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David Fix of American Pinball

Pintastic New England·video·56m 29s·analyzed·Jan 19, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

David Fix highlights Legends of Valhalla success and announces American Pinball Dream Challenge for homebrewers.

Summary

David Fix, owner of American Pinball, discusses the successful launch of Legends of Valhalla, announcing it won Best New Modern Game at Midwest Gaming Classic. He reveals new hires (Steven Bowden as sales manager, Max Sinek as high-ranked player joining sales, Steve Rosario as production manager), details the American Pinball Dream Challenge for homebrewers, and addresses production/shipping challenges. Fix also confirms plans to produce more Oktoberfest games with retroactive improvements and clarifies the 300-500 unit limit situation for the deluxe edition.

Key Claims

  • Legends of Valhalla won Best New Modern Game at Midwest Gaming Classic, beating out Godzilla and Halloween

    high confidence · David Fix stated this directly during the presentation at Pintastic New England

  • American Pinball took Legends of Valhalla from home-built game to manufactured and public release in 10 months during COVID

    high confidence · David Fix explained the timeline of bringing Matt Scott Gullick's and Frank Gidioti's design to production

  • Deluxe edition reached over 500 pre-orders in 8 hours after release, though company wanted to limit to 300

    high confidence · David Fix explained the 500-unit cap decision and ownership discussion about the number

  • Steven Bowden (formerly Deep Root Pinball) has joined American Pinball as sales manager and is relocating to Chicago

    high confidence · David Fix announced this hiring during the presentation

  • American Pinball announced The American Pinball Dream Challenge: homebrewers have one year to design a game that will be voted on at Pinball Expo with potential for production

    high confidence · David Fix described the challenge details and stated the response has been overwhelming with inquiries from Germany, France, Italy, and Kaneda's Pinball Podcasts

  • More Oktoberfest games will be produced with retroactive improvements applied to all existing units

    high confidence · David Fix stated he would make improvements retroactive to the first Oktoberfest made, rejecting tiered editions approach

  • Legends of Valhalla code name was 'Hulk Rampage' because the playfield insert says 'Start Hulk Rampage'

    high confidence · David Fix explained the naming origin during trivia segment

  • American Pinball is still hiring for electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, and designers

    high confidence · David Fix stated this during Q&A portion

Notable Quotes

  • “In 10 months, we took Matt Scott Gullick's and Frank Gidioti's dream and brought it to fruition... and we did some things that were never done before in the history of pinball”

    David Fix@ 3:29 — Highlights the speed and novelty of American Pinball's approach to manufacturing Legends of Valhalla

  • “I didn't want to tease the community. I didn't want to send out a video and say, this is what we're going to do, or guess what we're going to do, and then two weeks later show you another video. I just wanted to give you guys the game and say, here's the game. You want it? Go play it.”

    David Fix@ 4:43 — Explains American Pinball's unique distribution strategy of putting machines directly in locations rather than teasing announcements

  • “The best thing is, I know my competitor got his on Saturday morning, the day of release, and I'm sure he spit his coffee all over the kitchen table when he read it.”

    David Fix@ 6:28 — References competitive advantage of releasing Pin Game Journal story simultaneously with game availability

  • “If we make something that is playable or makes the game better, it has to be retroactive back to the very first game I made of Oktoberfest”

    David Fix@ 23:07 — Shows commitment to fairness to collectors and rejects multi-tier edition approach

  • “We released it at 8 o'clock Central Standard Time in Chicago. Unfortunately, Australia and the rest of the world did not catch up. By 8 a.m. Sunday, we already had over 500 sold.”

    David Fix@ 24:02 — Explains the rapid sellout of deluxe edition and decision to cap at 500 units

Entities

David FixpersonMatt Scott GullickpersonFrank GidiotipersonSteven BowdenpersonMax SinekpersonSteve RosariopersonJack HagerpersonDennis Nordmanperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball facing personnel constraints during rapid growth phase; actively hiring for electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, designers, and freelance artists

    high · David Fix stated multiple times during presentation that company is still hiring; explicitly asked for portfolio submissions from interested artists

  • ?

    community_signal: Legends of Valhalla receiving positive reception from industry peers, competitive players, and casual community members; described as 'finally a good pinball' by other manufacturers' staff

    high · David Fix quoted multiple people at Pinball Expo saying 'finally you've designed a good pinball at American Pinball' and mentioned friend passionate about 'adversary pinball' (appears to be reference to competitive depth)

  • ?

    event_signal: Legends of Valhalla won Best New Modern Game at Midwest Gaming Classic; competed against Godzilla and Halloween

    high · David Fix announced award; stated he didn't even know it was a category until winning

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Legends of Valhalla machines already shipping to home collectors; additional units going to location operators; displaying at multiple trade shows (2 at Pintastic, 4 Orlando, 6 MGC, 6 Pinball Expo, 1 Houston, Replay Florida)

    high · David Fix stated 'Legends of Valhalla are actually already being shipped to people's homes' and detailed show distribution

  • $

    market_signal: Deluxe edition pre-orders reached 500 units in first 8 hours of release window (8am CST Sunday); company cap increased from internal target of 300 to 500 based on demand

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.169

0:00
Thanks to the generosity of American Pinball, not only do we have all these copies here, but I think at some other shows you were distributing them. Yes. And everyone who was or is a subscriber to Pin Game Journal got this. Even if their subscription had officially lapsed, they were still given a copy. So this is the big long-form story of Legends of Valhalla with a nice big pintastic ad right there on the inside front cover. Did that ever cost me a lot of money? as a reward for me. Yes, countless hours of editing and proofreading some of Jim's writings. Yeah. So at the autograph session, there's some white space right here on page three where you can have this guy sign next to his picture. Yeah, I love the white space. It's right where somebody can put on a check so that I can write my name to somebody's check. That would be the best way to do it. Well, thanks, David Fix, for coming to the show. Well, thank you, Dave Marston, for having me come to Pintastic. This is great. And thanks for not wearing the cowboy hat. This is the new look. No, no, no. This is the... You know, I wear the cowboy hat. Everybody sees me usually wearing that cowboy hat, and that's because I wear it for Expo. It makes it very easy for them to find me. Anybody, they can find me very fast. In fact, the number one question I always get at every show is, where's the hat?
1:43
And I think the hat is more famous than I am. I think some people have already said that they would rather, if I donate the hat, they would love to buy it out of Project Pinball or something down the road. Okay, you heard it here first. So we're also going to give away, I have some beautiful black glasses here, they're actual glasses.
2:04
The factory goofed up and sent me a mirrored one, so that's going to be the higher price one. So that will be the key giveaway, and then the other one is just a standard. but they're also signed by the employees at American Pinball. So I wanted to make sure we brought some nice gifts to all the people here at Pintastic. Yeah.

