Episode 127: The end of Heighway Pinball

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·45m 14s·analyzed·May 7, 2018

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Heighway Pinball's collapse examined through distributor and developer perspectives; final Alien code update planned.

Summary

Pinball Profile Episode 127 documents the collapse of Heighway Pinball through interviews with key stakeholders including distributor Tommy Floyd (Nitro Pinball), programmer Brian Dominey, and co-programmer Joe Schober. The episode explores the company's financial struggles, operational challenges (remote development, parts unavailability, lack of documentation), and impact on customers and business partners. Despite the shutdown, Dominey and Schober committed to releasing a final code update (v1.2) for Alien to support existing owners.

Key Claims

Andrew Highway declined to appear on Pinball Profile, promising exclusivity to Martin from Pinball News
high confidence · Host Jeff Teolis states Andrew 'respectfully declined as he's promised exclusivity to Martin from Pinball News'
Distributors including Nitro Pinball and Cointaker experienced financial losses from Heighway's collapse
high confidence · Tommy Floyd: 'Oh, of course. I mean, we lost money. I know we lost money. I know Point Taker did.'
Parts and documentation unavailability was a critical failure point for Heighway Pinball
high confidence · Tommy Floyd: 'The key word there was parts. If you didn't have some of the parts for some of the existing games that were sold, that presented a problem.'
Brian Dominey worked as sole programmer on Full Throttle initially without intended support
high confidence · Dominey: 'For Full Throttle, I was the sole programmer on the game code, just kind of by default. I started doing it, thought, okay, I'll do a little bit of this until we find someone. And then it just stretched out longer and longer'
Programmers experienced chronic payment delays and inconsistent compensation at Heighway
high confidence · Dominey: 'A lot of us had issues getting paid over the years. It's not a recent thing. It had been going on for a while. It would have its ups and downs.'
Joe Schober and Brian Dominey are releasing Alien code v1.2 as a final update despite company closure
high confidence · Schober: 'we've actually been working on a new code release, version 1.2 of the code, which has been in testing now for a few weeks... just this evening, we started pushing out what will probably be the final beta release'
Heighway's proprietary boards and components (I-boards, inductive switches, LEDs) complicate community support efforts
high confidence · Schober: 'The I boards on the game are proprietary to Highway. The inductive switches and LEDs are as far as I know proprietary to Highway.'

Notable Quotes

“I wish every company that gets involved with pinball nothing but the best success. The more pinball, the better, in my opinion.”
Jeff Teolis @ Opening — Sets the episode's sympathetic tone toward understanding Heighway's failure despite competitive industry dynamics
“If you do not have part for a game and you cannot support that game and warranty that game, you can't sell that game. It's just as simple as that.”
Tommy Floyd @ ~8:30 — Core diagnosis of Heighway's fundamental business failure; parts/support deficiency was dealbreaker
“If a customer came to you in the last three, four months and said, I want to buy an Alien, what would you have told them? I would have told them no.”
Tommy Floyd @ ~11:00 — Demonstrates severity: even major distributor refused new orders due to support concerns
“I'm not surprised that it had happened. I think everyone inside knew that there were financial problems going on.”
Brian Dominey @ ~16:30 — Insider perspective confirming financial instability was known to core team before public announcement
“Programming a pinball game is really hard when you don't have parts in front of you, working devices that you can test out.”
Brian Dominey @ ~19:00 — Technical explanation of remote development bottleneck that hampered code quality
“The most bugs got fixed on Full Throttle was during that time [three-month period with physical machine].”
Brian Dominey @ ~22:00 — Demonstrates productivity multiplier when programmers had hardware access; opposite condition became norm
“It plays, I'd say, twice as better, twice as well as it did before [after finally receiving Alien machine].”
Brian Dominey @ ~24:30 — Dramatic improvement when physical hardware finally provided after 2 years; underscores scale of remote development handicap
“We're proud of what we did... there's no reason to let good code go to waste.”

