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Episode 11 - Steve Ritchie - Senior Game Designer - STERN Pinball

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·1h 22m·analyzed·Aug 27, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Steve Ritchie recounts his legendary 47-year pinball design career, innovations, and iconic games.

Summary

Steve Ritchie, legendary pinball designer at Stern, discusses his 47+ year career spanning Atari, Williams, and Stern in this in-depth podcast interview. He covers his childhood introduction to pinball, early career development at Atari, major innovations like flashers in Flash (19,700 units sold) and faceted inserts in Black Knight, iconic licensed games like Terminator 2 (15,252 units), and his design philosophy emphasizing sequential flow and innovative mechanics. The interview also includes personal anecdotes about his musical background, a speeding incident in a Porsche 928, and his collaborative relationships with James Cameron and other industry figures.

Key Claims

  • Flash was Steve Ritchie's best-selling pinball machine with approximately 19,700 units sold in 1979

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie directly stated this in the interview; he corrected himself to be precise about the number

  • Terminator 2 sold 15,252 units and was completed within exactly one year to coincide with the movie's theatrical release

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie stated this directly; he mentioned getting the last machine produced

  • James Cameron provided direct collaboration on Terminator 2, including sending footage dailies on VHS, loaning the T-1000 stop-motion model, and sharing production assets

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie detailed the collaborative process at Cameron's studios; described receiving dailies and physical items

  • Steve Ritchie joined Williams after Atari due to a recruiting visit by Mike Strohl and Steve Kordek

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie recounted the recruitment phone call and hotel meeting with Strohl and Kordek

  • Williams was a fully integrated manufacturing company that made components in-house (stamped blades, welded tabs, formed legs) without outsourcing

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie described the manufacturing process in detail, including a massive press installed via helicopter

  • Flash introduced flasher lamps as a major innovation in pinball, inspired by 4 Million BC and Captain Fantastic

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie directly described the design inspiration and Flash being 'the first pinball machine that kind of implemented flashers'

  • Firepower was designed with clear lenses throughout instead of colored/milky lenses, with speech synthesis using only 3 bytes of remaining memory

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie described the technical innovations; mentioned Eugene's contribution to speech synthesis approach

  • High Speed was inspired by Steve Ritchie's personal experience driving a Porsche 928 at 146 mph on I-5

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie recounted the speeding incident and speeding ticket, framing it as inspiration for the game design

Notable Quotes

  • “I wanted flow I wanted the shots to be sequentially fun. That's it. Sequentially fun.”

    Steve Ritchie @ N/A — Defines Ritchie's core design philosophy for Flash and subsequent games

  • “Poof, you're a designer.”

    Nolan Bushnell (paraphrased by Ritchie) @ N/A — Pivotal moment in Ritchie's career when he received approval to design games professionally

  • “My teacher said, you know, they made a prediction about what everybody was going to become when they grew up, all the students. And they said that I would grow up to be a mad scientist in a toy factory. And here it is.”

    Steve Ritchie @ N/A — Reflects on childhood prediction that proved accurate about his career path

  • “He would hand me this piece of wood with, you know, eight switches on it. I think it was binary and I could just dial them up and play them. Oh that one's a cool one isn't it and he goes yeah. We're sticking that in the game.”

    Steve Ritchie @ N/A — Describes the creative process for sound design using the buggy G-Wave program

  • “Terminator 1 was like the best B movie ever made... It was like the first kind of movie that did that and Arnold Schwarzenegger was like, man, just the epitome of a badass.”

    Steve Ritchie @ N/A — Explains his passion for securing the Terminator 2 license

  • “I don't want to tell you how to make it, but, you know, it'd be kind of cool if you did this and did that.”

    James Cameron (paraphrased by Ritchie) @ N/A — Demonstrates Cameron's collaborative and non-controlling approach to the pinball license

  • “I just wanted to try the car out and actually drive it. There's no place to do this for me, and I don't know where any race tracks are.”

    Steve Ritchie @ N/A — His explanation to the court commissioner for speeding at 146 mph in his Porsche 928

  • “High Speed was the first game I think that had everything integrated.”

Entities

Steve RitchiepersonStern PinballcompanyWilliams ElectronicscompanyAtaricompanyKen CromwellpersonBill WebbpersonMike StrohlpersonSteve KordekpersonNolan Bushnellperson

Signals

  • ?

    historical_signal: Steve Ritchie chronicles the evolution of pinball design from 1970s Atari through 1990s Stern, documenting major innovations (flashers, faceted inserts, clear lenses, speech synthesis, character-driven gameplay) and their introduction across iconic games

    high · Detailed progression from his first game design through Flash, Black Knight, Firepower, High Speed, and Terminator 2, with explicit discussion of each innovation

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Ritchie's core design principle emphasizes sequential flow—shots should feel naturally fun to chain together rather than scattered or haphazard across the playfield

    high · Direct quote: 'I wanted flow I wanted the shots to be sequentially fun.' Mentioned repeatedly across multiple games as guiding principle

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Williams operated as a fully integrated manufacturing company in the 1970s-1980s, making all components in-house (stamped metal, welded assemblies, formed parts) with massive on-site machinery, before gradually outsourcing to vendors

    high · Detailed description of in-house stamping machines, welding, forming dies, two-shift capability, and later transition to vendor relationships

  • ?

    product_launch: Flash (1979) sold approximately 19,700 units (took one year to manufacture at full capacity); Firepower sold approximately 17,000 units; Terminator 2 sold 15,252 units (completed within one year to match film release)

    high · Ritchie provided specific unit counts for his major releases; noted manufacturing timelines

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Terminator 2 pinball was developed in unprecedented collaboration with director James Cameron, including daily production footage delivery on VHS, loaned physical props (T-1000 model, Aliens power loader), and script access under NDA

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.248

0:00
Hey Steve, that's Brian Kelly by the way. He wanted me to make sure. Oh Brian, Brian's a bastard you know. That's it right there. Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Thanks for hitting that start button and taking the plunge. Here are your hosts, Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. Welcome to Stern Pinball Podcast. It's episode 11 and we're live from Stern Pinball. Bill Webb's my co-host. Bill, how are you, bud? We're good. We're good. Living the dream here today. How about you? It's great. We've got across the table from us today legendary pinball designer Steve Ritchie from Stern Pinball. Steve, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks a lot. Glad to be here. We're glad to be here also. So thanks for inviting us in and allowing us to come into Stern to do this interview. So it's going to be fun. Yes, thank you. So I'm thinking this. We should just kind of see where this interview goes. If you have a few minutes you want to talk about, I'd love to hear about your youth. John, you grew up. What kind of things got you going when you were first exposed to pinball? Sure. I grew up in Pacifica, California. I was born in San Francisco, but I don't remember much about being there. When we moved to Pacifica, I was five years old and I started playing pinball probably about seven years old. My parents belonged to a bowling league at Seabowl and there was always Gottlieb pinball machines there. They were changed pretty often and they would give me a dollar or maybe not, maybe only 50 cents. That was pretty lean and at that time games were three for a quarter or 10 cents each. So I would try to make the games last, maybe win some replays. It wasn't very good. I'm still not very good but I've won some and kept with it. Interesting story. I was a little older, like maybe 10 or 11, and this guy came in, a mechanic, and he opened up the Gottlieb pinball machine, and that was the first time I saw the inside of a pinball machine. So this is like a game en route and you just happened to be there? Yeah, it was at the bowling alley. The bowling alley I went to all the time. Seaball. Anyway, I was looking at it and he said, if you want to get closer, you can look inside the cabinet. John Popadiuk, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Mirco Playfields, Rad Cabin, John Pinball Podcast, Injury, John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Pinball Podcast, INDISC, Scott Danesi.