“I am not the kind of person that likes to say it's Oktoberfest 2.0 and sorry all those in the original ones”

David Fix@ 22:57 — Contrasts his philosophy with industry practice of releasing superior 'special editions'

  • “When you get into triple digits, then we'll talk”

    David Fix (John Spates equivalent)@ 29:49 — Humorous story about competitive collector mentality at Pinball Expo

    • American Pinball
    company
    Legends of Valhallagame
    Oktoberfestgame
    Pintastic New Englandevent
    Pinball Expoevent
    Midwest Gaming Classicevent
    Michael Alvin Gottliebperson
    Elvin Gottliebperson
    Pocketeer Billiardscompany
    Deep Root Pinballcompany
    Dr. Pinperson
    Kaneda's Pinball Podcastsorganization
    Joel DeGuzmanperson
    Replay Floridaevent
    Medieval Madness (remake)game

    high · David Fix explained the pre-order surge and decision-making process with ownership; mentioned 50-60 people turned away and placed on waitlist for future Classic edition

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steven Bowden transitions from Deep Root Pinball to American Pinball as sales manager; Max Sinek (high-ranked player) joins sales team; Steve Rosario becomes production manager

    high · David Fix introduced all three hires during presentation; Bowden relocating from Houston to Chicago

  • $

    market_signal: American Pinball implementing three-tier pricing model: Deluxe (500 units at higher price), Premium, and Classic (upcoming at lower price); classic edition price point lower than current deluxe pricing

    high · David Fix explained deluxe sold out, stated classic 'will be cheaper than the current price right now' and mentioned 300-400 people already on waitlist for classic edition

  • ?

    announcement: American Pinball Dream Challenge officially announced: homebrew competition with one-year design window, voting at Pinball Expo, potential production deal for winning design

    high · David Fix announced and explained the challenge during presentation; stated overwhelming response from international community and Kaneda's Pinball Podcasts members

  • ?

    product_strategy: American Pinball committing to retroactive improvements for Oktoberfest: any playable improvements or bug fixes will be applied to all existing units, not reserved for new editions

    high · David Fix stated explicitly during Q&A that improvements 'has to be retroactive back to the very first game I made of Oktoberfest'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: American Pinball experiencing significant shipping challenges: East Coast shipping takes 1 day, West Coast takes extra week due to port congestion; Oktoberfest parts lost in Pacific shipping container incident

    high · David Fix described difficulty shipping West and explained east-to-west shipping as 'swimming upstream'; mentioned container loss affecting Oktoberfest production schedule

  • ?

    technology_signal: American Pinball utilizing novel manufacturing approach: converted homebrew design to production quality in 10 months during COVID; pioneered direct-to-location distribution model rather than traditional distributor teasing strategy

    high · David Fix stated 'we did some things that were never done before in the history of pinball' and explained direct location placement strategy; Pin Game Journal released same day as game availability