Entities

Heighway Pinballcompany Andrew HighwaypersonBrian DomineypersonJoe SchoberpersonTommy FloydpersonDave SaunderspersonPinball Brotherscompany

Signals

?
business_signal: Remote development (UK factory/US programmers) across continents created severe bottlenecks; parts unavailability made quality testing impossible for 2 years on Alien
high · Brian Dominey: 'I didn't have a game for... two years of development'; 'Programming a pinball game is really hard when you don't have parts in front of you'
?
business_signal: Heighway Pinball entered bankruptcy/dissolution; company assets and parts inventory status unknown
high · Jeff Teolis: 'over the last few days, we've heard about the demise of Highway Pinball'; Joe Schober: 'company was going to be entering into a... bankruptcy was the term or dissolution'
?
community_signal: Community likely to reverse-engineer proprietary Heighway components (I-boards, inductive switches, LEDs) via 3D printing and parts substitution to keep machines operational
medium · Joe Schober: 'community is very resourceful... I would not be surprised if some of those elements get reverse engineered. People have been talking about 3D printing gear teeth'
?
design_philosophy: Dave Saunders' playfield geometry work praised as unique and valuable; his design talents potentially available for other manufacturers despite difficult circumstances
medium · Joe Schober: 'Dave Sanders... does some really cool stuff with geometry'; 'it would be awesome if some company made use of his talents for future game design'
?
licensing_signal: Third unannounced Heighway game title in CAD stage; originally planned reveal at Texas Pinball Festival did not happen due to financial difficulties