  • Black Knight featured jeweled/faceted inserts made through molding to look like crystals, a design innovation by Ritchie

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie directly explained the faceted insert innovation on Black Knight

  • Steve Ritchie created his first game design on his own time at home while working at Atari, without authorization, then pitched it to Nolan Bushnell

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie described the unauthorized design work and Bushnell's approval: 'Poof, you're a designer'

    • Steve Ritchie @ N/A — Describes High Speed as a milestone game bringing together previous innovations

  • “As many as I could steal.”

    Steve Ritchie @ N/A — Humorous response about team size, reflecting his willingness to recruit talent from other departments

  • “I'm a voracious reader. I studied many things that I just wanted to learn... But sometimes the hands-on experience is better than just the book experience.”

    Steve Ritchie @ N/A — Explains his self-directed education approach despite lacking a formal degree

    • James Cameron
    person
    Eugeneperson
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Doug Watsonperson
    Flashgame
    Black Knightgame
    Firepowergame
    High Speedgame
    Terminator 2game
    Black Knight 2000game
    Getaway High Speed IIgame
    Gottliebcompany
    Ballycompany
    Greg Ferrisperson
    Gary Sternperson
    Jim Patlawperson

    high · Ritchie's first-hand account of meeting Cameron at White Storm Studios, receiving dailies, physical assets, and creative consultation

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Mike Strohl recruited Steve Ritchie from Atari to Williams with Steve Kordek; Ritchie credits Kordek and unnamed mechanical engineers at Williams as formative mentors despite lacking formal engineering degree

    high · Ritchie described the recruitment visit, hotel meeting, and ongoing mentorship from Williams staff

  • ?

    design_innovation: Flash (1979) introduced flasher lamps as a major pinball innovation, inspired by real-world brake lights; became Ritchie's best-selling game and set new standard for visual impact in pinball

    high · Ritchie stated: 'I want flash lamps. I was influenced... by 4 Million BC and Captain Fantastic' and 'Flash was the first pinball machine that kind of implemented flashers'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Ritchie pioneered faceted/jeweled inserts on Black Knight (molded crystal-clear pieces revealing bulbs beneath) and transparent lenses on Firepower, moving away from milky/colored opaque inserts for improved visual vibrancy

    high · Direct descriptions of faceted insert molding on Black Knight and clear lens philosophy on Firepower

  • ?

    design_innovation: Terminator 2 featured innovative toy mechanics including a cannon (motorized kickback on a pivot, concept originated at Atari) and gun handle controller inspired by .45 caliber pistols

    high · Ritchie detailed the cannon origins at Atari and gun handle design inspiration from his own .45 firearm

  • ?

    community_signal: Round Robin restaurant near Chicago served as informal industry hub where Stern, Williams, and Bally personnel casually networked; Ritchie encountered Gary Stern, Greg Ferris, Jim Patlaw, and Harry Williams there before formal collaborations

    medium · Ritchie's account of the Round Robin restaurant and the industry figures he met there casually

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Ritchie expressed preference for narrow 20.25-inch wide pinball machines over wide body formats, citing poor ball flow and excessively long excursions without flippers; considers extra inches make outside shots hit-or-miss rather than skillful

    high · Ritchie stated: 'I don't really like them. You don't, they don't play... Those extra couple inches seem like an eternity'

  • ?

    content_signal: Special When Lit Pinball Podcast conducted in-person interview at Stern Pinball headquarters in St. Charles, Illinois with Steve Ritchie, legendary designer currently employed by Stern

    high · Hosts explicitly state 'we're live from Stern Pinball' and thank Stern for hosting the recording session