    • 2:26
    Definitely cool. So the lack of the cowboy hat means you're not doing any official administrative duties. You're just here as our guest.
    2:36
    So what, you know, people can read the big story, but what would be the update that you would say? What's the news from them? out there in Chicago land. Well, okay, let's talk about it. So I have to give the hats off to the people at American Pinball. They really dug down deep. I started with the company in December. The company was kind of removed of some personnel, and then we started rebuilding. I'm sure you guys read a ton in Martin's Pinball News about who I'm hiring. Dr. Pin back there with the super awesome pinball show, or semi-super awesome.
    3:17
    Definitely did some reporting for us. I think I got more people who were sick and tired of hearing Dave Fix on his show than himself, but, you know, that's okay. For the most part, we started building. And in 10 months, we took Scott Gullick's and Frank Gidioti's dream and brought it to fruition. And that was one of the big things that we had.
    3:46
    To be able to take a pinball that's a home-built, right, and then basically make it manufacturable during COVID and to do it in 10 months and to wheel it out to the public, and then the public just loving it was the goal, and we did it. Not only did we do it that way, we did some things that were never done before in the history of pinball, and Mr. Marston brought that out. What has never been done before, Mr. Marston? That you as the factory, and people have to remember the chart because it's folded up now, but went straight to locations. Correct. And you worked with locations to have some, and you publicized from the factory level, here are locations, day one, where this game is. Yeah, I dealt directly with the locations. Me and Michael Grant with the sales, we literally set out and said, okay, this is what we're going to do. I didn't want to tease the community. I didn't want to send out a video and say, this is what we're going to do, or guess what we're going to do, and then two weeks later show you another video. I just wanted to give you guys the game and say, here's the game. You want it? Go play it. Right? So we put it in locations. We put it in Jack Bar in New York. We put it down at Bang Back Bar in South Carolina. We put it out at Entertainium in Chicago. We put it out on the West Coast at Full on Tilt. We put it at Pocketeer in Buffalo, New York. We put it at Pinball Gallery right there in Pennsylvania, Bill Davis. We went out and we had a bunch of more and they're still going out to these locations. The whole idea was I wanted to have 20 or 30 to go out around the world. But shipping is just absolutely horrendous. If I wanted to ship anything to the West Coast, forget it. It takes an extra week just to get it to the West Coast. Going to the East Coast, I can get it to it in a day. Why? It's just because everything is coming to the West Coast to the East Coast through the ports. It's really tough to go back. It's like swimming upstream. So the other thing, when we sat down in December of last year, we didn't know where we were going to be with COVID. We didn't know if there was going to be a Pintastic. We didn't even know there was going to be an Expo. I mean, I was sitting there with Rob Burke in January going, is there going to be an Expo? I don't know. We had weekly calls with the hotel, the locations. It's just that. So a brainchild of mine was, let's bring out the Pin Game Journal. I wanted to bring out something on the day of release, went to everybody's news boxes, and literally they could open up and read the entire seminar and story of how the game was made.
    6:28
    And the best thing is, I know my competitor got his on Saturday morning, the day of release, and I'm sure he spit his coffee all over the kitchen table when he read it. But anyway, this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to give you, the public, in locations, a chance to go play the game and find it out for yourself. And I made sure that they've been at all these shows. There's been some shows I've been trying to get to, again, have had a lot of shipping problems. But for the most part, we got them there. We even have two right here for our show. We had four down in Orlando. We had six at MGC. We had six at Expo. We had one going to Houston, which for some reason, Houston, I don't know why, They quoted me seven days, even though it could be driven there in one day, and we just missed that window. It drives me nuts with the shipping stuff. And what about Rocky Mountain? That was where the word sort of came out, right? Yeah. Because Fay had a seminar there? Fay had a seminar. So here's Rocky Mountain Show.
    7:38
    Jim Shelberg sends this out. You know, he's talking about Fay. He tells Rocky Mountain, We got this new girl who's working for American Fire Out. And then he's like, let's get the game there. And I'm like, okay, I can try. I'm literally doing it in like six days, and they ended up getting the game Monday after the show. So I'm like, this is great. However, the founder of that show has a famous bar there called Tilt. I can't remember which one it is, but it's like something Tilt Bar or something like that. It's right there in Denver. So he got the game and he put it there. So he's got people playing it there. So it worked in that regard.
    8:23
    So, Nick, do we got a first picture? So just to give you guys some updates on what's going on. So we have, of course, you know, the pin game journal, right? That was a good first shot.
    8:37
    So I like to do things in three. Hold on a second. I like to do things in three, right? I like to do three surprises, right? So the first reveal was, of course, the game, right?
    8:48
    Then we fast forward. We also did the magazine, right? Then I'm going to bring it to Expo. But two days before Expo, I have it on Jack Danger's show, the game. And then we do, go ahead with the next picture. My next surprise was bringing Steve Bowden on to American Pinball. So Steve has already got contractors picking up all his stuff in Houston, and he's moving to Chicago. though he's now actually the sales manager for American Pinball. So this is a real nice treat for us. So helping Steve out of a deep cellar or deep-rooted problem to American Pinball. Let's just say that.
    9:25
    I am happy to say I don't have his photo, but joining American Pinball in sales is Max Sinek, who is also a very high-ranked player. And he's already started joining the team on Monday. So Max and Steve here are going to start working on the sales with a lot of the other people in the company. As some of you know, Michael left. He wanted to go to Greener Pastures. He got a good job, good offer. Sorry, Michael. Go for it. Follow your dream. I'm not going to be mad about it. Go for it. So we're happy for Michael. What's the next picture we got there? Oh, okay. This is Expo. This was a highlight for me. Anybody know who the person is in the middle? besides the old-time people like Dave Marston or Martin Ayub? Does anybody know who the person in the middle in the Hawaiian shirt is?
    10:22
    Wow. That's Michael Gottlieb. That's Elvin and David Gottlieb's son. Elvin's son. David Gottlieb's grandson. And that's Michael. And Michael lives in, wow, can we blow that up a little bit more? I can see why we couldn't figure it out.
    10:42
    I look good in there because it's... Okay, never mind. But anyway, that's Michael. And next to him is Jack Hager. That's my art director. So Jack's a great guy. He came to Expo. He came up to me and found me. He says, I played Legends of Valhalla. And he said to me, he says, this would have been a theme that Gottlieb would have went after. that whole genre during Volcano.
