There isn't there there isn't a period on that. Is there more to this? Page two. Page two. Page two. Here we go. Page two. Here we go. This How do I go to page two? This How do I go to page two? To use the arrow. To use the arrow. This arrow. Ah. Okay. So, we're going to This arrow. Ah. Okay. So, we're going to talk a little bit of history before we talk a little bit of games and what's going on at Stern. Um, can you hear him? Okay. can you hear him? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think you don't even need a mic, No, I think you don't even need a mic, dude. You're doing great. No, I I usually don't use a mic, but you No, I I usually don't use a mic, but you know, it's okay. Testing. Testing. It works. All right. these. So, I brought threw a couple of old pictures here. That's my father, Sam Stern. Which one? Which one? Um, the two in both cases, the guy on Um, the two in both cases, the guy on this side. Got it. Okay. Okay. Because the other one, two people are Because the other one, two people are are Sam and Harry Harry Williams who work together. That happened to be taken at Stern Electronics, I believe, at the old Stern. But, um, I was younger then. I My father started as, how'd I get here? My father started as a game operator in Philadelphia. Um, we digress. His first games, he had two games and he put them, they were countertops with pushuts and he put them on a in a in a drugstore on the counter. He came back the next day and his games were behind the counter. Somebody else's games were there. He said, "I I don't I don't want to be in this." and his friends who told him to put the games in there, who were two policemen, said, "No, Sam, not there. Over in that drugstore." So, he puts his games over in that drugstore. 10:00 at night, the phone rings. One of his games is broken. I am done with his business. He goes running down there. He's done with the business. It had push. Wouldn't push in because there was so much money inside the game that it was jammed. And so, he wasn't done with the business. And that's how my family got into the pinball business. A great problem to have. He became a um Sam became a a game He became a um Sam became a a game operator and then a game distributor. You a lot of distributors were operators became distributors in order to get games sooner and cheaper. Can you describe really quick what is a Can you describe really quick what is a pushoot game? Just for people that don't. Okay. Um it's a game that you put the Okay. Um it's a game that you put the coins in a in a uh pusher. It's like a laundromat in our country. and you push it push it in and the coins go in and make a switch. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Or make a mechanical thing to drop Yeah. Or make a mechanical thing to drop them because there was no electricity these games. In fact, if you look at the museum's In fact, if you look at the museum's history uh panel up there, it's really very good. They've got a display here. I don't know if you saw. Yeah. With all the push button things to Yeah. With all the push button things to show the mechanics and stuff, but look at the history, the dates but look at the history, the dates behind it. Uh you know, it has some very important dates. It's it's really very good. Y'all, how many of you been to the uh Dutch Pinball Museum? Yeah, regularly. I like that. All right. Yeah, regularly. I like that. All right. How many of you There's more people that have been to this more people that have been to this event. Wait, wait. How many of you haven't been Wait, wait. How many of you haven't been there? And are you How many of you that haven't And are you How many of you that haven't been there are from from uh Holland? Okay. Okay. Okay. You haven't been there? All right. Okay. You haven't been there? All right. Um how many of you who've been there who are not from Holland, who are from other countries? Wow. Wow. That's really This is That's really Wow. That's really This is That's really Have you been there? I've been there. So have I. So have I. Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. With different times. Yeah. With different times. Yeah. True. Different locations. Yeah. True. Different locations. Yeah. Just Yeah. Just I haven't been to the new one. No. I I haven't been to the new one. No. I signed Hulk Hogan. There's a new one. There's a new one. Right breast. Right breast. When was the new one? When was the new one? I've been the new one. Yeah. I've been the new one. Yeah. The one I went to was like a weird The one I went to was like a weird warehouse next to a river or something. Yeah, this was next to the river. Yeah, this was next to the river. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Anyway, it's wonderful. It's really Anyway, it's wonderful. It's really good. back to back to where we are last, but we're never g we're never gonna get anywhere here. Um we do have a few things to tell you. Any event, um Sam Sam uh uh in 1947 went to see his supplier, Harry Williams, in Chicago, kidding around, sat behind Harry's desk, put his feet up in the desk, and said, "Why don't you sell me Williams pinball?" And Harry said, "I'll have to go up on my airplane, fly around for three hours." did that, came down and sold my father half of half of Williams. So, I've been a pinball manufacturer since I was two. That makes it 78 years because I'm 80. Uh, and uh we still do it and been doing it for a long time and can't think of anything else that I would want to do or that I'm qualified to do anymore. So, we're going to let you hear why is it this button? Yeah. Hit the right arrow. Yeah. Hit the right arrow. The right arrow. One, two, three. Jack's The right arrow. One, two, three. Jack's going to tell you how he got here. Look at this jerk. Look at this jerk. Jack. Jack, you can read off of here. Jack. Jack, you can read off of here. Oh, yeah. That makes way more sense. Oh, yeah. That makes way more sense. Yeah. But Yeah. But Hi, I'm Jack Danger. Uh, new to the Hi, I'm Jack Danger. Uh, new to the pinball scene. And um, so yeah, when I got started in pinball, I was an animator for almost 20 years at that point. Um, doing commercials, music videos. I worked with the Wowski, the Wowskis. Wowkittis. Machowski on Jupiter Ascending. They're most famously known for like The Matrix and stuff. Um, but when uh one of one of the animators that worked in my co-op uh went to like Portland, they're like they came back and go, "Hey, I discovered pinball." Like Portland has this big huge pinball scene. Chicago really didn't even have much of a pinball scene like 15 years ago. And um he's like, "You got to check it out." And we struggled to like go find some games. And he went out and he bought a pinball machine. And he came to me and he's like, "I don't have any room for this thing. and can I leave it here at the studio? And I reluctantly agreed. And when he wheeled this thing in, I was like, "What the? This thing's freaking huge. It's just like a big box of lights. Like, I don't know what the hell to do with this thing." So, we shoved it in a corner, plugged it in and played it for a little bit. It was Lord of the Rings, which obviously is a phenomenal game, but at the time, I'm just like, I don't know what the hell this is. And okay, whatever. Um, like a week and a half later, he shows up and he's like, "Hey, I bought another pinball machine." And I'm like, "Well, okay. Uh, if you don't have room for these things, please stop buying them because we can't keep filling up our place. And it was a Judge Dread and Judge Dread Super Game. Like, it's even bigger than this other one. So, like, what the hell are you doing? And we lifted the head up on it. And I remember the first time we turned it on and hit start and like the humor that was coming out of this game and the way the shots were and just the presence of it with like the big planet that was like holding the balls. Something about that like really spoke to me. I was like, "Okay, this is cool." like there's something about this game. Played it a little bit and went to the internet. I'm like, "How do you beat, you know, Judge Dread Pinball?" Well, you can't beat a pinball machine. And that threw me into a frenzy of like, "Well, that can't be right." And like digging down more and realizing like there's all these strategies and nuance to this one game. And I was like, "Well, let's check on this Lord of the Rings game." Come to find out, everyone freaking loves this game. And like there's all these different rules and approaches to playing. and just learning the nuance of even though there's only two buttons on this, like there is a lot of strategy just behind like pushing a single button in. And I quickly became friends with uh Zack Sharp. I met him at a tournament. Him and his father Roger were there playing. I have no idea who the hell they were. And they were sort of like, "Hey, we could tell like you're into this." And there wasn't a big scene. They're like, "We'd love to show you how to play pinball." And uh Zach took me under his wing in a very like karate kid style like training montage. He taught me to play one-handed so that I would read the ball sooner, you know, like you can read where the ball's going to bounce. That's where the whole dead flip thing came from. Um 2014, uh I created a Twitch channel. Twitch was very new to me at the time, but we re we were recording ourselves playing pinball in order to get better at pinball. So, everyone in the studio uh was trying to figure out why we sucked so bad and uh we wanted to like slow it down to see what was going on. But by streaming on Twitch, we were building up an audience of people that were like, "You could tell us in real time why we suck." And that was actually a lot of help. But we were also using the information that Zack Sharp gave us to relay that back to other people so that they could get better. Um and it just sort of took off from there. And I mean, Dead Flip existed for like a little over 10 years before uh you know, I had to slow things down to come work for Stern Pinball. But getting on to that in 2021, I shortly before that designed my own pinball machine. I don't know if any of you followed that journey. It was very painful. Um I didn't know anything I was doing. Uh I relied heavily on other people uh that had made their own games like Scott Denise, uh Ed Owens. Um the list goes on and on. But every step of the way, someone would help me with like, "Help me with the CNC, help me with the code, help me with the wiring." And when that game finally was flipping and in a cabinet, that's when George Gomez reached out and he's like, "I've been following this journey and this is what I wanted to see was this game being in a playable state for you to prove to me that you have the I guess the the willingness to like see something like this through." And that's when he called me in, offered me a chance to on a contract basis design the Jurassic Park home game because Jurassic Park had part of its deal a home game in the whole mix of the licensing there. Uh made that it sold pretty well and then we got that into Costco. Then it sold extremely well. Um but it was that game that convinced George that I could probably take on a cornerstone and that's what led me to Foo Fighters and uh subsequently X-Men there. And that's my story. And also, now that I'm stepping out of the designers pit, if you will, is it called a pit? The group of designers, um, I'm moving into more of a a marketing role where I'm going to be getting back into streaming, but I'm not done designing because I will be making games on a I guess my own schedule, if you will, showing how a whole game is made professionally, front to back, where um, I'll know I need a ramp on this lefth hand side. And so one of the videos will be just me talking to the different designers on how they would prototype this specific ramp. George is really good at like melting plastics with heat guns and mixing up like baking powder and like super glue to make like this welding comp. It's insane. Um but like using foam core and all this Um but like using foam core and all this other stuff. So down from like ramps to layout to code to wiring to absolutely everything along the way. The idea is once we kick this project off, you're you're going to know the theme right off the rip. And it's a licensed theme, um, you're going to see the layout right right away. And then you just get to follow this journey of us executing the whole thing where at the end of it when the final video is released, there will be a full playable machine, arted, animation, code, you name it. Uh, you saw everyone that worked on it and everyone that could have worked on it and gave us some like input and then if the game doesn't suck, George will make some. Gary will make some by his own hands. I think he promised to screw some together for me. They don't let me hold tools. They don't let me hold tools. Okay, that's fair. Okay, that's fair. I'm not allowed to hold tools. I could I'm not allowed to hold tools. I could get hurt. Yeah, that's fair. Um, but yeah, it's uh Yeah, that's fair. Um, but yeah, it's uh I love designing. I I don't want to stop designing, but I think we also recognized like my uh I I flourish better in front of a camera than locked in a room uh screwing things to wood. So, yeah, we'll see where this goes. And if it falls flat on his face, then I'll just go back in that room and make more pinball machines. He actually asked me for my off. He actually asked me for my off. I almost took it without asking. I almost took it without asking. Um I I'm going to digress a little bit Um I I'm going to digress a little bit and give it to me. Two things. So, um, Two things. So, um, you mentioned, uh, the Costco game. Uh, you Yes, you did. Okay. Okay. Yes. It's then it went Costco and it Yes. It's then it went Costco and it sold well. Now, we're doing a Star Wars version for Costco. And, uh, Costco's really important important. It's a less expensive game. It's still a full playfield. Is a little bit smaller. It's the entry level drug, if you would. It's a way of introducing if you'll hear us talk about whether it's just in this talk or just in general enlarging the community, getting new people into the community. Uh you all helping people get in the community and and and the like. And we we really need to get more people for us for business, for you, for the hobby. We need more and more people involved in it because if you don't go bigger, you go smaller and then you shrink. And if we, you know, if we don't do that, well, we need games out where people see them. One of the places is Costco. We find that um if we're only in the US with that right now and we we have some opportunity for the UK. Um we look for other places to ultimately introduce pinball. With that is just one way to introduce pinball. We find that a lot of the people who who look at these games um either they go to one of our dealers and buy a commercial game or they buy that and then they go to the dealer and they get another game and another game. We find in our country that 40% of the people who buy their first game buy more games and so forth. They get they get the bug and it's it's it's so it's it's an important entry drug. The other thing that I want to mention as I digress is Um, you mentioned you were working on Matrix stuff for the for the movie with with the Wowskis. They made the with with the Wowskis. They made the Matrix. I didn't work on that on one of their other movies. Oh, okay. With with the Well, when you Oh, okay. With with the Well, when you mentioned Matrix and then you mentioned Lord of the Rings. So, George designed Lord of the Rings, he wanted to to do Matrix and I thought, "Oh, this is cool because we got a hot movie. We're going to have another movie come out right before the game and we'll be between the the second and the third movie." And I made George do Lord of the Rings. I made him do it. And it was actually a good choice because the second movie, now a cult classic at that time, was not a cult classic. It was not popular. So George I made George do Lord of the Rings and it was absolutely fantastic. Then I could tell you the Ball Rock story, but I won't. So let's I can digress and do this whole thing as a Wasn't there like a wings thing situated Wasn't there like a wings thing situated in there or something? And uh Oh, you weren't going to tell the story. Sorry. Okay. Yeah, you can keep moving. Ah, okay. Now, we're going to tell you who Stern Pinball is and was. Uh, in uh 1986, uh, we started Stern Pinball uh, in my basement started. Do you have any pictures of like that Do you have any pictures of like that dilapidated building you were in or anything? Do those exist? Well, oh, no. No. Okay. Well, you're in Well, oh, no. No. Okay. Well, you're in the second place. I'm jumping ahead. You're jumping ahead. We start All right. We started in my basement. Uh and uh we our investor was uh D and Mr. Fakuda. So we took him out. We didn't have him in the basement. We had him upstairs at the dining room and laying everything out. And that's where we pitched them. Not in the not in the holes of the basement. It's Camo uh Shelley Sachs who since passed and and and me. Um and yes, we started uh in in September. Uh we moved into a um 200,000t building. one little off two little offices that we had to go uh get gas for the heater and and we took turns taking the garbage home and wasn't the building condemned also? wasn't the building condemned also? Well, it was coming down. Yes. Well, Well, it was coming down. Yes. Well, that because it's town houses now, it's residential any event. And then we moved to Melrose Park the next year and in March of uh ' 87 we had our first game, Laser War. Uh we went to the show, remember in the commercial business then there weren't a lot of hobbyists and so we went to the uh show in um in New Orleans. Uh we took eight games there. We uh uh we put curtains around them. Some of the other people in the industry just like you got help doing things uh Eugene Jarvis and uh and uh name I keep having trouble with the name. Any event, you know, helped us. They sort of took parts off of Williams line and things like that and brought them to us. And so we were semi-legitimate. Uh and uh those eight games we were able to get four games out of them. Laser War has three ejects. They're colorcoded and you know three targets for yellow, three targets for, you know, each color and you need to go in the eject. But the balls weren't coming out of the eject. Luckily uh uh luckily software fixed it at the last minute. But Joe was going to put a hole in a screw in front of each eject and the ball wouldn't go wouldn't fail to come out of the eject because it wouldn't be able to get in. That's how we did it. Anyhow, um in '94 we sold uh uh we sold the business to Sega. Sold the company. Same company, you know, the owner was Date East, a Japanese video game company. Uh sold it to Sega. Same company, owner was Sega. changed its name uh to uh to uh uh Sega Pinball, but same company underneath. And in 99 uh my group uh bought the company from Sega. Same company, now belongs to Spearoint, which is our company, our holding company. And we renamed it Stern Pinball. Still the same company. We've been in business since 1987. in uh 2009 2008 with the layman brothers recession not easy in in the business world you know it was not easy in pinball world and uh Dave Peterson uh joined us and he's my partner so I control 50% he controls 50% but it's still owned by the same company it's still I mean it's still the same company it's still the same company since 1987 making pinball machines and uh and uh this is this picture here is our uh new building. Has anyone been to this new building Has anyone been to this new building that you guys? Yeah. Heck yeah. yeah. Have you been on our tours? The the Have you been on our tours? The the Pinball Expo tour. How many have been on Pinball Expo tour of any of them? Like on any Stern tour from Like on any Stern tour from any Stern Tour from Expo? any Stern Tour from Expo? Oh, you went you were lunch. Okay. So, Oh, you went you were lunch. Okay. So, we were we were on uh in in Melrose Park at one point and then we moved we're we started at 2525 Mel uh no 1990 Melrose. We moved to uh 21 something 2050 2040 Melrose I mean excuse me Janice Avenue and then we moved to Lunt and uh we started in 25,000 square foot about uh 2500 square meters. We uh moved to 40,000 square foot which was about 4,000 square meters and then to Lunt which was a like 10,000 square meters 100,000 square foot plus. Now we're in two buildings um but we are between the two buildings. Um 225,000 square ft. We need all that space. We the building has grown. Uh one building 50,000 is just woodworking and the main factory is a really modern factory. We'll show you something in a minute. Um, this is a picture of the modern factory with the uh at night. You can see that that that's behind the windows uh is artwork from that was created to simulate pinball because it is pinball. And in front is the 8-oot uh pinball that I mean watching that thing being that I mean watching that thing being installed was like a freaking field day. We were all just waiting for the news to show up to show a ball just rolling down the street. Yeah. It got away. It got away. Yeah. Yeah. It got away. It got away. Yeah. And and and but that's, you know, that's our like the bean and is is famous in downtown Chicago to have your picture taken with. And so this is this is uh this is the uh our version of the bean. So it's cuz people used to come and take a picture in front of our funky stern sign. It was just horrible. But uh this is uh this is this is uh you know something good to take your picture in front of. This factory is unusual to me because I've been in plenty of pinball factories. This is the first one that I can say is really a modern up-to-date factory. It's uh you know high ceilings, clean uh this is a factory that an executive from Ford Motor Company or Huelet Packard would come in and say this is a proper factory. And my father used to say, and pardon my uh vernacular, he used to say, if you give pe people a shitty place to work, they'll do shitty work. So we give them a really fine place to work. Um I think next could be um we'll do Okay. Ah this is this is next in this Okay. Ah this is this is next in this over the years this Stern Stern pinball dies pinball Sega pinball the Stern pinball has made uh hundreds of thousands of games. We have we've made hundreds of thousands of pinball machines. Most of them are still out there somewhere somebody's house or what have you. Since 1986, we've been making pinball machines, made hundreds of thousands in prior companies. My father at Williams and so forth. I probably participated in hundreds of thousands of other machines. But having said that, this company has made hundred thousands hundreds of thousands of machines. We've you all know that we've we'll talk more about Insider Connected, but just to give you the uh the idea of the community we're trying to build, there's over 400,000 Insider Connected players today. Um and this all started Um and this all started two and a half years ago, something like two and a half years ago, something like that. And so you guys have you guys have embraced Insider Connected uh and we keep adding on it and so forth. We'll talk a little bit about it, but that's a lot of players that are participating. We building we're we're helping to build the community and we think that's very very important. So, we have a This is the the white screen. This is the the white screen. Yeah. This is the presence. So, about Yeah. This is the presence. So, about the screen. I was going to explain to you what what do you think this is? what what do you think this is? Wait, which what what what is this Wait, which what what what is this supposed to be? I don't know. But it's not moving. I don't know. But it's not moving. Hit hit escape. Hit hit escape. It's not moving. It's not moving. There we go. There we go. Oh, it's a video. Oh, let's play that Oh, it's a video. Oh, let's play that video.