FREE EPISODE 1145: "What's Going on With Stern's Director of Sales?

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·20m 57s·analyzed·Oct 7, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Stern's sales director posts cryptic regret; Kaneda blames company culture and strategy, not personnel.

Summary

Kaneda discusses concerning social media posts from Eric Gilley, Stern Pinball's Director of Sales, expressing regret about the company's direction and stating "8.5 years of hard work for nothing." Kaneda argues Stern's troubles stem from internal decision-making (licensing choices, pricing strategy, game design by committee), not from sales leadership, and calls for Stern to acknowledge problems, reconnect with the community, and fundamentally shift its brand approach rather than expecting to design their way out of declining sales.

Key Claims

Eric Gilley posted 'I miss the way Stern Pinball was in those first few years after I joined in 2017' in mid-September
high confidence · Kaneda citing direct social media posts from Stern's Director of Sales
Eric Gilley posted '8.5 years of hard work and substantial growth all for nothing' a few days before this episode
high confidence · Kaneda citing direct social media posts; described as public and concerning
Stern rejected Back to the Future and Beetlejuice licensing opportunities
medium confidence · Kaneda states these as examples of poor licensing decisions; not independently verified in content
James Bond pinball was priced at $20,000 (versus Kaneda's recommendation of $7,000-$8,000)
high confidence · Kaneda cites this as specific pricing error that alienated loyal customers
Star Wars pinball was 'designed by committee' and rushed, resulting in a mediocre game
medium confidence · Kaneda's opinion based on game design philosophy; characterizes as lacking the magical quality expected
Stern hired a new CMO recently
high confidence · Kaneda mentions this hiring in context of recent management changes
A Stern executive told Kaneda 'the customer we want isn't the customer we have'
medium confidence · Kaneda reports this as a direct quote from a face-to-face meeting; identifies as pivotal moment for him
Stern moved into a factory that is financially unsustainable given current sales performance
low confidence · Kaneda's analogy: 'It's like buying a house you can't afford'; speculation about business model

Notable Quotes

“I miss the way Stern Pinball was in those first few years after I joined in 2017”
Eric Gilley @ mid-September (referenced but not timestamped in episode) — Director of Sales expressing nostalgia and implied dissatisfaction with current state; first public signal of internal discontent
“8.5 years of hard work and substantial growth all for nothing”
Eric Gilley @ few days before episode (referenced but not timestamped) — Stark statement from sales leadership suggesting loss of faith in company direction; catalyst for episode topic
“I think the people that often get blamed for the lack of success aren't usually the ones who make the decisions”
Kaneda @ early in episode — Establishes Kaneda's core thesis: sales leadership scapegoated for strategic failures made by upper management
“The world's biggest pinball company has Star Wars, has all the assets, and they made a flop... because it was designed by committee. It was designed with politics.”
Kaneda @ mid-episode — Directly criticizes Star Wars game as result of internal dysfunction rather than design talent limitations
“You told me to my face that the customer we want isn't the customer we have... that was the singular moment where I realized this company is in significant trouble”
Kaneda @ late in episode — Kaneda identifies executive statement as evidence of brand contempt toward actual customer base
“There's no future if you're going to just keep doing the same formula and expect different results. That is the definition of insanity.”
Kaneda @ conclusion — Summary statement framing Stern's challenge as strategic/cultural, not tactical or product-design-based
“The only way out of your problem is us... The only way out is if you start going through the community more”
Kaneda @ late in episode — Direct challenge to Stern to shift from insularity to community partnership model

Entities

Eric GilleypersonStern PinballcompanyKanedaperson Keith Elwinperson John Borgperson George Gomezperson

Signals

?
business_signal: Stern Pinball appears to have moved into unsustainably expensive facilities relative to current sales performance, analogous to 'buying a house you can't afford'
medium · Kaneda's analogy about facility costs and ability to sustain overhead; implied connection between overhead and pricing pressure
?
business_signal: Stern recently hired new CMO, suggesting recognition of brand/marketing crisis requiring leadership change
high · Kaneda mentions new CMO hire; frames as acknowledgment of problem but notes company has not yet acted on strategic recommendations
~
sentiment_shift: Pinball community retains deep goodwill toward Stern but has largely lost confidence in recent leadership decisions and brand direction; willing to return if company fundamentally shifts approach
high · Kaneda repeatedly emphasizes community still wants Stern to succeed and has 'empathy and open heartedness' for the brand; frames issue as leadership and strategy, not product capability
?
competitive_signal: Boutique manufacturers (Spooky Pinball referenced) gaining competitive advantage through community transparency and engagement; Stern losing market share despite historic brand strength
medium · Kaneda frames Spooky model as template for community partnership; implies Stern's market share loss connected to boutique competitors' better community alignment
?
design_philosophy: Star Wars Pinball criticized for lack of innovation and magical design elements; characterized as 'B-level' execution on premium IP