    11:12
    He loved the play. He said it was really fast. I had a lot of positive feedback at Expo. I wanted to make sure it was there. A lot of people from the industry, some other people who were at other companies, came up and gave me high fives and said, finally you've designed a good pinball at American. I said, okay. They loved it. The highlight for me is a friend of mine who says, I love adversary pinball. I'm like, okay. Give me your money. Okay, so you can gather who liked the game, all right? So I was happy that he was really excited about the game. So we had the third surprise was at Expo. Does anybody know what the third surprise was? And I'll kind of go over it real quick.
    12:03
    The bottom of the magazine talks about it, right? It says the American Dream. So at that point in time, during the seminar, I called all the homebrewers to stand up. Are there any homebrew guys in the audience right now? Anybody thought of doing any homebrew? We had them all yesterday. They all know about it. They're probably diligently working. American Pinball announced the American Dream Challenge, which was one year we're giving the homebrew guys to come up with a fresh concept, bring it to Expo, it will be voted upon all the personnel there, all the people that are in attendance, and the American Pinball team. If we like it and we want to do it, we may take your dream and make it a reality and produce that game. and trust me, all those homebrewers just were like,
    13:03
    we got a lot of work to do. Basically, my team, our normal team of designers, takes one year to design a game. So giving the homebrew guys a challenge. Now I'm not saying it has to be perfect. It doesn't have to be like Scott's game. It doesn't have to have all the art there. It could be pretty much knocked together, some good shots, some good layouts, some good themes, some good rules. pretty basic, the response has been overwhelming. Germany, France, Italy, there's a bunch of people around the world who are all buying from some people from Canada have also reached out to me, a bunch of the American ones. I said, you're all eligible. You're talking about giving that shot that these guys can have their game, like Scott's game, being produced by a major manufacturer. I think that's pretty cool. I do. I'll have more questions later, but do you have more slides? Oh yeah what the next slide we have All right that me I don know why I have such a grumpy face on my face but that actually a prototype in the lab I'm glad I didn't show the other picture that was sitting next to it or you saw the next couple games that we're working on. Go ahead, next picture. Get that puss on you. All right, there's the cabinets. All right, we have cabinets. This was September. I'll give you an idea. So this has been in the works. That's September. Go ahead. Next slide. Ah, the team. All right, so in this you'll see Dennis Nordman, of course, Josh, and there's Jack, and there's Jonathan, and there's also Paul, who's Dennis' buddy. And I took the team out. Every time I go to Chicago, I end up taking the team out for dinner. I take them over to Entertanium. We go and play some pinball. We go see what the new thing is. we do that whole team building thing, okay? We just kind of pal around and we talk about different things. So to clarify one piece there, you're still based in Buffalo. I'm still in Buffalo, yeah. So once a week or one week out of the month, I fly over to Chicago. I love it because it's a one-hour flight nonstop. I leave at 7 in the morning. I end up being in Chicago at 7 in the morning. So the best thing was is that the first time I did this, I had scheduled an 8 o'clock meeting. I showed up at 7, and I walked in the door at 5 minutes to 8 and said, why isn't everybody in the conference room? And they were all like, you're here? Yeah. I didn't tell anybody, not the owners, not anybody. They were just, like, floored. We had a meeting. It was a great meeting. We took care of a lot of business. We've been taking care of a lot of business. Thanks to Zoom and GoToMeetings and all this other stuff, we have open lines of communication constantly. I hired Dennis, Jack, Zofia that was the first time I met him was in July June and that same week I think it was that week Dr. Pin over there showed up and he got to play Legends of Valhalla then he signed the NDA so he knew about this a little while ago so if you guys are like how did he get to play this well he's a podcaster and he's a friend so we made sure It was a great day. It was funny.
    16:30
    It was funny. We started talking about stuff, and all of a sudden the NDAs come out, and their kids are there like, uh-oh, here comes the legal stuff, mom and dad. They knew exactly what was coming. It was just kind of funny.
    16:44
    Yeah, yeah, first NDA. And then I told them, I says, now listen, kids, if a guy calls you up and says, I'm Uncle Kaneda, don't share any information, okay? But besides that, we've had some fun. What's the next picture we got there?
    17:02
    Oh, this is Expo. There's the four of, and there's probably six. That's Steve Rosario. He's from the New Jersey area up here.
    17:13
    He has transplanted himself back to Chicago. He is now my, he's my production manager. So he's overseeing the production at American Pinball. What else do we got? Do we got any more pictures?
    17:25
    Oh, just more games at Expo. Oh, there they are, Houdini's and Legends. So that's been good. Oh, and here's the thing that I think just I was thrown by it. We won the best new modern game at Midwest Gaming Classic. It was voted on by the panel of Midwest Gaming Classic. I didn't even know it was a thing. We beat out Godzilla, and we beat out Halloween. And I don't think Cactus Canyon was in the running, they said, because it's not a new game because it's a reissue. But I was happy with that. I was like, wow, this is great. This is a real feather in the cap for the entire American pinball team. Do we have another picture? Oh, this is just a picture at Expo, I think. Yes, these are just the people playing the game. Everybody was having fun with that. We were just kind of excited to have, you know, the feedback is good. You know, when you get people out there that are playing it, that's great. You want to get the feedback. You want to get to understand. So Steve Bowden has been working on the rules a little bit. He's going to be working on it and adjusting stuff and making it more of a player's game, you know, figuring out if there's certain things that need to be flushed out. But the nice thing is the game is out there. What else do we got? And there's the team again, all playing Guns N' Roses.
    18:59
    And there's some heads and Hot Wheels and cabinets. This was the end of September, and that's it. Okay, thanks.
    19:08
    So these are the exciting times at American Pinball. So we've done a lot in 10 months, now going on 11.
    19:17
    We've also done, what, four or five trade shows in three weeks. So I'm tired. I haven't been at the house that much. My wife goes, who are you? But we're continuing to strive forward. The games are leaving the line. Legends of Valhalla are actually already being shipped to people's homes. So we're happy about that. And we have more locations already picking them up. It's also at Replay Florida this weekend. So there's a Legends down there. There's two here. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a look. give away one of these glasses right now. So let's ask a quick, let's see, I kind of come up with a good trivia question. All right, sorry Dr. Pin, you can't answer this one. What was the code name for Legends of Valhalla? You're right, it is Rampage. Now, I'll do a follow-up, and somebody can get the mirror glass if they can get this one. Why did I call it rampage. And it's not because I love midway's game. Now, if Dr. Scott, if you remember this, or Dr. Penn, if you remember this, I'll let you answer it. Unfortunately, he beat you to it.
