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Steve Ritchie - Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2025 - Pinball News

Pinball News (Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2025)·video·1h 0m·analyzed·Nov 22, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Ritchie recounts 50-year pinball career arc from Atari through Jersey Jack, addressing design philosophy and current market pressures.

Summary

Steve Ritchie delivers an extensive autobiographical talk at Dutch Pinball Open Expo 2025, tracing his 50+ year career from childhood pinball enthusiast through his work at Atari, Williams, Stern, and Jersey Jack Pinball. He shares formative stories including his early designs (Airborne Avenger, Flash, Firepower), landmark innovations (multiball, two-level playfields), and personal anecdotes from the industry's golden era. The talk addresses current market challenges including high pricing ($15,000-$18,000 per machine), tariff concerns, and his continued passion for game design despite industry downturns.

Key Claims

  • Flash was Ritchie's best-selling game, selling approximately 19,000-20,000 machines

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'It was my best-selling game ever it sold like 19,000, almost 20,000 machines.'

  • Ritchie invented the word 'multiball' and the industry obtained a trademark on it

    high confidence · Direct claim: 'It was the first solid-state multiball, and I invented that word, multiball. And we got a trademark on the word.'

  • Firepower was the first solid-state multiball game

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'It was the first solid-state multiball'

  • Ritchie joined Jersey Jack Pinball in 2021 and requested they fix the flippers

    high confidence · Direct account: 'I found my way to Jersey Jack Pinball in 2021... I want to come, but you've got to fix the flippers. And he did.'

  • Elton John pinball costs $15,000 in America and $18,000 in the Netherlands

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'In America, Elton John costs $15,000. I hear that it was $18,000 here.'

  • Ritchie was unemployed for 28 months following the 2008 financial crisis

    high confidence · Direct statement: 'I was out of work for 28 months.'

  • Williams lost approximately $18 million when a disc-based video game failed to sell

    high confidence · Direct account: 'Williams lost, I think, $18 million, which is a lot of money in those days.'

  • A degree in industrial design is not necessary to become a pinball designer

    high confidence · Direct assertion: 'There's plenty of people in this room who know this. They make them... A degree in industrial design is not needed for pinball design.'

Notable Quotes

  • “My teacher said I would grow up to be a mad scientist in a toy factory. They didn't know it would be pinball.”

    Steve Ritchie @ early — Establishes Ritchie's formative connection to game design and invention from childhood

  • “I invented that word, multiball. And we got a trademark on the word.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid — Claims industry innovation and IP ownership of fundamental pinball mechanic term

  • “There's a certain freedom that I have that I didn't have anywhere else except Williams.”

    Steve Ritchie @ late — Reflects on creative autonomy at Jersey Jack Pinball vs other manufacturers

  • “In America, Elton John costs $15,000. I hear that it was $18,000 here. That's so much money for a pinball machine. You can buy a good used car for $18,000.”

    Steve Ritchie @ late — Direct critique of current pinball pricing sustainability and market accessibility

  • “I don't do that. If I have a chance to work with a programmer, we talk early before I start drawing. We think about everything.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid — Describes collaborative design methodology with programmers rather than linear handoff

  • “Lyman was a special person. and he was probably the best pinball programmer that ever lived, and a great man. Anyway, I miss Lyman very much.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid-late — Tribute to Lyman Sheets and recognition of his programming excellence; Ritchie's respect for collaborative partners

  • “Williams was a great company, and I miss it.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid — Nostalgic reflection on Williams era as industry peak; indicates preference for that manufacturing infrastructure

  • “If I were you, I would take a nap right now. Just go to sleep. I'm just kidding.”

    Steve Ritchie @ mid — Self-aware humor about lengthy autobiographical narrative; breaks tension in extended monologue

Entities

Steve RitchiepersonWilliams ElectronicscompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyAtaricompanyLyman SheetspersonEugene Jarvisperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Tariff uncertainty creating market anxiety; Ritchie expresses worry about international trade policy impact on pinball industry pricing and availability

    high · Direct statement: 'but also I'm worried about tariffs I wonder what that is going to do to our countries you know, selling between each other'

  • ?

    business_signal: Williams' strategic pivot toward slot machines (post-1996) and away from pinball under Neil Nicastro signaled manufacturer retreat from core business, prompting Ritchie's departure to JJP

    high · Direct statement: 'In 1996, I saw the writing on the wall. The writing on the wall was that our boss Neil Nicastro was much more interested in making slot machines than pinball.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Mother's Pinball arcade functioned as industry hub where designers from competing manufacturers met, tested games, and shared information in collegial environment

    high · Description: 'It was also a test location... all the designers would go there from all the companies... It was friendly. It was nice.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball demonstrated commitment to hardware quality improvement by fixing flipper mechanisms per Ritchie's request, indicating responsiveness to designer input

    high · Direct account: 'I want to come, but you've got to fix the flippers. And he did. They fixed the flippers... They're snappy now, and I like them a lot.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Ritchie acknowledges poor artwork on Stellar Wars contributed to game's modest reception (~5,000 units); indicates visual design quality impacts market performance

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.183

0:00
Thank you very much. Thank you. So my life has been about pinball my whole life, almost. When I was a kid, my parents used to go bowling. I don't know if they have that in your country with the ball and you knock down the pins. They belong to a league. So my parents would give me a dollar maybe, and I would have to make that last for a few hours if I could, playing the pinball machines in the bowling alley. And I did love them. I was also, I don't know, kind of crazy with gadgets and toys and motors and stuff like that. I liked all that stuff. And when I was in the eighth grade, my teacher said I would grow up to be a mad scientist in a toy factory. They didn't know it would be pinball. I didn't know either. Okay. You want this one? There we go.
1:19
Anyway, that's how my pinball life began. I played pinballs. Actually, my father took me to this place called Playland at the Beach in San Francisco. And I thought it was very weird. They had all these games, and they were all bolted down to a piece of wood. You could not shake them at all. No shaking, okay? So that's how you had to play them. And a lot of them didn't have flippers. So what do you do? You watch the ball go down the middle. That's it.
1:48
However, as I got older, I started playing more and more, and I ended up going in the military, in the Coast Guard in 1968.
1:59
And I served in the Coast Guard for four years, one year in Vietnam, always playing guitar and music when I could.

  • “I wish it would go back down, and I hope it does. I know it's harder on you guys than it is in America... but also I'm worried about tariffs.”

    Steve Ritchie @ late — Expresses concern about pricing impact on international markets and trade policy uncertainty

  • “I don't know where the nearest racetrack is. I don't know. So I just took I-5 because there was nobody on it. I have good tires and brakes. I just wanted to see how fast the car would go.”

    Steve Ritchie @ late — Anecdote explaining rationale for reckless driving incident; reveals design/testing mindset applied to vehicle

    • Larry DeMar
    person
    Pat Lawlorperson
    Nolan Bushnellperson
    Gary Sternperson
    Dave Petersonperson
    Dennis Nordmanperson
    Harry Williamsperson
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Leonardperson
    IGTcompany
    Firepowergame
    Flashgame
    Black Knightgame
    High Speedgame
    Spider-Mangame
    AC/DCgame
    Elton Johngame

    high · Direct assessment: 'I hated my first play field... the artwork was terrible. Awful.' Game sold approximately 5,000 units vs Flash's 19,000-20,000.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Ritchie advocates for early-stage programmer collaboration rather than linear design handoff; values iterative dialogue over finished-design submission

    high · Direct explanation: 'I don't do that. If I have a chance to work with a programmer, we talk early before I start drawing. We think about everything.'

  • $

    market_signal: Nostalgia for Williams era (1970s-1990s) as industry golden age characterized by manufacturing excellence, collaborative talent pool, and executive support for innovation

    high · Multiple references: 'Williams was a great company, and I miss it.' 'There's a certain freedom that I have that I didn't have anywhere else except Williams.'

  • $

    market_signal: Post-2008 financial crisis resulted in 28 months unemployment for Ritchie; indicates severe industry contraction and talent displacement

    high · Direct statement: 'I was out of work for 28 months' (2008-2010 period following economic collapse)

  • ?

    community_signal: Lyman Sheets honored posthumously by Ritchie as 'probably the best pinball programmer that ever lived'; underscores loss of top-tier talent to the community

    high · Direct tribute: 'Lyman was a special person... he was probably the best pinball programmer that ever lived, and a great man. Anyway, I miss Lyman very much.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steve Ritchie transitioned from Stern Pinball (2002-2008, again post-2008) to Jersey Jack Pinball in 2021, representing talent migration to boutique manufacturer

    high · Direct statement: 'I found my way to Jersey Jack Pinball in 2021... It's been fun over there. There's a certain freedom that I have that I didn't have anywhere else except Williams.'

  • $

    market_signal: Current pinball machine pricing ($15,000-$18,000) creating market accessibility crisis; Ritchie expresses concern about sustainability and international competitiveness

    high · Direct quote: 'In America, Elton John costs $15,000. I hear that it was $18,000 here. That's so much money for a pinball machine. You can buy a good used car for $18,000.' Also: 'I wish it would go back down, and I hope it does.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Transition from rotary solenoids (Atari) to linear solenoids (Bally/Williams/Gottlieb) represented critical hardware evolution enabling more reliable game mechanics

    high · Direct explanation: 'We were kind of crippled with rotary solenoids... They were weak and they were fragile. They broke easily. Anyway... finally linear solenoids, normal solenoids at Bally and Gottlieb and Williams and everybody else.'