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.136

0:00

What if that ship didn't even exist? Do you ever think about that? I didn't know. So now if I went and made a major security situation out of it, everybody steps in, administration steps in, and there's no exclusive rights for anybody. Nobody wins. So I made a decision and it was wrong. It was a bad call, Ripley. It was a bad call. Bad call? Right. These people are dead, Burke! Don't you have any idea what you've done here? Well, I'm going to make sure that they nail you right to the wall for this. You're not going to sleaze your way out of this one. It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teolas. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com, and please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. I'm a person who likes to promote pinball. In fact, I wish every company that gets involved with pinball nothing but the best success. The more pinball, the better, in my opinion. Plus, competition is very healthy, too. It makes the other companies strive to do better. So unfortunately, over the last few days, we've heard about the demise of Highway Pinball, the makers of Full Throttle and Alien. There's been a lot of speculation as to what is going to happen with that company, what happens to its employees, and there are endless people offering their opinions of what they believe to be true. I personally am careful to offer my opinions until I have the facts, and the best way to get the facts are from the people that are directly involved with Highway Pinball. I've had several of them on over the course of many pinball profiles. I have reached out to each and every one of them, first being Andrew Highway himself. Now, during this current time of what's happening with Highway Pinball, Andrew is not directly involved. I asked Andrew to come on to say a few words, but he respectfully declined as he's promised exclusivity to Martin from Pinball News. So we look forward to hearing from that, but he did offer me a few things on an email. Andrew wrote me and I quote, week if that interests you. So we may follow up on that. The first time I ever saw a highway pinball machine was actually from a distributor here in Canada, Nitro Pinball. And Tommy Floyd joins us right now. Hello, Tommy. How are you? Hey, how's it going, Jeff? Good. We're talking about highway pinball. And you were the first distributor that I saw firsthand with these games. And it started with Full Throttle. So when it first came out, you wanted to support a new pinball company. And we all want to see pinball companies succeed. What was your first experience with Highway Pinball. The first experience with Highway Pinball was actually pretty great. The games looked innovative. You know, it appeared they had forward thinking in terms of their design. I liked the modular situation they had with the games, and I also thought that some of their ideas and the way they played, I mean, Full Throttle was a fast-playing widebody, so, you know, I really enjoyed playing that game. So we fast-forward, and they come out with Alien, another game that you can insert into the cab. Did you notice maybe there were some concerns at that time? Yeah, I mean, as a distributor, you pick up on those things. You're sending monies in. You're doing what you have to do to get games and things like that. And, of course, there were time delays and problems with some of the games we had received. And we weren't always able to get part in the proper support. There was no documentation or anything like that. So, you know, at that point, we began requesting very vigorously that we need these items to continue supporting the games and move forward for our customers. I talked to Melissa in Pennsylvania at Cointaker, and she kind of echoed some of the same comments you just made, too. And the key word there was parts. If you didn't have some of the parts for some of the existing games that were sold, that presented a problem. And do you think that's where the downfall was, perhaps? You know, internally, obviously, the company, now that with everything we know and everything we've read and everything that's come out, obviously they had serious financial difficulties in the company. and there was obviously a lot of back and forth with Andrew and things going on internally with the investors that at the time we didn't know anything about. But at the very basic level, if you do not have part for a game and you cannot support that game and warranty that game, you can't sell that game. It's just as simple as that. And, you know, our customers are very special to us and we consider them friends. And, you know, we're not going to get in a situation where our customers are stuck with a game that they can't fix or support or provide any type of warranty issue for that kind of game. It's just not going to work in the long term. So if a customer came to you in the last three, four months and said, I want to buy an Alien, what would you have told them? I would have told them no. In fact, we told a lot of people no, that we weren't going to move forward. We had some existing purchasers that had purchased prior to that. And we've actually refunded deposits and given credits to everyone that was involved in the prior purchases. But we certainly weren't taking any new orders. And some of the guys hung right in until the very end because it was a dream thing to them. And even after I said, charts are an issue. There's a very good chance we'll never be able to support this pin. There was a couple of individuals that still wanted to move forward with the game because they love the theme that much. So it was pretty disheartening for everybody. With other games and perhaps even some of these games, I've heard of some people, some clients, some customers, not necessarily viewers, but just pinball collectors in general say they might have lost some money on this. So as you, a distributor, did you get hit with this one as well too? Oh, of course. I mean, we lost money. I know we lost money. I know Point Taker did. I know that, you know, anytime you step up and you support something new and something is starting at the ground level and hopefully going to be a success and work its way up, they didn't have the infrastructure. So, you know, we all kind of got burned by the end result of this. And, you know, I mean, even refunding customers back. I mean, you know, you hang on to the money for, you know, X amount of time and refunds and things like that. Just the administration involved in moving deposits around and doing the refunds and stuff. You're eating credit card fees. You're doing all kinds of things. So, I mean, that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more internal costs that are involved. But I think there's just no way of getting around it. Everyone that was involved in this in the end lost. Finally, does this present a problem for a distributor