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Nate Shivers - Episode 39

JBS Show·podcast_episode·1h 18m·held·Aug 23, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Nate Shivers reflects on founding Coast to Coast Pinball, community backlash, and pinball media evolution.

Summary

Nate Shivers, creator of the pioneering Coast to Coast Pinball podcast (launched 2013), appears as guest on Wormhole Pinball 39. He discusses his origin story in pinball, competitive play journey, the founding and growth of his podcast, early community criticism and gatekeeping tensions, documentary work with Roger Sharpe, spinoff projects like Wide World of Pinball and Pinball with the Pros, and his current life in Amsterdam working with Stern on podcast content.

Key Claims

  • Coast to Coast Pinball launched in 2013 and grew significantly, with episodes on the Skit B predator case and John Papadiuk Magic Girl controversy reaching 12,000 downloads each

    high confidence · Nate Shivers, discussing show history on Wormhole Pinball 39

  • Nate was a competitive pinball player and attended major tournaments; he moved to Amsterdam and now has much less opportunity to play competitively

    high confidence · Nate Shivers describing his tournament experience and current situation in the Netherlands

  • Nate experienced early community gatekeeping and criticism when he started Coast to Coast Pinball in 2013, including from a respected female figure in pinball whom he admired

    high confidence · Nate Shivers describing tension in the pinball community when he entered as a newcomer

  • Nate worked with Stern on video projects including 'Pinball with the Pros' featuring players like Keith Elwin, Steve Bowden, and Zach Sharpe, and is currently working with Stern on their official podcast

    high confidence · Nate Shivers discussing his Stern projects and current role

  • Roger Sharpe told Nate that Coast to Coast Pinball was similar to what Sharp wanted to do when he worked for GQ in New York with a recording machine

    high confidence · Nate Shivers recounting conversation with Roger Sharpe

  • Nate conducted documented interview series with Roger Sharpe covering pinball history, including interviews Sharp had conducted decades earlier with Harry Williams

    high confidence · Nate Shivers discussing archival interview work with Roger Sharpe

  • Nate created Wide World of Pinball as a spinoff to cover competitive pinball, featuring Josh Sharp and Steven Bowden, but only did a few episodes due to scheduling difficulty with multiple hosts

    high confidence · Nate Shivers explaining the creation and challenges of Wide World of Pinball

  • Coast to Coast Pinball and Wide World of Pinball episodes are difficult to find/archive, though someone has collected all of them and Nate plans to upload them to YouTube

Notable Quotes

  • “I think at times it certainly did [scratch the itch]. You've probably dealt with, so you put yourself out there, right? And I put myself out into Pinball 2013 where you had a lot of, like, there was this, like, tension I felt in the community where someone who was newer in their scene was coming into it and there was a little bit of gatekeeping going on.”

    Nate Shivers — Candid reflection on early community resistance and gatekeeping when entering the pinball world

  • “I have 12,000 downloads on this. They're like, you have 12,000 pin, like blew their mind about pinball.”

    Nate Shivers — Demonstrates the reach and impact Coast to Coast Pinball achieved during controversial coverage

  • “If I had to have a second father, it'd be Roger Sharpe, right? Like everybody kind of wants Roger Sharpe to be their dad.”

    Nate Shivers — Expresses deep respect and personal connection to Roger Sharp and his family

  • “His dad quickly, I think, respected me. And he didn't have to for there was no reason to respect me other than like I respected him I guess and I cared about it and I was going and playing and trying to learn.”

    Nate Shivers — Reflects on earning respect through genuine passion and effort rather than credentials

  • “One of the strengths, I will tell you, of Coast to Coast Pinball was that it was just me and I didn't have to wait for Aaron to also log in or clear my schedule. It was just on you.”

    Nate Shivers — Explains operational advantage of solo hosting for production consistency and turnaround speed

  • “I'm not the greatest player by a long ways. I'll never play in a division anywhere.”

    Nate Shivers — Self-aware acknowledgment of his competitive pinball limitations despite deep involvement in the community

  • “It was one of the most time intensive things I've ever done trying to edit videos and put up text. Hours. Hours. Yeah. You need to get an intern.”

    Nate Shivers — Highlights production burden of video content; pivots to discussion of eventually getting help

Entities

Nate ShiverspersonJamie BurchellpersonErin Winnick-AnthonypersonRoger SharpepersonJosh SharppersonZach SharpepersonSteven Bowdenperson

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Both Coast to Coast Pinball and Wide World of Pinball episodes are not easily findable; Nate plans to upload full archives to YouTube to preserve them

    high · Nate states 'I'm terrible at archiving and keeping stuff' and hosts note they cannot find episodes; Nate commits to uploading all episodes to YouTube 'so they can live there forever'

  • ?

    community_signal: When Nate entered the pinball community in 2013, he faced significant gatekeeping, criticism about newcomers driving prices up, and personal attacks from respected figures including vocal fry criticism

    high · Nate recounts: 'there was a little bit of gatekeeping going on... oh you rich yuppies coming in... I got some real hard criticism from someone who I really looked up to... she just shredded me'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Nate has deep relationships with Josh Sharp, Steven Bowden, and Zach Sharp; currently works with Zach at Stern; maintains fond but less frequent contact with Josh and Steven despite distance

    high · Nate states 'I talk to Zach more than anybody now because of his role at Stern' and 'I miss [Josh and Steven] dearly'; describes Steven as 'one of the good people'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Nate conducted interviews with Roger Sharp about decades-old archival tapes including original recordings of Sharp interviewing Harry Williams in his 20s; represents valuable pinball historical documentation

    high · Nate describes: 'hearing like Harry Williams talking to Roger where Roger's in his 20s talking to Harry who's on the way... on the back end of his career about pinball there's nothing like that'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.235

0:00
Hello, my name is Jamie Birchall, and you are listening to and or watching our podcast called Wormhole Pinball Presents.
0:10
Today, I'm very, very excited to be joined by two great individuals. Today, I'm really excited to be joined by a very special guest. And today, I'm very excited to be joined by two awesome guests all the way from Ireland. Hello, my name is Jamie Birchall and welcome to episode 39, I can't believe that, of our podcast we call Wormhole Pinball Presents, a podcast we started to highlight those in pinball and arcades. First, I'd like to introduce my co-host today, Erin Winnick-Anthony. Erin, thank you so much for being with us here today. I need a backup this week. Okay. Well, happy to be here for it. We're joined by a pinball podcasting pioneer, if you will, and creator of Coast to Coast Pinball Podcast. Welcome to the Wormhole virtually, Nate Shivers. Thank you so much, Nate. Hey, thank you for inviting me on. This is fun. I'm scared a little bit. I'm usually not answering the questions. You're normally asking them.
1:10
No, it's good. Usually how it goes. I haven't done, you know, this is my 39th. I haven't done another podcast yet either, so I'll be freaked out if I ever do one. So we'll see. There you go. It'll happen. And you've got a lot of content out. You're, like, cranking stuff out. Your Barracora video popped up on my feed today. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Oh, that's neat because the ball literally stopped on – watch it because it's a freak of – no way anyone could ever emulate where that ball wound up hanging out and what Corey did with it. Yeah, that's our Monday night stream. So we do – we are a wormhole. We're a club in Houston, Texas, and Aaron had found us years ago, and we adopted her on Twitch, and we sucked you in the world of pinball pretty quick. Absolutely, yeah. It's been good, though. I've been happy to be sucked into the wormhole. And so we're growing, and we're going to be building a 13,000-square-foot building, Nate, in downtown Houston that we're going to put about 125 pins there. That's great. And it'll be an extension of our museum and such. So, all right. As always, these interviews are very informal. Aaron, why don't you start us off? Yeah, absolutely. I know we often start with origin stories and things on the podcast here. So I know you grew up in Arizona, California and played when you were younger. But when did you actually start playing pinball competitively? Like, how'd you make that leap from casual to tournament player? I think I was in the group. there was like a wave of people that came back to pinball that maybe played it when they were young. And then as, as I think the pinball, I don't know, what do you call it? The community, the hobby, the, the buying selling trading of games started to really, uh, you know, spur back up again. I got into that and then found the internet forums and the other podcasts that were out there. And it was all just kind of one big thing. And then, you know, before I really started my show, I had gone to some local tournaments and realized how bad I was at pinball and so bought more games and tried to practice more but once I started my show I started meeting people who are really like the diehards because I mean listen you guys are with me if you're doing this listening to this being part of this you must really really really be into pinball so I met some of those people and they would often say oh hey are you coming to this are you going to this and it went from what is that to, yeah, I'll be there. And the old, I think it's funny, the old, the stern toppers that say it's more fun to compete. It was kind of true on some level. And it's not always more fun to compete. But I found an appreciation for a variety of games. And I met a lot of people and forged some really great relationships through tournaments and parties and things like that. So I guess that was all in 20, my years are fuzzy on this stuff, 2012, I guess, something like that in that era.

high confidence · Nate Shivers acknowledging archival problems and future plans during interview

“I remember really specifically somebody emailing me about Pinball with the Pros saying, Hey, I love these. These could be great. I can do all the video editing for you if you just want to send me the footage. And I was like, no way, man. that's like what I do.”

