it's time now for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff hills you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on twitter x instagram at pinball profile got a great facebook group as well you can also email pinballprofile at gmail.com and if you'd like to show your support on patreon that would be wonderful not necessary the show will always be free, but it helps the show keep going. Thank you to great Patreon supporters like William M., Rodney C., Sean I., and others. Patreon.com slash pinball profile. So you may have heard of this guy in the news recently. There may have been some rumors that have come out about American pinball. I'm not big on rumors. Actually, I really don't like them at all. So I like to get it right from the source. Joining us right now, it's David Fix. Hey, David, how are you? Good, Jeff. How are you doing? I'm wonderful. I don't know if you were caught off guard when there was a report that American Pinball may or may not be selling. I'm sure you noticed it. So let's find out what's going on. Well, you know, that's the problem with rumors. They are rumors. So we'll just squash this rumor right there that American Pinball is not for sale. We are fine. We're doing very well. In fact, we're excited about this coming year. We got a lot of cool excitements, as you may have already started hearing. Do you know where these rumors start? Well, you know, we did have a couple people that we were talking to about investing in American Pinball. We are looking at bringing in some investors. Some people we have already said no to because of, you know, the craziness of their investment. But I'm just wondering if that's the possibility. You know, unfortunately, rumors are always that. Half stories, little bits of stuff people don't hear from, right? So for me, I'm like, okay, where did this come from? When did this happen? And it's just kind of like, okay, there's nothing to this, so let's get moving on and let's squash this so that everybody knows. It's probably easier to start rumors, especially in the online era, and things can be passed off as truths. Or I heard somebody, I can't reveal my source, this and that. So you never know. And I, again, tend to ignore them unless I hear differently from the people involved. So I appreciate you coming on the podcast and letting me know. But I do recall years ago, and I don't even know if this was a rumor or not, but I thought I heard, and we're going way back, to a time when maybe Deep Root was interested in either buying or merging or manufacturing at or with American Pinball. Was that a real thing? Yeah, there was talks back just before they closed that he wanted to talk about having us manufacture the games at American Pinball. There was a talk about, you know, even selling parts and the rights to us. And then everything just fell apart there and he just disappeared completely. And then the whole thing just, you know, dissolved. But we've also been in contact with other companies, too. There have been some overseas companies who we've kind of played around with the idea of maybe manufacturing their stuff for the American market and vice versa. Right. So there's always there's always conversations going on in the industry. Anyone listening to this podcast knows that I am a very positive person when it comes to pinball. I want everyone to succeed no matter the size. I think pinball is better for us, the players, the collectors, the buyers, when everyone does do well. And like we talked about, there's a niche for everyone. But there are 14 current companies out there right now. And you see the economy sometimes go up, sometimes go down. You see the resale market very strong at times. It's starting to soften a little bit. but the prices and the demand and the supply have always been of question to a lot of people. And with 14 companies, is that too many? Is there possibilities where mergers make sense? I would hate to see anybody fooled, but that is a lot of pinball out there. I mean, last year alone in 2023, I cannot believe the number of machines that we saw, brand new machines. Yeah, it was crazy. It was absolutely crazy, especially Texas. having all those machines just at Texas that were released at that same time, and then everything else. You're absolutely right. When that happens, I mean, that was where Galactic Tank Force was released. It was great to see the actual machine drive through a TPF, and we saw that also at Expo in Chicago, and you've probably done it a few other places, but that was fun. Does it kind of hurt you a little bit in the sense that, ah, we're getting not overshadowed, but we've got to share the limelight with everyone else? There were seven new machines at TPF. Yeah, no, it doesn't overshadow it. You know, Jeff, remember, I'm a pinball collector first, a big fan. I have a ton of machines myself. I mean, everything for pinball is good, you know. I mean, more machines in the industry, more creative aspects. Listen, there's a lot of people out there who, you know, are new companies that are bringing together a passion, right? And that's what needs for the market. And, you know, it's funny. At the end of the day, I'm friends with all of them, right? You know, I still talk to the people at Stern. You know, we're still talking. I know there's a picture that was floating around that went viral just like last week where Gary Stern and Jack Guarnieri are having a moment, and they're hugging each other somewhere in London or talking to each other in London. That happened. You know, at the end of the day, we're all people who are in the industry. We've known each other for a long time, and we're working hard, right? We're trying to be this kind of group that's bringing together a passion, right? I know the Pinball Brothers. I've helped them out here at Expo many times and a lot of other industries, right? So a lot of the pinball guys, they all know me pretty well, and we work together. We all have our own