    • 3:12
    Anyway, when I was in eighth grade, my teacher said, you know, they made a prediction about what everybody was going to become when they grew up, all the students. And they said that I would grow up to be a mad scientist in a toy factory. And here it is. It's not far off, right? No. Not far off at all. That's pretty awesome. Anyway, I went through high school and played some pinball then too, but not as much because we weren't close. There was girls, a lot of other distractions. And so, um, and music, playing in bands. Yes. Um, later I came back to pinball, I don't know, just at a pizza parlor, we used to play there, now and then. Anyway, I was in a band and I was, I was broke and my wife was working and that made me feel uncomfortable. That went on for two years. I did some stuff like, you know, painting address numbers on curbs and, you know, whatever I could do to make a few bucks. Selling glassware, it was all defective. Were you still playing music at the time? Yes, I was always playing music since I was, well, the day I heard the Beatles is when I picked up the guitar. Before that, I played harmonica and Hawaiian steel guitar, but it was really hokey. Okay. So... No ukuleles? Yeah, the day I heard the Beatles, 1963, I want to hold your hand, I asked my parents if I could have a guitar and they said no. And then my dad came home the next day and he says, well, a friend of mine has a guitar and an amp, a little amp, you know, and he says you can borrow it. So I borrowed it for a year because he wasn't playing and I went to town in my bedroom basically with a chord book and a Beatles book and learned how to play. A lot of my former experience with Hawaiian steel guitar helped out. I was born with perfect pitch. My mother was like a great soprano, make you cry in church. Awesome. and then I did this third phase here, which I thought should be pretty организ, so that I could wiive onails, hold grillsson further, over- ב�stanbul River, lautier thenns sign we could add a group of hosts, Всем при государством всем зрителями
    6:01
    I did my whole Coast Guard thing, four years of that, and that's okay. Anyway, back to games, they put me on assembly line making harnesses for Pong, and there was another lady near her named Jackie Fowler, and she sort of showed me what they wanted. I had made many harnesses in the Coast Guard, though. I was an electronics technician, and we had to wire up a complete Loran C station in Vietnam, and so I had lots of experience. So you were hired on at Atari as an electronic technician? Yes. Okay. Well, they called me an electromechanical technician because they wanted me to do things like build them a burn-in oven. Okay. And I made this universal test fixture that tested all the games that they had. It had joysticks and a little steering wheel so you could play track 10 and tank and all those ancient games. Anyway, I was there for about a year and a half doing that and then one of the vice presidents I was in the pinball division and I said, we're going to start a pinball division. You want to be part of that? And I said, sure. So they hired a guy from Chicago and he told everyone he was a game designer, but later I found out he came from Williams and he was a mechanical engineer. But he knew about pinball. He definitely did. We built pinballs. I built them for him. He's like, you know, he made the drawings, but he did show me a lot about how pinball goes together. And that's an important thing to know. The order of assembly, all that stuff. And you know, what can be done, what can't be done. And some history, he taught me a lot of history. Something that you don't learn unless you know these old guys, now I am one. Okay, pass on stuff. If you pass it on, that's fine. I try to do that whenever I can, but you know. Would you have considered him kind of a mentor? Yes. Getting into the business? He was, he was. He wasn't my greatest one, but he was very good. Okay. Well, I built pinball machines and after about three months I thought to myself, I could do this, I could make a game. So I grabbed a piece of paper and stuck it on a blank playfield. I didn't even know what the dimensions were, I never measured it or anything else, but I could see the symbols he was using on his game. So, you know, I used the same symbols and I built this game. I didn't even have a name for it then. One day I came in and I asked my boss when the game was finished. It was like a year later when I actually had a drawing that was complete. And he said, no, you can't do that. You have to just do your job. And, you know, we need guys with industrial design degrees to do that. And I was thinking, no, I don't. I was thinking I could do fine. And so I went to Nolan Bushnell and I asked him if I could be, you know, if I could make this game happen. And he asked me, did you do that at work? And I said, no, I did all of it at home. And he goes, it looks pretty good. Poof, you're a designer. Wow, that's awesome. It was a good break, you know? Well, I mean, it shows your passion. You're doing this on your spare time. Yeah, I did. You're not getting paid on the clock for this, so. Right. I mean, I just had a, I do have a passion for it. I still do. Well, you didn't even have a degree doing this, which is the amazing part. No, I didn't have a degree. But it doesn't mean I haven't learned a lot and never read. I'm a racist reader. I studied many things that I just wanted to learn. I had to learn higher math a little bit. Not a whole lot, but enough to draw and geometry and trigonometry, a little bit of stuff like that. But sometimes the hands-on experience is better than just the book experience. You know, I just, you get instincts about metals and ball and wood and everything else and you feel how they work together and Airborne Avenger came out. I have no idea how many it sold. It might be in international database. I'm not sure though. Thanks, Jay. I use it every day. There you go. I do. I really do. Shout out. Yeah, after that, I started a new game. And on this one, this one took four, four white woods before, before I thought, okay, this is an interesting game and to do things that were different with ball guides, with ball flow, with shots. I really refined a style. I mean, whatever style you could establish on a super huge wide body. I don't really like them. You're not a fan of the wide body? No, they don't, they don't play. They don't play as well and the trouble is, you know, even on something like Star Trek The Next Generation, if you're not careful, you know, it's like the ball goes on big long excursions and you don't flip, you know, for hours it seems like. Right, yeah. I don't like that part. I also know that the very outside shots on a narrow pinball machine, a 20 and a quarter wide play field, okay, is difficult for people. They're difficult in the shots closer to the middle. So when you really stretch them out, you know, it becomes like really hit and miss. Those extra couple inches seem like an eternity. Right. You know, if you can't even make the shots accidentally, it's probably not too fun. I'm pretty good at making the shots accidentally. Me too. That's how we get good. Sometimes I win accidentally. Nothing wrong with that. We've all been known. Oh yeah. Anyway, before I was finished with Superman. Superman was game number two at Atari for you. I'm sorry. No, I didn't get an offer to go to Stern. That was much later. Okay, so I got an offer from Williams, from Mike Stroll at Williams, and he called me up and it's like, hey, I'm like, I think I'm 27, you know. There's this guy on the other end of the phone offering me a job in Chicago and it's like, oh, that's worlds away. I don't know, you know. And he's like, well, I'm like, I think I'm 27. I'm like, I'm not sure. John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, Rad Cabs or Side Art Panels on Cabinet, John Popadiuk, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Mirco Playfields, Flippin' Out Pinball Podcast, INDISC, Scott Danesi.
    12:10
    John Popadiuk, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Mirco Playfields, We couldn't believe that that was going to make it. On the other hand, Bally and Gottlieb were making nice stuff, really. So we actually said, you know what? They need us. Yeah, right? Just in the arcade fooling around. We had no idea. Yeah. So it's kind of like, yeah. So Mike Strohl came out and he brought Steve Kordak, who was chief engineer at that time. That's what they called him. And we met. We talked for, I don't know, a couple hours in the hotel room. It was very interesting. They wanted to revamp everything about the company. Mike was like a guy who, I think he pretty much brought solid state hardware to Williams along with Ken Fedosna. And so they just wanted to be super sleek, swoopy, the magic company that's from the future. Some of that going on currently. Right. So we liked that and ended up saying yes. So Eugene didn't though. He wanted to stay another year at Atari in California and he did. Did you think that you were taking a risk or did you know for sure that this was going to open up? I was taking a huge risk but they offered me a contract and we signed it and so it was pretty much sealed up. Plus he treated us so good when we got there. It's like there There was no doubt that he had good intentions. I'm talking about Mike Strahl. Steve Kordick was nice too. He was cordial then. But not always. Who is always? Not always, but he was a good man. I'll say that. Anyway, on the plane, on the way over, the only time I ever did it ever, and it was like probably just the jolt of all the changes was like I made a napkin drawing of a pinball machine and I never do it and I had the title. It's going to be called Flash. I want, well hell, every time you step on your brake pedal you get these great big bright lights. I want that in a game. I want flash lamps. I was influenced, I would say, by 4 million BC and Captain Fantastic in terms of an upper right flipper. I didn't care for the scissors at the bottom. But the upper right flipper definitely influenced me, but I wanted, what is it, I wanted flow I wanted the shots to be sequentially fun. That's it. Sequentially fun. Okay. And I never had another game like that. Things have gotten a lot more complicated since those days. There's not much on a playfield in that era. So Flash was the first pinball machine that kind of implemented flashers at that time. Yeah. And it also turned out to be my best-selling pinball machine ever. It was almost 20,000 machines, 19,700. We're a team of over 20,000 sub-mariners. That's incredible. And that was 1979, 20,000 pins. Yeah. And we like tried to, well it took a year to build them all