with new upcoming companies? Well, it certainly makes you think twice about supporting new projects and new companies that are on the horizon. I mean, when we first started supporting Piway, I mean, you've got to remember the landscape was different. This was a number of years ago, and, you know, you had Stern, you had JJP, but there wasn't a lot of other stuff going on, you know, with companies. And, you know, everybody wants to support new ideas and new pinball companies and support the community. But after all of this, I mean, you know, we're very careful now about where we put our money and what we're doing. I mean, we've just recently started working with Spooky. Charlie and Katie are fantastic, but they've got a proven track record, and they've got some games out now that, you know, are a hit. and everybody loves what the company's producing. I mean, that's probably the smallest company we work with now. So it definitely has an effect on what you're willing to work with going forward. Tommy Floyd, Nitro Pinball. We'll see you this weekend in Edmonton at Yegpin. Yeah, thanks a lot, Jeff. And, yeah, looking forward to seeing you. One of the people I've talked to before on Pinball Profile, directly involved with Highway Pinball, Brian Dominey, who joins us right now. Hi, Brian. How are you? Hi, Jeff. Thanks for having me. When we talked to you, we were talking about some of the coding you had done for not only Alien, but Full Throttle. So you'd been with Highway for quite some time. How did it all start for you with Highway? You know, Andrew found me online. I'd been doing some programming work as a hobby, just on the side for pinball games. And I think that was around 2012 when I started. And we were just kind of talking for about a year. Lots of ideas being thrown about. And I was really just, I was there to consult and give advice and suggestions. I really didn't expect that I would still be doing things for them this many years later. So he found you online. It's a new pinball company, which obviously has its risks, and certainly a lot of capital has to be put out of the way. The decision to make the parts that weren't necessarily used from other manufacturers, these are all part of the costs that Highway had to endure when they first started up. So I guess it was exciting for you to be included in something that's a dream, to be doing pinball, But there had to be some trepidation, too, as far as, okay, is this company going to be able to do it? Are we actually going to be able to make a pinball machine? What were your thoughts back then? Sure. You know, of course I was excited just to be able to be involved in something pinball-related. I'd always wanted to work in pinball, and, you know, this was an opportunity to do something. So I jumped at it. I didn't really think about the longevity of the company or how it was going to work out. I mean, it was a big unknown, and I understood that when I went into it. But I was just happy to be able to code for pinball games because it was something that I really enjoyed doing. You know, there was a lot of other aspects of making a pinball machine that I don't know much about and I don't particularly enjoy dealing with. But as far as the software goes, I was happy to be involved. And for the most part, I was kind of left alone and able to just focus on what I enjoyed doing and not have to worry about manufacturing or art or other things that, you know, which are important in making a game but not something that I'm an expert at. So, yeah, it didn't feel like work. I was doing all the things that I liked doing. And as long as I was in control, I felt like, you know, there was a good chance at least the software was going to be good. But everything else, I had really no control over that and no say in it. So I didn't know what to expect. I've talked to other programmers who've worked on machines, and a lot of times they work directly with the designer. So I assume you and Dave Saunders had a lot of back and forth. Yeah, so actually I would say we didn't have as much back and forth as we should have. That's one thing that was really unusual about this project that I thought would change at some point, but there really wasn't a lot of interaction between myself and the other programmers that came on board later for Alien. and we were kind of isolated from what was going on in the factory, and we didn't really see what was going on day to day. And programming a pinball game is really hard when you don't have parts in front of you, working devices that you can test out. And in a lot of cases, we were guessing as to what things look like and how they worked, and that made it very difficult. There was a lot of back and forth. We would do something and send it over and wait a couple of weeks, and then we would hear feedback, oh, no, that's not right. We need to change that. And, you know, I think it was definitely not ideal, an ideal situation. We made it work the best that we could, though. Did you ever go over to the U.K. headquarters? I never did. Andrew had invited me over several times to come visit, but it never worked out for me to go. I came close at one point. I was already in Europe for something else and thought maybe there was a chance I would swing by, but it didn't happen. Was the offer there to look after you as far as getting you there and accommodations and flight and whatever No That being said I guess it understood why you didn go That a big expenditure Now you talked about not being able to work hands without the parts and kind of remotely in the U.S. for a manufacturer in the U.K. I think when you and I talked, you were getting a machine. You did receive a machine. You had something to work on back in the U.S. Was that the case for Full Throttle and for Alien? So, Full Throttle, I did get a game temporarily for about three months. It was actually a demo game that had been going around to shows, and I guess there were no shows at the time. And so they sent it to me. I think it was after one of the U.S. shows, which made sense. And it was a frantic three months to try to get as much done as I could. It was a very productive three months, actually. It's probably when the most bugs got fixed on Full Throttle was during that time. But then I actually had to send it back for another show somewhere in Europe. And then eventually I did get a Full Throttle later, about a year later. And the same situation with Alien. I didn't have a game for, I guess, two years of development, but I did just receive my Alien a couple of months ago. And again, it's been very productive. I mean, we've, and Joe Schober, the other programmer, has received a game too, and we've gotten a lot of changes in in the last couple of months. It plays, I'd say, twice as better, twice as well as it did before. So when the word came out that Highway Pinball was going bankrupt, your reaction was what? It was a mixture of emotions, I guess.