    20:35
    Because the insert on the play field says, start rampage. And then I looked down on the play field and I immediately said, okay, we're going to start rampage. So congratulations, you got the mirrored and you get the original one. So thank you.
    20:49
    So let's ask some questions. Or, Dave, do you have some other things you want to point out real quick? Well, still hiring? Yes, we're still hiring. Of course I'm hiring. We're building. I mean, I need personnel. I need electrical engineers. I need mechanical engineers. I'm always looking for more people. Hey, I'm looking for the next young designer, too, because I did the American Dream, right? So that's an option out there. So we'll be talking to some other people. Now, I don't happen to see any designers in the room, but we do have some pinball artists.
    21:27
    Are you going to be having Jack do like a freelance type of thing like Greg does over at Stern? Yep. So all the people who want to do art for Americans should send a portfolio to Jack. Jack and myself, yeah. and we'll look it over. I think the young man that did this year's banner of the Minute Pen. Oh, you mean our in-house art guy. Right there, Joel DeGuzman. Yeah, there's Joel. I thought I saw him.
    22:02
    He also did Amy Pinn, our famous T-shirt. And I was talking to him earlier today because I want to do that in full color. So we're going to be doing that as a full-color T-shirt at some point shortly, too. So we're always looking for artists. We're always trying to expand and make it a little bit nicer, and it's going to be great.
    22:24
    Any other questions? Well, let me answer one thing that everybody's asked me. I am going to make more Oktoberfests. Everybody's asked me, where's Oktoberfests? Okay, I'm going to make more Oktoberfests, and we have some surprises for Oktoberfests. Okay, so some of you may have caught some of my podcasts where I've talked about it. I never say the game is over, okay? So know that there may be some surprises coming for some other games down the road, and we'll bring them out at that point. And I'm going to tell you one other thing. I am not the kind of person that likes to say it's Oktoberfest 2.0 and sorry all those in the original ones. No. The team and I, and I have told them, If we make something that is playable or makes the game better, it has to be retroactive back to the very first game I made of Oktoberfest. So that I don't, I treat, you know, I'm a collector. I have over 100 pins. I thought it was horrible when somebody comes out with, oh, it's the super duper edition. You have to buy it, but now you can't because I already bought this one. No, I want to make it good for everyone. And I want to also talk for a minute. So Oktoberfest is going to be rebuilt. And if you wonder why it's not being built, watch the news. You may see some containers floating out in the Pacific. Some of those have my Oktoberfest parts on there. I know they're out there. So, you know, that's it. Now I want to touch base real quick on the 300-500 issue and just explain to everybody. Everybody's like, why did you do that? We released it at 8 o'clock Central Standard Time in Chicago. Unfortunately, Australia and the rest of the world did not catch up. By 8 a.m. Sunday, we already had over 500 sold. We stopped it at 500. I had to stop a few people, unfortunately. I think it was about 50 or 60, and told them, unfortunately, you didn't make the deadline. We ran out. we're going to have you go to classics. However, when the classics are available, if the classics aren't available or somebody backs out, your name's on the list to get one. And they said thank you. And I know limit numbers are very important, and I wanted to keep it. I thought 300 was a good number as a company. It's a pretty cautious number. It was a cautious number. Well, you know, it's also the ownership of American above me who had their number, and I had my number, and they said $300, and I said we could go better. And by Sunday morning at 8 a.m., we were over $500. I said, let's cut it off at $500 and promise anybody who backs out. Now, I'm happy to say that the classic model, we haven't wheeled it out yet. We haven't given the price. It will be cheaper than the current price right now on this game, for sure. but I think I have close to about three or four hundred people already have their names down for the classics so this game is being well received well received by the community and it's in production so we're gonna produce the deluxe is first and then I'm gonna bring out the classic and then I'll let you guys know about that when we get there it seems like a good time to bring up a topic from last hour about your operators getting premium level or deluxe level games. Are you seeing that? I mean, you pushed the channel there by getting some out there on location. Absolutely. But you think that's a viable thing for a certain kind of operator to buy the more deluxe model? Yeah. Listen, there are places that feature pinballs that are more highly- Like Pocketeer. In fact, Nick, do you got that Pocketeer clip? It's Derek. Derek. I'm sorry, Derek, you got that Pocketeer clip I got? The video of the people playing there?
    26:26
    I know I sent it to you earlier. Pocketeer Billiards, 2019. 70 pinball machines. Part of the Stern Army.
    26:38
    Stern Pinball Alley. Pretty cool. League Night. That's pretty impressive, I think. That's 80 pins. I think it was we have 12 teams of six. So that gives you an idea how many people just showed up on a Thursday night just to play pinball, and it's free. I mean, you've got to pay to play, but it's not like you have to put money into the league or something. And Pocketeer gives away free food at the end of the year to all the team. We have like a banquet because you put money into our cash box. We thank you. And that, because it's a location where people come, that's the people I see buying premiums or LEs or deluxes or what we have, because they're catering to the normal places. And then there's other places that will have maybe two or three pins, they'll buy the classic edition or the pro that everybody knows of. So, Pocketier, how many higher than base level, higher than pro games? We have every premium that Stern released. We have, I think, I want to say almost every premium JJP released. We also have the two Highway games. We've had just about any pin that comes out, me and my partner have been buying.
    28:10
    Hey it market research for me right I want to see what going on out there had a couple spooky games but we don have them right now So I played Haunt Halloween already a couple times So there's a lot of good pins out there. Market research want to check out what we got. So you're not only owner of games at home, but you also are involved in this- Yep, I'm operator too. location, arcade type? So as an operator, I don't know how many people know my history, but I got into collecting back in the 2000s when pins were dirt cheap. So you could go out and buy a pin bot for $400, and you could buy a bride a pin bot for $800. So those were the golden eras, as some people call it. I remember when people bought containers and they would buy containers of games coming from Germany or something where they were getting medieval madnesses at $600 a piece or $800 a piece. It's just ridiculous because that's what they were coming in.
    29:23
    But I loved them, and I started to do them, and then I collect them like Lay's potato chips. I bought two, which turned into four, which turned into eight. I remember my first pinball expo, I had six machines, and I'm standing in the elevator, and there's four guys, and they're sitting there going,