Nate Shivers — Illustrates early reluctance to delegate, a lesson he later learned from experience

Keith Elwin
person
Coast to Coast Pinballpodcast
Wormhole Pinballpodcast
Wide World of Pinballpodcast
Pinball with the Prosvideo_series
Wormholevenue
Stern Pinballcompany
Harry Williamsperson
Skit-B Pinballperson
John Papadiukperson
Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Gameproduct
Ryan Greggperson
Genex Wongperson
Dutch Pinball Museumvenue

content_signal: Pinball with the Pros video series was extremely time-intensive (hours of editing per episode); Wide World of Pinball failed to scale due to scheduling complexity of coordinating three hosts; Nate eventually learned to delegate via intern

high · Nate: 'It was one of the most time intensive things I've ever done trying to edit videos and put up text. Hours. Hours.' On Wide World: 'it was that extra little bit I couldn't keep up with'

  • ?

    business_signal: Nate is now working with Stern Pinball on official podcast content beyond just guest appearances; indicates formal business relationship with major manufacturer

    high · Nate states: 'I work with Stern on their podcast' and earlier mentioned 'I even worked with Stern later on, on some of those ideas'

  • $

    market_signal: Nate observes significantly fewer pinball machines and venues in Europe compared to the United States, limiting opportunities for play, content creation, and competition

    high · Nate: 'There isn't as much pinball in Europe, unfortunately, as there is in the United States... it is not as good in Europe. There's a lack of space... it's very spread out and thinned out'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: As Nate covered more competitive pinball events, audience divided: some loved location/casual content, others hated tournament coverage, leading him to spin off Wide World of Pinball

    high · Nate: 'I got a lot of people saying, oh, Nate's show's off the rails. All he does is talk about competitive pinball... I had this idea, like, why don't I split it off?'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Nate expresses regret about not having more video vision when starting Coast to Coast Pinball in 2013; wished he had leveraged YouTube better despite having ideas

    medium · Nate: 'I wish there had been more video aspect... I wish I hadn't had a little bit more vision on it... YouTube maybe wasn't as good back then as it is now'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Wormhole pinball club in Houston planning 13,000-square-foot downtown building expansion with ~125 pinball machines, extending museum operations

    high · Jamie Birchall: 'we're going to be building a 13,000-square-foot building, Nate, in downtown Houston that we're going to put about 125 pins there'

  • ?

    content_signal: Nate has repurposed original Coast to Coast Pinball YouTube channel for travel content with girlfriend; creates pinball-focused travel guides and YouTube content; experiencing some audience backlash for non-pinball content

    high · Nate: 'I get a lot of hate from people because it was originally the Coast to Coast Pinball YouTube channel that got repurposed... play more pinball. Why aren't you playing more pinball?'