Topics

Stern Pinball internal culture and morale crisisprimaryLicensing decisions and IP strategy (Back to the Future, Beetlejuice, Star Wars, John Wick, Venom)primaryPricing strategy and LE/Premium/Pro tier sustainability concernsprimaryStar Wars Pinball game design quality and executionprimarySales leadership and organizational scapegoatingprimaryBrand trust and community relationship repairprimaryStern versus boutique manufacturers competitive positioningsecondaryContent creator and community advocate role in industry feedbacksecondary

Sentiment

negative(-0.82)— Kaneda expresses deep concern about Stern's structural problems and lost brand trust, but maintains belief in potential recovery if leadership changes approach. Tone is frustrated but not hostile; directed at organizational dysfunction rather than personnel. Defends Eric Gilley personally while criticizing company strategy. Ends with call for reconciliation but overall message is that Stern is in serious trouble.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.063

Someday, when I'm awfully low, when the world is cold, I will feel aglow just thinking of you and the way you look tonight. Welcome everybody to Canadian Pinball Podcast. It is Tuesday morning. We did a show yesterday. The topic today is one that I don't often like to talk about, specific personnel in the pinball hobby because, as you know, a lot of people's livelihood is connected to pinball, designers, coders, artists, and yes, I like to talk about people that specifically work on a game. I think when you work on a game, I'm allowed to give my opinion about the thing you created that you are asking money for. Now, there are a lot of people that surround the manufacturing of a game that are also working for these companies to help these companies sell their products or its products, better grammar. And so I saw something that someone sent to me recently that sort of seems to get at a situation that is really unfolding in front of all of our eyes. It was the topic of my show yesterday. There is a changing of the guard that pinball and pinball sales are not what they used to be for Stern Pinball. And Stern Pinball has grown to such a level now where if they're going to keep this big thing going, they need to find a way to get back to the great company it used to be. And I've heard from people internally over there that the climate, the culture, the feeling of walking through the door isn't what it used to be. and that a lot of people that helped build up Stern Pinball to become the company that was so beloved, the company that even opened the door for them to move into this big factory. It was a beautiful like 10 year run of all of these great themes. The price was right. Nobody lost any money. And then fast forward to today. And there were two posts that I saw and they were public. So again, I'm not making any of this up. This isn't conjecture. Is that the right word? You know me. My vocabulary isn't the strongest. But there were two posts by one of the great guys over at Stern. And I don't know him personally, but a lot of people that I know do know him personally. And he posted two things that are pretty concerning when you think about the health of Stern Pinball and also the direction this company is going in. And unfortunately, I think and I'm just going to say like I'm just this is supposition, but it's unfortunate because I think the people that often get blamed for the lack of success aren't usually the ones who make the decisions. You know, the decisions to pass on Back to the Future, the decision to pass on Beetlejuice, the decision to green light things like John Wick and Venom. So here's what I saw. There is a director of sales over at Stern. He's been there for a long time. Eric Gilley, really, really, really great guy from what everybody tells me. Family man, great guy. And he posted two things. One was, I miss the way Stern Pinball was in those first few years after I joined in 2017. So that was like a few days ago or in like the middle of September. Then just a few days ago, we get the following posts. 8.5 years of hard work and substantial growth all for nothing. For nothing. And this is coming from the head of Stern's sales. Like this is Stern's director of sales saying this. eight and a half years of hard work for nothing. And that sucks. Like, I don't want to read this. You don't want to read this. I just want to say, and I want to say this publicly because I really do think that it's not Eric's fault that Stern sales are not where they should be. I don't think it's one individual's fault, but clearly something is going on in this big organization and they need help And I think this company is going to go in two directions Don welcome back to Don Pinball Podcast Don welcome Don we were just talking about Eric Gilley the sales director at Stern, posting two things. The last one sounds like, I don't know if he's still at Stern or not. I don't know. But to say eight and a half years of hard work for nothing isn't something you post when things are going well in the organization. And I really, really do believe that nobody wants to see Stern go through this tumultuous period. And I think they need help. And I think this company has spent so many years operating in the shadows and in secrecy, even though they've been so big. They haven't been a company that's ever, ever really admitted they've made a mistake. We might have steered this ship in a little bit of the wrong direction and we want to make better decisions and we want to win you back. And I really do feel like Stern Pinball is in very, very deep trouble because of their own inability to sort of be aware and cognizant of what the exact issues are that have kept people away from buying their recent offerings. And it's not Eric Gilley's fault. I don't think