    • 2:08
    And after I got out, I was looking for a job, and my wife was working. How are you? I hope you're well. So I look for a job all over the place, and I walk into Atari. And I don't know anything about how the pinball machines or video games go together, but I walked in this building, and there was, like, loud stereo music playing, and the speakers, and all these beautiful ladies. And I was already married, but I looked. I looked, but I didn't touch. And I don't know. They hired me. And I was working for them as an electromechanical technician, building burning ovens. And every Friday at Atari, and this is in Los Gatos, California, they would have a big tray of hashish brownies.
    3:03
    Everybody would eat one. Everybody's walking around with half a brain. It was dangerous for me because I was working on these big burning ovens that could cook 100 PC boards at the same time. So I didn't do that too much, but they kind of introduced me to drugs.
    3:21
    Anyway, on Fridays they had bottles of wine, cocaine, marijuana. It was a crazy place to work. After I was there a couple years, or one year I guess, they hired a guy from Williams, and he told everyone that he was a game designer, but he was not. He was a mechanical engineer, but he knew how to lay out a game and put one together. So I learned a lot from him. And after a few months, I thought, you know, I could probably do this. I want to try it after I learned how it goes together. So I took a big piece of plywood, you know, Atari pinballs are this wide, had one with no holes, no cuts at all, and I made that into like a drafting table. So I started drawing a game at home when I wasn't working there. And I brought it to my boss, and he said, you can't be a game designer. You have to have a degree in industrial design.
    4:18
    Guess what? You don't have to have a degree in industrial design to make a pinball machine. There's plenty of people in this room who know this. They make them. What? A degree in industrial design is not needed for pinball design? No.
    4:31
    Tell me otherwise. I'm going to continue, if you don't mind. We can talk about it later. There will be time for questions, I promise. Thank you. Anyway, so I drew my game, and my boss said, you can't do this. So I go to the president, Nolan Bushnell. He's very famous. He wasn't then, but he was a good guy. He was a good man. He was fun to be around. So I said, I made this game at home. Can I make it here? I want to be a designer. And he goes, poof, you're a designer.
    5:04
    So I go to work, and in a week, he had a drafting table for me and a drafting machine. I started working on Airborne Avenger.
    5:12
    Airborne Avenger had a spell out on it that was all those letters, Airborne Avenger. And Roger Sharp wrote a Critics' Corner article, and he said, Airborne Avenger for a spell out? That's a mouthful. It was very hard to make it. But I'm just a dumb kid. I don't know what I'm doing, really. I'm just messing with pinball and doing the best I can. It sold okay, but we were kind of crippled with rotary solenoids. Do you guys know what those are? I guess not. Okay. It was a solenoid that just turned like this. It wasn't like a flipper with a plunger that goes into the coil. They were weak and they were fragile. They broke easily.
    5:54
    Anyway, we made three or four games, and other guys made games. In between, my next game was Superman. On that one, I begged them to get the scores out of here when no one can see them, down in the lower arch. I don't know if there's any Atari games here, but you might have seen them. No one can see the score except the player. And they were doing, you know, like a, you know, I think it would be good to have a back glass that is just a picture, you know. It was goofy, crazy thing to do. I was able to talk them into making a pinball machine like everyone else, put the scores in the back, in the back glass, what ball you're on, you know, game over light, all that stuff. and finally linear solenoids, normal solenoids at Bally and Gottlieb and Williams and everybody else but Atari used.
    6:46
    So during that game, I got an offer to go to Williams. They heard of it. I don't know what they heard, but I met with the president, Mike Stroll. He came to California, and he offered me a job in Chicago making pinballs at Williams. So when I get there, it's like, wow, this is a real pinball factory, huge. And it wasn't just a pinball factory. It was a manufacturing company. They could make refrigerators. They had a big giant press that had to be dropped in with a helicopter from the roof in the 50s. And they had all this machinery. They brought in raw materials like big rolls of, you know, ball guide material. And it was nice because while I was making a game, I could just go downstairs and have them move where the bolts go, all the tabs. I could make any change I wanted very quickly. And they were making switches. You could have them make a short one, a long one. I learned a lot from these people. I knew nothing about it before I got there, not the technical stuff of getting a pinball machine made and the materials, good materials.
    7:55
    So I started on a game. It's the only game that I ever made a napkin drawing for. I never do a little sketch. I don't do that, except for this time I did. I made it on the airplane coming over, and I thought, I'm going to call it Flash. And I want real bright lights on this thing. You step on the brake on a car, and the lights come on back very bright. And I was looking to get that into a pinball machine. We had 12 volts. We should be able to do that. so on flash that got invented and i started messing with a continuous background sound that got higher and higher and higher and higher that felt good it was very different the games did not have anything like that before we didn't have the ability to do speech but we you know we made the game very busy and and sound good and uh that's my best-selling game ever it sold like 19,000, almost 20,000 machines. I go to the salesman and I go, can we make 20,000? Just break that number? And he says, we want to leave the market wanting. So he didn't make any more, but that was okay. It was a good time. It took a whole year for the factory to finish all the machines.
    9:11
    Beyond that, a friend of mine, Eugene Jarvis, who I worked with at Atari, he decided to come out and work for Williams too. I got him the job there, and we had a good time. The next game was firepower, and that was a big breakthrough game. I probably couldn't have done it without a programmer like Eugene, somebody special.
    9:34
    I kind of specified lane change, moving. I made it only go one way, and even today when I play lane change, I know I can go both ways, but I don't. I always hit the right flipper to move the lane around. that was a good breakthrough game. It was the first solid-state multiball, and I invented that word, multiball. And we got a trademark on the word. But everybody else came up with other names for multiball for a while.
    10:03
    What else? After that, I think it was, oh, they wanted me to do a widebody right away, pink, you know, maybe in six months. So I made Stellar Wars, and we couldn't get Star Wars. I wanted Star Wars, but we couldn't have it because it cost too much money.
    10:21
    And there were very few licenses in those days. Bally was really the pioneer of getting licenses for games. And it was a long time before Williams would buy a license.
    10:34
    Anyway, the game, I hated my first play field. It's like I threw it in the dumpster because somebody wrote pigs in space in front of every drop target. instead of Stellar Wars.
    10:48
    They were letting me know that they didn't like it either. So I remade the game. It turned out okay. I don't know. I think we sold 5,000 machines. I'm not sure how. It's not a game I love, and I will say that the artwork was terrible. Awful.
    11:06
