okay? So Heinz was doing it 30 years, and he interviewed me, and he said, you know how to solder?
    20:10
    Yeah. You know how to read a schematic? Yeah. And a few other questions, and I got hired. And I wound up repairing electromechanical pinball machines, just like these, at all the colleges in the New York metropolitan area. So this picture was taken at CW Post in Glen Cove, Long Island. and I was at NYU and I was at Columbia and I was at Rutgers and I was all over the place. So, you know, I went to college. I went to every one of those colleges.
    20:45
    If somebody says, did you attend Columbia University? Yes, I did. I attended Columbia University, except I attended there to repair games. So I don't think it really hurt me. So, you know, even the young people today, you know, my children went to college and it cost us a lot of money, and they work for my company now, which I don't regret. I think it's a great thing. There still is a need for people to be pinball mechanics. There's a need for people to be plumbers. There's a need for somebody to stop calling my cell phone.
    21:17
    Okay. And, you know, it's pretty cool. So there's a picture of me. Maybe I weighed 120 pounds in this picture. And this is New Year's Eve, 1977.
    21:32
    I remember it very vividly. I'm wearing my Huckapoo shirt, and somebody took a candid picture of me. And that was one of the games I had in my mom's basement, a Captain Kidd. It was kind of funny.
    21:47
    So there I am in, you know, this is like watching somebody's vacation movies. What the hell? It doesn't go forever. I promise. This is a show in 1978 at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago. And these trade shows were attended by thousands and thousands and thousands of people. You couldn't get in. You know, wall to wall. Just like Gabe's event here. No, actually.
    22:20
    Thousands of people. And here I am with a Bigfoot in the background. If I knew then, I probably would have posed with the Bigfoot instead of Lost World. And actually, last year at FX, I found the Lost World. Not that I could actually recreate the picture. I don't think I look that much worse for the wear, but the game still looks the same anyway.
    22:50
    Last picture of me, I think. So this is before Saturday Night Fever. This is actually Easter of 1977 and I think Saturday Night Fever came out in November of 1977. John Travolta never paid me any royalty for this at all. So I was actually, maybe I was 123 pounds in that picture. And I could definitely not fit in that white suit today, that's for sure.
    23:17
    This was a trade show and look how skinny I was. There's a trade show in 1990, and these people, Wally and Dinah Roberts from Coney Island, this was an IAAPA show in 1990 in Washington, D.C. And IAAPA is the Amusement Park Association, International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. In those years, nobody from the coin-operated amusement business went to IAAPA, because IAAPA was only for people that, you know, did stuff with amusement parks. The coin-operated amusement business had its own shows, And if you were from the coin-operated amusement business and you went to that show, it was like they wanted to throw you out the door.
    23:55
    Today, the major show for the amusement industry, it's really not coin-operated anymore, is IAAPA. It's a November show where they've combined everything. So I used to go to those shows just to see what was going on and to see my other customers and stuff like that.
    24:11
    Yeah, I thought this was an interesting picture. Sure. You know, this is me in 1990, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were real popular. I had an arcade in Jackson, New Jersey, Jackson Family Arcade, and that's Michelangelo. But actually more important than that is my congressman, Chris Smith, standing on the other side of the turtle. And Chris Smith is a high-ranking congressman today, still working for the U.S. government. People don't even run against him. He's so good. and he's still a friend and he's a great guy so it was kind of cool. Mike, you called me. Did you need me? Did you call me pocket dialing me by accident? I'm sorry, I used my smartphone. Okay.
    24:54
    So, you know, if anybody else needs me, you don't have to call me on the phone. You just say, you know, I got a problem.
    25:00
    Alright. There's my other congressman. This is a guy by the name of Pat Lawler and he's designed some really great games. Some of them behind him, Adam's family and my house and that kind of stuff. And this was at his house. He has every number one game that he designed in his game collection. And he a pretty cool guy I happy that he came out of retirement to come back and work for Jersey Jack Pinball And he working on our game number three which everybody knows about right Everybody knows Good.
    25:42
    So here's a shot of a few of the people. Last year we had an open house. We've had one pretty much every year. And this year we're having an open house. We throw open the doors of the company. This year it will be September 17th. Usually we do it in August, but if anybody knows Jen, my daughter that basically runs the company, she's pregnant with her first child, which is a little girl. Her name is Olivia Catherine, and she's due in August. So I didn't want to take a chance that, well, we're going to have an open house and Jen's water broke and let's go to the hospital because it's not good. So we moved the show to the 17th. We're really excited about that.
