Ask Jack Anything: Episode 3

Stern Pinball·video·15m 51s·analyzed·Dec 9, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Jack Danger Q&A: design process, IC roadmap, quality fixes, original themes, and anti-AI stance

Summary

Jack Danger answers 20+ community questions about pinball design, production, and Stern's roadmap in this informal Q&A video. Key topics include Premium/LE design philosophy, Spike 2 service menu updates, upcoming Insider Connected remote control features, X-Men and D&D accessory releases, quality control improvements for Star Wars and Death Star brackets, and Stern's stance against AI-assisted design. Jack also discusses his design influences, streaming plans, and the path from homebrew to professional designer.

Key Claims

Designers typically plan Premium/LE features first, then determine Pro playfield by replacing mechs with plastic stacks to reduce cost
high confidence · Jack Danger directly answers Ethan's question about design process
Spike 2 service menu will be updated across all games as staff availability permits
medium confidence · Jack states 'That all depends on the teams and their availability' but commits to the goal
Insider Connected remote system control functionality is in development after home leaderboards priority
high confidence · Jack confirms feature is coming but details timeline constraints
X-Men accessories releasing 'very soon'; D&D accessories delayed due to licensing issues
high confidence · Direct answer from Jack on accessory timelines
Fall of the Empire and Death Star manufacturing issues being systematically addressed with improved bracket design
high confidence · Jack displays original vs. new Death Star bracket parts and explains the ball rejection problem
Grandfathered Stern Insider Connected Pro pricing is locked 'for the foreseeable future' with no planned changes
high confidence · Jack relays company commitment to early supporters
Stern will not open-source older code due to IP protection requirements
high confidence · Direct and emphatic 'no' from Jack despite acknowledging appeal as enthusiast
Keith Elwin was hired after creating homebrew game Archer, which became Iron Maiden
high confidence · Jack cites this as precedent for homebrew-to-professional pipeline
Jack transitioned to marketing role while maintaining design responsibilities, not removed from design team
high confidence · Jack addresses rumor directly: 'I was promoted into a marketing space'

Notable Quotes

“Trying to control that chaos is a nightmare, but we figure it out... design a game for manufacturability, right? You can make a one-of-one anywhere, but to trust that a bunch of people out in the factory are going to replicate what you did thousands of times, man, it's something.”
Jack Danger @ Adam's question section — Reveals core tension in commercial pinball design: playfield physics chaos vs. factory reproducibility
“When an original theme comes out, most people will go, I wanted an original theme, but not that original theme, you know? So it's it's a gamble. It's really hard.”
Jack Danger @ Phil's question section — Acknowledges market demand vs. execution reality gap for original IP in pinball
“I'm pretty vehemently against AI stuff. I don't see AI helping design a layout... Pinball is still a thing that's built by hand, and we're going to try to maintain that as long as humanly possible.”
Jack Danger @ Paul's question section — Strong stance on preserving handcrafted design philosophy against emerging tech trends
“The original bracket for the Death Star is that guy right there... the new part, which will be on games moving forward, and I believe you can order as a kit if you have one of the early games, is this guy on the right. You can see dramatically different, way more open.”
Jack Danger @ John Borg's question section — Demonstrates Stern's quality control response and retroactive support for early Star Wars units
“I think a lot of pinball designers would agree with me that being able to just be in the same room with Harry Williams designing anything would be a tremendous honor.”
Jack Danger @ No Flip Pinball's question section — Reveals design hero/influence, connecting modern practice to pinball design history
“Building a physical game is the absolute best resume to get a job at a pinball company because one, it shows that you have the passion and desire and wherewithal to see a game through to fruition.”
Jack Danger @ Pinball Guy22's question section — Explicit pathway and validation for homebrew designers entering commercial industry

Entities

Jack Dangerperson Keith Elwinperson Harry Williamsperson John BorgpersonStern PinballcompanyInsider Connected (IC)productSpike 2productStar Wars Pinballgame