    29:41
    so how many do you got, kid? I got six. And the three guys look at each other and go, when you get into double digits, then we'll talk. And the door opens up, and they leave. And I'm like, what the assholes. So fast forward, 2012 or 2013, I'm running an expo, and the same three guys are on the elevator. And I go, so guys, how many pins do you have? They're like, oh, I got 28. I got 30. I got 40 or 42 or something like that.
    30:19
    My floor opened up and I said, when you get into triple digits, then we'll talk. And I walked out of the elevator. I was just happy about that because, you know, I was like. Well, I remember another Expo story involving you when the Planetary slash Chicago Gaming deal first came in. They had that first announcement. Oh, yeah. The remake, and you wanted to let me be the first to tell my wife that I just put down a deposit on the remake. Yes, I was sitting in the front row when I'm helping Rick and the other guy about putting this game up. It's the first time they're announcing the first remake of Medieval Madness. Now, trust me, I was already in at one point with the guy in Australia, Wayne, and I was also in at one point with the guy known as Gene Cunningham. So I was like, my money kept back and forth, And this was this crazy time when, is it going to be made or isn't it going to be made? And then I walked up and I said to Rick, I'm helping them up. Is this true? I said, okay, I'm putting my name down. I want one, that kind of thing.
    31:38
    But I'm like, but then you've got to tell your wife, yeah, I put a deposit down on a medieval band. It's kind of like. Yeah. And that, I mean, you had to, as we saw over the ensuing hours, and it was just hours, that was it must have made the people who normally think of MOA or something as the normal sales channel Pinball Expo and one company booked over $8 million in one 24 hour period I remember Jack Quinary being in the back of the room back in the corner and his phone just kept blowing up and I remember him saying to Rick, I got 15 already ordered as he's walking out the door because he's trying to get more. So it's like they knew it was a hit. We all knew it was a hit. It's just a matter of time. Talk about, not to go too off of the subject here, but I've seen the hobby grow. The old timers would say, how many have been into the collecting industry for the last five years? If you could raise your hand, have you been collecting more than five years?
    32:53
    Okay, there's about four. How about more than ten? So, yeah. You can start seeing the hands getting smaller, right? And it's always a pleasure to have anybody besides myself first time in Martin to Pintastic.
    33:12
    Welcome, right? Welcome to Pintastic. I mean, I've been to Expo many times and they always do that too because we want to welcome you to a show and welcome you to the family and the group. So welcome. Let's open it up for some questions. I'm sure some people have questions. Yeah, line up up there at that microphone for your questions so we can record them properly. Don't you need to give your famous Massachusetts disclaimer? Oh, I did it this morning, so we're covered for the day. Okay. I feel like I'm with the law firm when every time he says it. Yeah, it's going to be part of the tradition of Pintastic, I guess. Right.
    33:48
    So is there any questions? No? Okay. Oh, yeah, what's your next game? What's my next game? Well, you'll have to wait. Well, how big is your pipeline? You could say how many games are. We have games in the pipeline. That is for sure. My goal for the company, and I keep pushing the companies, to get to two games a year. Okay.
    34:07
    Wanted it to be done this year. COVID kind of hit and things just lagged along. Now, can we do it for next year? That's the goal. I'm going to keep pushing the company to get to two games a year. That's my long-term goal. I think that's a fair thing. But I'm not going to also forget the back catalog. So I'm going to continue to support, continue to enhance, and continue to release the back catalog as long as I can. Now, some people we talked about earlier today about Hot Wheels, right? So Hot Wheels is a great title. I love it.
    34:45
    It's got a time frame, right? It's three years. It's the license. And then I got to renew, and then it's a whole thing. So I'm going to continue to produce that thing for three years. Houdini didn't have a license, and neither did Oktoberfest, and neither does Legends of Valhalla. So that's why five years on, I'm still making Houdinis. And I'll tell you, after IAPA, I'm going to be making a lot more Houdini's because the French have just fallen in love with Houdini and want the game. So I'm just happy about that. So there's a lot of people from IAPA that we've made some really nice deals. So we're going to be producing a lot of games over the next few years. Okay, let's talk about enhancements for a minute. So just so we understand your view of the terminology, What is the point release number of the code of Legends of Valhalla today?
    35:38
    I think it's .9 something, 9.6. It's by the date also. So it's got some ways to go for the code. And listen, we're always trying to make code better. I mean, listen, we did Houdini, right? Now Houdini has competitive play. Hold the button in, go into competitive play. so the husband who is the star pinball player can play against the rest of the family and lose. So that's the nice thing. It's one against three, one against two. Or the whole family can go on the quest to finish Houdini. It's so deep. Now you've got four players. You've got 12 chances to actually get really far into the game, which most people haven't seen some of those modes in that game. So that was just released just recently, and now it's being released for Hot Wheels, and then we're going to be working on it again for Oktoberfest. Okay, so Houdini is the oldest game, and where's the code now? What point release? That I don't know. Okay.
    36:41
    But there's no stopping on that. Correct. Now, with the American Dream Challenge, as I know from reading this magazine over and over and over and over again, you have some adaptation from what Scott and Frank had done on their own to getting into the code base, the foundation code that American has. Is that something that would be available for the challenge? or in other words, if you want the game to be nearly ready to produce, it sounds like it would be in your interest to have some level of here's the names of these important calls that you're going to make or some system levels, stuff like that. So let me reach out to you in this regard. Let me just say this, that Josh has, Josh Kugler has already offered anybody who's a home brewer to have him be contacted and he will come up with some, help them along with some options on code and give them some guidance, as it were. Scott Gullix has already said that he would offer some guidance. Dennis Nordman said he would offer some guidance to some young game designers too. If they, you know, little ideas that they can help with. I have to say also that, you know, just we've been talking about it. We may even make some little YouTube videos for guidance on making your American dream. And the reason I bring that up is because how many people have been to the American Pinball website in a while? When was the last time you were there? All right.
    38:30
