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Ep. 77. Jersey Jack Guarnieri with JJP news

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·20m 40s·analyzed·Oct 6, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

JJP's Jack Guarnieri discusses innovation, Pat Lawlor's return, and hints at new game announcement.

Summary

Jersey Jack Guarnieri discusses JJP's growth, innovative technologies (LCD displays, Bluetooth app integration, in-game camera), Pat Lawlor's return as designer, and teases a fourth game announcement at Expo. He emphasizes JJP's customer communication, production timelines, and the balance between licensed and original IP in pinball design.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack pioneered LCD displays in pinball, now commonplace across the industry

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri discussing JJP's industry innovations

  • Pat Lawlor was brought back to JJP in 2013 with creative freedom ('carte blanche')

    high confidence · Direct statement by Jack about bringing Pat back and his design philosophy

  • Dialed In features an original in-game camera that takes photos when players achieve high scores

    high confidence · Jack describes the feature as inspired by his 1977 operator experience wanting to use a Polaroid camera

  • JJP employs a flat organizational structure where engineering, production, sales, service, and marketing teams share goals and information

    high confidence · Direct statement about company organization

  • JJP maintains 24-hour live phone support with coverage on nights and weekends

    high confidence · Jack describing customer service approach

Notable Quotes

  • “Who would have thought that pinball would come back and be this big? Me. Because why would we start a pinball company if we believed that it wouldn't come back and be big?”

    Jack Guarnieri @ early — Demonstrates JJP's founding confidence in pinball's resurgence

  • “These things, they take time. They have to kind of simmer as you make a meal on the stove, and if you pull it out of the oven too fast, it's not done. So game development is very similar.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ mid — Articulates JJP's philosophy on game development timelines and completion

  • “It's not the cost of the hardware to put in there. It's the cost of what content you put on that piece of hardware that brings the entertainment value to the game.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ mid — Explains JJP's differentiation strategy beyond hardware components

  • “When the game takes selfies for the first time and people play that, they lose their mind. I mean, they just start laughing, which is exactly what you want.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ mid — Describes player reaction to Dialed In's innovative camera feature

  • “I likened him to be our next designer in a different generation because he grew up in a game family.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ late — Describes recruitment strategy for new designer Eric, emphasizing industry experience

  • “We're pretty organized. Like any company, we could probably be a little bit better, and we're working on that.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ late — Shows pragmatism about organizational growth and continuous improvement

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyJack GuarnieripersonPat LawlorpersonJeff TeolispersonDialed IngameWizard of OzgameThe HobbitgameKeith Johnson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: JJP operating with flat organizational structure ensuring alignment across engineering, production, sales, service, and marketing teams on shared goals

    high · Jack describes 'pretty organized' flat structure with shared information and goals across all departments

  • ?

    community_signal: JJP maintains active community engagement through Google group (couple thousand members), 24-hour live phone support, email support, and direct owner communication about code updates

    high · Detailed description of support infrastructure and Jack's personal involvement in customer calls

  • ?

    design_philosophy: JJP games require extended development timelines to reach completion; Jack uses cooking metaphor ('simmer,' 'oven') to explain why rushing production yields incomplete games

    high · Jack's extended discussion of development timelines and comparison to meal preparation

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball experiencing significant resurgence with younger audiences discovering the game through arcade venues, family play, and competition with video games/tablets

    high · Jack and Jeff discuss increasing pinball venues in Seattle, younger people playing more than video games, family enjoyment, women players

  • ?

    licensing_signal: JJP willing to pursue original IP (Dialed In) alongside licensed properties; original theme carries risk but can succeed with strong game design

    high · Discussion of how Dialed In was marketed as original theme despite initial skepticism; Jack empowered Pat to do original work rather than requiring licensed properties