17:42

And after that, you know, I met Andrew Highway, and then we had some talks online and went back and forth on the details and actually joined the team on January 1st of 2016. And much like Brian, it was done remotely, correct? You're in the U.S.? That's correct. Yeah, I'm just outside of Washington, D.C., so I'm nowhere near the Wales factory, and in fact, I'm nowhere near anyone else on Team U.S. We conducted all of our collaboration using Skype and using Slack and GitHub and generally the Internet to bring us together. It sounds like that slowed down the process because when Brian said he received his full throttle machine for three months, a lot of work got done there. And I know you were working remotely as well with Alien. Right. Do you think if you were there in the UK, which obviously wasn't possible, it might have made things go a little bit faster? Is that safe to say? Yeah, I mean, I certainly think that's reasonable to say. And, you know, we had some interesting cycles during the development of Alien where Brian and I would send code over, you know, more or less daily. And then some of the people in the factory would record video of gameplay features, you know, that we just added anything we asked them to test. And they would then post those videos up on Google Drive. And we'd download them and could analyze the video to see how it actually worked on the machine. You know, that said, how much would it have really changed? Hard to say, because I don't know that the game was really fully functioning until like the summer of 2016. So we were a significant part of the way through the development cycle of the code. I think by the time there was a truly reasonable prototype machine at the factory in Wales. So certainly I would guess through the spring of 2016 when we were really doing a lot of the initial code development, I'm not sure there was really a machine to play with anyway. So yes, it would help. I don't know if it would have been a radical improvement. I know from talking with you in the past, it was a real sense of pride for not only yourself, but for Brian, I assume for Dave Saunders as well, to have this game finally come out, a great title, a great license. I know you were excited about tweaking the game and making it better and better, as all people do. I mean, we're seeing games from other companies where code is changing from games that are three, four, five years ago. So that was exciting. Yet, sadly, that's probably now over because it's great to be able to finish the code. Someone's got to pay for it, though. Yeah. Well, as it turns out, we've actually been working on a new code release, version 1.2 of the code, which has been in testing now for a few weeks. And coincidentally, just this evening, we started pushing out what will probably be the final beta release of that code to beta testers. So there will, in fact, be one final code release of Alien. It has a lot more fit and finish improvements and some bug fixes and just generally feels like a more well-rounded release in the 1.1 code that's on production. So that should get out. so people who do have alien machines in their hands should end up getting that code made available to them, and hopefully they enjoy it. Hopefully we have made the game shine as much as it possibly can. I'm certainly proud of what the entire team has done, certainly given the circumstances of the whole rollercoaster ride we've been through. Joe, for you and Brian to release that code here after the fact, there's no obligation for you to do that. Is it just a sense of accomplishment? You know, this is kind of your baby, so to speak, and you really want to make it as great an experience for those that do have the game? Yeah, I mean, that's unquestionably part of it. We're proud of what we did. And, you know, anyone who creates something, you want that thing to be as good as it can possibly be. So that's part of it. The development we've done towards it, you know, some of it up till now was, in fact, built to Highway Pinball. So it was paid for. we could certainly at this point just you know drop it you know right 10 meters behind the finish line if we wanted to but yeah uh well i think certainly see it through because there's no reason to let good coke go to waste okay i didn't realize that that you were actually paid for this so that makes things a little different and again you're doing the right thing by uh releasing this and making it more enjoyable for those that have it it's sad to hear that one of the biggest problems with highway and maybe you can speak on this was just the difficulty in getting parts and manuals and all those kind of things that we're hearing from distributors. Yeah, manual, you know, I know a manual has been under creation. I believe it was led by Helmut Lagenbroek, who left the company a few weeks ago. I've never seen it myself. Yeah parts availability too You know it unfortunate The I boards on the game are proprietary to Highway The inductive switches and LEDs are as far as I know proprietary to Highway You know, the good thing, if I've already been seeing this on the Pinside forums and such, is that the community is very resourceful and very interested in helping one another. So I would not be surprised if some of those elements get reverse engineered. People have been talking about 3D printing gear teeth and so forth. So I think as much as possible, people will support one another to keep the games going. But yeah, it's a shame.