    26:28
    Here's a shot of me and my dad at IAAPA. And my dad's 90, and he lives down in Orlando. And he's still got all those marbles, which is pretty cool. And he's, you know, my best friend, aside from my wife, my advisor. My dad was an accountant for many years, and I learned a lot about business from him. He was a great guy.
    26:52
    I don't know what the hell this is. This is a picture of the sky in Asbury Park the other night. And I just thought it was so pretty. I went to Asbury Park. Has anybody been there? The Silver Bowl Museum. So, you know, it was really cool. Someday the boardwalk was packed with people. It was a beautiful day. You know, we walked around, my wife and I. We had a nice dinner and a couple drinks. And we went to the museum. And Joanne didn't play any pinball machines. And I did. And we went outside and the sky was just like that. So, you know, I think this picture just says from me to you guys, you know, life's too short. take a little time, not just to play a pinball, but to spend time with your family and stop and smell the roses and look at the sky and the beauty of what God put here for all of us. We really need to appreciate each other more. And, you know, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. So I didn't say that, but Gandhi did. So we've got to have a little bit more kindness in this world. And I think pinball is a really cool way to do that. You know, it's really cool that we make a product that brings smiles to people's faces. I don't think I could ever be involved with a product that wasn't a fun product. Help yourself. There's plenty of pizza down there, too.
    28:06
    So this is some pictures from today, actually, that got thrown in there. This was a shot of this morning's tournament. It was the kids' tournament on the Pindemption Game, and a lot of kids participated in that. It was really cool to see that.
    28:19
    The 200 Foundation. Some of you met Adam Bordelusi. He's done some really great work. He doesn't take any money from his foundation. And it's many, many years old. They've donated, you know, I believe it's hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity. And it's really cool to be a small part of it. Mike's company and my company are part of what Adam does. So we're really proud of that, too.
    28:45
    This is a shot of Gabe this morning being really, Gabe, disorganized. He really didn't know what the hell he was doing. So he puts on a good show. The good thing is he's not here right now to hear this, but he'll watch it somewhere probably in about six months. He'll figure it out.
    29:01
    Here's a shot of Adam and Steve Ritchie and Mike the Donut and myself before. We were climbing around taking a bunch of pictures, and Steve is a really good friend of mine, and it's nice that we get to see each other at shows. and I don't know if this is a shot of the banner from the after party last night that you guys went to here's a shot of this guy Mike with his dinner last night part of it yeah he had a small rack I think he ordered the whole hog Bobby May and Lloyd little Bobby he was not so little anymore they kind of missed out they had to go after Lloyd had his LTG show last night and our timing was way off This is a Holley dealership, so for those of you that have Holley's, I don't know why this is in here, but it's in here. Just in case you want to buy a Holley. And I wanted to give everybody a little preview of what my new business is. Some people know me for a really long time, and they know that I always like a challenge. And the company's been a challenge, but it's been really good. There was a time where it wasn't so really good to be Jersey Jack, but it's really good to be Jersey Jack now. This is a coconut stand on the road to Hana. If you kind of look at the picture, the picture hangs by my office, by my desk. This is my next business. Really my inventory is on the right side. I have a tree with all the coconuts. If you look closely at the picture, maybe you can't see it, in the middle there's a table and there's a coconut on the table and there's a machete on the table. And that's my workspace. And on the left side are the coconuts that have been split open already. And that's the refuse that's going to be picked up, that's going to be recycled. And I think if I had this little coconut stand on the road to Hana, I could be really happy. You know, I could sell coconuts and apple bananas. So maybe you might find me over there soon. I don't know, not soon, but maybe like 20 or 30 years from now, you know, because I'm not, my dad's 90. So probably good genetics run in the family anyway. So I'm not, I got a, I got a little bit way to go, God willing. So I think that's, I think that's about it. I'm willing to take a few questions. Yes, that distinguished looking gentleman in the back. Two questions. First, about how many people do you employ? You can tell he's Italian.