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.062

0:00
Jeff Teels with another Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter, Pinball Profile. Email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on iTunes. It's a pleasure to be talking to Jersey Jack Coronary right now, who's here at Vancouver Flipout and getting ready for Expo. Jack, great to see you. It's great to be seen. This is a wonderful show, and I'm happy to be here. And you didn't even do cartwheels this time, did you? Well, I just got here, you know, so maybe later. And you were here at Vancouver last year as well. You had a good time? I was, and, you know, Tommy puts on a great show, and I think he kind of outgrew this place, too. Well, there is talk about next year. We'll see where it goes. But, I mean, he's really outgrown everything. I mean, it was flipper freaks a few years ago, so this is only the second year in Vancouver, and next year you're looking at bigger and better. But it's great to have you here, and looking forward to speaking. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's really nice to see more and more pinball people and more new people discovering pinball, and that's why these shows are growing, so that's very cool. I was just down in Seattle for a little bit, and I can't believe all the pinball places that there are in Seattle, so if that's just a sign of things to come everywhere, boy, you're in good shape with Jersey Jack. We're in good shape, but it's funny, a few weeks ago, we get people to our factory all the time on tours, and a father and two brothers, his sons, who were customers for a long time, came to visit for a tour. And at the end of the tour, the dad looks at me and he says, who would have thought that pinball would come back and be this big? And I just looked at them all and I said, me.
1:38
Because why would we start a pinball company if we believed that it wouldn't come back and be big? And let's be part of it. So it's really cool with all the people involved. and it's just great to see more and more people coming into the interest of pinball everywhere. As you walk around here and all the places you go, I know you're going to see the expo. What I like seeing is the younger people playing. That's the biggest thing for me, and I have sons myself. And to see them more interested in that than video games, wow, this is great. It really bodes well for the future of pinball. Yeah, it is the future of pinball, and it's really nice to see a lot of women playing games and whole families enjoying the games, so that's really good. so you know it's getting bigger and bigger. You were talking about tours. There was a famous picture that Jersey Jack put out just recently when Guns N' Roses did a little tour, and everybody knows Slash is a big, big fan. He got a dialed-in game and was looking forward to that. I think he even tweeted he's still looking forward to after the concert when he can get on that machine, so that had to be fun. Yeah, I was texting with him last night. He's in Brazil, his stop now, and then he's going to make it back to the States and New York and through some other places, and I'll probably go to one of the shows October 15th or 16th at Madison Square Garden. I mean, they put on a great show. He's a great artist, and, you know, he's, I wouldn't say he's a friend, but, you know, we've become a lot closer over the years. He's a customer for a really long time, and he's very pinball passionate, and, you know, he's a great artist. He's really an iconic guitar player. He's amazing. He is a great player and a great tour. It's good to see them back with guns. and not a friend, but you're texting him in Brazil. Put up your hand, anyone listening to Pinball Profile right now who's texting Slash right now. Jack, that's only you. It was about 3 in the morning, too, so, you know, where he was. So it's a couple hours ahead of us. Another guy who's a big pinball fan, another celebrity, a guy I ran into last fall, Jason Sudeikis. I saw him at Jersey Jack. Yeah, Jason's a great guy, and we were lucky to go to Brooklyn to deliver his game. my old country. I'm originally from Brooklyn, so any opportunity to go and you see I'm wearing the Sunshine Laundromat shirt. Pete out there, they do a really great job. The more places really everybody travels, the more pinball venues that you come by.
person
Slashperson
Jason Sudeikisperson
Ericperson
John Yauseyperson
Dave Thielperson
Vancouver Flipoutevent
Pinball Expoevent
Pinbergevent
Jay-Zperson
JPperson
Guns N' Rosesgame
Sunshine Laundromatvenue
  • ?

    personnel_signal: JJP recruited electrical engineer Eric from college; grooming as next-generation designer based on industry family background and operator father

    high · Jack describes Eric as recruited from college, having electrical engineering background, and family history in pinball operations

  • ?

    product_strategy: JJP differentiates through content-heavy LCD implementation, in-game photography feature, and Bluetooth app integration rather than hardware cost alone

    high · Extended discussion of how content investment creates entertainment value and Dialed In's unique camera and app features

  • ?

    product_strategy: JJP planning to announce fourth game at upcoming Expo; new designer Eric has completed his game design and it will be revealed soon

    high · Jack states: 'We're all looking forward to revealing his game one day soon' and confirms announcement timing at Expo