    • 4:07
    And then, you know, built up to go to bigger tournaments. And then, you know, really, until I moved and then the pandemic even further, it was one of my favorite things was like big tournaments. And I'm actually pretty jealous. I'm not living in the United States anymore. I'm living in Amsterdam and the Netherlands now, because there's just a lot less opportunity here than what I see happening in the U.S. It's almost like I don't look sometimes. When Papa announced they were doing a version of Papa this year in Pinnberg, obviously, it was all just sort of like, yeah, I can't go to those. That won't work for me. So I almost broke my heart a little bit. Oh, yeah, it just feels more inaccessible. Well, do you still play competitive pinball in any way out there?
    4:48
    You know, I haven't played much at all. The pandemic really, I had gone to a few tournaments here and there. You know, they do this great tournament here in the Netherlands called the Dutch Pinball Open. and it's a show, and it has a really good tournament. I played in that. It's been a few years, probably been five, six years since I played in that, and it was pretty rusty. I wasn't playing a lot on location, so my walk-up-to-the-game-and-go skills were really bad. And it was fun, though. Like, it was really fun, and I looked, and, you know, I see some of the tournaments. Like, there's the U.K. tournament coming up in a few weeks. Is that the U.K.? I feel bad. I don't know the name of this tournament. U.K. Pinball Open? Oh, what is that one? It sounds right, but I'm not sure what's the one coming up next. Jamie, do you know? Oh, no. My apologies, but I've heard nothing but good things about it, and I saw that there's names of people I like and admire going to that tournament. I don't think I can make it over there, but I thought about it. So I wouldn't say I don't play anymore. It's just been a long time since I've done much. You're looking for the right opportunity to get back. I got you. I would love to, yeah. We need to get you back on that horse. I considered for a while, you know, the whole reason that I got into pinball from the podcasting and creative side of it was really, I played in bands when I was younger. I was always in bands and making music and such. And then I moved to California for jobs and didn't have like a network and didn't have what I thought was time. And I thought maybe I was getting too old, which is ridiculous because now I have a band and I'm older. but I needed creative outlets still and I think the podcast became a creative outlet it became what do I do with this energy and things I want to you know I loved pinball okay great I'm buying pinball machines I'm going to play pinball driving ridiculous you know distances to play pinball what else and I was consuming all these podcasts that there were which at the time wasn't a whole lot it was the pinball podcast which I still think those guys are great there was the old silver ball podcasts. And then there was like a couple things here and there popping up. And I just was running out of stuff to listen to. And I thought, well, if I'm running out of stuff to listen to, there's probably other people running out of stuff to listen to. I like to talk, as you guys are finding out very quickly here in this interview. And I just started my own. I just said, I can do this too. And I just went full into it. So it was really just sort of like me entertaining myself. And then people started listening and and it just rolled on top of itself. And I don't even know what the original question was. Here we go. No, you answered it. You asked. Absolutely. Because I, you know, Aaron was going to ask and I'll take this one, Aaron, from you. I mean, it's our coast to coast in 2013. Wow. 2013. Yeah, it was it was really weird because I didn't know what I didn't know. Like I knew I knew what I had learned, you know, buying and selling some games. I'd probably traded maybe half a dozen games, 10 games at the most by that point. Just buying a party zone, playing until I'm sick of it, selling the party zone, buying a Street Fighter two, getting sick of it very quickly, you know, buying a Twilight Zone thinking this is the greatest thing I'll ever buy ever. And then, you know, you know, going from there, buying a Judge Dredd and having no space left in my office. And it was an interesting time because there were people flocking to it. And my show did that, too. I quickly found out that I didn't know everything and I needed to still learn. So I did a lot. I mean, I researched and studied and read and talked to people and picked people's brains about not just the history, but the current and what was happening. And you could see games would sell out really fast and limited editions were getting flipped for tons of money. And there was this speculation. and then you had some of the early, you know, really the homebrew scene started just bubbling up and taking off. So people wanted to talk about it and podcasts, not just mine, but podcasts became like one of the good ways to do that because it was a growing format of entertainment. It had been around a long time, but it was a way people could listen and talk to. I wish there had been more video aspect and something, you know, in 2013, I didn't know a lot about video maybe. Um, I, I wish I had had the vision of being able to leverage YouTube and maybe YouTube wasn't as good back then as it is now, but I wish I hadn't had a little bit more vision on it. Cause I had some ideas and, and I even worked with Stern later on, on some of those ideas. And I still think some of those ideas could work. Somebody wanted to go through the effort, but I wish that the podcast was simple. Cause I grew up loving radio. I love radio. Like I love radio too. I hate that radio is kind of dead. I know.
    9:39
    It's kind of dead. What did you grow up listening to? Was there a certain program that you listened to on the radio or just any programs? So a couple things. When I was really young, my father, he was in construction, and he ran a couple of construction companies, did some independent work, and he would travel a lot of times, like far distances, and he would drive a lot of times to go to these jobs. I would just go with him and I don't even know if I should go to school or what, but I would just go and we would listen to talk radio a lot of times. Just he's trying to stay awake, driving and whatever. Or we listen to sports, listen to baseball, basketball on the radio. But Coast to Coast AM with with Art Bell, the original, was fascinating to me. And I remember being like, you know, probably nine or ten years old and laying in the backseat of a car traveling, you know, long ways with the moon out and the stars and it's night, you know, midnight at one in the morning, listening to Coast to Coast AM, Arbel talking about aliens and the paranormal and all these things. And I was just obsessed with it. And I thought it was so cool. So when it came time all these years, because like, listen, I listened to a lot of radio. I loved music. I was 10 years old listening to Def Leppard and Bon Jovi and just deep into it.
    10:55
    But the idea of just talking about stuff and telling stories on the radio was always really fascinating to me. So when you fast forward to me in 2013 saying, I want to do a pinball thing. And I was traveling at the time for my job. I was living in San Diego, but I was working. My sales territory was on the East Coast, New York through New England. And I was literally going coast to coast. And I thought, oh, my gosh, this could be like my little like nod to the coast to coast AM show that I used to love and still did love, even when they changed hosts and shifted direction. And also to what I was doing in life at the time where I was able to see a lot of stuff all over the country. So that's kind of that. But radio, I love radio. And it's just it's a shame. But I remember I was in Arizona. I went to Arizona State and I joined their radio programs. They have a college radio, like a super low output radio station. I don't know if it's even still there, but you can only get it right around the campus area. And I joined the program and I got to do like a show a week where I play the music that I wanted to play. Yeah, it was really, really cool. And then I met some DJs. I had a band that was fairly popular in the Phoenix, Tempe area. And I was talking to this DJ at the show that we played and his radio station was hosting the show. And I told him, I said, man, I would love to get into radio. He goes, oh, you've got the voice for it. And I'm like, thanks, man. I'd love to do it. He goes, don't get into radio.
    12:16
    He just like crushed me. He's like, dude, we're all broke. The Internet's going to put radio on. I'm like, the Internet? It's like, you know, 1999. And he's like, yeah, you don't want to get into radio. This is a terrible idea. And I just was like, oh, okay. And that put a weird thing in my head after that. I'm like, yeah, radio's going to die, which it kind of has. Right. But, yeah, I miss radio. But, like, I see what you guys are doing and what others are doing. And I love the video side of it also because I have a YouTube thing, a travel YouTube thing now with my girlfriend. And we've grown it and it's gotten pretty good. And it's a lot of fun. And we go and find pinball whenever we can. And I get a lot of hate from people because it was originally the Coast to Coast Pinball YouTube channel that got repurposed. Sorry. But people still get it. And they go, play more pinball. Why aren't you playing more pinball? And I'm like, I'm looking for it. But there isn't as much pinball in Europe, unfortunately, as there is in the United States. So, okay, I'll shut up. I think people would appreciate a guide to pinball in Europe, though. Like, if you actually want to play, where do you go? I think you could get some good views on that.
    13:24
    It's out there. You know, the best place I've been to was, yeah, what? I want to, like, yell at my girlfriend. Like, where do we play?
    13:35
    I'm forgetting. There was a really great pinball museum. Oh, it was in Budapest, in Budapest, Hungary. Awesome. Awesome. They had like classics. They had up to date, like everything was Stern and Jersey Jack. And that was one of the best places in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, you know, 45 minutes from where I'm sitting. There's the Dutch Pinball Museum. It's just fantastic. Great people, great games. He gets the latest games and it's in an awesome old like hundreds year old building in the Netherlands. I just don't get down there enough, unfortunately. But but yeah, it's not as good here. It is not as good in Europe. There's there's a lack of space and it's tough because I would love to do more, more content based around it. But it would be difficult, I think. And I think that's why you don't see it is because it's very spread out and thinned out. Yeah, makes sense. Last question for me before Aaron.
    14:28
    About doing a podcast, it does it. Did it scratch that itch is a phrase I like to use. Did it just scratch the itch of saying, I didn't get in the radio, yeah, I have music bands and such, but did it scratch the itch, the podcast, of wanting to be on the radio? I think so. I think at times it certainly did. You've probably dealt with, so you put yourself out there, right? And I put myself out into Pinball 2013 where you had a lot of, like, there was this, like, tension I felt in the community where someone who was newer in their scene was coming into it and there was a little bit of gatekeeping going on and a little bit of like, you're ruining it you guys pay too much money a lot of this like, oh you rich yuppies coming in and buying up the nice property basically is what they were saying and there was some of that and I remember I got some real hard criticism from someone who I really looked up to in the pinball world and I thought she was really fantastic in what she was doing in pinball and she like ripped me apart in multiple places for my show. And my show was innocent. It was just, I love pinball, I'm tired of pinball. And I thought she was doing something really, really cool and she just shredded me. And I like reached out to her and was just like, wow, I am so bummed that you said this about me in the show. I wanted you to come on the show. I wanted to give you a platform to talk about blah, blah, blah. And it was just like, I don't want to do that. And, you know, I think in her defense, I won't name her. I think she'd gotten a lot of criticism and hate and probably was, you know, like putting up her guard and just saw me as like this new thing. And she wasn't the only one. I had some of that. So I just remember at one point thinking.