as fast as they could make them in the factory. Are they running like two shifts to do something like that or one 12-hour day or three shifts? I don't think there was, there might have been some overtime work done, prep for the next day, but I don't think there were, I don't remember two shifts. I just don't. Okay. And at that time Williams was a manufacturing company. All materials like ball guide and one and one eighth inch high, okay, would come in and they'd put it in a jig and weld on all the tabs, you know, to hold it down to the playfield. They made everything. They had big stamping machines to make blades for switches. Okay, we got beryllium copper in, boom, boom, boom, and then somebody else welded on the contacts and little switch stacks. They were all made there. So no outsourcing. Right, and it's like they would get these giant chunks of metal and we had two presses and I mean one of them was so big they you couldn't get it in the building they cut a hole in the ceiling and dropped it in with a big helicopter. Wow. It was like it shook the whole building when it was working. Anyway there were two sets of dies they were making legs so it's like out of really thick steel. So one one die would come down and cut the leg out and then they'd move it to the next machine and the forming die and turn it into a leg, fold it up. John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or spinners, Barry Oursler, The old days. And gradually they finally got to going out to other vendors to getting things done. It was faster, maybe a little more expensive, but what I loved about the system as it was, as a manufacturing company, is at any time you could go downstairs and go, hey wait, don't make it like that, make it like this, I just made a change, boom. Can you make this for me? Yes, it's always yes. Anything we wanted. We had some great mechanical engineers down too, which I learned a tremendous amount about. Yeah. You know, and they were good to me. Other people in the system did not want me there because I made them work. I think outside the box. I did. I made them work because they weren't, you know, they were into the same old, same old. So I didn't want to do that. I still don't want to do that. It's, you know, people... Well, you had a lot of innovation. It seems like with every pin that came out, there was another first in pinball that you would introduce into a machine. Well, that's my goal. At least one thing, but usually there's more than one. Some are maybe not as important as others. Sure. You know, like faceted inserts. Yeah. Do you want to explain what that is? Yeah, on Black Knight, if you look at the original Black Knight, all the inserts have like jeweled faces. It looks like a jewel. Yeah, okay. Wait a minute, these are made just as fine. They're actually molded that way and they're crystal clear. And it's not crazying or anything on the helper. It's just made specifically to look like a pinball game. It was kind of transparent. You could see the bulb through it, just like you can on a firepower. Firepower is like, nothing, but clear lenses. I wanted to be the first guy to make a game, always with clear lenses instead of having white, purple, or many milky colors. It wasn't as vibrant, wasn't as cool. There are other innovations. Certainly, Eugene came up with a lot. I think he had like three bites in the end left over. We didn't have much memory. We did the speech. It would be like I had to say everything in 13 seconds and we got clever and thought, okay, if we say these words like this, we can recombine them like fire, power, you, are, destroyed, one, stuff like that. It's nice. And then you assemble them in any order, and it would sound okay, as good as monotone crap can sound. Yeah. It sounded good. But that was the hot stuff at the time, though. Yeah, it was. At the time it was. And we did a big number of those, too. I don't remember, 17,000 something. How many people would you have on a team, working on a pinball machine? As many as I could steal. So could you have like 20 or 30 guys? No. I would have one mechanical engineer. I'm sorry, I wrote a program called G-Wave and it was buggy, but that's what was so cool about it. And you know this, if you've ever heard of Defender or a Firepower, all those sounds come from this program that was buggy and it was amazing. He would hand me this piece of wood with, you know, eight switches on it. I think it was Binary and I could just dial them up and play them. Oh that one's a cool one isn't it and he goes yeah. We're sticking that in the game. That's awesome. Anyway, he's an amazing programmer. He's very bright. He's one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. So what was the game after Firepower Steve? It was Black Knight. I ended up working with a very smart kid. He was 25 years old He went to MIT He was kind of a smartass but that was him in the beginning you know he said once flash sucks you know it like I guess he didn like it But he had he had a lot of game history that I did not have as a player as a street urchin like cheating games cheating games to get them to play all those tricks I was a joker at grad school with my WI-FI, but two years after I started taking the job, I learned that other I don't even know what the importance was, but maybe if I made one, I could create whatever this is that makes it special. I talked, just casually, before I even started this, I talked to Steve Kirk about it, and there was this restaurant called the Round Robin nearby, and it was like Stern Pinball was really close to this restaurant, Bally was close to the restaurant, and so was Williams. John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Popadiuk, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Mirco Playfields, Flippin' Out Pinball Podcast, INDISC, Scott Danesi. Here it was like so many people came there. Jim Patlaw and Harry Williams. I met Harry Williams there. I met Gary Stern there. I met Greg Ferris. I met a lot of people way before we were working together. It was just kind of fun. phrase
    23:14
    So, I decided to try and do it and I came up with Black Knight and it was like, I really don't know, it's just like, what is it? I wanted to make an adversary game and try to, you know, give the character a personality. Later it became, you know, everything integrated on high speed. High speed was the first game I think that had everything integrated. You should definitely connect the Amazon address for more information and learn about great pinball machines. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. I'm John Popadiuk, founder of the Pinball King Video Design and a partner, and we were making the world's first Motorola 68000 video game. It was really powerful in the day, and we needed parts. Our shop was in Loomis, California, a little bit further north than Sacramento. A beautiful place, like in Rolling Hills, and there was a spring fed pool, you know, at our house that we rented. It was like, it was awesome. That sounds awesome. It was a couple of acres. It was horse property. We built a shop in the back. We made what was there into a shop. We needed parts, so we drove to San Jose, that area. Here's how it went. When I got there, when I got back to California, I bought a used Porsche 928. It was like the space machine of the era. It really was. It was like balance. The engine was balanced perfectly with the transaxle in the back. It was all aluminum. It handled great. It made anybody a great driver. It had like a big, thick steering wheel and a jet pilot cockpit. You know, it was just cool. And I had had it for about three months, I guess. We decided to take that and go to San Jose. So I'm on I-5, which was a brand new freeway at the time. Four lanes in each direction, hardly anybody on it. We leave at like 7 o'clock in the morning. There is no commuter traffic because it's nowhere near cities or anything else. So I talked to my- You're ready to open this up a little bit, right? Yeah, yeah. There we go. My partner said, it looks good if you want to do it. I had new tires and everything else. So I opened it up and it went 146 miles an hour. But my partner had to tell me that because the speedometer only went up to 85 and all you could do is read the tack and then you could do the math. So it was 146 miles an hour exactly. So I got going, it was great, handle perfect, nothing bad happened, I passed some tomato trucks, there were some pasture cars, I slowed down to go buy them and then when there was nobody I went again. So we're going over this hill like this and a cop is coming towards us so I slow way down like 70 miles an hour or so and he goes up and over the hill on the other side. �1 crashing sound� Ease of talk an ına
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    I see him, I slow down, he does a U-turn in the median and I know it's for me. I pull over like in this gravel on the side of the road, kind of like a, you know, almost a parking area and I, you know, he said, tell you what, just stay in your car, okay? And so we did, we sat in the car and a few minutes later this highway patrolman comes with his Mustang, no it wasn't, it was a Crown Vic or something, you know, and he slams John Popadiuk, Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, INDISC, Scott Danesi.
    28:39
    In the early nineties, American lacrosse was now cutting costs and allowed non-pay medicine instead of John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Placid, David Van Es, Knapp Arcade, Wally Williams, I'm going to take you to court. I'll see if I can help you out. And he asked me, were you running from me? And I said, no, you went over the hill. And he goes, yeah, I did. I didn't know you were there. I just kept going. And he goes, okay, I'll help you in the courtroom. Wow. That's unbelievable. Yeah. Are you nervous this whole time? You're like, this is going to be pretty bad. I am nervous. Anyway, but not that bad. I'm kind of, what is it? Taking it all in? Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, we get to court and there's a commissioner there, not a judge. It's like, you know, my turn came up and the officer got up, you know, speeding. Let's see, it says 120 miles an hour plus because the officer said, well, that's as fast as my car would go. I'm going to go ahead and start the show. Everybody cracks up. Okay, so the commissioner says, do you have any idea how fast we're going? I said, yes, sir, 146 miles an hour. Oh, man. And he said, why did you do that? And I said, I just wanted to try it out. I just wanted to try the car out and actually drive it. There's no place to do this for me, and I don't know where any race tracks are. So I just did it in light traffic. Were you running from the officer? Do Sick. Sonny So the commissioner says, all right, I'm going to fine you $250 restricted driving for business only and reckless driving on your record.