    • 3:58
    Again, we're seeing more Jersey Jack games in these venues, which is really cool. Venues and tournaments. You must have been thrilled when you saw not one, but two Jersey Jack games, and there are only three right now, in the finals on the stage at Pinberg, and chosen for the finals, dialed in your latest beauty. Yeah, and you were there, and it was very cool to see that. And the reaction of the players, you know, it's not just that you stick in a game in there, just to say you stick in a game in there. The people that played the game really enjoyed playing the game, and that was very challenging and satisfying for them too. And I heard a lot of comments from people, you know, Even today, when I just got here, a bunch of people grabbed me and told me how much they love Wizard of Oz, how much they love Hobbit, how much they love Dialed In. They don't have to say those things. They kind of had me at hello. They don't have to say that, but it never gets old. We all love to hear that. It's a team effort. It's not just me. There's a lot of people inside the company, outside the company, vendors and other people that support us and all the people in the factory.
    5:02
    It's really cool to hear all that stuff. Well Keith Johnson who was just on Pinball Profile just a few months ago was telling me about wait till you see some of the big things at Jersey Jack Pinball I already excited what I seeing right now and I know he going to be doing the code for your next game which you're about to announce at Expo. One thing that I really like when I see your latest endowed in is you brought back Pat Lawler, who is a lot of people's favorite designer. So congratulations on that. Well, you know, Pat is an amazing talent. He has a lot of passion, and he has a lot of really great ideas. And I think what our belief was let him do what he does best, you know, get a lot of the roadblocks out of the way. You really did just give him carte blanche. Yeah. You know, these things, they take time. They have to kind of simmer as you make a meal on the stove. and if you pull it out of the oven too fast, it's not done. So game development is very similar. And the really good games, I believe, they have a timeline, right? Everything has a beginning, a middle, and end. People that design things we know from society, people like to just design endlessly, and they're always going through that. But at some point, they're really amazing, and they're complete, and it's time to serve the meal to the customers. And in this case, it's all the players that want to play the game. So having Pat in the company is an amazing resource. And, you know, all the people, I mean, you know, whether they're in pinball a really long time like Pat and Keith or the people that are just joining the company to learn from the veterans in the company what pinball is and what the idea is. we want to make really great games that are fun to play. Keith talked about it's hard to come up with something new in pinball, and it really is, but Jersey Jack did a couple of things that certainly come to mind. We can thank Jersey Jack for the LCD displays that are now commonplace, and it's so gorgeous, and maybe even more of an attraction, too, whether it's on location, maybe to the youth, whatever it is, it's certainly a lot of fun and offers more from Code. Well, you know, again, I think having a game where you have total overload, sensory overload in a way, to respond to what people expect today. As we look in the room, we could see pinball machines from, you know, 50 years ago, and they're kind of fun to play, but young people today really don't respond to that. I mean, they have, you know, an iPhone in their pocket, an iPad, and a lot of other technology, so you really have to try to grab them to wow them to say, come on and try this pinball machine. So that's part of it. And the entertainment and amusement factor, you know, if you just take an LCD and put it in a game and it doesn't really have the content, and we have some amazing people doing that, you know, between Jay-Z and JP and all the people working on programming and content, And it's just a piece of hardware if you don't tell the story of the game and make it have relevance to the player to make the game fun. You know, you might as well just have a dot matrix display because you could say, well, one costs $200, the other costs $200. It's not the cost of the hardware to put in there. It's the cost of what content you put on that piece of hardware that brings the entertainment value to the game. That's really what it's about. And creating that content takes just as long as actually manufacturing the game, doesn't it? Well, you know, if you look at the game, it's several games, right? So the programming of it, you're making this amazing mechanical, fully stuffed pinball machine with true mechanical action. And then you have a video component to it where you have a lot of assets deployed in there and how it's choreographed between all the sound and music that Dave Thiel does along with all the light shows, along with all of the mechanical action and all the electronic things going on. I mean, with Dialed In, I had an idea to put a camera in a game. When I was an operator in 1977, I wanted to put a Polaroid camera on top of the game and have it take your picture when