product, but we get along pretty well. I've been in radio for 30 years, so I can kind of relate in the sense that you know, in markets where we have, say, 12 or 13 radio stations. We want radio to do well. We want radio to succeed because when one suffers or, heaven forbid, turns off the lights and shuts down, it hurts radio. It hurts the confidence in the industry. And we are, in a way, rooting for each other. We're finding our own piece of the pie. But other radio stations aren't the enemies. It's other forms of, in my field, other forms of media, whether it be print, whether it be digital, television, internet, whatever you want to say. We want radio to succeed. So I would imagine, you know, with pinball and these 14 companies, you find your niche and you want everyone to succeed. American, I'm looking at my Legends of Valhalla machine, the great Scott Gullick's machine that American produced. And when that came out, there was a limited number and you achieved that number. And that was the business plan. So to some people might say, well, it's not thousands of machines like maybe Stern does, but it's exactly what you had set out to do. The business model and the pricing reflected that. So when you sell that out, that is a success. Yep. And do the same thing with Galactic Tank Force. And, you know, we have, of course, we have another machines coming out shortly. Unfortunately, though, you run into little issues, right, along the way. and I know I was on another podcast a couple weeks back that we were talking about, how would I grade myself or grade the company for 2023, right? There always room for improvement You know some people thought I was harsh but I still think that the company was more of a C right We could have been better all the way around You know service could have been better The execution could have been better But remember we a small company. There were a lot, a lot of things going on in the background and structure, background structure, or actually what I should say, support on the back end that most people didn't even know was happening. And that's why we made that announcement last night on that stream, right? So, you know, there's a lot of work that goes through that and a lot of manpower. And sometimes certain things suffer a little bit when we get in there. But, you know, execution, you know, clouds are opening up and the sky is bright and we're going forward. So we're kind of excited about that. For those that didn't see the American Pinball stream, what I think you're talking about, David, is really these new boards. Correct. That are compatible to old American pinball machines. And the reason for these new boards, can you give us a little bit of an explanation why we're headed this way? Well, you know, listen, boards go through cycles, right? And chips become obsolete or become harder to get, right? Or you have to, what we call, spin the board or come out with a new version or what. So American Pinball back in May decided to venture down that road. So this ate up a lot of bandwidth. So, you know, we're owned by Ametron Systems, which is a circuit board house. So they make circuit boards. And the funny thing is they made circuit boards for a lot of our competitors in the past. So for us to make our own circuit board, it wasn't that hard. But it took time for development. And one of the things that I was really pushing for in the development cycle was to have a board that would plug into all the normal connectors that we currently have in all our games going back to Houdini. And granted, it needs new code to put in the boards and have them flash correctly and the software can run. That's what we had to do, right? We developed a board that I can now, let's say if I have Hot Wheels, which I do own a Hot Wheels, one of the first ones, and if the boards, the MPU board or the driver board ever crap out and I can't get them anymore, which they're readily available still, I can literally buy them from American Pinball, swap out the boards, and put the new code in on my game, and I can play that game still. So last night we showed everybody, we played for all those hours, and nobody actually, you didn't know until after the stream was over with, that, hey, this board system is working flawlessly. And little things, you know, I've said this on many things, is that we do an awful lot of testing. We do things in the field. I know you do a little bit of testing. In fact, these boards, when you're watching the stream last night, you realize after the fact, new boards. But these boards have been out in location, haven't they? Yes. Yeah, they have been in location. And, in fact, first iterations of these boards in September were in games out in locations in the Chicago area. And we were testing them. And the public was playing the games, and they never knew there was a difference in the board system. So that was, you know, cool. They were walking up to a Hot Wheels or a Galactic Tank Force, and they're playing it. Game plays like it always did, but they're like, huh. In fact, just so you guys know that one of the tournament games was used at Interium for the Illinois State Championship, had the new board system, and it ran the whole day on that new board system through all that tournament play and never had a problem. So we were very excited about that. You know, this was a very, you know, it's a good thing that we can bring this to the market. This has come a long way. The original, I think Houdini was, wasn't it P-Rock? Yes. It's a P-Rock system. So it went from P-Rock to the current boards, and now these new ones made by Amtron. I like seeing the progression because people who own games, they know that chips, we saw it in the last four years, especially with the pandemic, the availability. Sometimes things go obsolete. So with this new board that you're producing, that gives a little bit of peace of mind. Yes. It gives a lot of life to a game. Think about it. You now all of a sudden have