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    That's bad. Anyway, I drove away in the car, went back home. At 120? No. You slowed it down from 146. I behave. That's a shocking thing. I got to go home and tell my wife I blew 250 bucks going too fast. Yeah. I'm a fan of the She would bang me in the head. She didn't, she didn't, but you know, this is life with me. Little rambunctious, okay? Life in the fast lane. So that beacon on top of that high speed. Yeah. That's symbolic of the car. Yeah, it was a lot of fun to make the game. So on the back glass, there's a mirror. Yes. You're sitting in the squad car, you know, the two sheriffs. Right, in the back seat. So is that why they put that in there as kind of symbolic? Yeah, we wanted the rear view mirror because people could look at themselves. You know, fix their hair or whatever. It was weird, but it worked. I don't know. There was something cool about it. It's definitely a beautiful backglass. Yeah, and I don't know about beautiful. I think it was the Blue Cops From Hell. But yeah, I mean, as you know it, it's beautiful. That's it right there. Let's shift gears. Would you like to talk a little bit about T2? Sure. I had a question about T2 when you get a chance. Go ahead. Ask the question now. It's okay. Terminator 2, you had secured the licensing for Arnold Schwarzenegger, his likeness, the movie, everything. Yep. Did you have a lot to do with securing that pinball license? Absolutely. I wanted it because as soon as I saw Terminator and found out there was going to be a Terminator 2, I definitely wanted it. Because, you know, it was such a cool idea. And Terminator 1 was like the best B movie ever made. So I was like, you know, this is going to be such a big hit. And as far as I'm concerned, 350 people get shot down or destroyed in the internet. Terry, it's awesome. Yeah. It was like the first kind of movie that did that and Arnold Schwarzenegger was like, man, just the epitome of a badass. And it was like, I don't know, I had to have it. And we arranged to go and visit and as it turns out, Jim Cameron loves games and he himself welcomed us. And we went to White Storm Studios and it was like, super cool. Super. So it's you. You're there. We are there. Who's there is Dwight, myself, Dwight Sullivan, myself, and Doug Watson, the artist. With James Cameron. With James Cameron for a couple hours. Plus he's totally down to earth. He knows about games. You know, he says, I don't want to tell you how to make it, but, you know, it'd be kind of cool if you did this and did that. And then he started, you know, we got to read the script. And we had to sign non-disclosure agreements. I can't remember if that was I don't think we were allowed to know the ending. That was okay. Anyway. Oh, so the movie's in production. We were talking with him and having a great time in his office playing with the T2 stop action model, all metal. You can pose it any way you want it. And he had the forklift thing that Sigourney Weaver drove in Aliens, right? She fought the mother alien. We have a lot of listeners that will correct you if you're wrong. Okay, I know, I'm sure. Look, my memory isn't perfect. I'm 68 years old. No, it's okay. It's like, I'm still sharp and, you know, I remember what I remember. If you don't like it, we'll change it. Anyway, yeah, we were playing with these toys and speaking with them and it was an amazing thrill. We got a tour of the lot. We got, he started sending us dailies because we were making a video game at the same time. Everything they filmed that day, we would get the next day. Oh, wow. You know, VHS cartridges. No licensor had ever done anything like that. He sent us the chip on loan. You know, we had to send it back, but he sent it to us on the arm in that tube, remember? Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He sent that too, we got skulls, we had all kinds of stuff. Wow. We had to give it back, but he would send it and we used it for... So you were modeling your playfield toys off of that. Yes. That's incredible. Yeah. It was an amazing licensing situation that was, you know, what was it? It was really inspiring because we only had exactly a year to get it done and on the day the movie opened we had games in the theaters. It was a great thing. I think we built 15,252 and I got the last one. Unbelievable. So 15,000, another, I mean these are big numbers in comparison to... Big numbers. Yeah. Do you still have the last T2? No. Ah, what a shame. Kevin Mariello,
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    That's the way it works. Besides, you know, some days I play 100 games of pinball on the same machine. So, it has to be really, you know, like firepower lasted for us. Like, I have one in my office in California and it just got played by everybody. I played it every day. Everybody played it every day. And it's like, that was probably, I don't know, the most addictive maybe. Later, I liked T2 and the people around us, you know, as you introduced us to it, I think it's the most addictive.
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    The gun handle on that game and the cannon, where did the ideas for those come from? The cannon idea I had at Atari. I just didn't have a vehicle to make it happen. It was a simple thing. It was the kickback mounted on a motor that pivoted back and forth. Simple. The gun handle was, I don't know, I loved that .45. In fact, I own one. I love that, I don't know, the feel, the grip, everything. So it felt like shooting. That's awesome. John Popadiuk, Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, INDISC, Scott Danesi.
    37:46
    I don't think he has any idea. Do you think he knows what a pinball machine is? Oh, he knows what a pinball machine is, I'm sure. It was thrilling. T2's a fun game to make. Totally awesome experience, you know? I love the story about that. And now James Cameron's like, you know, he's the king of the world. He might remember. I think he does. He for sure would remember. He might remember. I don't know. Steve, on the line we have James Cameron. I wish. Let me ask you this. So after T2, you come back with High Speed to Getaway. Yes. Was that something that you were passionate about doing or was that the company backing on the success of High Speed asking you to follow that up with a sequel? A little of each. I had another idea, the accelerator, and was looking for a place to put it. You know, don't make a sequel. Other people would say, yeah, make a sequel, do it. So we made a sequel. It's pretty different. I like it a lot. I love that game. I do too. What's good about it is it's quick games. Even if you're playing against good people. Shift gears. Yeah, good people shifting gears. I don't know. It was fun. And I also like the song, Grange. Okay. I used to stick that, you know, play it on cassette in my car when I'm driving because it's a great driving song. Yeah. I don't know. Some songs are absolutely great for driving. Absolutely. What other songs do you like for driving? Salt and Zisk Wing. Yeah, that's a good one. After Terminator 2, maybe like Black Knight 2000. Right, so you had another sequel. Yeah. Black Knight, was that a follow-up you wanted to do also? Yes. So you're passionate about that. I wanted to do it because we had better speech, you know, a lot more advances in technology, stuff like that, and we developed the personality and also the playfield itself. I just wanted to make a more dynamic playfield. John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Popadiuk, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Mirco Playfields, I want to do other things in the way, you know, so I make, you know, I make the game that I already made adaptable to this new idea or whatever. Keep massaging it. Some days I erase everything and, you know, have to draw it back a little bit differently. But what you have at the end is a nice system. That's it. A system. It seems like you're one of the only designers that have success with pinball machines that warrant a follow-up with high speed, high speed two. You had Terminator, Terminator 2, Terminator 3, and then Black Knight and Black Knight 2000. Yes. Between those series, is there one that you're more passionate about or that you feel more Connected. Connected to? No, I'm connected to all of them. They're all your babies? Yeah. It's like your kids, you can't. I'm connected to all of them. I mean, I guess the one I'm least connected to, a couple of them, Roller Games, just I remember that show it was kind of a dry time for licenses and so I neither one would probably be great But I don't know so that happened and I also didn't like stellar wars. Okay, art was terrible my first playfield I was disgusted with it my first whitewood me John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Popadiuk, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Mirco Playfields, Flippin' Out Pinball Podcast, INDISC, Scott Danesi. You're doing voiceover work for video games, arcade games. Yeah, sure. If people asked me, you know, I would do it. I worked a lot with Ed Boon on Mortal Kombat and, you know, little pieces here and there of many games. So how many, off the top of your head, how many video or arcade games can people hear Steve Ritchie's voice in? Probably about 20, but they're not all, they don't feature me. Like in, what is it, Barry's game, Comet. Yeah. I'm the dunk the dummy. He thought it was funny to make me be the dummy. So, okay, fine, I'll be the dummy. Right. Hey, turkey, come on, hit me. You know, that kind of stuff. Yep. And then you got Mortal Kombat, like very famous. I don't think a lot of people realize that you are in that game with voiceovers. Yeah. I did a lot of voiceover work for Mortal Kombat 2. It's fun to be Shao Kahn. It's like, I can still do it, but I have to think about it really hard because it's been a long time ago. It's mostly like muscle memory. Right. The score is going... Fatality! But the pitch isn't correct. I always... It sounds good. For those things, I spoke through an eventide harmonizer, which would lower the pitch a lot. And, uh... I don't know. It's cool that you did that, though. Oh, yeah. We'll have it documented here on the Special Winly Pinball Podcast. We're gonna have to end the show with that. Right. It's bright. Well, this show might be a fatality if we don't, uh... No. It won't be a fatality. No way. We never know. No, not this particular episode, but... Okay. No Fear was released in 1995 right before you went back to Atari. It is. And who did