Signals

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business_signal: Stern grandfathering Insider Connected Pro early-adopter pricing indefinitely as retention strategy and thank-you for early feedback
high · Jack: 'if you were grandfathered into that price, you were into that price for the foreseeable future... no specific date'
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community_signal: Stern conducting 'Beat the Score' community challenge with physical badges and photo submissions; plan for weekly studio live streams
high · Jack describes badge mechanics and confirms scheduling intent, notes community 'freaking awesome' response
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design_philosophy: Original IP themes face market reception paradox: community requests original themes but rejects specific executions; Stern prioritizes licensed IP for built-in audience
high · Jack discusses Foo Fighters as 'closest thing to original theme' but acknowledges market gamble; Black Knight was licensed despite effort
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design_philosophy: Ball spin physics and manufacturability are major hidden design constraints; playfield layout design requires accounting for ball spin direction changes impacting momentum and routing
high · Jack's answer to Adam reveals surprise at ball spin impact and factory replication challenges as biggest design hurdles
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design_philosophy: Stern explicitly rejects AI-assisted design; commitment to hand-built pinball maintains as long as possible
high · Jack: 'I'm pretty vehemently against AI stuff... Pinball is still a thing that's built by hand'

Topics

Pinball design philosophy and processprimaryStern's hardware and software roadmap (Spike 2, Insider Connected)primaryManufacturing quality control and post-release fixesprimaryPremium/LE/Pro pricing and feature differentiation strategysecondaryAI in game design and Stern's resistancesecondaryOriginal IP vs. licensed themes in commercial pinballsecondaryHomebrew-to-professional designer pipelinesecondaryJack Danger's role transition to marketingmentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.78)— Jack is upbeat, transparent, and solution-focused throughout. He acknowledges problems (quality issues, feature delays, original IP challenges) but frames them constructively. Tone is casual, humorous, and appreciative of community feedback. Some resignation about market realities (original IP reception, licensing constraints) but no negativity toward Stern or the industry.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