a board system that can be put into your game. that will be generated for the next 10, 15 years, that board will be being used by American Pinball. So this kind of gives a clue, right? This gives a clue that, you know, the company wasn't up for sale because all that money and time and effort for this company to invest in its future is being seen right now, right? I mean, we have a new board system. But that also, unfortunately, has really plagued us because we're a small company, right? We have a few software engineers, and they've been focusing, you know, they're trying to get Galactic Tank Force code updates, which there are more coming. We have some bug fixes, and we have a lot more to do on that release. We also have a new board that we're bringing to the market so that we can start showing people that this board is now available and will be in our next game. Our next game, which is coming out, will feature this board heavily. All those boards will be in there. Your next game, are you anticipating also TPF? I don't want to put any pressure on you. We are waiting to see how the market plays, but we are looking at having a release in the spring, yes. Okay. You were talking about being a small company. You've got a new service technician there. A lot of people, especially in the Chicago area, might know Maurice Smith. Correct. Maurice Smith, he's a player too, right? Maurice was with Galloping Ghost. He did service tech over there. He was working on the games and video games for them, and we were happy to bring him on board. And we have other people we're bringing on board, and we'll be going into more detail when they are all on board for the service tech. As the company grows, we continue to support. Listen, we kind of got left in the lurch just before Christmas. We lost our service tech completely, so that left us a big hole. So then you go scrambling trying to find somebody who can be a service tech, and it's not like they grow on trees, right? They're people that we have to deal with. That's great. I know some of the staff there, certainly your designers. I know Steven Bowden very, very well, yourself and others too. I liked that people got to see the factory. That was pretty cool at Expo. And I know this year, with the 40th anniversary of Expo, you've got those plans again. And you know what? Those kind of tours are extremely important. You do it. I think Jersey Jack does it. And definitely Stern does it. But especially the smaller companies, it probably builds some confidence. Oh, look at this. Look at the line. Look at all the parts. Every aspect of it certainly helps a company like American Pinball. Absolutely. And it's funny. We put up a sign, and fortunately, you know, sometimes you can look at stuff. If you see the positive, great. If you see the negative, well, you know, it's kind of funny. I mean, you can look at it two ways, right? We had a very positive aspect around expo time. We were putting up the big 300 banner. We did it in the Halloween style because it was after the movie. You know we telling the team we want you to get to 300 which they hit Okay we knew they would And that was not like we going to go out of business because of that That 300 was just basically the challenge to the production staff to hit a number and make the most amount of games that American Pinball has ever made in one year to date. Now, I'm not going to go into numbers, but we're very proud of the team and what they were doing on that and to hit that number. But to some people, they thought, oh, 300, if American doesn't get it, They're out of business. And then, of course, the follow-up to that now is, oh, American's up for sale. You know, it's just this great giant, you know, spin on a control kind of thing, which we're not up for sale. And we have, as you now know, with the boards and everything else we've been doing, we are very excited about giving the longevity and the length with American Pinball. You know, Mukesh has sat with me. We went through the budget for the first two weeks in September, and we're planning out the entire year. So it's been really, really good for American Pinball to where we're going. The future is bright. There are a lot of positives. I know you gave that C grade. I think that was on Super Awesome Pinball Show. But I think you're being a little hard on yourself because there are certainly things that I love about American Pinball. I've said this not just to your face. I've said this on other podcasts, Final Round and others. I like when people take the risks and give us something original. You can't get more original than Galactic Tank Force. I like the excitement in that. I can see how some people are like, oh, I have to have a theme and a theme draws. I get that because are you just going to buy it sight unseen or are you going to want to play it first and go, okay, this is definitely a fun game. It's campy. It's all that kind of stuff. Or maybe you've got some existing who know the quality of the machines. You would have a hard time finding anyone not agreeing that American pinball machines are very well built. So maybe you've got the trust factor to try something new. But again, you know, people talk about that theme thing that always comes up with American, the theme. And to me, good pinball is good pinball. But I guess people want, whether it's spending money on a machine or putting in that first quarter, something they recognize, perhaps. You know, absolutely. Well, you know, the thing is, is yes. We build the machines, listen, our bill of material, the parts that we put in the machine are very well. If there's a problem, I mean, listen, we had some games out there. I had somebody who had one of the early runs of Galactic Tank Force where the kicker broke on it, and he reached out to me. Yes, it's way out of warranty, but guess what? I sent him the part because that part should never have broken, right? So we stand behind the quality of our machines. Now, granted, I feel