you got a high score. So, you know, the graphic is made as a Polaroid on there, and you can actually put your name. You can customize that so it says the name of the location, or your name. And when the game takes selfies for the first time and people play that, they lose their mind. I mean, they just start laughing, which is exactly what you want. And, you know, the topper, there's a little topper on the standard game right now that flashes to get a little bit of attention on a location, and you have to wave at the camera to scratch the lottery ticket, and you have the Jersey Jack app that, you know, you can control the flippers with right now and shoot the ball. and hopefully we be able to roll out more functions and features that bring fun to the experience Well fun is the key too and for old guys like myself I really get into it We talked of the youth you know they want to have more to see here We see Toys R Us going bankrupt for crying out loud because people are on their tablets and whatnot So these games kind of give that almost same sensory enjoyment that you see the kids playing with their tablets. So good on you for what you've done with the content on these LCDs. Well, I appreciate that, and, you know, on behalf of the team, it's a great thing to hear. where, you know, as far as games go, a lot of people now, a lot of what we would call millennials are really discovering board games again and discovering vinyl records. There's a resurgence, you know. People are starting, I mean, the company is starting to press vinyl again. They're actually, Crosley Jukebox Company actually decided to make a new jukebox that's, you know, a vinyl jukebox. So go figure, you know, everything old is new again. There might be hope for all my 8-track tapes up in the attic. Oh, really? I don't know. I think I have two. One is Zeppelin IV, and the other one is Captain and Tennille. Well, I definitely have Saturday Night Fever. That's for sure. It's celebrating their 40th anniversary soon. Is it warped, though? It probably is. I've probably played that like a billion times. Oh, yeah? Who didn't? It was great. Another feature we were talking about, too, about innovative, is the Bluetooth technology of Dialed In. I'm getting ready to download the app and play it and then hammer that big bang button because it looks great. Yeah. Again, it brings something to the audience that wasn't there before. And it kind of gets the game out from under the glass when you can stand next to the game or a few feet away and flip the flippers. And people see that and they're like, what kind of magic trick are you doing that you're able to touch buttons on your iPhone and flip the flippers? So technology today allows us to take advantage of a lot of things. And the challenge is, just because you can do it, is it fun for the player? And what does it bring to the game? Hopefully, on location, it brings more dollars to the cash box through the players playing more than one time, certainly. And for our home customers, which right now is still the majority of our players, it brings a lot of fun and it differentiates our product from everything else. With dialed in, something that you don't see a lot in pinball in the last, say, 15 years, an original theme. Sometimes there's a risk with that because maybe it's not an instant sell when you have a brand name. It didn't seem to matter for dialed in. Well, you know, I discussed that with Pat as I was bringing him into the company, you know, in 2013. But, you know, I think his first inclination was he expected to do a licensed game. and my first inclination was that he was the license, and his team, John Yausey and the rest of the people, they were the license. So bringing Pat back to pinball and giving him a platform where he could do basically what he wanted to do.
    13:24
    People in the beginning, when you don't know what's going on, we could have named the game anything, and there would have been people that didn't like the name. Oh, you've been reading Pinside, I guess. Not really, but I kind of anticipated this because I remember when I saw Pac-Man for the first time or I saw Donkey Kong for the first time and I said, gee, what silly names. But, you know, after I played the game, it didn't matter. So, you know, finally after some time went by and we got dialed in out there early in this year, people realized what a great game it was. So the whole name thing kind of went away. and people got, they really adopted and adapted to the game and the theme and they understand it. And, you know, in the beginning we would get asked questions like, well, am I trying to save the city or destroy it? And I would say, exactly. You know, that's what you're trying to do. Because we had a comic book that kind of explained the story and there's a comic in the attract mode, but it doesn't explain the story. you've got to play it to understand the story and you're going to figure it out any player, the game is not threatening so a beginner player that walks up to it already learns, well what do I do? well you shoot the blinking lights and you learn, you have to charge up the phone you have to go on the phone things happen on the game you go through your mini modes and your extra ball modes and things like that and you find out pretty quickly how to make things happen on the game. And