23:19

I certainly wish this whole story had turned out better. Like I said before, I'm certainly proud of the game we created. I think it's a fun game. I think it's a great representation of the Alien and Aliens universe. very immersive. David Thiel did a bang-up job on the audio. It's just absolutely spectacular. Same thing for Kelly Mazeroski and the animations. There's, I think when I looked, it's nearly 30 minutes of custom animation in the game, which is just mind-blowing. I think it feels great. I wish there had been thousands out there that had reliable parts that everyone could enjoy, but all I can say is hopefully the people who do have them keep them going, and I do hope they love their games. Kind of all we ever really set out to do was make a game people would love. I've always enjoyed playing Alien when I have played it. I enjoyed playing Full Throttle the first time I saw it at Pinberg years ago, and I thought it was unique. And that goes for any company, you know, any upstart company. You want them to succeed, right? Sure. It's so challenging and difficult to do, and you're going up against the quote-unquote big boys, but more pinball, the better. I've said that before. I will say it again. So when something like this happened, And it was very disappointing. And I don't know what the latest status was. You know, we've heard rumors of a third game coming out. And originally they were going to announce the title at Texas Pinball Festival. That didn't happen. Obviously, maybe this is the reason why with the financial difficulties. But were you involved with the third title or any other titles for Highway? No. I'm aware of what the third title was. and I had reason to believe if it went forward, I'd probably be involved with doing coding on it. But none of that has actually started. I don't know if there's any Whitewoods in the Wales factory or whatever. I've seen CAD drawings of the game, but that's about it. And to that point, and something I was negligent about a second ago, is I definitely do not want to go without also giving mad props to Dave Sanders, you've mentioned because, you know, personally, I think he does some really cool stuff with geometry. You know, there's no question, neither Full Throttle nor Alien are standard family apps. You'll never mistake them for that. So, you know, I think, again, given the circumstances of what was going on in Wales there, you know, I think he did a terrific job and it should be commended. And, you know, I certainly, I think it would be awesome if some company made use of his talents for future game design. I think it's great to get new designers in the mix. We've seen that with Eric Munier over at JGP. We've seen that now with Keith Elwin at Stern, just producing some really sweet, new, fresh designs. And I think Dave had that same characteristic, so it would be awesome if we see more of his work somewhere down the road from a pinball company. It is great to see new people like the ones you mentioned, Scott Denisey also at Spooky. Yeah, absolutely. I did reach out to Dave just to try to get a hold of him at the time of this recording. It was difficult to reach him, but that doesn't mean I won't in the future because I do agree with you. He has done some great work and has been there since the beginning with Highway. So it's people like him I'm certainly thinking of. So this was new to you. I mean, you certainly are no stranger to software. We are all familiar, if you're in a league anywhere, the Papa.org software that a lot of leagues use and some of the other things that you've done too. Are you jaded by this experience? experience or are you more excited to see what you can get your hands on next uh definitely more excited to see uh you know what's coming up next yeah the the the situation had this whole panned out was was unfortunate i i feel for everyone who lost you know money and lost games who had invested in kind of the hope and the promise and and i was kind of getting left out i and i i feel very badly for those people i feel badly for the people in the factory you know who are now going to be having to look for new jobs. I think those are just terrible situations to be in. But one mismanaged business, I don't think, dooms pinball. It doesn't even doom startup pinball. So I think there's a lot of fresh companies out there. As we talked about, Stern and JGP have been around for a while. You've got Spooky. You've got American Pinball, who was really successful with their debut of Houdini. There's lots of companies out there doing some really cool things. Like you just said yourself, you know, more pinball is always better. So, yeah, I'm looking to see what the industry is doing going forward, and if I can be part of that industry and be able to create some cool games, all the better. Did you hear at all from the Pinball Brothers organization before this was announced? I did have a conversation with Rogers Vanovik of Pinball Brothers a day or two before kind of everything hit the public forums. I assume to tell you that this was coming up in the next few days? Yeah, basically that's what it amounted to. It was just a heads up that the company was going to be entering into a, I don't remember if bankruptcy was the term or dissolution or whatever, but yes, that basically it was getting liquidated in its current form. Joe, thanks for spending some time with us here on Pinball Profile, and I look forward to seeing you soon. What's your next big tournament? I think the next major one on the list is Pinberg at ReplayFX. I was lucky enough to get one of the coveted spots. So from my money, it's the best tournament of the year, so I'm certainly looking forward to that. It's always a lot of fun, and I'll see you there, Joe. Thanks very much. Thanks for having me on. Barry Ousler joins us right now. Barry now with Deep Root. Barry, thanks for coming on. Oh, you're welcome. Glad to be here. So when we last talked, you were getting set to go over to the UK and to Wales. It was in November, if I recall, and I believe you were there for a couple of weeks. This is obviously before you left the company. So what was it like when you went over there in November? Because at that point, there were new ownerships and you were getting ready for perhaps a release of the third game, which at the time they were saying maybe released at least the title at Texas Pinball Festival. What happened when you went over to Wales? Well, first, before I got to Wales, I had to go to two shows. I went to a Swedish show on a Friday, and then I went to the Dutch pinball on Saturday and Sunday. Then I went to Wales for a week right after that, so it was like a long trip. And then I did get to Wales. I mean, I had talked to them on Skype before in messages, but never met them until I was over there. But they seemed like they were really excited to get back into making games again and getting things straightened out, and I thought everything was going to be great. So you were, at that point, pardon the pun, full throttle into going forward