bad for all the people who have been calling in. I mean, I've fielded a few calls, but you got to remember, my day-to-day job is not taking service calls, right? It's not. I try to help out where I can. I forward the messages to teams, to people in R&D, people I'm assigning, people to take care of certain people. And I do ask for everybody just to bear with us because we're not leaving you in the lurch. We're going to get you taken care of. But, you know, unfortunately right now it's been a really daunting task. But you've got Maurice coming in and other service technicians, so that answers that concern. That should answer that question. But let me share something with you, Jeff, and I think you're going to find this amazing. When you go to the Internet Pinball database, right, and you pull up the top ten play-rated solid-state games of all times, you have number one is Twilight Zone, which is an IP. Number two is Theater of Magic, which is not. Then you have Star Trek Next Generation, which is an IP. Then you have Medieval Madness, which is not. Then you have Scared Stiff, Indiana Jones, and then Addams Family. And then you finalize that with Monster Bash, Whitewater, and Tales of the Arabian Nights, which were all non-IPs. So out of ten, five are original IPs and the other five are... And Attack from Mars wasn't even on there. There's another one. Yeah, I know. And Attack from Mars is not even that top ten. So it's like, okay, so that just gives you a clue. And there's other games, too. I know I was just talking to somebody in Robert Englunds who loves Championship Pub. That's not on that list either. So depending on the markets, Galactic Tank Force, yes, it's not an IP, but you have people like Christopher Franchi who love the project, put the artwork in it like crazy, made it look like it was actually an IP, and just loved it. And people who play Galactic Tank Force absolutely love the game. I'm seeing people on Facebook who've made recent purchases of the Galactic Tank Force lunchbox. Yes. So they certainly like the imaging and stuff, and yeah, it's definitely a fun game to play. Can I ask, and we haven't talked in advance about this, I'm asking, and you can give me an answer or not. I have no idea. The cost of an IP, like you certainly have had one with Hot Wheels. We know the stories of other IPs and how much they cost. The Beatles was ridiculous, of course. Right. How much that cost and who's paying that, the end user. Is that the big difference? Is that the kind of balancing act is, yeah, we can get IPs, but it's going to cost you at the end? Well, not really. Not at the end. Okay. I understand that when we do an IP, okay, anybody in the industry that does an IP, we call it dead money. All right, so let's say I'm going to go out to Hot Wheels. Let's just use Hot Wheels for instance, right? I go to Mattel, and we have a beautiful working relationship with Mattel. We're very happy with them. And we go to Mattel, and we say, okay, we're going to – we want the Hot Wheels license. And they're like, okay, we want X. What X means is this is the money for the IP. We call it dead money because we have to pay that before we start. Okay. And then you have a timeframe that's in there that you have to develop the game and bring it out and bring it to market. Once it's brought to market, then there is a small X that's paid to Mattel. And then the royalties per game come in. But like I said, dead money is, you've got to think about it. some companies now. So let's just take a big IP. Let's say the big IP was a million dollars. So think about it. $750,000 or maybe a little more, let's say if it was a million dollars, $750,000 goes to that IP. Before anything comes in. Before the artist or the designer even start. You're already starting in the hole, right? And then you have, let's say, 24 months or 36 months to bring that IP to the world or 18 months, whatever your development time is. Then you have to work with the IP and get your approvals and disapprovals and all that other stuff. And then you've got to bring it to the market, right? And then you hope the market loves the IP enough that $750,000 plus the other $250,000 that you now just paid them plus the royalties is actually paying for, you know, your sales of the machine pay for it. Right. So that's economics on the scale. So there is that. And for a small company like American Pinball to go out for an IP and to do dead money, you have to give them this amount of money but you have to sell as many machines to bring back that money so you can reinvest that into the next IP And if it takes more than a year then you have to figure out something else to do right So there is those aspects that most of the people don understand Okay. I hope that sheds some light for you. Yeah, it certainly does. And, again, you've got your business model, and you know how to keep the money flow going and pay all the employees and keep the factory going and work on next projects. So who are we to say how you're doing it from a business standpoint because you're in it day to day? Right. That's the licensor kind of thing. That's the model that is done by everybody, right? So, you know, I'd love to go in and say, okay, I'm going to buy this IP. I'm going to pay you all this when we bring out the game. But, no, they're like, nope, there's a retainer. There's this. You need to bring so much percentage into us. You have to get the license before we agree to the license, and then you have to go from there. Got it. I do know I'm a fan of American pinball, always have been. And in fact, you've been very kind to me personally with the Pinball Profile Played in America Tour. There are so many people all across the country that received beautiful Houdini playfields as a lovely prize. And again, shameless plug here, you were on board last year for the inaugural tournament, The Beast, at Pocketeer Billiards in Buffalo, New York. And I'm happy to say, once again, American Pinball is a big