Hey, internet. Jack Danger here coming to you with another Ask Jack follow-up question video. You sent me an alarming amount of stickers. I need more, but it's looking pretty good. Without further ado, let's get right into this, shall we? Ethan asks, "When designing for a premium Ellie model of a machine, where in the process do the add-ons come into focus? The game exclusive stuff for the premium Ellie?" A lot of designers will design with the premium Ellie as like their main focus of a game and then we figure out how to capitulate, I think that's the word, the playfield to make it more affordable for the pro by replacing certain mechs with plastic stacks. You know, stuff that still looks cool and fills up the game, but obviously we remove a little bit of that interactivity. So the idea of everything that would be in the premium andelli typically is right off the rip what the designer wants planned. So hopefully that answers your question. Kevin asks, "When should we expect more service menus to be updated on Spike 2 and which games?" That all depends on the teams and their availability, but we do need to go back and try to update all of them to that new service menu because it is spectacular. So stay tuned on that one, I guess. Dean asks, "Why has the pro side of the IC app not been expanded to give us more control remotely?" Well, that is a question we actually get a lot and that functionality is coming, but we needed to focus on like the home leaderboards, which actually was a much bigger ask from a lot of the folks in the community. But our team is working on things like that as far as like remote controlling of system settings, even the game itself. So, it's in development. going to have to be patient while we try to get all of these initiatives rolling, but it is coming. Tom asks, "Can Stern work towards better bug reporting and tracking systems?" Absolutely. Um, I know we have an email that you could send bug reports to. In my mind, I would love to see a world where the game just knows that something went wrong and that can report itself to the IC team or to the operator itself, but we could always improve in so many different avenues, especially bug reporting. And thank you to all of you that do report the bugs because we need that feedback in order to make the games better for you as a, you know, fun gaming experience. Yes, we can get better with the bug stuff. Bugs. All right. Adam asks, this is a pretty cool question. What's something that goes into game design and production that the average pinball fan wouldn't know about? Something that caught you off guard when it came time to build your first few games. One of the things that really sort of threw me for a loop is how much ball spin really impacts where that ball wants to go. On paper, you could draw all sorts of goofy guides, but that if that ball's spinning like this when it hits a guide, and then it wants to spin the other way when it hits another guide, you're losing a lot of momentum or the ball just wants to go where it wants to. Trying to control that chaos is a nightmare, but we figure it out. And uh honestly was one of the biggest things that sort of kicked me in the head when trying to lay stuff out. That and the fact that you need to design a game for manufacturability, right? You can make a one of one anywhere, but to trust that a bunch of people out in the factory are going to replicate what you did thousands of times, man, it's something. Uh, and hopefully we could show you more about that soon in a series we got coming up. Phil asks, and there's an exclamation point in this. When will Stern do an original theme? original themes have come out, not by Stern, but they have come out recently and we hear when will Stern do an original theme a lot and I get that and I'm I'm kind of in the same boat. But also when an original theme comes out, most people will go, I wanted an original theme, but not that original theme, you know? So, it's it's a gamble. It's really hard. Working with an IP comes with a built-in audience. And you know, for the success of a company, you need to leverage some of those audiences. Some might say internally, we pitched Foo Fighters as an original theme of a band traveling around, battling aliens, building giant robots, but it just so happened to have Foo Fighters music in the background. Probably the closest thing to original theme we did. Uh, Black Knight we tried, but that also was a licensed theme. So, it's not to say we don't want to do those things, but it's We can make this unlicensed theme, but it's probably not the one you want. So, it's it's tough. It's a gamble. It's a gamble. But I I hear you. Paul sent an interesting question here. Says, "Hi, Jack. Thanks for all you do to make the modern pinball experience so profound." Thank you. Uh, I didn't do anything. How do you anticipate AI be How do you anticipate AI being used at keeping games fresh over longer periods? I don't I'm pretty vehemently against AI stuff. I don't see AI helping design a layout. The term AI is also very broad, right? So, our stance is if we can do it, we're going to do it, right? We don't want to lean on machine stuff to help us do what we do. Pinball is still a thing that's built by hand, and we're going to try to maintain that as long as humanly possible. AI All right, I love this question. Josh asks, "What are the three things that are hard nos in designing a pinball machine?" The three things are, and I wrote them down here just so I wouldn't forget, smoke is a no- no, water is a no no. Lasers are a no- no, and also fire. So, those are the four nos. Honestly, we're encouraged to go nuts when we design a game, but there's a lot of things. Why don't you want smoke? soot. You know, why don't you want water? Electronics. Why don't you want fire? Fire. Why don't you want lasers? Well, with lasers, there is a lot of FCC nightmare stuff you got to go through. Lasers can be dangerous, and we just don't want to deal with that. So, yeah, those four things, smoke, fire, water, lasers. Don't do that. You could do it. I don't want We're not doing it. Ed asks, "When Stern did their survey through, let me look at the camera." Ed asks, "When Stern did their survey through email, did they really tally up all the answers?" The answer is yes. They went through all of it. The reason we sent it out is we need to know what you, the consumer, are looking for. Us designers threw some titles on there. We obviously read through a lot of Pinside of Facebook and whatever to garner some of the titles that y'all were asking for. Threw it on there. We've got all the numbers, but again, working on a project takes 12 to 18 months. So, a lot of the titles that you saw on there, whether or not we choose some of them, you probably won't see for a bit because we've already got a library of games in progress. So, the answer is yes. We looked at them. We tallied them. Thank you for those answers. They were good answers. They were good. Kevin asks, "Will we ever see new Sterns land on the pinball effects platform?" Some of you may remember many moons ago, we had a partnership with the Pinball Arcade and we were putting some games on there. I personally enjoyed playing our real games on a digital platform. I think it would be awesome to extend that with newer titles that we've created and such. I don't have any concrete answer for you on whether something like that is coming, but know that I would love to see that happen. All right, Rage Tilt. Okay, we got a question from Rage Tilt says, "Hey, hey, when can we expect uncanny X-Men and Dn D accessories?" X-Men accessories coming very soon. Dn D accessories I can't speak