with game number three. Right. Which we've now learned was Queen, correct? Correct. I guess I can talk now because I think everybody in the world knows. Yeah. So how far along were you with that game? I mean, I got quite a ways through with the game. It's, you know, the actual play field drawing and the rules, but they had just gotten a whitewood built, and that's about as far as they had gotten when I was there. So we were just able to bat the ball around, but I never actually played a game that had been programmed or anything. Who was doing the programming on it at that time? Oh, God. I'm trying to remember now. Brian and Joe, maybe? Yeah, possibly, because I don't think they were even in the office at the time. We just had like a very basic program just to operate the flippers and bumpers. One of the things we're seeing on, whether it be Pinside or some of the other forums, Pinball Info, one of the U.K. forums, is about Dave Saunders, who was there from the beginning, the designer of Full Throttle, Alien as well. Right. Have you heard about some of those threads? I mean, I always like to talk to the people directly involved, and we did reach out to Dave, and unfortunately at this time of the interview, couldn't get a hold of him. But since then, I've seen a GoFundMe page for Dave to get some of the monies he was promised. And this goes back to, from what I'm reading, the Andrew Highway days as well. So I don't know if you've heard anything about that or have any comments on that. I did see a little blurb on that bit on my Facebook page today. You know, I see a lot of pinball stuff and all the groups I'm with, but I haven't really heard much else other than the GoFundMe. Well, you know firsthand how wonderful the pinball community is when someone's in need with a GoFundMe campaign. And I'm hoping, and I'll also post that link as well for people that want to help Dave because he did design two amazing games and certainly should be compensated for those if that was the case. No, Dave's a really nice guy. I mean, I've met him. I've talked to him. You know, we send a lot of messages back and forth and had conversations. I mean, he's always been good to me. So you said things sounded positive when you talked to the new Pinball Brothers ownership. and that being said from the timeline i'm seeing from this week in pinball you left the company in january now did you leave or was it a matter of deep root coming and trying to lure you away now this happened in december a couple weeks before christmas somebody sent me an email showing me a link that they were hiring a pinball designer in san antonio for some new company so i checked it out and called the guy up and talked to him and i talked to him on a monday and he says well I'll get back to you. You know, he calls me Friday afternoon and says, can you get out of plane at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning and come to Texas? So I said, sure. And I got there and got hired the same day. And I went back the next week to look for a house to rent. So I got the whole thing tied up like within a couple weeks' time. I was already started packing up, and I moved on the 9th of January. So less than a month after I talked to them, I was already here. There was no conflict of interest? Were you on contract with Pinball Brothers and Highway at that point that you were able to take full-time employment with Deep Root? Well, when I first signed out with Andrew, the contract they had was basically only for like a year, and nothing was ever renewed. So I kept on working for them just on good faith and everything, and they were treating me well, so I just kept everything like it is. And then they understood when I said I wanted to leave because they knew things were going slowly, and maybe they knew ahead of time something was going to happen. So I imagine you were busy, obviously, with Queen at that time, and we've also heard about Playboy as well, and your name has been attached to that. Were you working on two games at that time, or just the one? Three. There was an unlicensed one we've heard about as well. Right, which would have been after Queen. So that may show up with Deep Root, because there's no license involved, correct? There's no license, but the actual title of the game and everything I did on it, they own it there at Highway. They own the artistic design and layout? Well I guess what I understand is you can copyright a play field layout because other companies have copied layouts and rethemed and made their own games out of it I just can use anything else any kind of artwork or the name of the game or anything Subtle name changes don really make or break a game especially if it not a license So that design might come up someday with Deep Root or some variation of it? Or maybe some part, some feature, or maybe I put on a game that I liked. Because people always reuse gimmicks that you put on a game and maybe try and improve on them. What are you talking about? I mean, when I made Pinbot, I put the moving five bank on there. Then somebody else made a moving three bank for the game. And then that was used on several games. And we just keep changing it around. And I did Doctor Who with the whole play field that moved up and down. Just kind of keep taking it a step further. Have you been in touch with people still connected with Highway, even though you're with Deep Root now? Yeah, I mean, I still send Skype messages back and forth. I mean, I'm still friends with some of the people there. Even a couple of the owners I talked to and some of the people that work there. I mean, you know, you got kind of close when I was there. with some of them. Do you feel the new owners of Highway Pinball certainly had the best intentions? I would think so, yeah, because they were working hard. They were taking turns, basically, coming in two weeks at a time. The owners would rotate, so there was always somebody there, and they invested a lot of money. The common theme I've heard of some of the problems were getting the parts and the manuals, which some of the distributors were very concerned, obviously looking out for their customers. Is that what you heard as well? I haven't heard about the manuals, but I know the parts were a pain to get because You can't get the sourcing there like you can in the United States. But a part, they have to find somebody in Europe that can make the parts. Here in Chicago, I mean, when we were there, we had people on every corner. You can get something. Nowhere on the globe they could find somewhere to do it. Even outsourcing to Chicago was just not an option. I mean, they probably could, but I guess, you know, if they have to ship it overseas, it would cost more money than it's worth, I think. So I think it took them a long time to actually find people that can make the parts. You know, finding a playfield distributor was enough. Just find somebody who can make good quality wood for them. From your experience, and obviously you've had a lot of it working in North America, is it difficult for