sponsor of that, coming up in August, August 1st to 4th. And the feedback I've received from that tournament, and I know it sounds like I'm tooting my own horn, but I have had so many people, when is the next one, when is the next one? I heard about the last one, I can't believe I missed it, and had a lot of good people help me run that tournament. Of course, Cindy and Barry Gluckstein at Pocketeer Billiards, who you know very well. We've got all the American Pinball machines there. They will be in the competition. I just wanted to thank you for helping us with the beast and certainly with the Pinball Profile Tour. Absolutely. You know, Jeff, again, I like to say that I want to help as many people as I can. I get calls a lot, and some other people get some calls, or emails once in a while. If we finally get them, we do apologize when they get filtered out. But, you know, they come to us and say, we've got 30 people, we're going to do a launch of something. Okay, well, we'll send you some swag, right? Your pinball across America was huge. We loved it. It was at the right time. It was just after COVID is what needed to be done, and I was so happy to, you know, listen, Jeff, we're going to send you these playfields. We'll ship them here. We'll ship them there. So you didn't have to take them across the border, right? We were like, listen, we'll just ship them where you need them. We'll get them there in time, and you tell us what you want. And we did that. And then to do the Beast, right? You know, I mean, the Beast was huge. I was there. It was well-received by all the things. Listen, if they play American, they play Spooky, they play Stern, they play JJB, it's, again, for the love of the game, right? They're playing pinball. and I think that's the term that I always try to share that. Everybody says, David, you should be pushing American, but I push American, but I push all pinball play. Pinball is kind of, unfortunately, I fell in love with the product years ago before I started running the company. I'm proud of our company's product, and when we have problems, I will be the first one to be yelling at the people. You know, I have them come in, most of my employees, they come in and they go, we know, we know, we got to get this better. And I said, well, let's work together. Let's figure out ways to make it better, right? And then just the support, you know, I mean, thank you for Pinball Profile and all the support you've done, Jeff, with your tours. You know, just, again, giving people out there. And, you know, if it's a women's tournament or a kids' tournament, listen, American Pinball wants to be able there to support you. Support those tournaments and support the understanding. I mean, I think we released, right, I think it was the women's tournament in Chicago last year just before we announced Galactic Tank Force. We gave out the first ever print of the play field of Galactic Tank Force to the winner, and nobody had even seen the game yet, right? So here's the play field as a proof, art proof, given away as a gift. That's huge. People who don't even know when the game's coming out, right? They don't even know the game yet. And there's the play field, right, given away to the winner of the women's tournament. So we try very hard to support and continue to make a name for ourselves and for pinball in general. I think it's going to be a great year. You mentioned these new incredible boards compatible with older machines. So we look forward to that from American Pinball and Ametron. Not up for sale. We've also got a new game coming out in the spring. Looking forward to that. The Beast, as we mentioned in August, and, of course, the 40th anniversary of Expo. I know you and Rob Burke have been working very hard on that one. Absolutely. And you touched on it, and I'm going to touch on this too, is that on Wednesday morning, the 40th anniversary of Pinball Expo is going to be huge, but on Wednesday morning will be the tour of the Stern Factory. and right after that Stern Factory tour in the afternoon is the tour of American Pinball. So everybody's going to get on a bus at Stern and then shoot over to American Pinball and go through the entire American Pinball plant. This will be the first time officially through Pinball Expo that people will actually have gone through tours. We've done a lot of private tours, small tours, group tours, that kind of thing. We even did an open house, which wasn't a tour back quite a few years ago for Expo. But this will be now the official tour of American Pinball's factory for people to come in and see that, hey, we are a small company, but we're a small company with passion. And the employees love it and they want to be there. So pretty excited about it. Speaking of employees, you just added another one to American Pinball and a name that we recognize. Who is it? Well, not only did we bring on Maurice, but we also brought on Lloyd Olson from S&S Billiards. So we're excited about having Lloyd on as one of our tech service gurus as well. So between Lloyd and Maurice, we're very excited about this dynamic duo helping out all our customers online, on phone, and also by email. Not only that, Lloyd's going to have a copy of all our games there up at S&S Billiards for people to come up and enjoy so that he can see things and help people with their tech calls and questions. It's going to be a wonderful year. David, thanks for clearing things up. Thank you for giving us the details on all the exciting things with American Pinball. And I know we'll be in touch. Sounds great, Jeff. Thank you. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Twitter and X and Instagram at pinballprofile. Great Facebook group as well. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. And don't forget about our Patreon, if you could. Don't worry, the show will always be free, but your support is certainly welcome. Thank you to Lua W., GME Law, Derek K., Cliff A., and others. I'm Jeff Teoles. Bye.