    After that, we made Black Knight, and that was with Larry DeMar. The first two-level game, People had talked about it. We would meet at this arcade with other designers from their company, Steve Kirk and Greg Kamek and artists, too, from Valley and Gottlieb and Stern. We would all meet at this arcade called Mother's Pinball. It was also a test location. So when a new game came out, the word got out, all the designers would go there from all the companies. And it was friendly. It was nice.
    11:42
    We got to see and play games. and the guy would give us all red quarters and he wouldn't count them in the earnings and he would make a test report and give it to all the companies so that they knew how much money they made was real and not interfered with or cheated in some way or other.
    12:00
    Anyway, with that game and Mothers, it was a great place to meet people. I met, there was also a restaurant that we used to go to. Sometimes Williams guys, I would go there with Mike Stroll and Steve Kordek and these guys. They were a lot older than me. Now I'm the old man.
    12:19
    But they were friendly to me, and I met Gary Stern. I met a lot of people at this restaurant called the Round Robin. And finally I got to meet Harry Williams. He was already gone and working with Stern. So Gary introduced us. He said, so, Harry, this is Steve Ritchie. and Harry says to me,
    12:44
    Hey, Rich, how you doing? I go, My name's not Rich. How are you doing, Bill? And he goes, That's not my name. I said, I know, but you said Rich. So your name is Harry. I'm Steve. We shall cance. He's an interesting character. What was special about Harry Williams was, I think I was 28 when I met him. He seemed like he was 28 too. I mean, he was just a young person, even though he was much older. I admired Harry Williams because he made some games in his 70s that I really liked. They were impressive. And I always hoped when I got old, if I got that old, I would make good games too and not quit. I don't want to quit making games.
    13:28
    Anyway, that's some history of Williams. There's a lot more history. What can I say? In the 80s and 90s, we made a lot of very good games. And I don't mean just me. I mean everybody was there, Pat Lawler, Dennis Nordman, my brother. My brother had some good games, especially Indiana Jones. I loved that game.
    13:53
    I'm trying to think of other people. It was just a very interesting time where there were a lot of great people. The best in the business all went to Williams. Same with programmers. All the best programmers wanted to go there because the company was operated by a guy, actually a team of people, that wanted pinball to start changing, to make it better, to make it more fun to play. Certainly electronics, but he encouraged all kinds of new innovations. And so it was a great place to work, probably the best place. And it was a big collection of people that were, you know, very talented, and we met and cross-talked and, you know, discussed ideas. But I hide mine because I, you know, I didn't want anybody to take mine, and I didn't want to take anyone else's. So some things I didn't talk about, but most I did.
    14:49
    What else can I say about Williams? It was a great company, and I miss it. In 1996, I saw the writing on the wall. The writing on the wall was that our boss Neil Nicastro was much more interested in making slot machines than pinball So they kind of pushed us away a little bit and I saw that and I didn want to get involved in Pinball 2000 I really didn't. And they let my contract lag. I had a contract which said I could not go to another company for one year after my contract expired. Well, they didn't pay attention to it. I made a couple of slot machine designs for them, and I worked on this weird little magnet game that didn't work. Anyway, I started looking for work, and I thought, I want to go back to California. That's where I'm from.
    15:49
    So I took a week off, and I went out to the newer Atari and stopped there. I talked to other game companies. Atari wanted to hire me, so I thought, okay, I could go there. When I get back, the president, the president then was Ken Fidesi, and he goes, I know you were at Atari. Yeah, I was. I'm looking for work because it's not happening here. It's like I'm scared for pinball. And he said, well, we bought them yesterday.
    16:22
    He bought the company. So I said, can I transfer there? And he said yes. So I produced some video games there. One of them was California Speed with a big team. It was a big project, about 20 people and...
    16:37
    $2 million budget? I don't know how many dollars exactly. I never bothered with that stuff, okay? I mean, I know what my budget is now, but in those days I didn't care. I just thought, I'm going to make the best game I can and see what happens. With video games, the profit margin is much better. It's 100%. If a game cost $2,500 to make, they would charge $5,000. So everybody made money, including the operators. We made a driving game that linked. Ooh, they make a lot of money, father and son or daughter and everybody playing in a family together. It was an interesting experience, and I loved it. I had worked on Robotron with Eugene, but not much, and Defender with ideas. I didn't really do any work except for think of ideas.
    17:27
    And it was fun, a good experience, and we made a lot of money doing that because video games are still a great earner.
    17:39
    I'm still friends with Eugene and all those people. George Petro, those guys, were like friendly companies. Sometimes they come to play my prototype pinball machine. I can go and play my brother's pinball machine, and we don't talk about it, but we get to see what each other is doing. And I don't mind, and we're a family, like, still. That family came from Williams. You know, we know we're all friends. We're not going to cheat. We're not going to tell people. We're not going to do anything to destroy, you know, their possibilities. We want to make sure of that.
    18:11
    After that, there was kind of like a dead time there where I didn't really do much. I designed a slot machine for – it was targeted at IGT. I built it with my own money and made this thing called the Vault. And I brought it to IGT after, I guess, about a year.
    18:32
    Made all the parts. It had a big roll-up door made of aluminum. The thing was about this tall, about that wide. And it had, like, relaxer. Relax. It was all cool. Anyway, it was like a bank vault. You can't go in the vault until you open up this gate, and then you have to open up this gate. And now the twin doors of the vault are there, and behind that a monitor so it could award prizes. And Eugene Jarvis and his crew wrote the code for it and drew up the symbols and all that, put it together.
    19:07
    It went very well, and IGT ended up stealing the whole concept from me. And there's no hope. If you have trouble with IGT, you're not going to win. They had 100 lawyers at that time, and no one in Nevada was going to favor anything. Gambling and IGT made the state of Nevada tremendous money, tremendous money. So you're not going to win. I wanted to say, you know, I couldn't do anything. So I let it go. and I think it was like 2002.
    19:41
    In 2002, I ended up talking to Gary Stern. So I thought, what do you think about making pinballs? Can I come back and make pinballs? And he said, sure. And I said, I'd like to, you know, commute if possible. I'd like to continue living in California, drawing games, bringing them in. I'll stay as long as you want when I go back to Stern. It was a great experience, actually. Good for him, good for me.
    20:08
    We built Spider-Man like that and ACDC. After six years, though, well, 2008, the whole bottom fell out of the world in the United States. I don't know about here. We were all let go, and that ended. But I did quite a few games there. I don't remember all of them. Elvis was one of them. I need help here.
    20:29
    24. Terminator 3. I don't remember all of them. I think five or six games. Anyway, I was out of work for 28 months. This is really boring, isn't it? I know. If I were you, I would take a nap right now. Just go to sleep. I'm just kidding. Oh, a silent audience. This is interesting.