it's like any one person's fault. I think it's been a series of things over the last few years that have really taken Stern Pinball in a direction that has made it really easy to not want to support them. And I don't know who made those decisions. I don't know who said charge 20 grand for James Bond. I don't know who said, let's make John Wick. Let's pass on back to the future. I don't know who's like made these final calls. I know it wasn't Eric Gilly, but when you see the sales director at Stern Pinball saying, I missed the company it was in 2017, eight and a half years of hard work for nothing. Zombietti's mad at me. He's not having a good time. Jack Danger's not having a good time. So I think what's happening now is this organization can no longer hide the reality of what's happening to its culture. And I think they're at a crossroads because here's what I think they are forgetting this. And I think they should not take this for granted. The empathy and the open heartedness and the love that this hobby and this community has for Stern Pinball, for saving pinball and delivering some of the greatest pinball ever, if not the greatest pinball of all time. I would argue that Stern Pinball's catalog is better than the Bally Williams catalog. The games are more fun. The games are based on better themes. They've given us so much, but now they need our help. And this is the crossroad. They either as a company start to listen and bring people in more and stop operating like this really big impossible to move ship that doesn't care and doesn't open up to the community. And I say this on the eve of Expo because when I went over there a year ago and I mapped out where they should focus their efforts to win people back, they really haven't made many moves. They hired a new CMO. I said that was the job I wanted. Like, I will be your CMO because I know this community and I know the new inbox buyer and everything you're doing is in conflict to what those individuals are looking for. And, you know, when you lose people from your brand, you can't just win them back with one product like Jaguar can't just win people back. now. People are not going to just go back to Cracker Barrel because there's something good on the menu. Like you got to be really careful when you're playing around with the brand. And Stern Pinball for all of these years just gave us the most fun, the best value, the best secondhand value. They gave us like fresh new art. They gave us all this great code. They did all this stuff. And then they just sort of like faltered a little bit. The competition caught up significantly. And then everyone else really worked on their weaknesses except Stern. And this was the issue. And Stern had a lot of weaknesses, but we were willing to forgive those weaknesses because the price was right. And it's everything added up. It's like, it's not one thing. It's like leaking water where like if you don't start to like fix the leak, it can take down the entire foundation of a building and all of it It all of it added up It like Stern merchandise page doesn look like anybody that actually buys pinball machines I mean all these little things matter. And it almost adds up to very simple, I think, end narrative, which is I do think that somewhere they just started to act like we were all idiots that would buy anything they made. And I also feel like they started to feel a little bit ashamed of who is their actual customer. And I'm not making this up. When they told me to my face that the customer we want isn't the customer we have, that was the singular moment where I realized this company is in significant trouble. And so here we are today. Apparently, Eric Gilly, I don't know if he's over there still or not. I don't know. We'll find out. But that's you don't start posting stuff like that on social media if things are going well. And he doesn't deserve any any vitriol. He doesn't deserve an ax in the back if that's what's happened to him. He doesn't deserve any of it. he did not make this decision he didn't make the decisions that charge this much he didn't green light these themes and this is what happens though is the person in charge of sales sometimes gets blamed and so here we are and I think what might have just happened is I think they just bit off more than they can chew I think they moved into a place that's so big they have so many people It's like buying a house you can't afford. It's like literally when you buy a house you can't afford. There's only so long you can sustain it before it doesn't work anymore. And I just want to say this is not going to be a long show because I got to get into work today. I think everybody that's going to watch this, everyone that's listening to Canada's Pinball Podcast, you listen to other shows. Nobody wants to see Stern fail. but I think Stern now needs to say to everybody, we need help. We need help. And they should lay it out. Like our company's in trouble. Like we have taken this company in a direction that we thought we needed to, to survive. But now we realize more than ever, for us to survive, we need to make decisions that are aligned with what each and every one of you want from pinball. We need to elevate your expectations about what you can expect from a Stern product. They're like not saying anything like that. Keith Elwin just launched a flop. Star Wars, I was just talking to my dad. I'm like, dad, let me just break it down for you. I'm like, dad, imagine this. The world's biggest pinball company has Star Wars, has all the assets, and they made a flop. And he was like, wait, what? How could the biggest pinball company have the biggest theme and make a mediocre game because it was designed by committee. It was designed with politics. Internal politics made this game what it was. Stern Pinball knew they needed a hit