you work with on that game? Lyman Sheats did some work on it. I'm not exactly clear on who the main programmer was, but I remember working with him. I mean I could look it up on International Pinball Database. Where are you, Jay, when I need you? Jay. And Jai. That's how Gary Flowers says his name. I love it. Yeah, I really don't remember. I'm not positive. It might have been Matt. Who did artwork? Was it Greg? Yes. Ferreres? Yeah. Okay. And that was cool. We worked together a lot on that. So you've got a lot of... Second place is the first loser. All this double stuff. That's what I tell myself. It's time to meet your maker. I love it. That's awesome. For people that want to do those pin sound remix, there you go, right? Right, it's fun when you can, you know, it's fun when Greg was also a voice. He would go, I'm out of here, skull boy, that kind of stuff. Oh, I didn't know Greg was in there. Yeah, it was Greg. Perfect. So you actually end up coming to Stern for the first time in the early 2000s? 2000 and 2001? Yeah, I think so. I think it was, you know, he called me up and said, do you want to work in pinball? I said, sure, you know, we'll check it out. And you were kind of ahead of the curve by leaving pinball to go back to Atari right before kind of pinball started a decline. Right. I mean, the writing was on the wall and our boss was far more interested in gaming and he was making way more money. So they wanted to let pinball go. But I didn't know that was going to go at that time. I just knew that no fear didn't sell half as well as, you know, I mean, the numbers were declining no matter what you made. They were, you know, like, look at a great game like Medieval Madness and it's 3000 and something made. It's just, you know, pinballs going down and down and down. And a lot of it was caused by, you know, this, the, the rush of gambling opening up all over the place, not just in Vegas, you know, in New Jersey, but pretty much everywhere. And there are a lot of other entertainment, you know, like platform games, like, you know, the Sega system and all those, they were hot. All the consoles. Yeah. They were hot. And so it's like there were a lot of different things you could do for entertainment. You still could not play pinball unless you had a pinball machine really though. I mean there were some like computer games that came out. There were some real dumbed down versions of pinball machines on the video consoles. But I mean nothing like pinball. It's just and then you had pinball 2000 that came out that kind of tied a little bit of the video game industry with the pinball industry. Yeah. That was a sad time. That was, you know, the guys that were still at Williams, you know, doing like a last-ditch effort to try and change things. Yeah. But it didn't work. Neil was going to get rid of Williams and that was that. So it was already decided. Yeah. Pinball was at a low point, no doubt. There was nothing that could have been done. Yeah. Okay. So I went to Atari to make video games. I very much enjoyed that. I got to work with a guy named Mark Pierce. I had a team, I guess about 18 people, and we worked for two years putting together California Speed, a driving game, kind of off the wall, drive over the cables on Golden Gate Bridge. Go 146 on the highway. You drive through hell, meet the devil. Anyway, it was a very successful game monetarily. Steve Adubato, Video Games, Video Games can yield a lot more profit than a pinball machine can, no doubt. Well, the bill of materials has to be ridiculously lower than a pinball machine. Yeah, I mean it's much easier to build video games. PC board, monitor, cabinet, control panel, coin door. That's it. So how do you end up coming back to Stern then? You said that they reached out to you, they said, hey Steve, we want you to come back to pinball. Did you reach out to Stern? Now, what happened was Atari got bought by Williams and when they turned everything off, they turned it off. In 2000, it was over. And so what I did was I had a contract with them. They paid me for a while so I could, you know, do some other things and I made a slot machine called the vault. Oh, you did a slot? Yeah, I've done a couple. I did one called Mermaid's Treasure, but it was just, you know, the concept. It had nothing to do with the math and it's like it had to do with fun. ,
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    I'm thinking about a game made by IGT called Haywire. That was really fun. It was fun because once in a while it would just go off and go crazy and give you a whole bunch of jackpots. It might not be huge, but you'd be going, wow, wow, wow, eight, ten jackpots, sometimes 15. Like a bonus, yeah. Yeah, and you never knew when it was going to happen. It was just fun to play because anything could happen. Yeah, it kept you interested. Yeah. I was working on a slot machine and I brought it to IGT and they kind of like stole the whole thing and turned it into a video game. The whole concept. But they had a hundred lawyers and there's no way I'm going to win. So I sort of gave that up. Then, I don't know who called who. Maybe I called Gary and I said, you know, got any pinball work? And he goes, you know, I don't remember. Anyway, I started contracting here for a long time, six years. You had Steve Ritchie Productions at that time too, right? I'm just thinking with the experience you had with T2, it would seem very natural to want I'm going to try to do that again. It was hard to believe that, you know, but it wasn't James Cameron. It was Mostow. What's his first name? John? I don't know. Anyway, it was not the same. Okay. It wasn't a story written by James Cameron in his car. Yeah. Okay. So, or any anywhere else. And you teamed up with Dwight for that one also. Yes. Dwight. You and Dwight seem to be together. Right. Kevin O'Connor. We've worked many times together. Right. How was it working with Dwight? It's good, you know. Why did you grimace when you said that? I didn't grimace. We do argue sometimes, no doubt. Yeah, for sure. But the results have been good, especially lately. And yeah, we're taking a break right now. We'll go back. We interviewed Dwight and he said that you guys work so well together, but at the end of a project it's good to take a little break from each other. Yeah, we had to. And I think that's healthy. That's good. Yeah, for sure. I'm sure it's a relief for Dwight too right now. Dwight's on break. No, it's like, you know, it got tense on Star Wars. It's like... I like Star Wars. There's a lot of people that like Star Wars. Before we talk... No, I don't hate the game. Don't get me wrong. No, I don't. And there's a lot about it that is like one of the most authentic games that we've ever The actual footage the you get you know the speech everyone in the cast uh... all the movie clips I I love that the hyperloop is there which kinda pays homage to the getaway yeah yeah I mean that's one of the coolest shots right that hyperloop it's it isn't the game itself it's just the vibes that came with it while we were making sure but you know what it came out great you guys put all the code in the world in that Yeah, Dwight loaded it up, no question. I mean, that game has everything in the kitchen sink. Yeah, and it just keeps going. Yeah. Anyway. So you're at Stern, you knock out Elvis, Spider-Man, World Poker Tour, and 24. Yeah. You go through those games. Now, I'm getting into your last four releases, which I think arguably could be the hottest titles that you've done at Stern. and maybe in your career too and i'm talking about acdc star trek game of thrones and then star wars yeah uh... all amazing games you're just on fire right now uh... yeah i mean i'm not gonna say i'm on fire right now i'm really tired. Steve, you're on fire buddy. you know maybe a better a better way to say that is it seems like you're really enjoying what you're doing. I'm totally enjoying it I don't want to quit, no matter what. I think I'm going to end up going to work every day until one day I don't go to work. And you won't be calling in that day, right? But if you're having fun doing it, it's not really a problem. I am having fun. It's mostly fun, especially on this game. Let me ask you, especially with these last four releases, do you think maybe right now you are at the peak of your career as a pinball designer? Maybe. You miss? Just kidding. … You're the fool for giving up except if you miss. You are, not only anywhere but you're going to spend it. You delay the green break of time entirely and thezuge of every game. What was your first game you spent on Bruschini on that last event? The last one, yeah, it was 21 minutes away. John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Placid, Larry Oursler, Bally Williams, tout. lifecycleart.com second whitewood that sort of thing also this is for the game you're currently working on yes okay I didn't know you want to talk about a typical day this is this is no this is it this is this is perfect actually so you're talking about what you're currently working on this typical day when I'm when I'm currently working on pissed me in my chair in front of the computer all day pretty much we have some what we do around here I mean I'm not getting enough exercise I'm just not but if I'm not at my computer working. I'm not advancing the game. So during breaks, a group of us do serpentine laps of the factory. It takes a while. It takes about seven minutes to do a whole lap all the way around, winding back and forth in between the lines and going around, using up the whole place. So Lyman and I do that. You're counting your steps. You have a pedometer. Yeah. How many steps are you? I have a Fitbit. How many steps a day? I don't know. I try to get 10,000. I don't very often. That's the sweet spot. I probably get an average of seven or eight thousand. I'm trying to dig this thing out of my pocket. Is that your Fitbit? Yeah. I'll never get a Fitbit. Wait, let's try to guess Steve Ritchie's steps for the day. I'm going to say... Okay, so far it's 8,246. I was going to say 8,242. Yeah, true. You were right on. I was right on. I missed it by four. Bill would have got me though. If I hit nine, then often when I get home after I eat dinner, I'll turn on the TV in the basement and I have a treadmill there. I'll just walk off the rest of them while I'm watching. I like that. Or run for periods, you know. I should be running my ass off right now. I don't know. It's tough. It's too hot outside. You don't want to be running in this kind of weather. It's not too hot in my basement. In fact, it's cold. Let me ask you this. It's like a crypt. What? A crypt? Yeah. Okay. Like the Batcave, right? Like the Batcave. Like we watch TV down there