    20:52
    Anyway, after that, I got a call from Stern to come back and work, and so I did. And there was a new guy there named Dave Peterson. I think if it wasn't for Dave Peterson, there wouldn't be any Stern at that point.
    21:09
    And I think he and Gary worked out a plan for the company that was really good. And so I ended up talking to Dave Peterson, and he said, make the game you want to make. So I worked with Lyman on Spider-Man, and we wanted to do another game, so we did ACDC together. It was a lot of fun. Also, Lyman would come to California and spend a week or so at my house, and we'd talk about the game. Like some guys, some designers, they just draw the whole thing and then hand it to the programmer. They'll still be involved, but they just go, here, it's already done. I don't do that. If I have a chance to work with a programmer, we talk early before I start drawing. We think about everything. I'll have some ideas for the game. I'll have a plan. But I like to work with programmers too because they have ideas. And Lyman was a special person. and he was probably the best pinball programmer that ever lived, and a great man. Anyway, I miss Lyman very much.
    22:12
    That game was a big success for us. Also, Star Trek with Dwight Sullivan there. I guess that was 2012.
    22:24
    I don't know. You guys probably know the history of the rest of the games better than I do. So I'm going to end it there for Stern, except for I'm going to say this. I found my way to Jersey Jack Pinball in 2021.
    22:39
    And I met this guy. He's a billionaire. His name is Leonard. And he's a nice person. And he said, we want you to come. I go, okay, Leonard, I want to come, but you've got to fix the flippers. And he did. They fixed the flippers. I didn't really fix them myself. People said, oh, Steve Ritchie fixed the flippers. I didn't. I just asked them to fix them, and they did a very good job. They're snappy now, and I like them a lot.
    23:08
    It's been fun over there. There's a certain freedom that I have that I didn't have anywhere else except Williams. And then they didn't care so much about bill of materials. But when I finished my game and he told me the price of the game, I thought, oh, my God. In America, Elton John costs $15,000. I hear that it was $18,000 here. That's so much money for a pinball machine.
    23:33
    You can buy a good used car for $18,000. Anyway, this is the state of the business now. The costs are high. There's no question. There's lots of reasons. Everything has gone up. Materials, labor, every price, every cost of everything. I wish it would go back down, and I hope it does. I know it's harder on you guys than it is in America you can get the games for better prices but also I'm worried about tariffs I wonder what that is going to do to our countries you know, selling between each other but I don't have any control over that, none I just watch it anyway, some things that happened And I'll tell you a story that not many people know.
    24:24
    We went to, we, I should say, a salesman. A salesman, myself, I think that's all, just the two of us, went with nine Black Knight 2000s to France, to Paris. and our distributor, PSD, Salmon, DDA Salmon, put on this big show, okay, on the Champs-Élysées in a beautiful cafe. I wouldn't call it a cafe. I would call it a theater.
    24:56
    They were just, you know, when he did a production, you know, it was fantastic. Everyone was going around with champagne and hors d'oeuvres and everything and laughing and having a good time, but the games were all covered up. We didn't show them yet. So we're all standing around having a good time, and Didier walks up on the stage. So we all sit down, and he said, okay, now I introduce Chevalier Noir. And the curtains opened up, and here is this knight in armor on a big, giant war horse. War horses are different than normal horses. They're big, gigantic. So the horse is facing this way. The audience is over here. He makes them rear up, and the horse turns and looks at the audience, and everyone is a-plapping, and the horse freaked out.
    25:47
    He unloaded everything. A garden hose diameter of pee, okay, splashing everywhere. It's stinky. You could smell it everywhere in the building. And then a big pile, okay, with steam coming off of that. It just smelled awful. People were freaked out. They all ran out the doors outside.
    26:12
    One moment, sir. Anyway, so it was embarrassing. Everybody was shocked, and DDA started crying. I don't blame him, you know. It's like what an awful thing to happen, and he didn't expect it. But then these guys come out in, like, white lab coats with shovels and a broom and antiseptic, and they're pouring. Everybody's still outside. They open the doors in the front and the back, and the air goes through and starts to smell better. And they were all crying and yelling when they come in. Everybody was laughing.
    26:45
    It was funny. It was funny, but it was nasty. So after that, we took off the covers of Black Knight 2000, and everybody enjoyed themselves, I think.
    26:57
    Just a very memorable story that I will never forget. there are other stories. I've told this one many times, but if you want to hear it, I will tell it again. The high-speed story. Do you know the story?
    27:13
    Okay. Excuse me? What did he say? I think that you were driving a Porsche and you were driving very fast. Jonathan, I need a translator. Please. Hold on, please. With accents and my bad hearing, I apologize. I don't understand. What did he ask? He said you were driving fast in a Porsche. Yeah, we'll talk about that. All right. Thanks, Steve. I had gotten a, well, first of all, I was working for Williams on a contract to make two video games from California. And we had a nice place with a shop in the back, big shop, enough for many people to work in, in Loomis, California, close to Sacramento, pretty far from the ocean, inland.
    28:07
    And so we were working on this game, and I bought a Porsche 928. It had an aluminum V8 engine in the front, very different than other Porsches. and I kept it. I drove it slow. I got used to driving it. The car made anybody a better driver instantly. Just get in and it's like it drives itself pretty much. It's just a beautiful thing to control. And after a few months, I had it and we needed some electronic parts from Silicon Valley. So it's about 200 miles from there.
    28:44
    Excuse me. So we get on this freeway. It's called I-5. It runs along the whole coast from Washington State all the way down to Mexico, okay, past Los Angeles through the Bay Area, everything. It's inland a little bit.
    28:59
    And so I get on there, and it's a brand-new road with, like, six lanes in each direction, and nobody's on it, okay, early in the morning, especially from where we were out in the country. So we get on this brand-new freeway. It was beautiful, and I had good tires and good brakes. So I thought, I'm going to see how fast this thing could go. So I'm sitting with my partner. He's in the passenger seat.
    29:22
    And I don't know. I got it going, you know, 146 miles an hour for a while. And then, you know, when I went by tomato trucks in the right lane, I would slow down to 70 or 75 or something and then, whoop, back on as fast as I could go. Very little traffic, almost nothing.
    29:42
    So we go over a hill like this, you know, down like that on the freeway. Coming this way is a highway patrolman, a California highway patrolman. So my partner says, that's a cop. Slow down. So I slow down. And he goes over the hill, and I go over the hill, and he's going his way, and I'm going mine. And then I step on the gas again. So back up to 146 miles an hour, fast as it could go. I only know that speed because, well, I'll tell you the rest of it later. But so I take off. I'm driving like a maniac, but very safe. and I don't pay attention to anything except the road and how I'm driving. That's it.
    30:21