    16:16
    Is this worth it? Is this worth these people who I'm like trying to be a part of their community? I'm trying to add something to the community positively and with energy and with passion and with thought. Is this worth it if these people are going to just like attack and take shots? And I mean, there was this whole, oh, I hate his voice and all the vocal fry. He does it on purpose. I'm like, I'm just talking, bro. Like, I don't know. Come on. So there was that, which was sort of like, meh. But then some of the shows hit. And, like, you saw the viewership, the listenership go up and up and up. And then some controversy hit. You know, the big Skit B pinball predator thing happened. And that was, like, a big deal. And, man, that episode I did on Skit B, and then later on the John Papaduke Magic Girl debacle episode, there was, like, 12,000 listens on those episodes. Massive numbers. So it's like, and I didn't know what was big. I didn't even know if that was big. But I just remember I told somebody, I said, you know, I have 12,000 downloads on this. They're like, you have 12,000 pin, like blew their mind about pinball. And then I started taking it pretty serious because I was like, okay. And I was traveling. And so, yeah, I think it scratched the itch. It was a lot of fun. I was doing multiple episodes a week. Sometimes I do two, three a week. I was traveling. I was in hotels alone a lot. And I could either go out and, you know, I don't know, be a sightseer or get in trouble or talk about pinball. So I talked about pinball a lot. And there was places opening, pinball was growing, and there was excitement about the games. And there still is, obviously, but it was new to me at the time, so it made it easy to really get into it. And getting to experience, you know, pinball expos and papas and pinbergs and the people I met, you know, meeting people like Genex Wong and Josh and Zach Sharp and, you know, all sorts of people who I think I may not keep in direct touch with right now, but I could walk into like a place where they're playing pinball and we'd just, it'd just be like nothing had happened. We'd just be playing pinball and having fun. And I really value a lot of that because that's like kind of the best part of the whole thing. Right. Yeah. And speaking of the Sharps, I know you did a series with Roger Sharp on the podcast and now he's recently become even more famous outside of the pinball world with, you know, the movie pinball, the man who saved the game. how'd you decide to document his story and how did that actually come together? Well, I mean, first off, I had a great father. My dad was awesome.
    18:51
    But like if I had to have a second father, it'd be Roger Sharp, right? Like everybody kind of wants Roger Sharp to be their dad. Sure. If you could recruit one. Yeah. Roger's awesome. And I, you know, I met Josh first cause you know, he was so forward with the IFPA and everything and he was gracious enough to come on the show pretty early on. And he and I just kind of became fast friends. We're roughly the same age, a lot of same experiences. And we just, I don't know, I just hit it off with Josh. And eventually I met his dad, and it was kind of like, whoa, like, you know, his dad's like the man who saved pinball and this whole thing. But his dad is just like the nicest guy in the world. And his dad quickly, I think, respected me. And he didn have to for there was no reason to respect me other than like I respected him I guess and I cared about it and I was going and playing and trying to learn and I was hanging out with his kids And so that was really special and still is very special to me That family is a bunch of great people. And Josh told me really early on, yeah, my dad did all these, like, interviews back in the day, and they're rough. And, okay, so whatever, that went on. And then Roger told me, he goes, man, it's so funny, Nate, your show is just like what I was wanting to do back when I was working for GQ in New York and had this recording machine. It was like I wanted to do that. He was trying to do the same thing, basically. It's so interesting, the parallels. So eventually we came to a point where they wanted to do something and we did a few of the shows and it kind of dropped off. I don't know if it was me just being far away. I got scared of those shows as I went deeper into the tapes. So honestly, I probably we should still go back and do the rest of them because there's more interviews. It's really probably on me more than anything. And just life and relationships and pandemics and jobs and stuff got in the way. And we never really I don't think we finished it. And and that's that makes me feel kind of bad, I think. But but those interviews are really like as far as for pinball history goes, it's kind of the greatest thing in the world. hearing like Harry Williams talking to Roger where Roger's in his 20s talking to Harry who's on the way you know on the on the back end of his career about pinball there's nothing like that so that stuff's really special and it was cool to do those um it's a lot of work it's a lot of like I have to learn next I don't know all the history and I can't just jump on a call with Roger Sharp and be like hey Roger so tell me about this I need to be able to kind of go back and forth with him on it And so, yeah, so that was really, really awesome. And now I hope I get to hang out with them all again because like I miss those guys a lot. And I talk to Zach, you know, more than anybody now because of his role at Stern. And I work with Stern on on their podcast. So it's it's been an interesting ride. But the Roger Sharp stuff, it was pretty thrilling to get to see him get his due. You know, yes, he saved pinball. Yes, he's been an ambassador to pinball. He's played an integral role in multiple parts of the business over the years. But more than anything, he's just such a good person. It was like, you know, seeing something good happen to the good guy is like really a nice story, I think.
    21:59
    That's great. Erin, you probably don't remember a show on ABC called Wide World of Sports. Okay. You know Wide World of Disney since you're a Floridian. Yeah, that's what I associate it with. Yeah. So it was actually a really cool show on Saturday afternoons. And if you like sports at all, it was like SportsCenter before SportsCenter. But they would do baseball to badminton. Right. And anyway, it was a great show of my youth. So, Nate, when did you start Worldwide to Pinball? Wide World of Pinball. Yeah. Wide World of Pinball. And kudos to that podcast. That's really fun. That's a good shout out. I was thinking about this the other day. so while Coast to Coast Pinball was growing I was starting to play in more competitions and I was starting to talk more about more competitions and like I remember taking like buying video equipment and going to Pinberg and it was the year Zach Sharp won actually and it was just one of the coolest weekends to see someone that you're like friendly with like win a major pinball tournament like that it was really a great time and I was getting a ton of criticism, though, because I was getting people who loved the shows where I was sitting in my hotel room after having, like, run around, I don't know, Portland, Maine and playing pinball on location and talking about it or dissecting the new game or the release. They loved that. They didn't so much like hearing me talk about three days of playing competitive pinball at Neverdreams in Southern California. They hated that, in fact. I got a lot of people saying, oh, Nate's show's off the rails. All he does is talk about competitive pinball. And, you know, hyperbole on the internet. That's is how it is. So, so I had this idea, like, why don't I split it off? Why don't I keep coast to coast pinball, the news, the commentary, the fun, the interviews with people. And why don't I, and look, I'm not the greatest player by a long ways. I'll never play in a division anywhere. So I had, I had good friends who were literally in the top 10 rankings at the time in pinball world with Josh Sharp and Steve Bowden. Steve Bowden, another one of these people who I miss dearly. He's a great guy. It's been so awesome to see him find like a career path in pinball because it was just really something that meant a lot to him. And he was passionate about it. He was good at it. He's like one of the good people. So I asked him, I said, hey, do you guys want to just talk about competitive pinball? And they were they were into it. One of the strengths, I will tell you, of Coast to Coast Pinball was that it was just me and I didn't have to wait. no offense to Aaron here, but I didn't have to wait for Aaron to also log in or clear my schedule. It was just on you, yeah. It was just me, and I could turn out, and I figured out a way to do episodes fast. So the instant issue with Wide World of Pinball was it was three of us. And I think if you can finally know those episodes are out there anymore, I'm terrible at archiving and keeping stuff. Yeah, we were going to yell at you a little bit because we can't find any of the Coast to Coast or the Wide World of Pinball. I have them somewhere. Somebody has logged, just in the last few months, somebody reached out to me because they were missing one episode. And by the time I could tell them I thought I knew how to find it, they told me they had it. So they have every episode on a website where I can download them and catalog them. And I think what I'm going to do, I'll just tell you now, and maybe this will make me actually do it if I throw this out into the world, I'm going to put them all up on a new YouTube page just as like podcasts with audio only just so they can live there forever. because I feel pretty guilty to myself that they're not.
    25:31
    But Wide World of Pinball just was like, it was that extra little bit I couldn't keep up with at the time, and we only did a few episodes. But I thought it was a cool idea as competitive pinball was growing and people were getting more into it. And, you know, two guys who know a lot are Josh and Steve. I mean, those guys. Like, Josh literally knows the whole history of pinball forever, and Steve knows, like, every rule and every concept. He really does. It's unbelievable. He's a brilliant human being. I've sat down and he's commentated with me and I have a problem shutting up. And I just did. I don't talk when he sits next to me. I just let let the man go. Let him talk and comment. He's unbelievable. Well, and what's great about Steve, I think Steve would probably self-describe himself as an introvert. I think he would probably say I'm generally an introvert, but not with pinball. Because as soon as there's pinball to talk about, to discuss, to play, it's like he comes live. And when I was doing a video series for Stern called Pinball with the Pros, because I had all these ideas, I just couldn't keep everything going. But Pinball with the Pros was going to be pop-up pinball. So it was going to be me, a good player.
    26:50
    Episode one was Keith Ellin, so a really good player. and it was us playing a game and basically them walking through the game how to play it, what to do, what's unique I think I could have fine tuned that side of it a little bit more because it often ended up, I remember the episode with Zack in Star Trek, I like beat him on a game and that probably shouldn't happen but you know, we were going through it Steve and I did a couple episodes in fact there was a lost episode that was never put out that I have somewhere I think because we did Mustang and we did Transformers at in New York City.
    27:25
    And I didn't know Steve all that well at the time. And I was like, hey, Steve, you want to do this? Because I know you're new in New York. And he was like, yeah, let's do it. And I had such a great time. But watching Steve light up and just be so good at it. And that's why he's so good at the commentary side of it, because he knows all this. But the whole pinball with the prose idea, with the pop-up pinball with the silly text on the side, like making fun of me mostly, and kind of documenting what was going on, I still think could work. It just it was one of the most time intensive things I've ever done trying to edit videos and put up text. I was going to ask you how long from hours and hours and hours now. Hours. Hours. Yeah. You need to get an intern. We have an intern.