to. We got some licensing stuff to figure out, but I'm seeing them and they look pretty rad, so stay tuned for that. But the X-Men stuff is coming very soon. Andrew asks, "Hey, Jack. Longtime fan, first time caller. It's cute. I love you." Uh, curious about which certain pins influenced your style, both designing and overall love for pinball. O, the game that got me into pinball that actually hooked me was Judge Dread. Something about the humor and the presence of that game was awesome. But I'm a big fan of those like older goofier Gotautle games. And just from a designer perspective, uh Dan Langlo, look up his games. Radical. O such a good game. And honestly, he works here, but Ray Tanzer, Bone Busters, go check it out. Beautiful. Bone Busters may be the best pinball machine ever made. I'm just saying. I'm just putting it out there. Sure, it's not a stern, but who cares? Electric Wizzy asks, "You've announced you're coming back to streaming. Yay. But we've barely seen you stream. Boo. What are you thinking schedule-wise? There have been a lot of events and stuff going on and shows that I've had to go to that have stepped on the toes of me getting an actual schedule going, but you can look forward to at least a once a week live from Stern's Twitch. I'm going to be doing a stream on a different game here inside of the replay room and from a dead flip perspective. Just look out for those. But we're trying to hopefully starting ASAP integrating a once a week live stream from some game that is in active development here from the Stern studio. So look out for that. It'll be on Twitch. Stern's Twitch. All right. We got a question from David who says, "Will we ever see something where certain insider connected users if you play a game with them, you get a challenge coin type badge because you played a game with them?" I have been asking for this forever. I want you to find me at a show. We battle. Whether or not you lose, you get a badge because we both logged in. I think that's awesome. We're doing something adjacent to that with the beat the score thing that's going on right now, which is pretty cool, where the community is playing a game, you're taking a picture with it, and then your face, your badge becomes something for other players to chase down, which I think is freaking awesome. And we're going to be doing that for a while. So, look out for that. Make sure you're submitting those scores. But I would love to give out some badges just for battling people. So, excellent recommendation. John Low, thank you, John Low. John Low asks, "I bought a premium Fall of the Empire. I do like the game, but I had to use a Dremel to bend some side rails to get a game shown as early promotional video streams." Yes, there it goes on a little bit, but we are doing our best to up our quality, checking our quality, if you will, and trying to get some of these little nuances sooner before they leave the building. When it comes to the Death Star, I know there's been reports of it rejecting and such and something that we're putting in games moving forward. I actually have the parts here, which is wild. The original bracket for the Death Star is that guy right there. And the ball has to go through that. And what's happening is it's occasionally hitting the edges of this. And so the new part, which will be on games moving forward, and I believe you can order as a kit if you have one of the early games, is this guy on the right. You can see dramatically different, way more open, and should do the trick for making sure that when you shoot at that Death Star, and it's supposed to go in that it does what it's supposed to. So, Mr. Borg, thank you very much for this. And yes, we are doing our best to uh up and keep our quality up and hopefully we nailed it. We tested the crap out of this thing. It works pretty well. We got a question from Robbie. Robbie asks, "Wondering how long I will be grandfathered into the Stern Connect price. Thanks." So, those of you that may not know for the Stern Insider Connected Pro account, if you were already a member, you're grandfathered into that discounted price. And I'm here to tell you that if you were grandfathered into that price, you were into that price for the foreseeable future. That was the answer I was given. There was no specific date. Um, I don't imagine they're going to be changing that anytime soon because honestly, you were supporting us when we were trying to figure that out. So, that's our thank you to you. And honestly, thank you for helping us, you know, battle test all that stuff. Enjoy those home leaderboards. No flip pinball says, "If you could collaborate with any past pinball designer, who would it be and why?" I think a lot of pinball designers would agree with me that being able to just be in the same room with Harry Williams designing anything would be a tremendous honor. Um, I would love to pick his brain, know why he does what he does, where is he getting these ideas, and he's just been like Harry was just crapping out designs left and right, and like a lot of them were just bangers. And I I would just I would be honored to just look over that guy's shoulder for a little bit. Josh H asks, "Would Stern ever consider open sourcing older code or No, No, no. That that's just a no. I love the idea of like messing with the as a Stern employee. Absolutely not. As a pinball enthusiast, that sounds awesome. It's absolutely not going to happen. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We have to protect our IP. Pinball Guy22 asks, "Is there a realistic path for homebrew games like the one shown at Expo to become licensed by a company such as Stern?" Well, that's how we got Keith Elwin. So, he made a homebrew game, brought it around everywhere. I believe it was Archer, uh, and we hired him, and we used actually his design to create what is now Iron Maiden. A lot of great pinball designers over the years have come from the sort of homebrew area of things, myself included, and building a physical game is the absolute best resume to get a job at a pinball company because one, it shows that you have the passion and desire and wherewithal to see a game through to fruition, and two, that you give a crap enough to work on something for that long. So yeah, make a physical game. That is your best resume. And that goes for any company looking for a pinball designer. You need to show up with a mildly fleshed out physical game. So do it. Hoody who asks, "What non stern game have you enjoyed recently? I've been playing the crap out of Grand Lizard when I was at the Dutch Pinball Open recently. Something about the you're you're down here, you're up here, but you can move in and out." Pretty I enjoyed it. Dallas asks, "Is the rumor that you were kicked off the designing team true?" Gosh, no. I was promoted into a marketing space because I came from that universe and my stupid face belongs here in front of the camera and not locked in a room somewhere. And thankfully, I still get to design pinball machines for Stern, but I get to do it on a more marketing basis. And uh again, you're going to learn more about that coming soon. I was honored to be on the design team. I still get to make games here at Stern and now I just get to help promote them and get back to what I do best and that's yelling and swearing on the internet. Well, that about does it for those questions. Internet, thank you so much for submitting those. And as always, you can hit me up at askjacksternpinball.com or sternpinball.comjack is the form, the proper way of getting a hold of me. Anyway, look out for more questions. I love you. I'm in love with you and I'll see you on the next one.