two years ago. They did. They knew Star Wars was available. They should have had Jack Danger, Keith Elwin, George Gomez, Ray Day, everybody, you know, Mike Vinikour, everybody that is anybody over there that's got some talent, the entire company should have worked together to make this Star Wars Spike 3 game a monumental moment in pinball that none of us would ever forget. Did they do that? Did they throw all the resources against it? They did the opposite. They rushed it. They put nothing magical in it. They made it underwhelming. And so then what Eric's going to take the fall for that? You got to send Jack Danger on a media tour to sell a game that John Borg doesn't even want to talk about. And then you want the rest of us to what? Buy these games and lose all this money. You don't even seem excited about your own product. And so this is where we're at. And Stern, you got to stop thinking it's 2017. It's 2021. it's 2025 the only way out of your problem is us the only way out is if you start going through the community more and I gave you this advice I sat there I worked hard on a deck you didn't even think I was going to make a deck for you guys I put hours into that deck recommending a direction for your company I mean I work on companies that worth billions of dollars and I gave you guys the professional, the most professional I've ever been in a pinball meeting, and you were talking to Chris, you weren't talking to Kaneda, and I mapped out the number one thing this company needs to do is win back the new in box buyer The number one way we going to grow Stern Pinball is if the people that love your brand invite one of their friends into the hobby you will double the hobby If you go after Gen Z kids, you're going to fail. If you keep raising prices, you're going to fail. If you remake LEs, you're going to fail. You need to ratchet it back. You need to go back to what made your company great and I put it on the table, I showed them that whenever you launch a game, you can make it a moment. You could create a moment that people would never forget. You could surprise and delight your fans and your loyal customers in ways they would never forget, in ways in which it would keep them buying from you over and over again. Like you should have gave James Bond 60th as a special invite to people who were your loyal customers and charge them what you should have charged them. Each person could have got the game for $75,000 or $8,000 and you still would have made money and those 500 people would have bought from you for the rest of their lives. Instead, you took 500 of your most loyal customers and you charged them 20 grand and they each lost $10,000 and then you lied about the topper being exclusive and then they don't wanna buy from you again. And you got to remember, Stern, like the way word of mouth works is once you turn off, you know, the Bill Brandises of the world and the people that love supporting you all these years, they love supporting you. Once you lose them, it's almost impossible to get them back. We all sincerely want to help you turn it around. And I think you can turn it around. But you know what you got to start doing? you gotta stop operating in the shadows you gotta stop doing things in secret and you need to take a page from the spookies of the world and the other pinball companies out there of the world that are part of the community and you gotta join us like you're not better than us i get i guarantee you that as hobbyists, we are waking up in a better mood than you are over at Stern. In 2017, you guys were waking up and you were like masters of your domain. And now you're feeling like, what happened? Like, where did this all go wrong? Like, why did we do this to ourselves? Why did we turn our back on the very people that made us very successful? And the thing is this. I know this community. I know the people in it. They will come back to you. There's no future if you're going to just keep doing the same formula and expect different results. That is the definition of insanity. We will see you guys at Pinball Expo. Probably got this Walking Dead remastered and you want to raise the price. It's just not going to work. And again, a year ago, a year ago, I mapped out what you need to do. It's not going to change. You're going to have to win these people back and you can't design your way out of this hole. It's about the brand now. It's about brand. It's about leadership. It's about communication and it's about action. And you know, it's not going to work. You can't just go on a podcast and do interviews and get people to buy these games anymore. They really need to hear from this company. Like Seth needs to come out and be more part of the community. so does the new CMO, all right? Everybody, happy Tuesday. Canada's Pinball Podcast, if you're not a member, we'd love to have you. Don, we'd love to have you join again. I'm gonna join your podcast. This is it. This is how quick healing happens. We can hold on to anger for a year, a year and a half, and that just feels better, all right? So brother, I'm gonna join your show today and we should show each other support because I think as content creators, we're all in the same ship. And again, I forgive. We move on because we're all doing something. We're doing the pinball lord's work because nobody else knows how to keep this hobby entertained and excited like a few of us. And you guys know who you are. All right, everybody. Peace out. Kaneda out. Will Stern do it? Poor Eric, man. I hope. Man, I just. There's more stories I know about what's happening over internally at Stern. It's not good. It's not good, people. Kaneda out. Lovely. Don't you ever change. Keep that breathless charm. Won't you please arrange it? Cause I love you. Just the way you look tonight. Hmm. Hmm. Just the way you look tonight