    28:08
    And shout out to Ryan Gregg. He's a communications major at the University of Texas. And he reached out to me and said, I like your podcast. Well, he's dating Tim's nephew who owns the joint, dating Tim's niece. And he does all our editing, and he's unbelievable at it. Now all I have to do is write and create.
    28:30
    I didn't have the foresight back then. I really loved doing all of it. But I remember really specifically somebody emailing me about Pinball with the Pros saying, Hey, I love these. These could be great. I can do all the video editing for you if you just want to send me the footage. And I was like, no way, man. that's like what I do. Like I do all that. And I, I was probably a mistake. Um, the last thing I'll say about pinball with pros is,
    28:54
    uh, we did walking dead with Lyman sheets at the Stern factory. And I still think that was one of my favorite days ever with pinball. Didn't even really know Lyman. Uh, Lyman was, I think, you know, I don't think, I don't know if Lyman knew me or not. That was always the weird thing walking into some of these is like, I didn't know if they actually knew who I was or not. It was always like, Hey, I'm Nate. And it's like, Yeah, I know. Okay.
    29:18
    And we play Walking Dead, and he was so kind to me, and he was so good and so just knowledgeable, and he wanted to be really good. There was a stress in Lyman, I felt that day, where he just wanted to be really good at it and be good on camera and tell a good story about it. And that was a really cool time, and I'm glad we did that. So I think that was the last one we put out. I don't know for sure, but I'd have to go back and dig those out. I have those videos, and someday there will be a new channel with all of this stuff and those bullets. Full archive of everything you've ever done before. Yeah. Hold me to it. Somebody hold me to it. Intern, send your email to wormholepinball at gmail.com, and I will hook you up with Nate Shivers, and we'll get an intern here for you. Yeah, it doesn't pay at all. No, no, no. But they get to put it on LinkedIn. Maybe they get some ad revenue from when you start monetizing all those videos there. Nah, for an ad, maybe. Who knows? Go ahead, Aaron.
    30:11
    Sure. Well, you've mentioned Stern a number of times, so I have to ask, first of all, How did you get connected with Stern as a whole, and then how did the Stern Insider Connect podcast originate? You know, it was really kind of that day, honestly. The Stern story, and I don't know if I've told this all the way through. I think I have. I might have told this, but I'll tell you. I'm here.
    30:30
    So I wanted to do – so I met Jody Dangberg first. I want to say Jody was probably my first contact at Stern. And I don't even recall what the context was, but Jody reached out to me about something, and we chatted, we talked about something. He got mad at me a couple times. I said stuff on the podcast. It's going to happen. We made up. Everything was fine.
    30:56
    And then I think the whole, maybe he asked me if I, no, I think I pitched him the idea of the videos. And he offered to sponsor them. So Stern actually sponsored those Pinball with the Pros videos. He gave me money, like actual real money that I paid taxes on to do those. And at the time when he sent me the money, I thought, oh, man, This is like way too much money for these videos. I've got to like film as many of these as possible. Stern just gave me real money. And then as I did the first one, I'm like, they did not give me enough money to do these videos. This is not enough. It takes so much time. Oh, my God. But it was a good experiment. And so the day that we did that Walking Dead pinball with the pros, I was there. I was in a t-shirt and jeans, sweating.
    31:46
    It was intimidating to me on some level. It's Lyman effing sheets. I mean, come on. And I was a little nervous, and I looked terrible on camera. I looked horrible. And I'm just like, ah. And I just want it to be good because I'm in the Stern factory playing their game with the factory behind us and Lyman next to me. And we finished. And then they were talking, and Lyman was showing somebody something on a game. and this guy walked up to me and he started talking to me. He goes, hey, Nate, that looks really fun. Like, what got you into this? And I start telling him a little bit about that. And he goes, what do you do? Like, what do you, how are you here? Why are you in Chicago doing this? And I said, well, I work for Taylor Guitars. I'm a guitar salesman. I run a territory. I sell guitars and I travel and blah. He's like, oh, really? That's really interesting. I love Taylor Guitars. And we're talking, you know, this and that. and he's like, man, I want you to come meet somebody. Come on and meet somebody. And so as it all goes around, I kind of get introduced to Gary Stern's partner at Stern, who was business partners at Stern, and John Buscaglia, who is one of their executives, who basically runs all their revenue and business and sales. And they start talking to me, and they're like, yeah, we're really growing. I think business is good because they were booming at the time, outgrowing their factory. Sales were exploding, and they were doing it very old school. It was very old school. Stern is a manufacturing company. It's a blue-collar company. It's in Chicago.
    33:15
    People don't even understand. I see people talk about, oh, they're sitting in a boardroom at Stern. No, they're not. That's generally not how it works. It's much more organic and down to earth than I think most people would ever realize. And it was very old school in 20-whatever this was, 2014 probably.
    33:32
    And they start talking to me, and they're like, yeah, you know, we're really looking for someone to come on board here at Stern and grow this and grow this, grow this. And I'm like, yeah, you guys should do that. You guys should find somebody who could like, you know, drive your sales and like figure out a way to, to have better relations with your dealers and distributors and have a more professional thing and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, yeah, yeah. Like you should do it. And I was like, Oh, Oh, what me?
    33:57
    I missed it. I wasn't realizing they were like talking to me. Like, why don't you come work here? I was like, Oh. And I remember the first thing, I literally said to John, I go, no, I'm not moving to Chicago. And he goes, well, Chicago, it's great. I'm like, oh, sorry, I don't mean anything bad about it. In my head, I was just so out of left field. And I was like, no, I'm not going to. And he's like, think about it. Talk to me. And John is another one of these people. John, unsung person at Stern. Most people don't know who he is.
    34:26
    Sweetheart of a person. Fantastic guy. And he said, just take my card and let's talk. and he sent me off because he's older and wiser than I am. And I'm like, you know, stupid and just like, nah, I don't want to come to Stern.
    34:39
    Chicago. And so I go home, and then we start talking. And over the next few months, we talked and talked and talked and talked until I was going to move to Chicago and go work at Stern. And they offered me a really great deal. This whole thing was going to happen. I went and rented a house in Chicago. I was moving. I was gone. It was Nate. Taylor was all upset. They were like, oh, why are you leaving? but they understood because Stern was offering me this chance at a big thing.
    35:06
    And then right before I left, Taylor came back to me and said, hey, we sort of had this idea but it's probably too late. And I'm like, well, what was it? And they're like, well, we thought you might want to go run our sales in Europe. And I was like, oh, why didn't you tell me that? And so this thing happened and I had to make this really difficult call to Stern and call John and some of the people there and be like, hey, so I know I signed the offer. I know I'm supposed to come out there, but like I'm not going to. And I'm going to move to Europe instead. And they were gracious. They were not thrilled with me, I'm sure. They had spent money flying me there. And, you know, I'd been out there for like an orientation day and like lunches with Gary Stern and all this stuff. And then I'm just like, yeah, never mind. And I think some people were like, did he play us to get a better deal with Taylor?
    35:54
    It just it just happened that way. And the chance to move to Europe and to manage this excellent sales team that my company has over here was just something I couldn't turn down. And I would have been very happy in Chicago and I would have probably done great things with them. They've done great things without me. That's OK. But so that created sort of the bond with some of the people at Stern. And then Zach Sharp went to work there. And so I was friends with Zach. We hung out at events and we saw each other. And once I moved here, Coast to Coast Pinball became really hard to do well.
    36:31
    And it was two things. It was I was really busy. I had a new job. I had a lot of new responsibilities. I was in a new country where I didn't speak any of the language. I was learning. I was in a relationship that was failing. So I had a lot of things going on around me. and Coast to Coast Pinball was instead of the thing that I like woke up in the morning thinking like oh what could I do on the podcast like well you know it was uh oh man I haven't done a podcast in like 10 days what am I gonna do that's not a good sign for a content creator to feel that way no it's really it's really bad and so it became that and it was hard to do Coast to Coast Pinball at that time because I was so close to Stern I you know I had had meetings with George Gomez I had And, you know, it just got really tough to be totally critical and totally fair either way. You know, if I said something positive about Stern, I felt like, am I saying that because I like these people? And if I said something negative, am I saying that because I don't want to feel like I'm always positive? It became really weird.
    37:42
    And I wasn't. And you know what? Honestly, I told you, I started Coast to Coast Pinball because I wanted there to be more out there. There was all of a sudden a lot out there. A lot of people were doing podcasts. A lot of people were doing very good podcasts. And so I didn't feel any pressure that nobody needed my show. And I didn't know if I needed my show. So I said to Zach, I said, if I were to shut down Coast to Coast Pinball, would Stern want to do a podcast?
    38:07
    And he's like, yeah, would love to do it. Because Zach was ahead of marketing at Stern. And he's like, let's do it. And it was just like instant. It was like literally like, I don't know if it was a text message or a phone call or what it was, but it was just like it happened like in moments. And I was like making notes for my final episode to sign off and be done. And so, you know, they were starting their insiders program. I think a lot of companies in the world are trying to figure out how to create, you know, create a community amongst their customers and their people that are, you know, even not direct customers of Stern, but maybe just play Stern games or play pinball. It's tough when you're the biggest company in an industry.
    38:47
    You want to try and grow the industry, right? Stern has all the market share. I don't know what the market share is for Stern versus all the other companies, but it's probably, I don't know, 80% to 90% of the market share is Stern, right? In revenue I think I don know Let call it 75 Sure How do you grow your business It gets very difficult right In my company Taylor we have the same issues How do you grow the business when your market share is so big? And you either need more customers coming in, which Pinball had for 10 years. There was this influx of people. Or you need innovative products, which I think we've seen some of that for sure.
    39:32
    or you need more expensive products to grow revenue, but it gets tough. So Stern's Insider Program was definitely a way to get people inside with them, being a part of it, feeling somewhat connected to Stern. The podcast is just a little tiny thing that you get as a part of that.