    A couple days. Did you guys see the service section? So in the service section, we have a YouTube channel, and we already have close to, I want to say, over 100 videos with different levels of technical expertise, common problems, little stuff to help the end user. Like, how do you take the glass off a pinball machine, right? How to set up the pinball machine. How to go into the service money. How to do this. Little stuff. But that's also, you know, my old statement is a picture's worth a thousand words. Well, guess what? A video's worth a million, right? You can walk through it. And Dave Brennan, our service manager, has been doing an excellent job formulating. Now, if something comes up and it's something new, he makes a new video. He publishes it. He talks to the person, sends them a video how to walk them through the problem of their game. So we definitely stress customer service, and we want to make sure that we're part of that. In fact, I tell all the guys to not troll but to monitor Pinside, and if there's a problem, help the people with American Pinball games. I want to know about it. Just like if there's a problem with my play fields, I want to know about it. We make sure we make a really good product, and I stand behind it. I see we have a question. Okay.
    39:51
    Thank you. And I'll echo what you just said. I mean, it's absolutely true. We bought a Hot Wheels in February, and their service department has been excellent with any questions. And I've been on the Pinside site and seen Joe Balzer actually answer questions from people about the game. My question is, so if I'm right, Valhalla is the first game that you've offered that has the two different levels, the deluxe and the regular. Is that the plan going forward to have different levels, or is it going to depend on the title? No, it's a good question. No, we will have two levels.
    40:27
    We will always have a classic. Classic will always be unlimited. Okay, so I will always have that classic for the street operator, you know, the people that want to put this game out there. And let me explain something about what the difference is between classic and deluxe limited is, okay, or just deluxe.
    40:48
    Classic, I don't like, and this is my personality, and you guys can tell me if I'm wrong. As a collector, do you guys like that you have a classic or a pro and another one and they took out all the toys? No. No, right? I mean, I want to give you guys a classic that plays exactly like the deluxe. The only difference is the trim packages and maybe some of the non-interactive toys. Okay, so, you know, if I was doing another company who did that, I might take out the whole hammer mechanism out of the back. I wouldn't do that. I want that in there. You know, so the Classics and the Deluxe will play exactly the same, just the trim packages will be different. That's it. I mean, you have non-mirrored and you have a mirrored back glass. That's expensive. Okay? You know, I mean, this day and age, do a mirror back glass, it's not cheap. So that's an added value, I think is worth it. Magic glass, the see-through glass. Now that doesn't mean that you can't take a classic and add a little of the features to make it a little bit of a nicer classic, right? With the shaker motor and the knocker and the magic glass, you can do that. but there some trim stuff that will not be available for the classic which is the deluxe LE But it just the market deems it
    42:27
    Do you have another question? I hope that answered it. Will American Pinball get into the accessories market?
    42:34
    I'm already really happy that there's art blades and whatnot included in your games, but maybe there's an alternate art package. Yes. We want to get into the accessories business most definitely. Certainly toppers. We will also, one of the things I'm pushing for is something that's going to be new. You'll hear it from me first here because none of my other manufacturers have said this. We're going to make what we call factory mods. This is a mod approved by the factory. It's to take your old game and give it a new mod, something that you haven't seen before. It might change the game play a little bit, make it a little bit more fun, but it's a factory mod. So that's something that's in the works. And that certainly sounds like a good way to go for license titles. So you would, as you're negotiating a license, you would say, we want to have not just this package, but also these alterations or improvements or extra bling or whatever it might be. Correct. And I can always go back and call it a factory mod, which opens the doors a bit more for me to work around. So that's a key point. Now Martin's going to go publicize this. Oh, the press is jumping on this. Yes, Pinball News, you have a question? No, I have two questions.
    43:58
    Smart, smart. Well, now I'm here, I might as well make the most of it. Go ahead. Assuming, and this is a bigger subject, there are no other supply chain issues, how long is it going to take you, for how long are you going to be making legends, given the number of orders you've got at the moment. And the second part, for your work with Riot, Scott and Frank, is it a one-and-done deal, or are they going to be developing more games for you? No. Let's answer the second part first. I said at Expo this is not one-and-done. Scott and Frank are already working on game number two. So we're happy to have them on board, and Riot's already working on their next game. So that's a big thing for them. To go back to the question where we are in the factory, we produce between 20 and 30 games a week. So given the time frame and where we are with the stuff, we're pushing on as many games as we can for people. And we have two game lines. Remember that. So you can do the math. So we have on one line Hot Wheels running off, and on the second line we have Legends running off right now. And quite possibly when that line of Hot Wheels is done, we probably might just turn that right over to Legends also and continue to pump out two lines of Legends. But we have some Hot Wheels that we are committed to. I was committed to bringing out some Oktoberfest. However, due to the circumstances of supply chains, that's getting pushed to 2022. We've already contacted all the owners and said, please, if you want. And that's the other thing. I don't want to take money. I don't take deposits. I don't say, you know, if you want a game, you've got to pay me X. You want it? I'll get it. When I have it for you, you pay for it. End of deal. Okay? Keep your money. Put it where you want it. Put it in a mattress. Put it in the bank. I don't care. When you want the game, let me know. I have it. You can buy it. Okay? I don't want to fund the world, you know, and so forth. So what is that manufacturing plant with the two lines? Is that Amtron? No, no, it's actually American Pinball. Okay, so there's not a case of some other contract that Amtron might come up with taking away resources? No, no, no, no. So let me explain what Amtron is because Dave's throwing stuff out there that he knows about and everybody doesn't know. So Amtron was the parent company. It was the silent partner of American Pinball when it was founded.
    46:36
    In 2000, last year in December, the silent partner had enough and bought out Dabo Vasani. Dabo Vasani was no longer part of the buyout. He's no longer a part of American Pinball at all. It's when I walked in and took over control of American Pinball, and Mukesh Vasani, his uncle, is the CEO, the man who has the money. And he basically says, Mr. Fix, here's your budget. Go take care of stuff.
    47:06