    So I rolling along I go about 25 miles and then from the opposite direction there a sheriff car and he got his red lights on So I think oh well it not me I'm only going 75. So he makes a U-turn in the median with his red light behind me, so I had to pull over. There's nowhere to go. It's a flat valley. It's like you can't see the mountains in the Central Valley. You can't see the coastal range. You can't see the Sierras. It looks like the Netherlands.
    30:56
    It's like the land that geography forgot. That's it, flat. No streets to run on, nothing. So I'm not going to get away. Besides that, I thought, if I run, I will get in trouble when I'm finally caught, and they always catch you.
    31:14
    So I pull over, and the sheriff gets out of his car, and he comes to my car, and he says, just stay in the car, okay, for a minute. So we're sitting there, two or three minutes later, four minutes, we'll go by five minutes, and then here comes this highway patrolman with his siren on and lights and everything. He pulls into the same gravel lot as I am, screeching. He runs over to my car and tries to pull me out the window. And I go, wait, officer, I just, I can open the door. So he grabs me, throws me down on the hood, and puts handcuffs on me. Then he takes me to his car, and I have to sit on the passenger side. I can see, though, in the rearview mirror. Anyway, another highway patrolman shows up, two more sheriff cars, cop cars from Lodi, California, some more police. They come, and there's nine cop cars there. They think, I don't know what they think. I think maybe they thought it was running for a robbery or a murder or something. So they all, you know, they went through the whole car. They looked for drugs. They looked for anything. and then they're all laughing and pointing because the speedometer only goes up to 85 miles an hour. That's how it was in the 70s. But you could figure out how fast they were going from the tachometer. You could figure it out exactly. Plus, the manual says we guarantee this car will go at least 146 miles an hour. So they're all laughing and talking for 15 minutes. They search my partner. We didn't do anything wrong. There's no drugs. There's nothing. So the cop comes back in the car, and he goes, let me take the cuffs off you. And I go, okay. He goes, you want a cigarette? And I go, sure.
    32:54
    So I'm smoking a cigarette in his car, and he goes, why did you do that? And I go, because I had the car for a few months. I wanted to try it out. I don't know where the nearest racetrack is. I don't know. So I just took I-5 because there was nobody on it. I have good tires and brakes. I just wanted to see how fast the car would go. and he goes okay right now if court was not in session I would have to take you to jail right now for reckless driving so he said luckily there's a commissioner and he's holding court and you can go in there and then he says I'm going to try and help you okay so he did help me and the judge asked me so why did you do this and I said I want to see how fast the car would go and how it felt Everybody laughed. And then he said, you're not going to do that again, are you? I lied, and I said, no, never.
    33:56
    I would never do that again. All right. So he said, okay, you can walk out of here, but you've got to pay me $250, and you're going to have reckless driving on your record, and you can only use your car for company purposes. It was a company car. I got it in the name of my company, making video games for Williams. So I managed to walk away from it. It was pretty good. And then I guess about six months later, Williams, you know, oh, they had a bad time. They couldn't pay us anymore because Star Rider, not Star Rider. What was it? A video game, a disc player video game. I forgot the name of it. Star something. Anyway, they didn't sell. Williams lost, I think, $18 million, which is a lot of money in those days. So he said, I can't pay you. This is Mike Stroll. And I go, well, can I come back and make pinball? And he said, sure. So we packed up everything and moved back to Illinois. And when I moved, my driving record didn't come with me. They didn't communicate with California from Illinois. So I never got reckless driving. Well, according to Illinois anyway. Anyway, most of the time was like, I don't know, it was a bad time for pinball and video. When I went to Williams, the whole factory was dark. They were making nothing. Then in the middle of the development of High Speed, I decided, hey, we need to make a game about this because it was fun and crazy and, you know, run the red light, whatever. Anyway, the factory was dark and then they made Space Shuttle, which was a pretty good You know, it brought Williams to turn the lights back on.
    35:41
    And so while we were making High Speed, I made a design for the play field, and I was working with Larry DeMar again, who's another fantastic programmer. He's got – he is a brilliant man. And we had a good time, but we argued a lot about the game. And I ended up redoing the whole play field, and it was for the better. and I listen to people while I'm making my game and they go, you need a traffic light here. A guy named Butch, he drew our microprocessor, you know, circuitry on chips, tiny stuff. And he goes, you need a traffic light. And I go, yeah, I do. That's a good idea. So I put a traffic light on it. I'll take ideas if people want to give them to me.
    36:26
    You know, I try to come up with as much as I can also. The game turned out really well and we had some great innovations. One of them probably nobody in this room knows except for maybe a few people was automatic percentages. Automatic percentages, I invented it, but Larry refined it. And Larry didn't want to do it in the beginning. And then he gets his name on the patent first.
    36:52
    But they did it by alphabetical. So we came up with this scheme where we play 500 games. We'd look at the average score. and then we would have the program move the score up if we're not getting a percentage. And you could dial in 35%, 25%. Before that, everybody had to go out and make adjustments with dip switches or little program plugs. You have to move them or you want extra ball, all that stuff. We made it all electronic, and you could do it from the front door of the game. And it was a good thing for the business. I'm not bragging but this is an interesting story about five years after I make high speed this guy calls me up and he goes Steve I gotta tell you I love high speed it's like doing great for my business we're making a lot of money and I go really he goes yeah I made $50,000 I have two high speeds made $50,000 and then he said each so that was kind of shocking but it was cool but you're only as good as your last game that's how it is isn't that right Jack Danger you're only as good as your last game whatever you made everybody forgets about everything else except the Dutch anyway your last game was Elton John I can't hear you need to speak to me over here directly because the PA's pointed that out. I don't know. He was asking you if your last title was Elton John. Your last game was Elton John, which is a pretty good game. Yeah, well, thank you.
    38:35
    I haven't talked about Elton John at all yet. Yeah, Elton John was fun to make. We decided we wanted to make the brightest, you know, well, Elton John is a flamboyant gentleman, and I wanted to make the game as flamboyant as possible also, and I think it turned out very well. a great team with Bill Grupp, Duncan Brown,
    38:58
    wow, Olaf, JP, fantastic artist. I miss him. He controlled all the artwork. Olaf Grimmie for the animations. Yes, these are Dutch people.
    39:16
    Anyway, it worked out very well. The game is fun to play. It's noisy. You can pick 15 songs, which one you want to play. I think some of the song choices are probably not pinball oriented, but I didn't get to choose all of them.
    39:32
    It's kind of weird to play multiball during your song. And you can tell everybody, not tell me nothing, I want to play pinball. Anyway, it's like a different kind of attitude that changed.
    39:47
    It was a great team and a fun thing to do. and the topper was also spectacular. I love that topper. When the lights light up my ceiling in the living room, it feels good. It feels like I've done something.
    40:03
    I can take some questions, and if you want to hear more, you can hear more. But first, some questions. You have a question, don't you? I actually do. Say it again. Well, I guess. You said you had absolutely no interest in developing Pinball 2000 titles, correct? I'm asking this because when I think of the Elvis Pinball machine, I was given the impression that it was supposed to be a Pinball 2000 machine. I mean, the upper play field looks like a little stage that Elvis could play through. If anyone else answers a question that long, they will feel my blade. I'm sorry, just kidding. Go ahead.
    40:43
    You can't ask a question that long. It has to be shorter so I can hear it and understand. Thank you. Yes, I got the impression that Elvis was supposed to be a Pinball 2000 machine. Had Pinball 2000 been more successful, I noticed it because of a few parts of the play fields, like the upper play fields looking like a little stage that Elvis could dance on. It's too long.
    41:02
    Okay, what was the gist of that, sir? You're getting it under the impression your Elvis game was supposed to be a Pinball 2000 type of game. No, that never happened. I left Williams because they were making Pinball 2000. I left Williams because I did not see the sense of raising the cost of the game when nobody wanted to buy it at the normal price. I knew they wouldn't buy that many. Then we made some, but not many. I didn't want to participate in Pinball 2000. I never did. It's the reason I left Williams.
    41:37
    Okay. So much for Pinball. Like 9-3-5, Pinball 2000. They're a different kind of game. Anybody else? We do have a mic or two mics actually in the center path, so if you could walk up. I was just joking about the sword. I'm really not going to cut anyone up with a sword, okay?
    42:00
    Is there a question? Yeah. Okay. Here it is. Okay. I don't know how open you can speak about it as a designer, but what was the best, worst idea you came up with, like maybe in the 80s, something that sounded good but didn't work at all? I did not hear that. What was the best, worst idea for a game that you worked on in the 80s?
    42:27
    I never worked on any worst games. No. That's the trick. You don't make bad games. No, I didn't mention game. maybe like a toy or a game? Of other people's games, we used to joke around. Everybody had a name for everybody else's game. Like for Twilight Zone, people that we were just joking around, but we would call it Toilet Zone. And they would call high speed, high cost, you know, because it was a little more expensive than other games. Every game, you know, Fire. We started calling Fire, Firewood.
    43:00
    That's a bad thing. Okay, it's a bad name for people, but we do joke around with that kind of stuff. So what's the worst game? In terms of? The best worst idea. Oh, the best worst idea.
    43:17
    I don't know. I live in reality. I don't try things that I know won't work. I can't answer your question. No problem. It's the best I could do.
    43:30
    Hello. Thank you for being here and thank you for making Spider-Man. Like I said, it's so fun for me to be here because when I come here, also in Europe in general, I feel loved. I just do. I am part of the pinball community. It is my life. You understand that? For 54 years so far. And I'm not planning on quitting. And going strong. So what is your question, sir? If you could redesign the Spider-Man, one of my favorite pinballs. Okay, if you talk like that, I'm going to talk like that. I'm just kidding.
    44:04
    And I mean the Spider-Man black version. If you could improve that a little, what would you do? With the knowledge you have right now.
    44:13
    If you could improve Spider-Man, what would you do? I'd make it eight ball multi-ball. Thank you. Any questions? More? There's one. Two. What is your favorite pinball you designed yourself?
    44:39
    You mean my favorite? I have favorites from each designer. From Greg Kamek, I like Captain Fantastic, good game.
    44:52
    From the man whose name I won't say, I like Hollywood Heat. I won't say his name. Geez, I remember everybody.
    45:02
    Well, I've got to tell you. I really like Jack Dangerous. Foo Fighters. Nice playing game. And he's right back there. Yes. Foo Fighters. Shut up, Jack.
    45:21
    I'm trying to think. Dennis Norman. What is it? The water one. Whitewater. Ah, Whitewater. Thank you.
    45:29
    I have a memory like a sieve. It's got a lot of holes in it. You hold it under the memories and a lot of them go right through Wow from my brother Indiana Jones But I really like playing Pulp Fiction too It a good game I happy for him that he got to make another game He hadn't made one in 20 years.
    45:50
    Wow. From Jim Patla, Mata Hari. From Barry Osler, Pinbot. From Tony Kramer. Tony Kramer did Pool Sharks.
    46:04
    Who are some other designers that I missed? There must be more. From Pat Lawler. None. No game.
    46:11
    No, that's not true. That's not true. No. Dialed In is a really good game. I love the play field. I also liked, I don't know, Red and Ted. What's the name of the game? Road Trip. Yeah, thank you. Road Trip or whatever. Brain Damage. I think that was it. No. Anyway, I like those games. I like Twilight Zone too. They're all good machines. Brian Eddy. Brian Eddy is Medieval Madness. Great game.
    46:43
    You're good help, Jonathan. Good help. What's that? Yeah, Ray Tanzer. I think I liked, I'm trying to think of the name of it.
    46:57
    Stargate. I like that game. Stargate. John Norris. I can't think of one there's one about the beach surfing I don't know that name but it's a pretty good game we called it spring broke that's a rude name it's just a joke but that's what we called it because we're evil people in pinball evil one moment yes I'd like to know now you're working at GDP what's the time that you're thinking about the next pinball because there's been two more GDP pinballs after Elton John how much time do you need to think about I can tell you the name of the game is none of your business it's not the title how much time I'm just joking. Thank you.
    48:04
    Shocking, isn't it? I'm having fun. How much time do you have for your next game? Okay, well, this game that I'm working on took a long time. At the beginning of it, I had a hip replacement. And actually, it was the end of Elton John. But it took me a while to recuperate. I am amazed by this, okay? It's just my right leg. And after I thought about it, I thought, yeah, that's from kick-starting big dirt bikes over and over.
    48:35
    And they fixed my hip, and now it's like it never happened. That's amazing. No pain, I can walk normal. I think I am. Anyway, it seems like it's normal. I can't really see myself, but it looks okay, it feels okay. Then, last July, not last July, a year ago, after that, I fell through a wooden deck. And it was awful. There was only three and a half inches between the boards, and my knee went through it, and it's about that big. It was awful. It got terribly infected with rotten wood. The wood was black and wet inside. I had to go to the hospital for eight days, and they operated on me, took away a lot of tissue. I could, okay, this is nasty, but there was a hole in my leg big enough to put a pinball in. All the way in. You don't see it. Okay, so it had to grow back. I was on this pump thing where they pump constantly. 24 hours a day you've got to wear an electric pump and pump it out. So I didn't go to work, and every day a big thing of antibiotics and IV. I learned how to give myself an IV.
    49:44
    Now I could be a heroin addict if I want. I don't want. Anyway, that caused a couple of big delays, and that's why it took so long.
    49:57
    And we're not done, but we're almost done. And they also terminated my mechanical engineer while I wasn't there, and I did not like that, but that's what happened.
    50:10
    The new game is going to come out about the 35th day of the festival of Kunigonda. You know that date? Okay, that's when it's coming out. Can you give us another hint? Yeah, sure. I can say it's green.
    50:26
    Okay. What else can I say? I don't know. Does it help that Harry Potter is such a big seller? Yeah, I mean, I'm happy for us. It means the company's going to do very well with it. And that's, you know, I'm also happy for Eric. It's the best game he's ever made, I think. And Eric is a younger guy. He's very good. And I think the game is a masterpiece. It really is. So it's always good for the company. I don't, you know, anything that makes the company keep going because I make pinball machines because I think they're fun, but the real reason I make pinball machines is to sell them. You have to keep that in mind. That's my job, to make games that sell. I have lived through so many up and down cycles. You begin to try to protect that as much as you can. You always want to stay up high if you can. There have been times when pinball just goes to the floor. No one's interested. The price is too high. We can't sell them. The duties. There's been all kinds of problems making pinball machines. So, of course, I'm happy to see any companies, any of us that have made pinball machines doing well. It's important. Selling pinball machines is what pinball is about. Oh, that's all the time I have. I'm sorry. No. Sorry. Hello. Has there ever been a team you wanted to make but were told, nope, not allowed? Any theme that you would like to make that they told you, can't do it? Lately they've been assigning us themes. I don't really love that. I like to be able
    52:18
    to pick my themes because it's an investment of sort of a creative thing. It's also the belief that the theme you pick is going to be strong and powerful and attract a lot of people. I'm not going to go into what the names are, but yes, I've been wanting a theme since I first got there and I haven't gotten it yet. So we're working on four years there. I hope you get it. Yeah, I'm hoping to. It takes longer to make a pinball at Jersey Jack than it does at other companies. And there's a good reason. We have a big bill of materials, a lot of space to fill, right? I know. I want to say a lot. We want our programs to be very full and entertaining and enjoyable to play. that's what I have to say about it sir ok sure yes sir yesterday I played Harry Potter and I played this game for 50 hours on 2 months I finished the game do you think that your best desire is to have designed this game Thank you for doing this. You played Harry Potter. Yeah. Is your biggest desire that you wouldn't design that game? I don't know. I didn't picture it. It wasn't offered to me. But I would say that, you know, I think you could take Harry Potter a million ways and do a million things with it. There are so many things you could do. I think you made a good choice of the things that you play, and the theme and the video and graphics.
    54:11
    I don't know how I would make it better, but it would probably be different. Like removing the three-eyed dragon and the train on car wheels?
    54:20
    I don't understand that. I'm trying. Never mind. Did you give Eric any input during Harry Potter? Say it again. Did you give Eric any input during Harry Potter? No microphone so I can hear you talk. Did you give Eric any input on Harry Potter? No, I don't do that. I mean, if he wants, if he asks me, I would give him input. He asked me things, you know, in the past. I think Eric was treated pretty poorly when he got to Jersey Jack by you-know-who, and there was no help, no help at all.
    54:56
    That's a shame. But I help him just how to be a designer, you know, because he's new. He was new. This is four years ago. This is not now. Eric is much better now, and he's much more educated on how to build a pinball machine. He always had good talents, though, always.
    55:16
    Does that answer the question? Thanks. Can you let the microphone up? Can you walk up to the mic? It's Adrian. I am planning to make a high-speed free and if you are, when is it coming? Oh! The question is about high-speed free, right? Yes. Yeah. If and when. Huh? If and when. One more time. If and when. Okay. It's not if, it's when and how bad. everybody keeps asking me that. Maybe it's time. It's a little scary, though, Adrian, because everybody, you know, they think only in terms of big band or movies or something like that. They're afraid of licenses that don't, you know, that don't have a history. High Speed has a history, but I'm not sure what it would mean to people that are 35 and 40 and buying pinball machines now. I don't know. and I didn't have such good luck with Black Knight Sword of Rage when it came out in 2019 there were a lot of people that didn't know what Black Knight was they have no history, no nothing they don't know about it didn't sell that well I should I mean it was a good game, fun game I'm thinking wow, it's a fun game to play it's a battle and that's what I really like about it it's really a pinball battle And I don't know, maybe. Enough people say it, maybe.
    56:56
    It would be cool to have a movie attached to it and then call it high speed. That's a great idea. Yes, it is.
    57:07
    Any other questions? How many pinball machines do you own? How many pinball machines do you own yourself? Okay, I only have four now. There's been times when I've had 10 or 15. But in the 80s, 70s and 80s I should say, I had all the games I got making at Williams. They all sat in my basement and all the switches got corroded. And before they all started to go bad, I fixed them all up and sold them. Because my kids weren't really interested in them after a time. They didn't really care about them. They were Nintendo, that was everything. So I started quite a few different collections, but usually I sell them. And right now what I have is a, I have a beautiful restored F-14 Comcat with a brand new cabinet, a brand new back box. All the art on the outside is so beautiful. And the play field. The play field was a, it was a German play field. I forgot the name of the guy, but his name is burned in the back of the play field.
    58:12
    Merco? Huh? Merco? He had a big, not Merco, a big long name, many letters. Anyway, I brought it to this guy called Captain Neo in Chicagoland. He does a lot of restoration work. So he put a clear coat on and then he would, you know, sand it down and let it sit, another clear coat and then let it sit for a month to let all the gas out. And after a month, do it again. Anyway, he did it six times so that it's hard like a rock. It's beautiful too. magnificent. And everything is redone. All the metal is polished and replated and the harnesses are pretty and there's little beautiful yellow stickers with the black print. The inspector and all the, I mean, he just did a fantastic job. And okay, so I have that. I have a collector's edition Elton John and I have a Black Knight Sword of Rage limited edition with the topper. These are all upstairs in my living room. My wife is not happy. The truth is, she doesn't mind. We don't use the room, not for anything. I mean, I have a big man cave basement, and I like that better. It's also kind of a museum of stuff, stuff I have acquired in my past.
    59:35
    I also have a Captain Fantastic in my basement because the back box is low. I can fit it in my basement. It has a low ceiling, and I have a Robotron 2084 video game. That's all the games I own.
    59:49
    I think we have time for one more question. Or none. How did the ZZ Top song end up in the getaway? How does the ZZ Top go into the getaway high speed seals? Please, he has a question. How did the ZZ Top song end up in the getaway? Okay, again, it's a driving song. One of the best driving songs ever. I love that song. I still play it in my car now sometimes. I just do.
    60:20
    It's a good driving song, and I asked for it to get that song in there, and they said yes. I don't know. I think it worked out pretty good.
    60:31
    Anyone else? All right, I have this last thing to say to you all. Run home to Mother Maggot. Just kidding. Thank you very much for having me.