I've talked to people who have played it for the first or third or fifth time, and they're already telling me they got multi-ball and they did this and they did that. And so the game has to be satisfying, especially on a location. You don't want to have something that's too difficult that somebody is not going to put more money in and they walk away from it. And then we all know everybody wants 10,000 wizard modes if they have the game at home. So there has to be a happy medium to be able to do that And I think we struck a great balance with Tile then I really proud of everything everybody did with that game The orbits and the ramps are my favorite shot Yeah, well it's obviously very Pat Lawler-esque. So you know that right flipper and the way the game feels when you're playing it, you know it's reminiscent of other games that he did and that's exactly what you'd expect. You wouldn't expect to hire a Michelangelo and expect them to do something like a different artist, right? It would be disappointing. One thing that JJP owners and operators really love is the communication between JJP and the end user. That's very, very important and very satisfying to know whatever upgrades are coming, whatever code changes, whatever the case may be, JJP is very good at that. Well, I appreciate the recognition of that, too. We have a Google group for JJP owners. There's a couple thousand people in the group. Certainly we have the toll-free service numbers where we're basically answering those phones with live people almost 24 hours a day. On the weekends, we have people covering it. At night, we have people covering it. I get a lot of calls on my phone number, too, and people are always surprised. I got a call today. Somebody had a problem, and they called me, and they were kind of shocked that I answered the phone, I mean, I always have to laugh because people say, I didn't expect you to answer the phone. Was it Slash? No. You called me, so I had to answer the phone. What are you going to tell me? So it's kind of simple. So, you know, the support is there, and we have a lot of email. And we put our games through a lot before we ship a game. We want to make sure that the game is kind of bulletproof. Even though it's pinball, we want our pinball machines to work. You're going to be at Expo in a few weeks. Tell us about your new designer. Eric is an electrical engineer. He came to our company. I kind of recruited him out of college. We really believed in him, not only for his electrical engineering ability, but I likened him to be our next designer in a different generation because he grew up in a game family. and his dad is an operator and his brother is in the industry too and he knows what good games are. So I knew that he would make a really great game because he's a really good player.
    17:59
    And that doesn't always work that way in a straight line, but we knew it would work that way with Eric. And I'm really proud of what he's done. We're all proud of him, and we're all looking forward to revealing his game one day soon. So what are the goals for JJP as we move forward? You know, continue to get better at what we do, continue to get better with production, with support, put more great games out in a timely way, and really just take care of our customers and always keep the focus on making really great, fun games. Is it tough to commit and put a hard, fast, we're going to have X amount of games per year or whatever time frame? I don't think it's hard to commit. I think if you have a target, you have something to aim for, right? So everybody in the company needs to know what we're doing. There has to be kind of a flat organizational chart where a lot of people share in information and they share the same goals so that the people in engineering and the people in production and the people in sales and the people in service and marketing, they're all on that same page in a literal way. In many businesses, we know that those different parts of companies, they're not on the same page, they're not in the same book, they're not in the same library. We are. We're pretty organized. Like any company, we could probably be a little bit better, and we're working on that. Well, does it get easier now that you're three titles in and about to announce a fourth? It does get easier. You know, it does. I mean, I don't think it'll ever be easy. You know, the world today is really not easy in a lot of industries, especially when you're designing a product. You know, I've said this many times. If we were making washing machines and we made the greatest washing machine, we could sit back and make it for 20 years. Pretty much everything we make between models, we're changing, you know, 50, 60, 70 percent of the game to the next model. And it's a difficult process. but that's what we do so it really shouldn't be that difficult for us we should be able to get better at it and predict things a little bit better and we're doing that Jack, it's great to see you here in Vancouver look forward to seeing you at Expo and thank you very much Thank you too, I really enjoyed this This has been your Pinball Profile you can find our group on Facebook we're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile email us pinballprofile at gmail.com and please subscribe on iTunes I'm Jeff Teolas
    20:32
    Bye.