and my wife is always bundled up with blankets. It's perfect. My wife actually wears a sweater in our house in the middle of winter because I got it cranked a little too low. Yeah. There's currently an influx in pinball manufacturers that have recently come into market over the last four, five, six years. In your opinion, what does a company have to do to be successful in today's business for pinball? Okay, I'll tell you what we say. You build one, you know, build the first one, it's not so bad. Build ten, a little more difficult. A hundred is tough and you're at the base of Mount Everest. Wow. If you have enough money and people to throw at it, things can go faster. I don't want to mention names, but how often are these people actually making machines? I admire Charlie. Charlie at Spooky Pinball. Yeah, Spooky. He has a system together and he's actually making machines, more than our other competitors, less than us, but definitely more. I look at what's happened with Dutch Pinball. I feel bad for them, but they tried to farm it out onto another company. And obviously, no company that's never built pinball before has any concept of all the effort it takes, all the money to be spent. I mean, to buy parts in huge quantities is like, it costs a lot of money. Yeah. It's just fascinating to me because pinball is hard. It's something you hear over and over and over and it's because it is hard. Not if you listen to Robert Mueller at Deep Root. He says, he says, pinball's not hard. I want to see what he's got and it's like one, we'll have four or five games. Isn't that what he says? I think the goal is to have at least four games debuted when they officially launch the fifth day of Deep Root, which will be at Texas Pinball Festival in 2019. I believe that's what it is. And I think speculation is that each designer will be at that show potentially with their own game, but I don't know that for certain. I do know that I've reached out to Robert on a couple occasions, and they're not really saying anything now until they make an appearance at Expo. But they did say they're going to have multiple games. Yes, multiple games. Right. That should be available to be, when they officially launch, purchased within a couple weeks of ordering. Yeah. So, we'll see. I'm curious. It'll be interesting to see what happens. Yes. You know, I don't want to cut anyone out or say anything. You know, like I said, it's just interesting to see what will happen. Well, what do you think about the staff that they've compiled? And I think Paul Ferris is the last guy that just went on board at Deeproot. Here's the way I feel about it. Each designer needs a long trail of people behind them to get a game done. And to get one done, that's interesting. Again, when you get to the hundred, you're at the base of Mount Everest. Good luck. It's a tough thing to do. Endless cash could help. It's going to take years. That's what it's taken every single pinball company that's ever existed, years. Years to get it to happen. So you're operating in the red probably for a while, right? You're probably not coming out making profit off your first release. I don't know. The first couple. Yeah. You got all that labor, all that overhead. You know, there's not so much labor and overhead because you don't need a factory full of people if you can't, you don't have a game. When you have a game, you can hire them, but yeah, to keep it going is ridiculously expensive. Right. And dangerous. It is dangerous. Yep. All right. So we'll switch gears again. A question for you. Nowadays, with online forum groups like Pinside, Facebook, posts,
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    podcasts, it's very easy for people to get an opinion out there about a game or a designer. Does the public opinion ever have a lasting effect on your attitude as it pertains to pinball? It has totally destroyed me at times until I finally learned to stop reading Pinside I'm a fan of Star Wars, especially. I have no use for Pinside. They hated ACDC. They hated Star Trek in the beginning. They hated Game of Thrones. They hated Star Wars. Okay. That's how it started. And they, you know, Steve Ritchie should retire. I mean, some comments are like totally personal. Yeah, you can say what you want in your basement, but I do not respect you. I just don't. Fair enough. ATB Can you give an example of that? No, I'm not going to give any examples because I don't want to. I don't want to pinpoint one guy and say... Oh, for sure, you're right. No, don't credit somebody with something else. I don't want to do that, but people do it all the time. I mean, if it was asked in a question and interesting to talk about, eventually it becomes people who are experts who we never heard of, who know everything that's going on and how it's done. They don't. They don't know. That's how it is. Self-proclaimed experts. Yes, absolutely. Right. Dlatego... aber
    61:52
    Oh Crazy Levy Yeah Out of New York New Jersey New York East Coast Yes Right I like you know it just he far more sane than a lot of other people and has a lot of pinball knowledge and experience. Same with... It's funny because I think a lot of... Same with Lloyd. Lloyd's... Yeah, Lloyd is great. A lot of people, I think, would think that Levy's one of the more outspoken people on Pinside. Yes. And has more strong opinions on a lot of topics. Yeah. I'm John Popadiuk, and I'll see you next time on Pinball Podcast. I don't want to read it. I don't want to read that same evolution every time we make a game. It's an emotional cycle probably to have to go through. Ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Well, and when you start building a game, I mean, you put your heart and your soul. I mean, you guys are here late every night making these things come to… Right. I don't like negativity and I don't need it. It doesn't serve pinball or me. Yeah. I don't read it anymore. Very seldom. I don't blame you for that. Once in a while if there's a hot topic I want to know about, you know, even there. Hey, if you need a hot topic, you just, the Special Win Lit Pinball Podcast will help you. Okay. Right, just to let you know. Alright. So we've got a whole new batch of design talent that's been releasing machines. You've got Keith Elwin here at Stern that did Iron Maiden, Eric Minyer at Jersey Jack who is now Pirates is Shipping. What's his name? Eric Minyer. Oh yeah, right. Scott Danesi at Spooky, who just did TNA. Nice guy. I very much respect him. I was going to ask you, can you talk a little bit about, is it exciting for you to see some fresh blood, some new talent come into the industry? Yeah, I mean, I don't mind. I think competition is good for everybody. It's like Keith's fun here. We're having a good time. Just relating, I'm not working on his game. But, you know, I help him when I can. He doesn't really need my help very much though. I think he's got, you know, he's been operating pinballs and playing them and everything else for so long that, and then making his own game, which is very interesting. You know, I never did that. It's, I'm sure that was pretty heavy duty undertaking.
    64:18
    What else? Scott Danesi. I think he's a great guy. I really like, you know, I really like TNA. It's a good game. It's fun. It seems up your alley. It's fast. It's in your face. It's great music, driving music. I love that. That and, you know, the game has a definite personality and it's like there is no break. There's no breaks. Yeah. The whole bam, it's back in your face, you know. I kind of like that. What else do I like? I don't know. The artwork is decent. I wish him good luck because he deserves it. He works really hard and I think there's a special talent there, no question. Yeah. Eric, I don't really know him. I only know what I've read that he's written. Have you had a chance to play Pirates of the Caribbean yet? Yes. Okay. I'm not, what is it, I've only played it twice so I'm not, you know, I'm not well versed. Sure. I've not played it so I'm looking forward to playing it. Ever? You've never played it? I've never played it. Yeah. Neither have I. It'll be interesting to go in. Are there, there's none out there? Yeah, well, they're shipping now and there's some test games. I think Level 257 had one, Logan probably had one. I just... Right, I know they had them. I'm not sure they do anymore, but I don't know. Okay. I haven't seen the test report that reports them. And they blank out the numbers they make, which is okay. Yeah, that's fine. As long as I can see the order. It's important to know where your games, you know, stand and... Right. ...and all that and for how long. Yeah. Revealing numbers of current pins being released, you just don't see that anymore, so... No. Well, we get test reports. Sure. We don't share them. Absolutely. Going back to Keith real quick. Okay. Working on game number two, and I was going to ask you, is there any chance or is there any time where you interact with Keith and try to mentor him a little bit? Or is he just on autopilot where he's focused and he knows? I just would imagine to have you in the building among some of the other designers and game developers here. I mean, what a huge resource of people to have behind you on your second effort. He, you know, he has his own ideas and they're good. I think he's going to do fine. I have not really, we haven't interfaced much. Also, he talks really fast and sounds like this and I have a hard time hearing him. I have to ask him to please slow down so it's no fun for him to talk to me. Is that what it is? Yeah, I mean, it's like, it's hard for me to hear. You know, like this is like, it's quiet. I can hear every word you guys say. You're a little fast sometimes, but it's not a fault. It's me. I hear sounds and noises, okay? The squeaky little noises that come out of your mouth have to be interpreted by my brain, and lip reading is a part of that too. Yeah. I agree about that. So, because you have Meniere's disease, and I was going to ask you, for those that don't know what that is or how that impacts you, Her Tanai lá.
    67:50
    Joe Kaminkow, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Popadiuk, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Mirco Playfields, Flippin' Out Pinball Podcast, INDISC, Scott Danesi.
    68:20