    39:50
    I literally do it for free. I'm the biggest sucker in the world. I just do it because I like talking, and Zach's a friend of mine. I keep thinking one day I'm going to wake up, and they're going to be like, oh, we sent you a pinball machine. We're cool now. And they have not done that yet.
    40:07
    But yeah, so I just wanted to stay involved because I do really, I'm just looking at the games behind you, Jamie, and I'm like, oh man, I wish I had that. Like I live in a tiny apartment in Amsterdam. All of them. All of them. I wish I had that wall. Yeah. You know. You got some pretty good ones behind you right now, Jamie, too. So. Yeah. You know, we always try, Nate and Aaron, to put something cool behind me, like Barracora. We had... What is... Oh, it's Dracula, yeah. Dracula, Cosmic Princess. I always love Dracula. I suck at Dracula, but Cosmic Princess is a Stern Electronics.
    40:48
    And I want to put Future Queen behind me, which is a Bell Games, and that one... That's a funky one. ...at a TPF. And that's really pretty. And then Warlock. I want to put Warlock behind me if we're going to keep Warlock, because you just don't see a lot of Warlocks. No, no, it's a great lineup. So I miss that. I used to have like a small row, like four or five games when I was in California. Here I've just had like a Jurassic Park style.
    41:15
    But, yeah, I still wanted to be a part of it. So I get, you know, I get these emails like every few months from Zach going, hey, man, we're ready. Like, what's your week like next week or the week after? And then I get the little locked zip folder of all the assets of what the new game is. And I get to know the new game. And I'm still really excited by it. I see it. And it's still a lot of fun. And Stern just has so many people at the company. It's become a very big company with lots of really smart, talented people. I just view it as kind of a privilege to get to sort of host in their stories a little bit. We keep those podcasts super top level. We don't deep dive too much, except when Tim Sexton's on, because then you have to deep dive. Sure. He does.
    42:03
    But we just try and it's just like let's let them celebrate their game. They've been working on those games for a year and a half, two years. Oftentimes those teams, whether it's mechanical engineers, sound design, certainly the designers. So it's just like, hey, let's celebrate your release. It's finally out. Let's talk about what's good about it. we're not trying to dissect it from a critical standpoint because I'm on the take, sort of. But I'm part of the whole thing. So it's a marketing thing. It's a big commercial for the new game in a format that we hope is entertaining. And we get great feedback on it. That's great. I think it is. Yeah, it's fun. Are you recording one in the next few days? I can't say. I mean maybe I am maybe I'm not but maybe I am maybe you have seven that you're recording next week what yeah no maybe I am I will say this I don't know for sure what the game is yet it's coming out next you haven't gotten the packet if I were to be recording a podcast in the next few weeks but yeah it's still a lot of fun and I daydream all the time like man what what if i just gone to chicago i rented this really cool house split little house i was gonna put all these pinball machines in i was like envisioning all my like jack danger's gonna be in my house playing pinball it's gonna be great that was before he was at stern um but that didn't happen so it scratches the itch this still scratches the itch there you go and that's why i'm doing a band still i'm in my mid-40s and i have a rock band we're called Comet Falls. It's just me and a band. And I have a YouTube channel with Katrina, Nate and Katrina Do The World, and we go try and find pinball machines. It's a very small part of it, so don't expect to see a lot of pinball, but it is scratching the itch of, I've learned how to edit video. I can edit a 15 to 25 minute YouTube vlog now pretty effectively, and it's It's a lot of fun. And we found, where were we? We were in Poland, I think, recently in, I don't even remember what city. It was either in Gdansk or Poznań. It was in Gdansk. We found a pinball arcade underneath the hotel. And, like, the only Stern game, there's probably 80, 90 games in there, and the only Stern game in there was Striker Extreme, which I thought was hilarious. It was all older games. Wow. Yeah. And I played Striker Extreme And it's still not that great It's okay, no offense, but I'm a World Cup soccer guy Yeah, World Cup soccer Is one of the greatest games ever made It sure is Awesome ruleset, awesome flow And you know why I say this? Because it's the only game I own Tim and John have Combined 240 pinball machines Wow You know what my contribution is? World Cup soccer They should host Pinball well I mean we're going to do something big when the new space opens I mean that's 13,000 square feet that's in 2026 right yeah in the 2026 2026, 2027 is when we're looking at opening that and then good things happening there so it'll be interesting to side note for the museum I don't want this to be an infomercial but it'll be interesting the mix of games there because we have games from apple time to geiger to bell games how do they play in tournaments will be interesting right because like future queen doesn't play well in tournaments at all it's a quick game yeah right so that'll be an interesting mix for our techs to have to figure out but we'll figure it out you know one of the things about competitive pinball that I thought, and I think this has been said, I'm sure. I'm sure this has been said by lots of people. But for me personally, I didn't have a lot of experience with EMs or like early solid state games because I grew up, my first pinball experience was Doctor Who. I remember it plain as day walking into the little video store where you'd rent VHS tapes. Erin, VHS tapes were these things. What? Yeah. I'm just kidding. Oh, you made a joke about how young she is. again. But yeah, so I walked in the video store and they had an arcade machine and they had a Doctor Who pinball and that's when I fell in love with pinball.
    46:31
    But I didn't have experience. I'd never played a Harlem Globetrotters pinball machine until I got to some classics tournament at Papa or saw it in a bank at Pinburg and you start going, oh my gosh, this game is like super bare bones, quote unquote, but absolutely brilliant in the fact that I'm trying to score on it and in a competitive situation, it just amplifies how great it is. And some of those old games, the dollies of the world, just fantastic. And that's actually my favorite thing, I think, about some of the competition time that I had was, like, learning these old games. And I don't even remember what the game was, but I remember we had our group at Pinberg where we'd all text each other. So we'd have, like, a text group with, like, eight or nine of us. And you'd get your bank, and you'd read through your bank, and you'd be like, oh, my God, Barracora, What do I do on Barracora? Inevitably, somebody would go, and I don't know, this is not, please don't call me out on this. But it was, I forget what the game was, but it was like an old, like, 80s, I want to say it was a wide-body game that had a bunch of, like, colored line, maybe in-line targets or something. And I remember it was either Josh or Zach, just like, literally just hit the red target on the right the whole time, don't aim at anything else, just hit the red target on the right. And I went in and, like, won that game in the bank because somebody in my group told me, hey, just go hit the right target. Well, that's a pretty good person to have in your group text there to give you that insight. So, yeah. I'm not very good, so I need to find an edge. And these brilliant players were my edge. But that's when I love that about competition and pinball with older games. It might be to some boring or, you know, I don't know, whatever. I think they're still all great. That's the community, though, right, Aaron? Yeah. And is that one of my favorite things when we have like 40 people here is I walk up to Aaron and I'll go, what do you want? and you wouldn't say that to anyone else in normal circumstances that think you, you know, I was telling drugs are on, but she's like, yeah, I'm on Funhaus. I didn't have a good ball one, but I'll be okay. I mean, it's just the funniest thing to me. Yeah, absolutely. And I agree. I love those old machines too. It's quite a whiplash going from, you know, a John Wick to a Space Odyssey, but I feel like that's part of it too, being able to adapt to those old machines, to those new machines. And yeah, I agree. I'm partial to some of those classics. Absolutely. Absolutely. What's your favorite games, you two? So what's your favorite games of all time? Oh, tough question. Just one game. What is my favorite game? Congo. Congo? Okay. Yeah, World Cup soccer. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I can't. I don't care how many times I beat Germany. Yeah, and we need a tally of how many times Jamie has referenced World Cup soccer, I think, on this podcast somewhere. But yeah, no, World Cup soccer is fantastic, too. Oh, I love that dog. I love him. He's great. That is great. That's good. Nice. All right. Well, you've talked a little bit about how there's been a lot more pinball media that's come out recently. What do you think of the current pinball media space? Are there any gaps that you still think need to be filled, or are we flush with all the pinball content we need? There's a lot. I listen to a few things. So, like, I keep up with the news. Like, I'll check in on the NAP Arcade page just to see if I'm, like, missing any stories. I have a tough time with Pinside anymore because it's just gotten so big. I remember I used to finish Pinside back in, like, 2013. I would have everything read the whole day, and you can't do that anymore. Nor would you want to, probably, for your mental health.
    50:07
    So I've always followed the bro guys in Buffalo. Buffalo Pimliff, always follow them. They're just nice people, and they have a good sensibility about themselves. Well, we had Nick Lane on the podcast, shameless plug, and Jason Knapp, another shameless plug. Okay, sorry. No, it's all right. I watched some of the Nick Lane episode the other day to prepare for this. And it's just like, you know, those guys are just a good spirit about them. I knew they'd still be doing it for a long time because they're doing it because they really love it. so that's kind of the ones that I still follow is when I see people who just are enjoying it for I don't know the joy of it all I always try to keep my show from being about me that was always something that bothered me towards the end of it or when there was controversy when it was sort of the spotlight would head towards me like I'm already doing the show it's already about me I get it but I wanted it to be about the pinball and about the hobby and the community and the people in it So that's that's mainly it so I jump in and out I will see stuff pop up on my YouTube feed from people I don't even know and a I'm surprised how good everybody plays nowadays. It's very intimidating I fear going to a local tournament right now that's in practice and be it People are smart people know their stuff what they're talking about. I just enjoy it So I don't I don't want to name a bunch of names actually I wrote some names down I'm not gonna like run through this house but it's more like, I will say the bro guys just cause they've been doing it for so long. They're, they're great at it. Um, I did listen to, let me get this right. I did listen to Don's pinball podcast recently. Really liked that. Thought that was good. And then, uh, that's all I'll say. Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. What do you think, uh, as someone who's been in the hobby for a little bit, uh, what do you think about the current pinball landscape? do we have too much pinball too many pinball manufacturers well it's interesting because i was going to say actually my i had a point about the whole pinball thing they're they're so i think people who do content creation in pinball they do it because they generally want to be a part of it and they want to they want to add something to something they love that because that's always like i love this thing i'm so into this thing i love the community i love the people well, what can I give to it? And some people want to be creative and they give to it.