a pinball company to operate maybe in the U.K.? I think they can do really well if they have everything they need. Because, I mean, Williams sold 60% of their games to Europe anyway when we were selling them, so they'd have a good market right there if they're able to get the company up and running properly. It's the manufacturing that might be the cause of concern. You know, it seems with some of the North American companies now, some of the parts are coming from places like China. There seems to be a lot of outsourcing. It's just a matter of effective costs and production values. Right, because a lot of parts in the U.S. are too expensive. So they end up going to China for them. The thing is you've got to wait like a month for it to come on a boat and hope they come in right. That's the biggest problem. In your time at Highway, seeing Full Throttle come out, seeing Alien come out, working on Queen, working on Playboy and the other title, What were some of the things that concerned you of the way the operation was running? I think the biggest thing was just trying to get a whitewood made. I mean, when I worked at Williams, if I drew up a game, I could have a whitewood built in less than a week. I would just give the drawing to our people. They'd route out a board, give it to me. Our model shop would make up the parts. But they had, even if they're sample parts at Highway, they had to get someone on the outside to make sample parts. They couldn't make them in-house. So it took a long time to get anything. and they're so busy trying to get Alien and Full Throttle working properly that there wasn't time to work on the other games. So I spent a lot of time waiting. I understand these difficulties. Was there too much attention to certain aspects that you think might have bogged down Highway Pinball and the manufacturing of these games? I'm not sure about what it was exactly. I just know that they just had everybody devote all their time to getting the bugs out of the game that was in production. So nothing else got done on any other games. It was definitely a small company, and we're certainly not undermining those people that have lost their jobs by any means. In fact, I feel bad for them. Who doesn't, right? Absolutely. I mean, these people put in a lot of hard work to give many people great enjoyment, and we certainly wish them the best, and hopefully they can find employment immediately. But the reason I bring that up is, do you think the size of the company might have been too small for the goals that they had set? I don't think so, because they could have grown. They had room to grow in the company if they needed to, but they just needed to be able to get production done and get everything done right without any problems. But I guess by the time they started getting all the bugs worked out, they ran out of money. Did you ever hear from Andrew when he decided to sell the interest to the Pinball Brothers? I mean, I've talked to him a couple times since he left there, yeah, just like Skype messages or occasional phone call. It had to be a difficult decision, but I imagine his reason for doing it was to keep the company continuing. Right, right. That's what I'm thinking. And we see that with other North American companies, where the figurehead is no longer really the main investor, and other investors have to come in. So that's common practice, not just in pinball, but in any business. Oh, yeah. I mean, look at Williams. I mean, Harry Williams left the company many years ago, and they had two or three different owners after he left. So when something like this happens, and highway's been around for a few years, do you think it maybe puts a cloud over new companies? I think everybody's a little nervous. I mean, I like to see them all succeed because we always did better when there was competition. You know, when you only have one company or two companies, you know, it's just not the same. At least you get people of choice. And plus, if you want to work somewhere else too, you have other options. I totally agree about that. The more, the better. And it seems to be thriving. There's a lot of machines being sold. If you limit your expectations, manage your expenses, there's no real reason why these companies can't succeed. But I think of new companies, and you're with one in Deep Root that has hired some major, major pinball players, yourself included. Yes. We're all kind of waiting to see what Deep Root's going to do, whether it be the announcement of the five days of Deep Root or whatever the case may be. So do you think Deep Root has to come out strong out of the gate with a game ready to go? Once they announce it, it'll be ready to be shipped within, let's say, a couple of weeks maximum. code will be as close to ready as possible. Do you think that's important for Deep Root? Well, that's what the plan is. Did you read all the stuff that Robert posted? I've read much of it. Then you have an idea of what he's trying to do. But it will be early next year before we actually have anything ready because we have to get everything developed, everything working properly. We don't want to put any game out that aren't working 100%. That's a great model. You know, no updating codes every month and all this other crap. I think the days of releasing a title without the game being ready to go or the production line ready to ship, I think those days are probably over, and I kind of hope they are done. Yeah, we want to have things ready, and then if we say we've got a game ready and somebody wants to order it, they should be able to get it within a few weeks. So you're in San Antonio now, and it's got to be exciting to be back full-time in it. I know when we talked last, this was kind of the dream, you know. You'd been out of it for a while, and to be back in it, it's exciting, especially with all the new options that are out there that weren't there when you were doing some of your classic games. Yeah, it's great. I mean, I'm glad to be back doing it. You've got a good team there. Maybe you can give a little shout-out to Deep Root and tell us not what you're working on, but just tell us, you know, kind of your day-to-day and what you're excited about. I mean, we've got good mechanical people. We have good, you know, people that do the electrical engineers, you know, programmers, everything. You know, a couple of artists we've got we're working with. When Robert releases some of the information from Deep Root and comes across very, very confident, do you share that confidence as well too as someone who's on the inside i did that's why i moved here if i didn't believe him i wouldn't i wouldn't have left chicago and unlike a contract work like highway you know this is obviously a salary or some sort of position where you don't have to be looking for a paycheck correct right full-time salary so but with benefits so i'm glad to be here i mean i like san antonio it's you know it gets a little warm, but it's better than Chicago winters. Do you like Tex-Mex food? I love it. And barbecue.