    Wow, you're always rocking Steve. It is like a fuzz tone. What song was that? Was it Satisfaction? Yes. At least it was recognizable. Yes. Okay, anyway. Yeah, it sounds like a fuzz tone a lot of the time. You know, people's voices are just fuzzy. And if you're too far away, I'll never hear you. You can have a private conversation with somebody six feet away. No problem. I will not know what you're talking about. So are you able to pick up, like for instance, if you were at my house, you picked up a guitar and you were playing and it sounded perfect, can you hear that? Or is that something that you just know by... What is it? No. The answer is no. It doesn't sound clear to me, but it has in the past. It's come and gone. Right now, it's not there, but I can still play the guitar, you know, but it's not as satisfying because I don't really hear all of it. And I have a tuner at the end of my guitar at all times and I'm constantly checking it. So you have better days than others? Yeah, that's true. I would say that. But it hasn't affected your drive to want to keep working and... No, it hasn't really affected my songwriting skill either. It's like I still know what I want to write and I know the chords and that sort of stuff. Awesome. Good. Very good. I'm not going to contribute as much to this game as I have with others though. Okay. As much as I can, musically. But you're excited? Definitely. That's all I'm going to do. Look at his smile. I've been looking at it the whole time. Oh, yeah. The only guy that has a better smile I think is probably Zach Sharp. I'm real excited. It's like the cool thing is a lot of people back there in product development, you know, want to be part of it and help me and it's very awesome. Is there anything that, I'm not asking for company secrets, is there anything that you can share about your next title that's coming up that maybe might be interesting to some of the listeners? Yeah, it's got a wood cabinet. Whoa. It's like, how many legs does it have? Some flippers, a back box. It does have flippers. It does have an LCD display. Okay. That's it. Awesome. I think I know what it is. Yeah, sure. So no legs on the cabinet then? No, there's legs. Okay, all right. There's legs. So how long can we expect you to keep cranking out new games? I don't know. If I live to be 120, I figure I can do 30 more machines. I love it. Good answer. So that's good. I don't know. We'll see what happens. So Steve, we went ahead and we started a contest to celebrate your interview with us today. Steve Richie, Star Wars Translite
    71:15
    I'm a 9-5 job. Tell them it must be difficult to get out of bed every morning, let alone be able to function all day without a couple of naps. I'm also wondering how bingo night's going at the nursing home. Wow. I have no trouble getting up. I have no trouble doing 8, 10, or 12 hours a day if I have to, but I try not to. Hey Steve, that's Brian Kelly, by the way. He wanted me to make sure. Oh, Brian's a bastard, you know. I sit right there. I wanted to throw that in there and be like, this is Brian Kelly when you started asking. I was just going to say, the look on his face, that wasn't the way I wanted to start off the mailbag segment, but Brian wanted to make sure. Brian's a good guy. He's a good friend. Brian Kelly from Minnesota. So that was question number one. Brian, hey, thanks for contributing to the show. Yeah, thanks a lot, Brian. We'll talk about it later. You'll be getting an email. So the second question is, Dave Fulgram, sometimes you'll hear an artist talk about his best work and how it just fell on the page. Ian Yeah. Okay. Others too. ACDC. I can't hate ACDC. I love it. Yes. ACDC is awesome. Yeah. It was like coming back to Stern and working with Lyman again. A lot of fun. Great. What a great theme too. Just kind of a power driven music theme. Yeah. Right up your alley. You know, I knew he loved them. I always loved them too. We just thought... My thoughts are any game that goes... The game that plays that got a winner. I like it. So Joseph Fox writes in and he asks, do you even like being referred to as the king of flow? I love it. Are you kidding? It's such an honor. My card doesn't say king of flow though, it says king of pinball. Why is that? Because I've sold more games than any other designer ever in history. But I've been doing it a long time. I cheat. Harry Williams and those guys, they had a lot of games, but three, four, five hundred runs. And I've cheated by hanging with it for a long time. Would you ever want any of your games to be remade? Yeah, as long as, you know, if they're Stern games, I love it when they're remade. Vault editions. Good answer. All right, so I got another one. Joe Zankis, buddy of mine, he asks, what do you think about people that re-themed pinball machines that you've worked on? For instance, someone took a Williams flash and they rethemed it into a queen. It belongs to them. I have no influence over what they do with it. Same thing with modding. People say, well, is this okay? Yeah, it's okay. It's your game. You can do whatever you want. You know, you got to be a realist about it. People are always going to modify things no matter what. I'm not going to hate you for it. I have, you know, I just have no position other than, you know, if it looks pretty and it's well done, I admire it. Yeah. So you wouldn't necessarily not want to play something that you designed? No, it has nothing to do with that. I'm not offended. I'm just totally neutral on it. In fact, you know, a lot of my games that I've seen people mod, same thing, but sometimes they're amazing, beautiful, you know, things that we couldn't do back in the day. You know, you can put LEDs now in any game and there's lots of, you know, guys making circuitry to drive them and I don't mind. Well, a lot of that stuff back then had to be cost prohibitive, I'd imagine, right? In some cases it wasn't even invented yet. Yeah. There were LEDs, but they were expensive. There were none that we could place on the playfield. They were very dim and small, and always in that, what is it, T03 package, the little bubble with the lip on it. What, I mean, I wonder what costs more now, incandescence or LEDs, because LEDs have just become so cheap. Incandescence are no longer even, you know, they have, they have no bearing on the pinball business again anymore. Right. And it's like LEDs, I don't know, they're very cheap. And effective and bright. I love the colors. Right. Yeah. Flashy. Yep. All right. So Sean Sperling wrote, do people ask you to mimic Black Knight, ACDC or other iconic John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, rad cabs or side art panels on cabinet, John Popadiuk, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Mirco Playfields, Which means... Yes. Can you, how about a fatality? Can you throw one of those out? Sure. I'm annoying you. Fatality. Yes. That was a nice little pop on it too. So, alright. Alberto Luna. It was said that Roller Games was supposed to have been American Gladiators instead. I love Roller Games the way that it is, with the cheesy 80s music callouts. Besides American Gladiators or Roller Games, do you think another theme could have worked great with that layout also? What are your thoughts on the current collector's market and the increase in new and used pinball prices? Did you ever imagine a scenario where home buyers would fork over thousands for older games? Yeah, I mean, one thing I don't understand is, it's like, the games that we made, for many companies, there's always winners and there's some that don't do so well. And we only make 2,000 of them and suddenly they're like the grail, even though, you know, maybe not that fun. I think that's interesting. And it's like, if you own pinball machines, they're probably worth a lot of money. What can I say? That's about it. Nothing is cheaper. It's, I'm seeing, you know, things like copper. Wow. Off the charts. People I don't know on the outside have any idea what price increases we have to deal with. Like I make something, you know, one year, let's say it's wire form. The next year, it's more money. It always is up and up and up. I don't know. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. People always pay for what they want. If it's something good, they'll pay good. That's all I have to say about that. That's all he's got to say about that. Brad Hunter, another buddy of mine actually, he writes this. Are there mechs that you've designed that have never been done before but eventually may see the light of day on a game? I don't think so. I think I've used the ones I've... We've got some fresh new toys on this game and it's like, it's nothing like anything I ever did before. It's... Yeah, I'm trying to think. You know, there was a time when I, at Atari, when I thought about the cannon rotating on a motor and then we put it in T2. It was a long time between, you know, making that happen. But I don't have a whole cupboard full of those kind of things. Yeah, like the mad scientist cabinet of toys that you're going to launch out at any moment. Usually when I'm about halfway through a game, I'll come up with more stuff and put it aside for the next game or think of a theme. It all has to work together. P?
    80:00
    Steve, thank you so much. I don't know what to say. It was fun. And it's, I don't know, you guys make me feel comfortable. You don't ask annoying things. Well, a couple. Oh, that was Brian Kelly. Not you. Brian. So, yeah, it was great. Well, I look forward to the future. Maybe we can do this again when the next game comes out and take it from there. We can. That's a great idea. Perfect. www.interestpawn.com
    81:00
    Steve, we both really appreciate that you're able to take the time out of your day. I know it's long, hard times for you right now as far as getting that game out so thanks for inviting us in this during allowing us to do the interview. We both had a great time sitting down and talking with you and asking all these questions and you know you've been a great interviewee. Thanks a lot for asking me. I enjoyed it too. Definitely. Can't you tell? Oh yeah. Smiling. I just hope that everyone that's listening to this podcast enjoys it as much as we did. Me too. Absolutely. Next time we'll bring everybody in. But alright guys, that's going to wrap up episode number 11 of the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast live from Stern Pinball. We thank Stern Pinball and Steve Ritchie for allowing us to come in for the interview. We thank all the listeners for going ahead and giving us another listen. We're hoping that you like this one. If you want to get in touch with the show, you can reach us at Special When Lit Pinball Podcast on Facebook or via Gmail at SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast at gmail.com. For Bill Webb and Steve Ritchie, I'm Ken Cromwell. We're going to sign this one off. All right, you guys have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And don't forget to take some time out of your day to play some pinball. So long, everybody.
    82:26
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