    52:35
    Love that. There's so much of it now, I think it's hard to like, if you're only doing it because you want to see the view number go way up, it's hard right now because there's a lot. Like you can't keep up with all of it. You just can't. And so you either have to be really, really good at it, really, really consistent at it, or some combination of charisma, personality, or you have an angle if you're going to stand out. And that's fine. That's just how the world is when things get popular.
    53:05
    And because actually it was funny. I heard a video cast, I guess, a blog about pinball, and he was mentioning how popular his show had gotten. And I was like, oh, really? This is like one of the popular. And then I went back and looked at the views, and they were actually, I thought, really low. But I'm thinking about 12,000 views or downloads I've had on some. And this was nowhere near that. Okay. But there's so much now. It's going to get splintered out. And now, when I look back at manufacturers, Stern obviously was kind of it for a long time. And then Jersey Jack brought money and a great flair for design and a grandiose approach to it that I think was great for Stern also to see that, to have somebody kind of nip at their heels a little bit. That was really healthy. And then you had the boutique builders, and you had the rise of someone like Spooky Pinball, who kind of took this working-class ethic approach to it and just made it happen. And I've said it before, it's an American success story, what they've done there.
    54:12
    I see some of the other games coming out now. I was looking at one the other day, and I don't want to criticize anybody. People are doing it because they want to be a part of it.
    54:21
    But there's a lot, and some of it's not that good. and that's fine because I remember going to TPF and seeing like the homebrew games and you're like okay that's awesome but if you built a hundred of them it wouldn't be that good because you'd be trying to get money for this thing that's kind of rough around the edges not very refined whatever it might be maybe it doesn't have a great layout because layout is not just something you can oh I drew it on a napkin and it shoots great that's not how it works and art is not just something, oh yeah, I got a friend who knows how to do Photoshop, and he's got this AI program. No, that won't make a real complete beautiful package generally. So one of something in a homebrew setting can be absolutely amazing, and I've seen lots of those. But when you try and just say, we're going to build 100, and we're going to take your pre-order money, I start getting a little icky feeling inside, because I said this a long time ago, and it became sort of a funny catchphrase we would say on Coast to Coast Pinball. Pinball's hard. These are complicated boxes of lights. You know?
    55:30
    There's a lot to it. There's physics. Nowadays, I mean, the sound and integration of LED screens, the design behind that, there's art to this. There's an art. It is not just a mechanical engineer that builds a pinball machine. It's just not. And that's why, you know, what's a pinball designer do? Well, he kind of directs the whole thing and brings the artistic side and the magic of that, hopefully, if he's good at what he does. And that's why you see someone like Keith Elwin or Jack Danger come out because they've sucked up so much of this information in their lifetime that when they then learn the tools of the design and the game, what they put out is actually pretty artful and magical.
    56:18
    There are some good homebrew stuff out there. I think there's some smaller... Look, I think Jersey Jack still makes really fun games. Fun games. I think they're great. I don't want to get into an argument about the theme integration or this or that. That's secondary to me.
    56:37
    Spooky Pinball puts their heart and soul into it. I haven't loved every game they've made. I own an America's Most Haunted, still in California. I didn't bring it over here with me. The game's fun. Ben had a really great vision, and it shot really good. Not amazing, but good. But it had the art to it. It had some magic to it with the sound design and the story it told.
    57:00
    But not every game. But some of these games I see that people are taking money for, and some of these companies are now out of business, owed people money. It kind of sucks. So I hate that.
    57:12
    But I also don't blame people for trying. You know, like if you got a passion for it and you think you can do it, I just I caution everybody, you know, when you're dealing with startups, any startup, just not pinball. I see it happens in guitars, happens in my industry. Somebody builds a couple of guitars. They're really nice. And they try and build 50 of them and they go broke. So it's hard to do. It's difficult. I don't know. What do you think? So if you took Stern, Jersey Jack, Spooky, American Pinball off, don't talk about them. Who's the best after that? I'm curious. We're biased, so we can't say anything because we're in Houston. Okay. And we know everyone that works for Barrels of Fun. In fact, Aaron works at Barrels of Fun. I do some social media stuff for him. And we take Barrels of Fun off. Okay. That's fair. I've never put my hands on a game. by Perils of Fun, so I have no opinion. Well, it's just one labyrinth, and it's awesome. It looks beautiful. It looks beautiful. It really is, but we're very, very biased there, so I think it's okay for us to say that. Okay, so who's really good? Forget the best. The best is very subjective. I kind of go probably with the Pulp Fiction Chicago over there would be my probably one after that. They just take so long to get them out. 100%. But if you make me pick from the rest, yeah By the time it comes out you like ugh I have played that I have played a Pulp Fiction It very for what they were trying to do it very cool It very cool I like it a lot. I kind of worry, does it have that playability again and again? I can see that. Is the value proposition there? I think that was the question I had. Sure. As someone who likes leaning into those classic games, I think it plays into that aspect of it for me personally. But, yeah. It's tough to build a new game that's like a classic game. And I've had this conversation with Josh many times because you're up against. Beatles, right? Beatles is a good example. Yeah, you're up against. You're going to sell a $7,000 Beatles game. Hard to do. When you can, I don't know, you can't buy a $7,000 Fathom anymore, but you could buy a Funhaus for $7,000, certainly. Sure. It's hard. It's hard to do.
    59:32
    Pinball is hard. You didn't make any merch on that, did you? that was a mistake. I don't think we did that one. No, I saw a lot of t-shirts in my day.
    59:41
    All right. I think it's time. We're going to end this interview with you for, it's time for our rapid fire question game. Oh, this is where I don't look so smart. No, it's called the hurry up. All right. Take your time. It doesn't have to be rapid fire, but Aaron, I like, I like it. It's called the hurry up in the first direction is take your time, but yes, you know, I appreciate that. All right, Aaron, you start us off. All right. Best pinballer you've ever seen.
    60:11
    I know, put you on the spot. Fair. Okay. If Nate Shivers was asked to narrate his own pinball tutorial, what game do you feel like you're the master of that you could record?
    60:26
    Most of my life I would have said Twilight Zone. It might be Jurassic Park now just because I've played that game endlessly.
    60:37
    But there's enough in there that I'd get lost and Keith would shake his head at me and be like, no, no, no. So I'd say Twilight Zone. Okay. All right. So a variety of your supposed nicknames on Pinside. Are any of them true? If so, what is your favorite nickname? I don't think – do I have nicknames? I don't think I have any nicknames. Aaron, do I have nicknames? We're into Pinside, yes. We're into Pinside, but I didn't write them down. That's terrible with producing, Jamie. We'll cut that question out, Erin. All right. You have to leave it. No edits. Don't edit. I'm just kidding. All right. If you want to know the answer, go find it on Pinside and then come back to us. Yeah.
    61:13
    We've had a lot of vaulting of games in pinball. If you could rerun vault any game in the history of pinball, what would you choose? Oh, that's a fantastic question. This is where I compliment your question while I think about my answer. That's a good move. That's not a rookie move, Erin. So, if I could vault any game, I would have to, like, I would spreadsheet it, and I would do, like, I wanted something that there's fairly low production numbers of.
    61:41
    So, I don't know. Because, you know, because part of me wants to say Circus Voltaire, but I don't particularly love Circus Voltaire, so it's like, that doesn't feel genuine to me.
    61:58
    Erin, what's your answer on this? Maybe it'll strike something in my mind. Hmm. Well, now I have to think of the answer to this on our own question.
    62:06
    Well, you know, I'm not choosing Congo, I promise. You know, I do love Dracula. It's right behind you, which I I don't know. That could be up there for me. Hmm. Hmm. That's actually a pretty good one. I would either pick a more obscure, like, I don't know. See, I also really want to say, I'm trying not to say a Stern game, but I think Tron has just been there for so long. So can we please just remake the game already?
    62:40
    So maybe just that so we can stop talking about it. I love it. All right. Now, name someplace internationally that you haven't traveled to yet for pinball, but would like to check it out sometime.
    62:56
    That's a great question. I have not been to a lot of places in, I've actually never been to South America. I don't know if there's any pinball scene in South America. So I would love to go on just a fact-finding mission through South America, like looking for pinball. I like it. I've never been there, so I would like to do that. So yeah, probably that Cool We have a reusable question here Called shitty movie Great pinball machine So out of this list Pick your best pinball machine Multiple choice, love it, thank you Congo, sorry Erin Fine Demolition Man, she likes the book anyway Congo, Demolition Man The Shadow, or right behind me Bram Stoker's Dracula So what am I picking? What's the best game out of this? What's the best game?
    63:49
    I mean, Shadow's the best game, followed by Congo, then Demolition Man. I'm not a huge Dracula fan. I'm not. I want to be because I like the lightning bolt inserts and I like the dark spookiness vibe of it. I just, I don't, I'm not good at the game. I'm not good at this game at all. I can't collect bats, rats. I can't do anything. I think it won me over when I started to get good at it. So, yeah. And I will tell you this. A good Congo is better than a bad Shadow. Like, if you have a good Dalvin Congo, I'd much rather play that than a bad Shadow. But I like the Shadow a lot. Shadow's a really cool game. Yeah, it is. All right. Now we're going to take a big pivot here. Mayonnaise on French fries, yes or no? No. I live in the world center of that nonsense. These people around me, I love you, Dutch people. I love you, but your mayonnaise obsession is disgusting. Catch it.
    64:48
    All right, good. I wrote that question, so I wanted to make sure. Which tastes better? And I'm going to, I don't know if I can get these correctly. A stroopwafel? Stroopwafel. A stroopwafel. A bitternballen. Bitterballen, yeah. Or a poffertjes. Poffertjes.
    65:07
    So it's not bitterballen. I actively don't like bitter ball and bitter ball and are like little fried. It's like meat, ragu stew breaded and deep fried. And I don't like, I've never, see, this is my Nate and Katrina do the world YouTube blog. This is what we do. We have an entire episode about the best stroopwafels in Amsterdam. Oh, okay. And, and the best stroopwafels is at Rudy's in the Albert kite market in Amsterdam. It's fantastic. They press it in front of you. So I personally would say a freshly made stroopwafel, Not the one in the packages, not the ones at the grocery store, but where they actually press the waffle, slice it in half. They literally open it up in front of you, and they got a big pot of the syrup. Stroop is syrup. And they spread it on, and they put it back together, and they hand it to you. That's better. Poffer J's are good. Poffer J's are mini pancakes.