    Okay? Go get me some people. Sell some games. There's the American dream challenge for you. Well, you know, it's like here's the keys to the pinball company. What can you do? Now everybody's going to say, well, who is this guy? I worked for over five years for a company called ICE in Buffalo, New York. We made the bubble hockey. I oversaw parts of production. I oversaw technical support, ran the tech room, the Schlinger, which is a big giant wiring room. I ran a bunch of things over there for ICE. And due to COVID, we call it the COVID shuffle. In fact, at IAEPA, I got to meet up with a lot of old friends who were shuffled at the same time as I was at COVID. Because March of 2020, ICE was at 350 going to 400 employees. On March 21st, we went to 160 employees. I made the first cut, and then by July 1st, we went from 160 to 80 employees. And that's when the shuffle started. And then they said to me, what do you want to do? I said, well, that's not a problem. I'll hang around for a while. I lived in Buffalo. I have the house, you know, and so forth. But American was kind of like they wanted to do some changing, and we started negotiating about two months after that. And then on December 7th, I walked through the door. So December 7th of this year will be my first year, full year, at American Pinball. So a lot of work, a lot of work. And my wife was at the factory for the first time in October. She walked through and says, you've got a lot more work. I'm not going to see you ever again.
    48:54
    There's work to be done, and rightly so, because I can see everybody here. How many of you here have an American pinball machine in your collection?
    49:06
    Thank you. How many of you want to put an American pinball machine in your collection? Thank you. Look for your support.
    49:13
    So, and what about ice? They had a presence at IAAPA, didn't they? Oh, yeah, they did. It was a half a booth. Half a booth, okay.
    49:23
    What I mean by half a booth. So imagine it's 10 by 60 this year. Normally their booth is two 10 by 60s. That's what I mean by half a booth. It was still a huge booth. Mine was a 20 by 20, just this little thing. It wasn't that big, but I fit 10 machines in there, and we showed them all off.
    49:46
    Okay, so ICE is still in the business? ICE is still doing fine, yes. Yes. I'm thinking of another game from my app, but we're done with that topic. You have like a deadline, like you have to prove something by a certain day, or you're just in until ... like your deal to be American. Oh, okay. No, they want me there. It's not like I have to prove anything. In fact, within the first two months that I was there, they gave me a raise. So I said, okay. Okay.
    50:28
    I said, okay. And it wasn't a pinball machine, so don't think, you know. Honey, I didn't get a pinball machine as a raise. She listens to these things, you know, and that's what I've got to be careful. You know, when I tell her I've got 100 or I've got this much, she goes, so, let's do a count, an inventory count. I want to know where these are, what's going on, and so forth. Just to give you a little history, going back just a long time ago, I was probably the one guy who started what we call the babysitting club, the pinball babysitting club. I would buy machines and send them to friends' house for babysitting, and they would play them and they would write down all the things that are wrong with them. So I had ten machines at his house, two machines at his, three, four, five, and people would be like, can we switch them out? Yeah, you can switch them over here or there. Because I didn't have enough room in my own house. And it was just crazy. So you're rotating like an operator among all these free placements that are bringing you money revenue. Yes, yes, yes. But it was the pinball babysitting club. And some good friends up in Buffalo still to this day, I think there's one that still has about. He's got my Sea Witch.
    51:36
    He's got a couple of my machines. I've got to find out what he's doing with those. Time to take inventory, I guess. Yeah.
    51:46
    Actually, here at Pintastic, we have established relationships with a lot of upstate New York, including Albany people and Saratoga and Syracuse and Rochester. And Buffalo is like the next frontier. Yeah.
    52:04
    So we're hoping that they will see this as part of, you know, Buffalo people and all Western New York, let's see you at Pintastic next year. That's all I say. I'll be here. And to balance that off, what is the street address of Pocketeer?
    52:22
    2444 Clinton, Buffalo, New York. Okay. So you can punch that in your GPS, and if you're ever heading out that way, you know a place that will watch the pinball. So here's the nice thing. Think about this. You have Pocketeer, which you saw in the video. Okay. You have the Niagara Wine Trail, which is all up by Niagara Falls. We're literally 15, 20 minutes from Niagara Falls. If you want to come up in the summertime and do part of the wine trail or do something like that, that's great. You can go to do the pinball at Clinton. We have other locations in western New York. There's a couple other bars. There's a bar. It's called Riverworks. It's down in the city of Buffalo. It's run by Labatt Brewery. We have 15 pinball machines in there, so that's a nice little chunk of change there. And there's also the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, which they have, I think, about 30 or 40 pins in there, and that's a cool little place to go. Yeah, we had a presentation from one of their people a few years ago. Yeah. So that's in Rochester. That's only about an hour away. So definitely a little place. You can come for food. And I won't sell.
    53:37
    Any New England Patriots fans in the audience? Okay. One. Just one? Okay. Two? Okay. Well, no, I'm just wondering how the Bills-Patriots game is in about, what, two weeks or something. and that's going to be fun. I always love to see that. So it will be good. I always want a good game. If we lose, that's fine, as long as it's a good game. If it's a blowout, I hate that. I want to switch it off right away. All right, well, I'm glad to hear you'll be back. Oh, yeah. Because we're going to be needing more updates, it sounds like. Sure.
    54:15
    Maybe we'll try to get a closer contact with those developers will be working on their game to be in the challenge. So let me just talk about this real quick. The next game, keep your eyes open for another magazine. Next game, keep your eyes open for locations around the United States that will have the game. And anyone here run a location that has pinball in it? Yeah. If you run a location with pinball in it, call me.
    54:45
    Just like Jack Barr, who went through some tough times with COVID, and Bill Disney with Pinball Gallery, you know, street locations. I'm trying to support them and help them. You know, that's, you know, I'm kind of a street operator myself. So, you know, and we have the weight of American Pinball behind them to actually focus. And let me just point out one thing, too. I just want to say this, and some people think that, you know, there's a term ghosting, right? Some people will say, oh, I sent Dave an email, and he's ghosting me. I receive somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 emails in the course of a week. And if I'm not at the office, I'm coming back to, and I've already counted, it's about 16,000 emails. And some of them are, yes, Chinese drugs, some of them are this, some of them are my competitors throwing my name out there for some other stuff. But for the most part, I try. And if not me, I delegate to my sales department or my other team members. Look out, Steve Bowden. Those e-mails are coming. Yeah, yeah. And if Steve wasn't replying back or some of my sales force isn't replying back, I need to know because I need to make changes. But for the most part, we want to be here to help you and to help operators and to help everybody in the community. Hey, we're a community. We're a small community. got to be there to help everybody, right? Okay, well it's almost time for the autograph session. Yep. So thanks David Fix for being here. Thank you guys.