    31:42
    He's talking like this. No matter how many people that do your blood. How many people do you employ at the factory? And since you've been in the business so long,
    31:52
    What am I getting out, right? What is really, from the perspective of the 70s, the perspective of the 90s, the perspective of today, what's changed to make it, again, involved coming back, the young people being here? Well, so the first part is, you know, there's about 60, 70 people, something like that, work for the company. We have an 8,000 square foot office in Bensonville, Illinois. Our people that work there are some of our designers, some of our programmers, some of our engineering people, and they go to Portillo's Hot Dogs and they bump into the people from Stern Pinball and that's always a joy. So, you know, there's a whole bunch of people in the factory and And when we need extra people, we call an on-demand labor kind of thing. So we bring in extra people to build games. The second part of the question, everybody here, there are people here that love VMs. There might be people here that love wood rails. There might be people here that love different version, electronic version games,
    32:54
    whatever version board system you want to go to, to whatever manufacturer. The common thread is that there's this metal ball rolling around on the play field and that ball is going to do things that you can make it do and the ball is going to do things that you don't want it to do. And kind of like pinball is like the game of life in a way because we know one day we're all not going to be here and one day your ball is going to train down the middle and you're going to lose the ball no matter how good you are. That's what's going to happen. I think the part about it really is the tactile, mechanical part of the game that we can get involved with. And the skill level. You know, it's a skill game. So, you know, I play video games. I love video games. I'm sure all of us love video games. But when you get really good at a video game, you get really good at a video game. You know, pinball, if you get really good, somebody not so good could always beat you one day. So I think that's kind of what it is. I think, I'll say this. When I had pinballsales.com, I still have pinballsales.com, and when that company was really busy and I had a lot of games in my building, and you might come in with your son and say, you know, son, I want to show you this game I played when I was in high school. Spirit of 76, you know? So the kid would walk over to the game, look at the game, shoot the ball, and walk away from the game before the ball went anywhere.
    34:15
    And today, you know, I've said it many times, You have young people a year and a half old in a stroller playing on an iPad. So it's really difficult to make something that, to me, there's no disrespect, has one picture on the back box and one color for score, and that's going to satisfy the playing public. And that's why Wizard of Oz is what it is. Does anybody know? I'll ask a question. Anybody know why there's a 27-inch HD LCD monitor in the Wizard of Oz? Does anybody know why? Anybody? Anybody? Because I couldn't put anything in there bigger. That's why. So that's what I think is bringing new people to love pinball. I think it's new technology and instead of one company making it where everybody thought it was one was the last company making it, you have a bunch of different people now excited about it and bring more people together. You saw anybody at the auction knows only one person bidding on something isn't really an option. You need two people. So two people make it more exciting. Three and four and five and everybody plays off each other and that's called competition. That's a really great thing.
    35:26
    That was a long ass answer. Another question anybody? Yes, in the corner. Did you keep the first automation games up? Yes. Actually, game number one, I know where game number one is, Emerald City Limited Edition and we have a few prototype games. There's actually somebody here today that bought one of the prototype games. There are about 15 of those. The only problem with the prototype is they can't be updated. Yes? You go by, you sometimes go by historic, evolved designs and ask yourself, should we use what features are on the old design better in a way? So you're asking if we could repurpose some things from older games for newer games, right? So, you know, I think everybody does that, right? You see different designers, and if you know what Pat does, and if you know what Steve does, and if you know what other designers do, they have their favorite things. They like shots through bumpers, they like a right flipper, they like a subway, they like those things. It's like a songwriter going back to some melody that he liked or something like that. But the challenge with these games is, like everything else in life, it has a special, you know, it's got a finite size to it, right? So you only have so many musical notes to write a song with. You only have so much area to make a pinball machine with. And it's more challenging. I think that's a good part of the LCD, where the LCD is not just in the game to be a piece of hardware in the game. It's there to enhance your player experience and the people's experience watching it. So, you know, I don't think, you know, I'm not big on remake games. Because we made Wizard of Oz one way and we wanted Hobbit to look completely different. So, TASCAM is going to look completely different again. So, you try to change it up and innovate.
    37:18
    Yes? Jack, I went to an Al-Aqsa show many, many years ago. And I remember seeing you there and now as I've been there a little while. I don't know if this was just a twinkle in your eye or if you decided later. but I'm very interested in the fact that you said you have to innovate. You can't stay stale and you can't hide. And that's been the situation with any industry. Music, film, if you stick your head in the sand, someone's going to come up with something else and they're going to go by the wayside.
    37:52
    Stern just recently signed a contract with Pinball Arcade and they're going to start creating all the stern machines like ACDC. They originally did a Kickstarter, but then I guess they must have stepped in and said, we're interested in this, and they signed a contract. Where are you as far as your machines as far as coming in and saying hey we like to be involved in the digital industry because a lot of us don have an airplane hangar to put all of our favorite machines in front of the funds But we'd like to own machines. Are you afraid of that technology? No. You say, hey, this can be something to spur on people to say, I play it digitally, now I want to own it in real life. Right. So let me say a couple things about that. First of all, Stern, I think Stern is great. actually. I was Stern's biggest distributor for many years. I think what they're doing is great. They have a customer base for it that obviously loves their product. I never started Jersey Jack Pinball to put Stern out of business. That wasn't the thing. It was just we wanted to make great games and that's what we strive to do. One day you decide to do something. I never had a plan. It wasn't a plan from 5, 10, 12 years ago. It just happened. It evolved. There was no master plan to it. As far as the digital assets go, you know, we licensed the two games we did so far were from Warner Brothers. So if we do digital pinball machines, we need to pay them more money. I need to go back and get a different license. With Pat Lawler's game, you don't have a movie, okay? It's not a TV show. It's original. It's an original idea, all right? So original idea games are difficult because nobody knows what the heck it is. You've got to build a storyboard around it. So instead of us spending, let's just take a number. Instead of spending $200,000 to license something, and you have assets from a movie to use, now you have to spend $300,000 to create everything from nothing and have a bunch of different artists and programmers and everybody do everything.
    39:55
    I would do something with Pat's game in digital media if it made sense. I don't have a problem with that. I think Brad from VP Cabs, I love his games. I think the people that can't have an airplane hangar could play all those different pinball machines. And okay, maybe it's not real pinball. Maybe if you're a pinball purist, it's not real pinball. But guess what? It's closer to real pinball than nothing. So it's not a bad thing. Plus it's not as hard an interest. Yeah. There's people who will play. People play it and then they go play the real game. Yeah, I think it's really great. I'm not afraid of that. I'm really not afraid of anything at this point. And the difference with BP cabinet, I talked to him, by the way, is if you look at... This is a commercial for him? Because he's a great guy. It's like a sheet of paper. It's too flat. But if you look at pinball arcade, you have 3D depth to the table, and it's really starting to take leaps and bounds. And the physics are starting to get better and better. And we all know about technology advances. There's going to come a time, I'm not saying it's going to replace, but if the U.S. is going to innovate, I would see the game, I would see game operators perhaps want to try to put the game out on location commercially. However, we had Hyperpin, we had Ultracade, we had a few other commercial games that were based on real Williams pinball machines that had the right emulators working them so that it felt like a pinball machine. They went out commercially and they failed miserably.
    41:31
    So, you know, it's not really what I want. It's really what the public wants, the customer wants, or what they'll accept and what they'll play. But I think we should keep trying, even though if you fail a bunch of different times. Listen, I probably failed thousands of times within the company, but overall I didn't fail. I made a lot of mistakes. I made mistakes every day. If I didn't admit that, it would be really silly. Next question.
    41:57
    That guy again. You mentioned the licensing of the Hobbit and Wizard of Oz. from the companies that make the movies. Did they have any kind of right of refusal on the machines? Did they have to see the final product before the deal went through? Yeah, so... And what was their reaction when they saw... I know when I saw it, like it was a box, I thought it was the greatest piece of pinball I had ever seen. Was their reaction as surprised as some of us were when you saw it? So with Hobbit, you know, I've been through this many times, but for people that are here, I'll be brief about it. Hobbit was supposed to be two movies. It became three movies. And then what happened with it was Peter Jackson is notorious for keeping everything a secret. So as we got further into the game, we didn't really get all the assets of the game. And what happened with Hobbit was my license actually ran out at the end of last year. It was so long, which was amazing. And I had to go back to Warner Brothers and renew the license, which we did, extended several more years if I needed it or not. but the point was that everything that you do is in segments so you don't go to them the last day and say hey guess what I got this thing I made that took us x millions of dollars and three years to make two years to make what do you think about it you're getting approvals on every little thing that goes along all the artwork that's submitted all the videos that are submitted all the music that's submitted so it's hundreds I mean we have binders this big of approvals And then there are things that get rejected. They come back in red. You have to change this. You can't put a ball here. You can't do this. You can't say that. And that's the downside of doing a licensed product. You know, if you just want to be cut and paste and make a lunchbox, okay, you just take their assets they have online and you just paste it onto whatever and it sails right through. But when you start interpreting some of that stuff differently, which is the habit of, I guess, come on in. You want pizza? No. You want pizza? No, not pizza. I'm just here to listen. Get out. No, I'm saying.
    44:08
    What's your name? George. George, come on in. We're a friendly group. Let's everybody welcome George.
    44:17
    And if you want pizza, there's like 12 pizzas down there. I already ate like 100. There you go. Get after my own life. So, yeah, so that's the approval process for licenses. We have a few more licenses that we secured. Next game's coming along, there'll be licenses. Perhaps again, there'll be an unlicensed game too. Anybody else? Yes. You started this company at a very interesting time. It shows some either you knew that the industry was on an upswing or had the potential for an upswing, but you had an idea that I can do something that's going to create a market where it wasn't the Williams' book. However, I could collapse into the Bulletin. What gave you the idea? What was the inspiration? So, you know, it's interesting that you ask that question. And, you know, there was a big recession, if anybody remembers it. I'm sure some people as well are recovering from it. So in January of 2011, there really wasn't great economic times. and Pinball was not really selling much. We really didn't, our sales were down for a few years too.
    45:34
    I'm not saying I'm a genius or visionary or anything like that. I just felt if you built a product that people wanted, you could be successful. And having the customer base of pinballsales.com was roughly 13 or 14,000 customers at that time. And I felt that if they got behind the company and they believed in the company would build a really good game, and they would actually put money up and wait for the game, well, we're going to go build that game. And, you know, I don't say it wasn't difficult. Obviously, you know, people read a lot of things. There were people that were in our favor. There were some people against us. There were, you know, all of that kind of stuff. Because you have, in every industry, you're not going to have everybody cheering on the sideline. We hope everything's good. We had people that put bombs in the middle of the roadway for us to step on landmines to blow us up and prevent us from doing anything. And you wonder if some of those people loved pinball or what they loved or not. But, you know, I am not somebody to bet against. I've never been. It doesn't mean I can jump out a window and fly. But if I jumped out the window, I'd probably learn how to fly before I hit the ground. You know, they're a great infrastructure support system that I have in my life. It's my family. It's a lot of dear, it's a number of dear friends that gave me encouragement. And it's our customer base, and that's what we owe the company to. And, you know, if something really doesn't kill you, it kind of makes you stronger. But it also makes you smarter because a lot of mistakes were made that you really shouldn't repeat again. with startup companies. You know, everybody statistically probably, like the first five years, X amount of companies fail or whatever. But companies fail at a 70 years old because they have mismanagement, they don't have the vision, they don't have the direction, they don't have the right people. You know, the company's not based on the game. The company's really based on the people in the company. That's what makes any company. You know, if this hotel and people here don't clean the rooms, or they're rude, or they do other things, they can have the most beautiful facility on planet Earth and they'll have no customers. So it's about really listening to your customer. Whatever business you have, you really can't get so smug and stupid to believe that you know everything. I don't know anything. I try to surround myself with people that know a lot more than me, so I'm like the dumbest guy in the group. Having all the experience I have, I'd still love to be the dumbest guy in the room. That showed me that I chose the right people to be in the company.
    48:08
    Yes. A couple more and then I'm going to let you guys be in peace and go back and play some games. When are you going to tell us what Pat's game is all about? I'm going to tell you what Pat's game is all about when his game is ready. And the only reason I would do that is if I tell you what it is right now without showing you what the game is, you will have no clue what it is. It's just like the people that raided the Wizard of Oz online before all the code was done. It wasn't fair to the game, the company or anything. You know, Pat's game. The good thing about Pat's game, what's a few good things about Pat's game? We didn't take any pre-orders. We didn't take any money. We don't need any money, okay? Which is a great thing to say. Like Forrest Gump, you know, when he got that letter in the mail from Apple, and he said, well, we invested in a fruit company, and now we don't need no more money, and that's a good thing. Well, that's kind of how I feel. So thankfully, I don't need your money right now. There will be like a pre-order thing with it. It'll be very short. I envision, I don't know if this is for sure, and his game will be the first game that we ever do so far that will be on time. Because I won't announce it until it's done. So it will definitely be on time.
    49:15
    You got that? Even you got that, George. So, you know, we're learning. Again, we're still building a lot of Hobbits. We're probably building another couple thousand Hobbits. So if today I wheeled in Pat's game, maybe two or three, you might cancel a Hobbit and say, let me wait for Pat's game. But that's not really a fear of mine. We still have people buying Wizard of Oz. And when we had Pat's Game and Hobbit and Wizard of Oz, guys would buy all three and didn't buy any of them yet. You know what? I thought this guy would be out of business, but to see him after six or seven years in the business, I might as well buy his games. What the hell? So it's a good thing. So that's probably what I'll tell you on what's going on. And I didn't pick a show. I didn't pick a date. I didn't pick a place. I didn't pick a time. It's just kind of nebulous right now. It's kind of out there. And we're working on the game after that, too. We started that also. So that's pretty good.
    50:09
    Anybody else? So, honestly, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank all of you for loving pinball machines. Because if you didn't, none of us would be here. No. If you didn't, I think all of our lives would be a little bit less full. I don't want to make it that pinball is like the most important people in everybody's life. Obviously, in some of our lives, it's more important than others. It's probably more important in my life than maybe all of you. Or it's probably more important in Mike's life than all of you. But there's more good things coming. We're really at the beginning. So promote it, push it, play it, have fun with it, and just enjoy it. Thank you all. Thank you.
    50:58
    Thank you.