    65:58
    Katrina loves Poffer J's. That's her thing. But I would say a fresh stroop waffle is the best. Nice.
    66:03
    All right. Favorite machine with an upper play field? I mean is it Shadow like is it home speaking of that one yeah I mean it's Twilight Zone certainly that's probably like if somebody puts a gun to my head and goes what's your favorite pinball machine I go it's Twilight Zone stop don't shoot so I mean Twilight Zone Shadow I generally am not a big fan of upper play fields it's not really my thing Simpsons Pinball Party I mean pretty probably one of the best ones. I don't even say that Twilight Zone is the best, but maybe it is.
    66:40
    The magnets are pretty cool on Twilight Zone. It's Twilight Zone. Action button, yes or no? Yeah. You only got two buttons on a pinball machine, so get another thing. I think it's good. I always like on the Stern Insiders Pinball Podcast, which we may or may not be recording a new episode of here in the next 10 to 15 days, but probably not.
    67:04
    Okay. I always like waiting until we're late in the episode and then saying to whoever the designer might be, so what's the action button do? And everyone just kind of laughs because it's usually been a big contentious point between people.
    67:18
    Yeah, yeah, sure. I like action buttons. Better than double flippers. I don't like double flippers. Like when you start putting extra sets of buttons. On the side. Like the shadow we were just talking about.
    67:29
    That has them right. Am I dumb now? I don't like double flippers. Okay. All right. And finally, our last rapid fire question. Favorite IFPA tournament format?
    67:40
    Oh, I mean, yeah, match play. There's reasons why it shouldn't be match play. Actually, I don't know.
    67:50
    I watched Tim's Why I'm Not Playing Competitive Pinball video anymore. Have you guys seen that? Yeah, I have. Yes. Yeah, it's interesting. I had some thoughts. I thought that was Tim took a shot for sure. And I and I think he's exactly right on some of it. And some of it I don't agree with him at all. But yeah, match play. And I see why a top level pro might not like like match play. But as I've noted, I'm not the greatest pinball player. So I have beat in Pinberg in banks, some really much better pinball players than me in a bank of four games. If it's the right four games and they're having a bad moment, I beat them, and that brings me endless joy. So I have to say, like, a big old match play tournament is definitely my favorite.
    68:38
    Thank you so much, Nate. That was a lot of fun. And thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. We went a little over the hour. I'm really sorry. Don't worry about it. But when will we see you next? Are you going to any expos?
    68:53
    You know, I had toyed around with expo this year. Zach and I were actually talking about, like, well, if I came to Expo, what could we do? And I don't know if I'm going to come to Expo. It doesn't look like it. So I don't know. I'm not sure. If you really want to see me, go to my YouTube page, Nate and Katrina Do The World. There you go. Watch me be an idiot every Sunday, every Sunday this year without a vlog. But as far as pinball goes, whenever there's a Stern Insiders Pinball Podcast, it's audio only. We do them on Zoom. I could literally record them and put them out, I guess, but we don't. We just do audio. So I think a lot of people there don't necessarily want to be on camera for it. But, yeah, that's my pinball partaking activity right now. But I don't know. I've had the itch lately. I've been looking at some tournaments, and I miss it never drains just by, like, a week every year. I'm always in California the week before it. So we'll see. We'll see. Wow. You're a delight. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. and we look forward to maybe an upcoming Stern Insider Connected podcast. I mean, eventually they have to put a game out. They're going to put a game out eventually. It's true. People need to build something there.
    70:03
    Jamie, Aaron, thank you. You guys are wonderful. Thanks so much. Thank you, sir. Aaron, that was fun. Yes, absolutely. Thanks again to Nate Shivers for coming on our podcast. That was a great honor for us. Okay, I've got to talk to you, young lady. Okay. I heard a rumor. that you spent some time in the wormhole vault recently. So the vault for people, it's a, well, why don't you explain it? What is the vault? Yeah, it's one of the branches of wormhole that I have heard many rumors about. And I think I've seen your teaser on that you put out on social media of it. Yeah, with that cool camera. Yes. It's basically where all of the machines that aren't ready yet for prime time that are in wormholes, aka Tim John's collection resides. So some of them are actually machines that previously were at Wormhole and kind of have been moved out, like the retirees from the Wormhole collection that was played in tournaments. Then others are ones that have arrived from Europe and haven't even been opened yet. So it's like this cool combo of games that need worked on versus like perfect games. And it's being renovated itself, just like all the rest of Wormhole is too, and being made into an even better place for repair techs and stuff to be able to come work on. Yeah, they put a kitchen in it. They put bathrooms, they put a big refrigerator, anything that they need. And we stocked it, too. So anything that the techs need to get these machines up and running is what we want to provide for them. Yeah, absolutely. And it was super, super cool. I mean, I have a mechanical engineering background, so I'm still learning all of the repair tech stuff. But seeing some of these old mechanics and machines and things like that, it was very, very fun. Can you talk about why you were there? Yeah, so I'm working on, well, I kind of like doubled up and did a couple of things. I'm working on an article for a magazine that deadlines in October, so it'll be a little while till it's out, but I'll share when it's there. It's kind of documenting the wormhole crew repairing one of these machines from opening it off the ship from Europe to getting it tournament ready, as well as some of the work that happens on Wednesday repair nights at wormhole to keep machines up and running and getting the nitty gritty of that. So I was there for that initial, what game are we going to pick for this and also opening it up and seeing it. And I got to play the game and its current condition, which was super fun, which I won't say which one it is. Cause I think there, it might be one of the games that comes to Houston arcade expo. Yeah. I don't know. We do. We can announce that a magic girl. Okay. The fully upgraded Magic Girl at Sidware is coming to Houston Arcade Expo. And I can announce it only because they already put it on the website, a list of games. Very good. It's fully public. It is public out there. The other one that's going to go in the booth, I don't know about. That's the one that this, it could be the one that was opened or another one, depending on what happens with some of the repairs. I want Terrific Lake. Did you get to see it? I saw it like under plastic, but not opened up. Yeah. I'm like number something in the world there. Cause one of my geeky things I like to do is I go to the vault. This is stupid, but I go to the ball and I look up a game on Pindigo and I'll see that there's like three people that have ever played it and put their scores in and then to beat those scores. That's great. Well then you got to play the ones that we just opened. Cause there's not many scores. I know. I'm heading over there to do some video, just a little here to show the new thing, the bathroom and everything, to do another one of those next week, I think. Because we're going to be under construction next week here. The whole front is getting renovated. And it's going to be great because it's going to be thick, clean glass and really keep the place cool. Oh, that's great. And by the way, are there any new games that have arrived in Wormhole recently that have come out of the vault? Oh, out of the vault. Catacomb was at the vault. Catacomb came and then had some issues, and then we put it to the vault, and now it's playing pretty well. Cool.
    74:14
    What else is coming from the vault? No, I would love Terrific Lake here. That would be super fun. Catacomb is a cool one. I haven't gotten to play that yet, but I saw it in the last tournament when I was there. Oh, you didn't get it in a bank? No, I didn't. I didn't get lucky. There you go. people are asking when will we see another learning to flip episode yeah you know it's funny i've made a few like pinball related videos recently but they haven't been learning to flip brandon because i was like traveling and i did one on like cool um pinball places in la when i was out there that i saw and things like that so i need to make another like actual learning to flip so hopefully soon i'm really focused on this one i'm i normally do a lot of short form content i'm trying to focus on some longer stuff and I'm making a video related to space pinball machine art and stuff. So that's been eating up my time, but I want to come back to some of those learning to flip. So I'm sure if nothing else, there'll be some covering for Houston Arcade Expo. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. And that's coming up in less than two months, less than two months. And then what's crazy is the whole next week I'm going to be in Chicago. Y'all are insane. I don't know how you're doing it. I don't know, but we're going to have fun. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, thanks again for everything you do for the Wormhole and everything you do for pinball. It's just been awesome. And this is a fun podcast. Thank you. I had to bring in Spidey. I got nervous for Nate Shivers. When I get nervous, I call up Aaron or Donna. I love it. We're here for you, Jamie. So where can people find you online? find me well a doing bells and chimes streams for wormhole on the wormholes twitch and the occasional learning to flip on wormhole but what i make the rest of the time i'm on all the social media platforms at erin winnick e-r-i-n-w-i-n-i-c-k mainly space and science content with an undercurrent of pinball i saw your uh on the weather channel that was awesome yes i was i got to talk about my ocean expedition i did earlier this year so that was very cool they were geeking out with you they really like you they were yeah i have they they super get into like the science nerding out which that's those are my kind of people absolutely uh all right really exciting podcast coming up in fact i'm recording it on today is wednesday so this will be out in two days tomorrow i am recording a podcast well we're it's really a round table it's my first round table Erin. Yeah. With an incredible guest. Let's check this out. Coe from Quarter Drop Arcade. Love it. He's awesome, right? Rachel and Kale from Electric Back Arcade. Amazing. One of my favorite podcast episodes that you've done. And Amon O'Harnie from Marco Pinball fame and Captain's Crazy Paradise. Great. What a crew. So what we're going to do is do a roundtable, and I plan on picking their brains on multiple topics, but really is getting their advice regarding our pinball expansion. So kind of a consulting board meeting here, although they're not getting paid, but maybe I'll give them some. There you go. I love it. So, yeah, I've got that and that'll be next. I'll release that next week. So and then edgehead pinball the week after that. Look at that. You're all set. I'm all set for September, I think. I think we're in good shape. I have one more that I'm trying to get on schedule in September. And if that happens, that will be super, super fun. All right. I'm having the time of my life. I'm loving this. Aren't you? Don't you love it? It's so much fun. I appreciate you having me. It's so great. Thank you so much, Aaron. I appreciate it. Thank you, everyone. And, you know, my sign off is don't be an a-hole. But I'll explain that one time of why we came up with don't be an a-hole. OK, sounds good. But not this time. Not this time because we went long. OK, sounds good. In a couple of weeks, I'm going to. Where did don't be an a-hole come from? because it's a good it is actually a funny story so all right talk to you later bye