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Pinball Industry News: July 2018 Re-cap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 5m·analyzed·Aug 2, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

July 2018: Wayne Nien turns 100, Monster Bash confirmed, Team Pinball launches, Stern outbids Spooky for Godzilla.

Summary

July 2018 industry recap covering Wayne Nien's 100th birthday celebration, Chicago Gaming's Monster Bash remake announcement (leaked via UL certifications), Team Pinball's debut EM-style game 'The Mafia' with Raspberry Pi architecture, Jersey Jack Pinball starting Pirates of the Caribbean production with single disc instead of triple discs, Spooky Pinball losing Godzilla license to Stern in a bidding war, and ongoing Dutch Pinball manufacturing crisis with ARA settlement negotiations.

Key Claims

  • Wayne Nien celebrated his 100th birthday on July 29th with Pacific Pinball Museum attendees and industry friends

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston confirmed attendance and details of the event with Will White present

  • Chicago Gaming's Monster Bash remake was confirmed after UL certification documents were discovered on Pinside, forcing an unplanned announcement

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston confirmed the cat-out-of-the-bag sequence of events via Facebook and Pinside forum discovery

  • Team Pinball's 'The Mafia' uses a Raspberry Pi single-board computer and custom PCB for all game logic and display driving

    high confidence · Martin Ayub directly observed 10 production-ready games at Team Pinball facility and played the game

  • Jersey Jack Pinball replaced the three-spinning-disc feature with a single disc due to technical difficulties getting the triple disc mechanism to work

    high confidence · Both hosts confirmed the design change and acknowledged the loss as an innovative feature that proved 'too innovative'

  • Stern Pinball won the Godzilla license in a bidding war against Spooky Pinball after Charlie and Katie Spooky's meeting with Toho in Las Vegas was interrupted by an unannounced Stern representative

    high confidence · Charlie addressed this in Spooky Pinball podcast episode 101; Robert Mueller from Deep Root confirmed Stern as license holder

  • Dutch Pinball's former contract manufacturer ARA suggested settlement discussions after receiving a 140+ page legal defense from Dutch Pinball

    medium confidence · Martin Ayub reported from Dutch Spinball newsletter; cautioned against optimism about production resumption

  • A GoFundMe campaign initiated by Dutch Pinball supporters ('Seattle 7') collected only $750 of a $500,000 goal before being shut down after 3-4 days

    high confidence · Both hosts discussed the poorly-structured campaign's failure; