And we're going to talk about things he's seen in the world of pinball. I'll leave the chart of vocabulary that we might use just in case it's needed. Oh, I was just going to interject. I don't have anything formal, as David and I have talked about. Obviously I've touched a lot of different things in the 40 plus years that I've been more actively involved with pinball. I'm forgetting about my ill spent youth where I didn't play because it was outlawed in Chicago. So I've never come up with formal presentations the way that Greg and Dennis had earlier for those who sat in. It's a slideshow on what Dave just did a little while ago, which was incredibly impressive to try to bring back history and really kind of make notation as to what has transpired over time. So, I've always tried to leave it somewhat open-ended rather than having something that's a canned presentation. I'm hoping that no one is disappointed in that and that, you know, ideally there's going to be some give-and-take as to whatever questions and whatever information you may want that I can share with you. So, I I just wanted to preface that and I'll turn it back over to my moderator. Yeah. So, one thing I bumped into about a month ago, I was online, I was looking for some trade shows I could attend. I was looking at electronics and computer fields, but I stumbled across the licensing show. Okay. And you probably go to that. I could see that this big show, hundreds of booths and these companies that are the licensors who take the booths trying to get people like you to come and do a licensing deal. And when they see a pit bull guy walking around, are they thinking, oh, this is small times? Or are they thinking, this is going to be good? Well, it's interesting, and I'll give you a little bit of back history. My background, just real briefly, I was in advertising. I was a copywriter and a comic exec, won some awards. I switched over into publishing and was the associate editor of GQ magazine and then ultimately the managing editor. I started officially at Williams as the director of marketing in April of 1988. In 1987, in New York City, and I was still living in New York, there was a licensing show. It was held at the Hill. And I thought, God, this is kind of interesting. Let me go check it out. And to Dave's point, I mean, it was, number one, it was much smaller in scope than what it has now become. And having gone now for, my math is terrible, but 87 until now, that's a few years, I guess. Probably a few more than I'd like to count. But I remember back to what Tom Neiman had accomplished during the days of Valley. and for those who go back that far or have encountered gains from that era, such as Wizard, Captain Fantastic, the original Rolling Stones, and the list goes on and on. First kiss. First kiss. It really made an impact. What's fascinating, and I'm going to digress for a minute, hopefully I'll get back to remember where I was at, but hopefully this also is somewhat of interest to everybody. If it's not, just raise your hand and I can switch to whatever else. But back at that point in time in the mid 1970s, there was a transition that was going on. And that transition that was going on was from electromechanical to solid state. For those who may not remember, there was an incredible advertising campaign that Avis had started saying that they were trying harder to be number one. And they made everybody believe that they were actually number two. They weren't. They were number three. Well, Bally had the vision, if you will, to really embrace this whole idea of solid-state electronics and started with bow and arrow or a couple of games that they did both ways and so on. And a fellow by the name of Bernie Powers would go around running these, in quotes, schools and seminars at all the various distributorships trying to explain to operators how this was going to change their world. Games are going to be more reliable. Please, no laughter. Games are going to be less expensive. Again, no laughter to that one either. Because we're going to get rid of all this old stuff and do this. And the compelling part to all of that was that Bally was a week number three. I mean, Gottlieb was the premier, absolutely, and no pun intended on that one. Williams was number two, and Bally was three. Well, Bally shot up to being number one, not only because of the technology, but more importantly, because they put a face and an identity to pinball that hadn't existed before. And I say that because of the strength of the Wizard Game and Camp Fantastic and so on from that first generation of licensed games. The other companies kind of followed little bits, dribs and drabs. Nothing really was done. And in 1987, as I walked around, and I was not admittedly working at Williams at that point in time, I had presented them back in 1980. I had worked on a game with Steve Epstein, my dear, dear friend, the owner, now co-owner, I guess, of Modern Pinball NYC. I'll give Steve a plug. Please go to 26th and 3rd in New York and see a miraculous place, 33 pinball machines. It's great. And Steve was the owner of the Broadway Arcade, which had its own fame. But truly, I saw some opportunity to, number one, do another design and still have the bug. I think the last game that I had actually done was Cyclops in 85 with Game Plan. The game that Steve and I had worked on, which started off as being Las Vegas, became Bericora. For those who may have seen it or know anything about it, there's stories about that as well. But I presented a couple of different things to Williams in particular. One was a game designer, another one. The second was I wanted to launch a consumer magazine, a game magazine. I had taken over Video Games Magazine back in like 84, 83. I'd taken over Video Games Magazine. Small publisher, Pumpkin Press. I started another magazine called Easy Home Computer. I was doing writing for Electronic Games with Arnie Katz, Joyce Worley, and Bill Kunkel, who were three notable people within the video game world of journalism back in that era. And I really thought that there was something there. And if you ever have a chance, and who knows if it's available, you'll see that I did a heck of a lot of coin op coverage within Video Games magazine, even putting it on covers, and even giving away games. I just wanted to be able to expand the scope and the presence of what was out there in the real world, and not just the balls and video games. I try to understand no saying that, too. So those are two of the things that I really wanted to do. And I approached Williams, and they were evaluating the game design and whatever else. I approached them with the idea of helping me launch the premier issue of this coin operated magazine. And what I wanted them to do was to, excuse me for a minute, let me snap both of them ready. I wanted them to put the premier issue and all their games that were going out the door, figuring that, you know, those games would ultimately go out into location, location to put magazines out, people could take it for free and at that point on hopefully they would subscribe. I mean we didn't have the internet in other ways to actually launch things and having been part of the process of new magazine launches, I also did a magazine called Exercise for Men Only which is remarkably what 30 plus years is still on newsstand today. Not the original issues, I mean the subsequent new ones that they've done. But I hope that... What would be the content of this magazine? Would it just encourage players to continue to be players? It would have been... I had actually gotten brought in... Again, sorry for the segue, but a good question. Atlantis Castles was a chain. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that. Yeah, there was something around here. They were in mall game rooms. Eventually, they were purchased by Ballin, and it actually became the placement for what was Super Shooter done in 1978. the national tournament that actually attracted a million players, but that's, again, a whole other story. But I had worked on a newsletter for them where I wanted to actually identify and recognize players, locations, new equipment. So, yes, it would have been pinball. It would have been video. It would have been everything in the world of coin-op. And maybe, I mean, as I look back, maybe I would have added a little bit in terms of home audience. In some ways, it is what I achieved when I talked Steven to us doing our pinball magazine that right now at the moment escapes me. The Flipside? The Flipside, thank you. Yes, I named it and I should have remembered it. And that was the track, what we were starting to do with leagues, tournaments, players, games, all the rest of it. So the idea was to have this nice glossy magazine. I worked up a business model, business plan, and showed with advertisers and everything else, as well as subscription-based. And again, based on my experience in the publishing world and knowing where I could get distribution on Newsstand and all the rest of it, I basically gave them a business plan that showed a model that I'd be willing to split with them, not a 50-50 split, that I could generate $6 million a year by launching that. So I go to the licensing show, just out of curiosity, and this becomes basically part three of what wanted to happen when I was hired. So I'm trying to bring it back around again. I saw three themes that kind of intrigued me. One was Willow that was coming out, and I thought, God, that looks kind of interesting, but that's kind of scary. that's really going to work for the broadest audience. I saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit that Disney folks were showcasing and I thought, oh my God, that's incredible. It's Disney, that's going to be impossible. Again, at Dave's point, where the financials were. And I saw something, Eastman and Laird were there, something called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The New Robert Englunds thing, New Hampshire guys. hand drawn, black and white, and I thought, this is just, this is awesome. So my third thing was, hi Williams. I have a magazine, I have a game design. Game design doesn't have to be Ninja Turtles, but I've talked to these guys, we can do the license. So when I wound up getting a phone call in March of 1988, I expected that they would be responding to one of those three things, and instead they wound up responding with a chance for to go to work at Williams to be the director of marketing. I didn't lose sight of wanting to do licensing and a licensing show came up in 1988. And one of the people I met with was a gal by the name of Louise Riley, I still remember the name, who was with Lucasfilm. And talked to her at length because I thought, God, wouldn't it be neat to do, you know, Indiana Jones or Star Wars. And told her what I thought the financials would be. And the financials were somewhat slight. She didn't believe it. I said, well, that's what it is. I mean, literally just pulling numbers out of thin air. It's not like I had any experience in licensing prior to that. And I said, well, but here are the other companies. You know, call them up. Call up Gil Pollack. Here's his phone number. You know, and you can tell me if, you know, you want to do something. And ultimately, we actually did work with Lucas. I made the decision, and I think the guys kind of agreed with it, and Mark Ritchie definitely did. I thought much more favorably of a storyline and character set for Indiana Jones, so we passed on Star Wars, and instead did Indiana Jones. We eventually did Star Wars. But again, I think that going back to the question that Dave raised, when you're going out there and for me it's different. You guys have to understand that. Number one, I've worked on probably 250 licenses over the years. Video games, NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, the list goes on, where I've worked with all the professional sports leagues, worked with all the studios, worked with different agencies, worked with a heck of a lot of talent. If anybody takes a look at, I guess Ken Fedesna has been going through things as the company shuts down the Waukegan facility, Fort Williams. He's posting a lot of pictures that show various people, myself included, very reached in next to Gordie Howe, John Rice Davies in the studio at the company doing the voice for Indiana Jones. And again, the list kind of goes on and on, all the things that we worked with. I think that you wind up building up, number one, trust. Number one, number two, that the economics have to work and be right. And number three, more importantly, and maybe it's tied into number two, do you believe in this category? Does it excite you? It's something that's unique. It's something that's different. It's something that is tangible. You know, I've had the good fortune, we were on 12.5 million juice boxes for high C years ago because I've always believed in promotions. We had police force on it and our tribals. video game and pinball machine that we were giving away to some lucky people if they got the right codes or whatever else. We passed on the original Batman that I went after in 1989 because the only way that I could show Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson was I could show them but I couldn't do anything promotional. And I wanted to tie in with our licensees. I wanted to do stuff because, and Dave made the point before, there's no budget that any of the coin operated music game companies really ever had from Atari on through all the golden days where you could actually do some very pinpoint advertising whether it was print or broadcast It just didn make sense You a manufacturer and go through that You like three steps removed from your audience I can advertise it all I want but I don know where the game going to be You going to see that ad and you going to want to go I mean, it's a lot different for a movie studio. You know that you're going to go to a cineplex or a multiplex, the movie's playing there. I mean, you get all those synergies. So I knew that I wanted value added, and it was something that Valley had never really done, but I believed very strongly in it. Yes, it's a slight amount of money, But would like to do some things to tie in. The way that we could have done Batman, I could show the back on the back glass of Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton. So you would have seen basically a back glass and been like, hi, this is the cowl of Batman. And here's the back of the grinning hair of Joker. And I said, no. I could do comic book art. I said, no. I don't want to do that. So we passed. We eventually wound up doing Bugs Bunny with them. And that worked out very successfully. Not the game I know. but was able to tie in with nine different licensees where we came up with prize packages that were presented through distribution to location owners. So if they wanted to stage something, you could actually get authentic, branded, official Bugs Bunny merchandise for whatever the value might be. Back then, Dave East did do Batman. But again, that was one of my stipulations always, was that I wanted something that really worked. So if it meant that we had a chance to be at the screening for the Addams Family, and that Pat Lawler and Larry and the rest of the team could be on the radio that morning, and we would be there for the movie premiere, and then we would be there for the after party, standing around with Hammer and with Rob Julia and all the other folks, and they're playing the pinball machine. If it meant that Doug Watson and I were flying out for the red carpet event for T2, and for a special day-long event that they had created where we brought out the first three production games. And, you know, you have Arnold standing around and you have all the other folks, Jim Cameron, and you're getting a lot of publicity, a lot of awareness within that world. That, to me, had value. And not just the value of being able to go to a red carpet and have done those and I don't short them off. I'm just saying the value wasn't for me to be able to experience any of that stuff. The value was, can I get the games out into the public consciousness? And if I can do that, great. I mean, it's something that has always driven me. And if you go back and look at the initial Papa events, where we always tied in with the charity, we always had media, absolutely always had media. I still remember Lyman Sheets standing out in the pouring rain on the Today Show in Times Square, where he played a game. And there he is the next morning, having had two hours of sleep to play because he is, in quotes, the world champion. So those are the kinds of things that have always propelled me. So I guess I've gone too far afield. But the licensing aspect, going back to it, is something that is a delicate process. It's something that's relationship-built. You do have to have trust, and you have to have belief. Because at Dave's point initially when he asked the question, sometimes the economics just don't make sense. Other times, and it's something that I've encountered for the majority of my in-course professional pinball life, is the stigma still attached from time to time to pinball. I don't want to be a part of that. And you try to break things down, and I have felt it. J.K. Rowling, for example? Well, J.K. Rowling doesn't want to do licensing, period, other than for very specific products. But for the past 15 years, until last year, I was handing up licensing for WS Gaming. So slot machines have their own stigma attached to it. And I've always believed, going back to the pinball days, there's two reasons that I will allow you not to do a deal. And I know this sounds somewhat vain, but it's not. One is the financials. That the financials just don't make sense. Probably like a million dollars. It's not going to happen. If I can get them to understand the financials, that's one thing. The second part is if they have some type of apprehension, some sense, some misguided view of a category, whether it's slot machines, pinball machines, or whatever else, I don't accept that. I will accept it if there is a, I guess, a philosophical reason as to not wanting to do pinball. Because I've encountered that. I understand what you're saying, love it, but I am diametrically opposed to pinball. Okay? And tell me why. They tell me why, and it's like, Jesus, I'm so sorry. Maybe at some point in time that viewpoint will change, but I respect that. You cannot change ideology. All you can do is offer enough referential information so that decisions that are being made are being made on practical, real values and assessment. And the financial part is just the financial part. But as I said, I think that the world of licensing has been, I mean, it's been a lot of fun. It's a lot of grueling work. I know that in some ways, I think the perception is that anybody can do this. And you can. I mean, you can open up your pocketbook and spend silly money. And potentially, if somebody wants to do a deal because it's only purely money-based, then yes. But there's a lot more that goes into it. And my approach to it, because I didn't know any better, there were no rule books or anything else back in 1988 when I started, was that I am there from preconception to break. I touch everything. I'm a creative liaison. I'm going to get the assets that everybody needs. Adam's family, which some of you may be familiar with, is a pinball machine. It took me a while to get Pat Waller to step up and say yes. Well, it's going to be difficult. They're going to get a license before. They're going to want to touch things and change things. Stop. And while they're getting a style guide, look at all the stuff we can do. You have freedom to do it all. I'll work with the talent to get into the studio for speech. Don't worry about that. I can take care of that. Yes, we can work on the music. I'll take care of that too. And the net result was this incredibly wonderful choreographed game with some unique technology that Larry DeMar, brilliant as he is, was able to infuse into it. So I think, again, there are some conditions that I have in terms of going after a license. First and foremost, and I don't know if this is part and parcel to the question, Does everybody still care? Okay, thank you. If you don't care, get in line for your own question. Yeah, really. Sorry for coughing into the microphone. But I'll tell you what. You have to have all of the signature elements of whatever that theme is. I don't care what it is. I want to have the speech. I want to have the music. I want to have all of the lead characters. I mean, there's a great joke, if you take a look, and it's not a knock against Joe Cameron, I love him dearly, but Apollo 13. The guy in the mirror visor, that's Tom Hanks. Yeah, right. Because he couldn't get Tom Hanks' likeness. I never would have done the license. I'm sorry. I mean, it doesn't work for me. Because that's something that is integral to what it is that you want to bring to life. And I think that unless you can get everything to the designer, to the artist, to the sound guy, to the mechanical, technical engineer, to that entire team, unless you can embrace it all and say, here, this is everything. They may only want to use and only may need to use 80%, but at least I've gotten them everything. And I've always done it on the basis for all my projects. Give me a list of what you want and need, and I'll go shop it and see if I can get it. If I can't get it, then we're going to have to make a decision. Do we want to go forward or not go forward? And again, sometimes I tend to influence that. I know that I pushed John Trudeau into doing Congo. My apologies for people who don't like it. I have a thing for Simeons. When I had a chance to actually go out to the studio because they had an event, and Amy was there in her costume and I had a chance to touch the fur. It was like as exciting as hell. Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, husband and wife, were overseeing production on the film and I thought, got to do this, got to do this. This is great. The book I thought was wonderful. I know the movie. I like the game, truthfully. I think that John did a great job. It's a little imbalanced if you're playing it as a tournament game, but if you're just playing it for fun, I think there's a heck of a lot of depth great stuff. For those I mentioned before about Ken Fedesna posting. You will see Kevin O'Connor, the artist. You'll see John Trudeau. You'll see Jeff Johnson who was a programmer with myself at Bedrock. So when we did Flintstones, went out to Universal Studios, they said, the lot is still up. Okay. Hi. Give us the directions, have the rental car. We drove about there and it was really critical and important because the style guide is flat art and whatever rushes you wind up seeing may be incomplete. But for Kevin, if you really take a look at the artwork on that game, he recreated bedrock from all the pictures that we were taking. Forgetting about the mug shots of us sitting in cars and whatever else. I mean, we went around and looked at all the storefronts and everything else so that he could create something that was really representative. And then having John Goodman, Rick Moranis, Harvey Korman, all going to studio through original speech. I mean, it made it really good. The game was okay, but at least the representation of it, I think, really, really worked. I thought that sounded great. You have a question here? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, Roger. So this is sort of along the lines of what you've just been talking about, but it seems like licensing has been getting harder and not easier in a lot of ways. It seems like we used to get custom speech. We used to get much more call-outs and all kinds of things in these games, and it was easier to get these people into the studio, or maybe they didn't put as many handcuffs on the design process, or maybe that's a fallacy. But can you sort of talk to how we can get better execution? In some ways, it looks like pinball has gotten bigger, but the licenses seem to be getting more restrictive. We don't get custom speech. We don't even get speech necessarily from the series. like Walking Dead is a perfect example, you know, and there are these miscues. And is it our industry that's the problem or is it the motion picture industry and other big media outlets? I think that's a wonderful question. I left WMS in February of 2014. In 2000 I started my own company, Sharp Communications. It's a creative services company, do marketing, advertising, brand licensing, product design and development, a little bit of everything for a number of different clients. A couple of projects over the years was NASCAR and Pirates of the Caribbean for Erie. I don't want to cast any kind of of dispersions or value judgments to what is currently taking place in the world of pinball when it comes to licensed content. But as I said before, it's a question of who's doing it. And I'm not Jody and I'm not Gary or anybody else. I don't think that they do the best that they can do. for me, I would do more. I mean, short and simple. Is it available? Who's asked it? All you have to do is negotiate. All you have to do is have the trust and probably the reputation and background to get it done. What about in the premium edition? Could you pay more just for the premium only or is that making the license even narrower and less attractive? I don't think it really matters. I mean, again, the games that I helped, those two brands, specifically, Stern Pinball had not broken it out into the variety of different iterations that they're now doing. So to Dave's point, I don't know where they're at currently in terms of their licensing agreements. And if there is some type of a scale that is different in terms of royalties or guarantees, I will say, I guess I can interject, it's common knowledge. I got brought into the breach with Dutch Pinball and the Big Lebowski. I don't know how many people are aware of the Big Lebowski, in short hand. I saw a few of them. I made the comment because of my son Josh, I guess introducing me via email to a fellow by the name of Nate Shivers, who does these podcasts and I went on air there to do an interview. And the premise of the interview was basically let's talk about Big Lebowski, what's going on. There were some things that wound up happening during the Mall Expo last year. They were somewhat explosive and had everybody somewhat concerned as to what was going on. And as I expressed to him because of the relationship that I've been able to carve out with Yop and with Barry. My comment was, in seeing where they're at and what I can do, I'm a Band-Aid and not a tourniquet. This is all fine. And the amount of content that they have in that game, yeah, I mean, the approvals are going through. I just saw an email last night, final through on the play field so they can start production on that particular component. Cabinets are going through. We have footage. We have speech. Music has become an obstacle, but they're going to do some music based on a suggestion that I made that I think will work very nicely. So again, I mean, it's a question of what you prioritize and what your expectations are. I tend to agree with you. And I will say, and I can't mention the manufacturer, I'm working on a Walking Dead license right now. It's already in development, and I'm not having any problems. But that's me. And again, if you take a look historically at the games that were done by our competition back when Williams and Bally were still in business, from 1988 until 1999, I will match up any and all of our licensed games with anybody else's. and you tell me which number one has stood the test of time, which number two was really true to its theme and gave you all of again the salient ingredients that made it a cohesive entertainment experience So you know it up to everybody You know what important And I think that, you know, I value the importance of totality, pure and simple. And if it becomes another bargaining chip, another part of the negotiation, and it's like, oh my God, I've I've got to make another trip. I've got to make another phone call. I've got to do this. So that's what it's all about. I mean, what I love is when I get a no. A no gets my juices going. Now I can really start working it. The yeses are easy. I can get yeses left, right, and all the way around. And, you know, having just come back from a licensing show that was this past June, the opportunities are limitless. people want to work with exciting unique product what is more exciting and unique than pinball machines I mean you have this explosive happening with barcades and everything else it's back in the scene it's back in the public consciousness you know some of what Dave was presenting a little while earlier it is in the media there is stuff that's on History Channel Discovery there are various documentaries and all the rest of it it's not where it was let's face it, back in the 70s, late 70s, early 80s, I doubt it could ever get there again. There were 3 million pinball machines in active operation in 1980 worldwide. 3 million. There were 5 million video games in active operation. Right now you have maybe 200, maybe 300,000 pinball machines worldwide. What's keeping it alive are events like this and people staging tournaments in events like this, doing leagues and basements and rec rooms and whatever else. And every once in a while, and again, something that Dave noted, and I'm so gratified because I know that IFPA has been a part of it, launch parties. We're going to announce a new Stern game or a New Jersey Jack game. We're going to do a launch party over this event. It's open to everybody. It's $5. Put your money in. Some goes to a charity. Some goes to a payout. But you're exposing people to the games. And that's the biggest obstacle that we have to deal with. So, sorry, it's a segue off of the answer, but... Yeah? Kind of a two-part question. I apologize if I've covered some of this because I came in a few minutes late. Not a problem. Can you give an example or some examples of some really onerous pinball license that didn't work out either for financial reasons because they wanted too much money or because the licensor exercised so much control or was so strict in their conditions, the games just didn't happen? That the games didn't happen. Didn't happen. Wow. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I can talk about anything now. . Yeah, really. Well, I mean, we were always very secretive and I was, you know, one of the leading proponents of that at Williams. You know, we never announced anything before its time. We never brought games out into the marketplace that were 40% done or 60% done. Everything had to be right. If it was a video game, yes, there might have been some tweaking so that Ed and John could on some extra stuff for Mortal Kombat 3 or whatever. But we took a lot of pride in bringing games to trade shows that were available within three to six weeks at the outside or available right then and there. If we had product that was still somewhat in development, we sweetened it. NBA Jam was sweetened. And by that I mean it was off-site, totally separate, away from everything, and it was only to really our aid distributor people. and they couldn't talk about it with anybody. We had a Pat Lawler game that was suited at one point in time. I think it was Earthshaker during the time of our Atlantis show, for those who remember Mr. Perry's ill-fitted effort. Decent game, but anyway. So the games that were difficult or impossible. Well, I mean, you mentioned before J.K. Rowling. Yeah, I'd love to do something with Harry Potter. You know, I've had a number of my clients, if you will, ask about it. She is adamantly opposed, and not to Pimba, just adamantly opposed to doing anything outside the realm and scope of what she wants to do. And her control is absolute, total, and complete. It's not financial. It's not anything else. How about one where you had to go back and forth a lot even after the contract was signed? A lot of changes? Well, I know Arnold was somewhat difficult. Doug Watson, I think if anybody's sat in on any of his talks at the various shows, was working on a backlass. And the backlass originally, I think, it was Arnold obviously front and center and there were two endoskeleton type things and Arnold didn't like that. He'd already painted it. He had to go back and make a change. We wanted Arnold to do some custom speech for us. We were on set because we were doing simultaneously not only the pinball machine but also the video game. And Lee Orloff's group was doing the making of Jim Cameron when we first met was blown away about what we had done with motion capture through a game called Dark, for those who may have some reference to video games. But we were doing things like making movies and that was his comment, you guys are making movies. Yes, we are for our video games. And with that matrix explained, we can do some other stuff with that as well. We have Linda Hamilton, Eddie Furlong, Robert Patrick at the end of a filming day, because Jack Haeger was out there along with some other people, would say, hi, do you mind putting on the arms again? Because I need you to be going this way with the arms because of the game. And, you know, I mean, you try to do things because you need it in a particular context. We were working with Stephen Kent. God, all these names. Maybe I haven't lost it all yet, was Arnold's stunt double. So we did some work with him. And we got, I thought that, I think it was Chris Granter, if I'm wrong, I apologize, whatever. I think it was Chris that had gotten a couple of guys in the studio that I want up here and I said, I think these are great. I mean, these are really good Arnold impersonators. Let's send it out to Arnold and his agent and see what they think. And the story as it was told was Arnold was in his trailer when he listened to it. I'm not going to do an impersonation, so don't worry. And said, this is terrible. If that's all they want, I'll do it. And he wound up doing all of the work, not only for the pinball machine, but also the video game. It was three pages of dialogue. And for those who may have a certain extra code, there is look-de-do, there is an FU or whatever, they happen to just be on the page. And Arnold just kind of read whatever was on the page. I went on a meeting with him during this event that they had prior to the screening. A very nice guy, very controlling, back then and obviously his world has changed in the past some odd years. But I was concerned when he said no. And I was concerned because of the trauma that Doug had to go through. But I I think the net result was that it all kind of worked out. I know that we had some issues with, dare I say, episode one. The issues were that I couldn't tell them what we were doing, and they didn't understand why I needed the footage that I needed, the wire forms that I needed for Watto and for Jar Jar and whatever else, that I needed all of these things. And I remember traveling out to the ranch, and it was like the third time I had been out there because we worked again on Indiana Jones. And they said, alright, I'll reveal to you. And I think, I forget if I brought something with me and who else was with me on that particular trip. I don't think that John was with me, copy me. And told them what we were doing. There's going to be a monitor, we're going to be showing footage, we're going to be doing this, that, and the other things. this is why I need this stuff. We entered into an agreement, and I think that this has actually been discussed at various points over the years. The core design team, myself included, had to sign our lives away if we revealed anything. We got stuff before Galoo as a master toy license, before Hasbro, before anybody. I mean, we were that early in the production schedule. We went out and read scripts that nobody had done because I needed to know exactly storyline content and so on. We had to sign away our lives if anything ever slipped out of Williams to anybody else. Couldn't talk to family about it, couldn't say anything that we'd be sued, held liable and whatever else. And we set up a special part, Larry DeMar spearheaded it, bless his soul, set up a special part in the design area at Williams, behind a locked door with a special code where only the five or six of us had access and entry to get the stuff that I was getting in so that everybody could work on it. And I guess one of the crucial parts during that, and I think it's a story that's been related, I won't really go into it to great depth. Neil Nicastro was the president the company. Neil at like 5 or 6 o'clock one night came up and it was like, tried to, and he knew. I mean, obviously he had forgotten for that particular moment in time. And we were behind the door. Hey, let me in. Sorry, you didn't sign an NDA. We can't let you in. You can't see anything. Now, that was a blessing and a curse. And I think as the guys have related, I think that if John had been able to have the kind of synergistic input that usually came about for Pat, for Steve, for Mark, for Dennis, for any of the guys, maybe the game would have been a little bit different. Better, worse, who knows? But that became a very difficult project for us to try to really work through. But other things in terms of what we might have gone after, I cannot think for the life of me. I know the stuff we turned down. I mean, I'll tell you right now, I'm guilty. I thought that Shadow would be better than Stargate. I had seen Universal Soldier. I thought Universal Soldier was a very nice film. I met with Dean Devlin and with Roland Emmerich. They really wanted to do Pinball Machine. They had this new movie coming with Kurt Russell in it. It's going to be great. It's Egyptian. It's this. Here's a script. Read it. And it's like, you know, I just don't know. But The Shadow, God, Shadow is a history. Alec Baldwin's going to be in it. I think it's going to be cool as hell. Brian stepped up. And, you know, the net result was not a great movie, but I think an incredibly wonderful pinball machine. And by and large, truthfully, I told Dean and Roland, and I guess acted on behalf of Gil Pollack and Mike Vrettos, I said, go to Premier. Let them do it. And I think, other than the mechanical problems, I think that Stargate was probably one of the better conceived games that Premier did back then, as a licensed or not, just in terms of gameplay and all of the toys and whatever else. So that was one where... That's an interesting tie-in also because Shadow is what you would call an evergreen license and that... I thought so. We were on set, Jonathan Winters was playing the cab driver. I was like, my God, how could this not work? But it would also be easier because you wouldn't have to NDA stuff like you would for Star Wars. Yeah, no, no, no. And truthfully, Star Wars was really the exception. Everything else was like free range, if you will. It really, really was. It was, you know, I would present to people internally if I really believed in something. They would come to me. I mean, there's a great side story and I don't want to take too much time. But Dan Langlois was a designer for the company. Basically, he's an outside person for a number of years at Valley. Games like Strange Science and others he had done. Radical was one of his. He'd come up with a component that was a little turning thing and I won't, I'll reveal it later in terms of what that turning thing became, although some of you probably already know. And the guys took it over for a game. He had gotten ill and whatever and they really liked this mechanical device. Greg Freres being one of them or whatever else. And for anybody who was at the old Williams plant on California Avenue, my office was along the front wall so the guys coming through the front lunchtime or coming in would always pass by where my office was. And they wanted to do Gilligan's Island. I said, no, I just don't get it. I mean I like the show. I think it's great. This device would be great, we can turn into the jungle and whatever else. We were on Gilligan's Island and they have to wear me down. And by wearing me down, typically two or three times a day, depending on who is going in and out for lunch in groups or separately, I would hear people going by humming. All right, all right, all right, all right. And contacted Turner who had the rights to it. And actually got Bob Denford to come into Chicago in the studio. We put him on Brandmeier in the morning, which was the number one rated radio show. So we had a lot of fun with that. He was wonderful. I didn't know how the factory would act. There had been a long passage of time from when the show was on TV. Some people age better than others. And I told Bob, so My office is in the front. And then you would walk through the factory to get to the back to our sound studio. And then back upstairs was pinball. Downstairs in the back was video. We always had rules because we have lots of people coming in, whether it's media, people coming in like John Rice Davies and whatever else. And I kind of went around to all the folks on the line saying, Denver's coming. Don't do anything or whatever. And I thought, you know, if he comes in and nobody recognizes him, I am really screwed. So he came in, again, sweet, wonderful, does not look like, you know, the Bob Denifer from 20 or 30 years earlier on TV. And I made it a point of saying to him, we told everybody that they couldn't leave their stations. So we're going to be going out here. It's going to be a little bit noisy and loud, and we'll get back to the sound studio. So just know, sure enough, we get about midway through, and the gal starts shrieking off the line or whatever else. He's signing autographs. He is happier than happy. I mean, it was a great experience, but again, not expected necessarily and probably not an answer to any question anybody would ever ask. But yes, somebody's lying down. I'm still trying to remember truthfully, if I can, any stuff that we really wanted I know that we turned around and said we didn want Last Action Hero I didn believe in it Data East wound up doing it There were a number of licenses that Data East wound up doing Lethal Weapon or Lethal Weaponator as it been called We didn't do. I didn't want it necessarily. I wasn't really thrilled by it. I thought it was a little bit too violent or whatever else versus T2 which wasn't violent because I'm shooting endoskeletons. I'm not shooting people, bad people or whatever else. So I'll try to keep on going through my brain, but I think that my rate of going after things and actually securing them, I'm at 95%. Yeah, sorry. I read that for the Star Trek Next Generation game that a lot of the cast members got machines and I think someone sold one and it said like this game presented to Gates McFadden or whatever. I'm wondering, is that pretty typical? Would the people getting the machine feel so, oh, this is cool, I want my own machine? Or did you guys say, hey, we're going to just give you one? Or did they want it? Or did you kind of push it? How did that work? Well, as I said before, we had basically limited budgets. We won't get into the dynamics of what the dollars are because I think it's really immaterial. Or I think for many of you, you probably think it's more material than it probably really is. But in wanting to get people to do custom speech, I have to give them something. We had a standard Ryan Policky that I created. The standard Ryan Policky was you can get X amount of dollars or you can get your own custom gimbal machine. What do you think? And the X amount of dollars, I'll tell you right now, is $2,500. I mean, I'm going to Arnold Schwarzenegger who got a Hummer and a Jet. truthfully, those are the two things, along with his salary to do T2. The yoga amen of your own pinball machine, which he did. I mean, he did it. So, yeah, I mean, that was what I wound up doing, and I think for a number of the celebrities to get their own pinball machine was cool. And I think the reference point to Star Trek, well, Cassandra was just, she was wonderful to work with, and that's all. They've got a whole other story. But for Star Trek Next Generation, I wanted the entire cast. I think one of the great side little snippets I'll share with you, Greg Freres worked on the artwork. I think it's brilliant. Patrick Stewart made a point to say, I know my head comes to a point a little bit when he's rounded. But we had all these folks. They all went in the studio, and they all got their pinball machines from John Delancey on through. Nobody took the money. I mean, the money was immaterial. I think that one of the, there's a tragic part to a story that I'll share very briefly, and then I think a funny one. So I mentioned before about Flintstones with Rick Moranis. And Rick was delightful and wonderful, and he did some great speech for us, and it was like a pinball machine. And the time comes for us to get him his pinball machine, and Rick lives in New York City. And I'm on the phone with Rick and say, hi, we're all ready to get your game to you. He said, you know, I've been thinking about it, and it's a small... I said, don't. I live in a studio apartment. I'm on 21st and 7th, and I have five pinball machines. Don't tell me you cannot fit a pinball machine in your house that you will look back on later on with your children and say, wow, aren't I glad I did it. He said, all right, fine, you're right. I talked to my wife and did it. So that was one of the things. John Rice Davies took the money because he was living out of hotels. He was doing so much work and so much... He didn't have a house. didn't have a place and I was like if you ever get one let me know because he was spectacular he really was, he was just wonderful so you know those are some of the things that wind up again going into play, it's part of the negotiation you know how can I get you to be interested in doing this, do it at the end of a looping session or whatever else in John Delancey's case he had a studio set up at his house and more importantly what was great again with Star Trek Next Generation is Each of those machines for each of those celebrities are absolutely, truly customized. John Delancey winds up yelling, and now it's probably silly, winds up yelling at his children when you press a button, you should be studying, you should be in bed, or whatever else. LeVar Burton, you know, what's, no, I think it was Michael Dorn, what's a black man doing in the 23rd century when you press in the button? I think Patrick Stewart's start was, hello, I'm Patrick Stewart, I'm wonderful, or something along those lines. So again, they had their own script, and then add on, do whatever you want to do. So I think that it made it somewhat unique and wonderful for them. Hopefully, the sad story was what wound up happening with Anna's family because of Raul Julia's passing. And he was great. I mean, he really was wonderful. I think the last movie he did was Street Fighter, where by that time he was ill. And I remember calling and talking to his wife and just, you know, you offer condolences. There's a pinball machine, and, you know, I'd love you to have it. I mean, you know, from our hearts. I'm almost tearing up from that. Jesus. But, yeah, they wanted to get him. John. Yeah, sorry. Roger, what's your favorite playing pinball machine for yourself? Oh, from the games that I've designed? No, no. You know, I get that asked all the time. I have a 1932 Mills Official that I love. It's just basic. I think that there are different eras and different games that strike my fancy. The game that got me started as a player was a game called Hurt and Dirty, better known Central Park. It's the first game I ever turned. It's a game that really kind of nurtured me. It was a game that I wanted, which really was the impetus for what eventually became the pinball book. And I guess the testifying in New York and all the rest of it. Really it was just selfish. I wanted a game. The game I wanted to find, which was my first game, I wanted Cowpoke, but they only had Buckaroo. So I have the replay version where where the out of all version was just awesome. Actually, Josh, my son, wound up getting a buckaroo. And we're in a pinball league around Chicago. And one of the fellows that hosted actually had a cowpoke. And wound up playing it. I did very nicely, by the way, that night. We had a lot of older games, which was my time. And I brought Josh over afterwards and I said, oh, I just put up like four and a half thousand. Go for it and see what you think. And there's a star and whatever else. And he played it and he said, I'm ruined now. I'm going to sell the buckaroo. Can you sell the buckaroo? No. And Ken Walker, who, for those who sat in on Dennis and Greg's presentation, Ken is this incredible mechanical wizard, was trying to come up with some kind of a fix to turn Buckaroo into an add-a-ball game. He couldn't do it. So I guess my sweet spot is probably Cowpoke. And again, I mean, the game that launched me as a designer, Sharpshooter, is based on Sky Jump Free Fall, the targets, and the bottom of Satin Dump, only done better and differently. So was that an influence? Yes. And again, there's been different things. I have 25 games at home. I love them all equally. I may not play them all equally, depending on what condition they're in. But, yeah, and then I have some other favorites, and I have a couple of games, and I think Jack was in the back if I saw him. I have a game coming that I'm looking forward to having as soon as it's ready for me that I'm excited to add to the collection because I think it's a wonderful game. So, yeah. So I don't know if that's a direct answer. but. Male Speaker 3. Terrence, do we have one? No? Okay. Male Speaker 3. Terrence, you? Terrence J. Got a question? Female Speaker 3. So I feel that we're slowly moving into the age of more boutique pinballs and more makers sort of pinball machines. And it always wonders to me when we need to think about... Male Speaker 3. The mic's still working. Female Speaker 3. Female Speaker 3. Female Speaker 3. Female Speaker 3. Female Speaker 3. Terrence J. You should use your outside voice. Male Speaker 1. Terrence J. I don't have an outside voice. Female Speaker 3. Terrence J. Maybe the mic's not turned on. Male Speaker 3. Female Speaker 3. Terrence J. Yeah. Maybe the mic's not turned on. I'm cranking a little. Go, go. Is the mic turned on? It's okay. So we're moving into boutique pinball makers and such. When do people need to worry about licenses? At what point does it become more than you're just doing something in your basement? And the second thing, the thing that really brings it to my mind is the CPR stuff that's going on right now with the Hammer of the Gods license, at what point do you cross over the line into you've gone too far? Forgetting about Predator and what Kevin did? We know that was too far. But understand something. I mean, the starting point, number one, I'm actually impressed by what's going on with what you've accomplished. I think that's wonderful. I really do. I'm very flattered and appreciative of . Bless you. I think that it conjures up, and I'm not old enough to have been there in person, so I need to say that up front. But I think it's what the beginning of the industry was back in the 30s. I mean, you had David Gottlieb and his family building games out of their garage. Again, games are simpler back then. But you had all these independent companies literally dotted around not only the country, but the world. You know, Harry Williams was doing things out in Los Angeles. So you had all these individuals who were basically creating the foundation for what ultimately became, not just the pinball industry, but think about it. Without pinball, video games would not have had any venues. Video games went into arcades, went into family entertainment centers. Those were all populated by pinball. Pinball might have gotten pushed out, and suddenly we had video arcades. But without pinball, you would not have had a coin-operated amusement game industry. You would have had a jukebox industry. That was still there. You would have had payphones. That was still there. You would have had steel-tipped darts, which eventually became electronic. But I'm just saying pool tables. Pinball was that basis. And I think that what we're seeing now with the boutiques and everything else reminds me of that starting point. So now, more directly to answer your question, I think if you have a desire to do a single machine for your own self. Okay. So Ben Heckendorf can absolutely do Paxton, and he can do Lost and whatever else and have a blast with it. You're going to build a couple of games for a couple of friends. Okay. Now, for the couple of friends and whatever else, if you start in this day and age, more specifically, if you start bringing that particular machine to an event, and that event somehow gets broadcast across the Internet in some way, shape, or form. Or if you post it on the Internet yourself. Right. And somebody is now aware that you have this branded machine. Well, hey, how do you get the rights? I mean, you have talent, potentially you have music. You have assets that somebody else owns. So that becomes a critical decision for somebody to say, hi, I want to share this with everybody. Now, if you're sharing it and there's a sign saying hi, this is for me only and I'm, that's fine. But I think a lot of people put it out there as in hi, I built this, this is all my own, isn't this wonderful and marvelous? And I forget who did the remake on Swords of Fury. That's a license. And I forget whatever the license is. There's another Johnny Mnemonic. That's not Johnny Mnemonic. That's another license. I'm sorry? Yeah, it's what, the Matrix? Okay. Whatever. I mean, whatever these things are, it would be nice if there was some type of notification, some type of disclaimer saying, hi, this is just my own. It's a homebrew. It's blah, blah, blah, blah. If, however, you go to a show and suddenly there is an interest from 10, 20 people that you don't know outside of your friend saying, God, we'd love you to build that thing. We'll buy it from you. And you think that you can just go ahead because I'm just doing a few. Who's going to care? Who's going to be the wiser? you are dealing with somebody's IP. And I've had a number of discussions with various people who have approached me, because they know that I'm kind of like a gun for hire, if you will. And the problem is not only the pure economics of wanting to do something. There needs to be some value. And the point that I've made to a couple of individuals, I said, well, you know what? And we'll just use a name. Phil? I'm going to do a Phil pinball machine, and I'm going to sell it. I'm going to have your face on it. I'm going to do all the things about your life. Well, you can't do that without my permission. Thank you very much. So I can't make a Phil pinball machine. I mean, understand where you're coming from. I mean, the goose and the gander have to be really made whole, if you will. And I'm not suggesting in terms of Sharpshooter 3, do whatever you want. I think it's brilliant and wonderful. You did buy a Sharpshooter 2 game to build it. I understand, but I'm just saying, if you have this desire to do something, my only comment would be make sure we get the music rights, because the music rights are just fantastic on that. But I guess I'm hoping I'm answering the question to you. I think that when you believe that you can actually start to monetize what was started as a personal endeavor, and you have this desire and interest to want to create something that is based on a license, And I'll go back, and I'm not dredging up bad history or anything else. And I've known Kevin for the majority of it. I mean, he used to compete against my sons when all of them were small, little people. Maybe we shouldn't start on that then. No, no, no. It's 3.30, so we've got to. Well, I'm going to wrap up really fast. I think that Kevin's first intention, because he did reach out to me, he actually did have an approval to build a couple of games. I think that his naivete was that that couple of games wasn't just a couple of games that weren't going to be for sale necessarily. It wound up being more. So hopefully that answers the question. I'm sorry if I'm taking too long. Sorry, guys. Well, we have to move on to our late-breaking news segment. And I know we could have you here and we could set up a whole channel with just you. God forbid. There's a play that he's talked about that you can find in the Pinball Magazine number one and so forth. So if we didn't get to the topic you wanted to ask about, that's the next resource. Thank you very much, Roger.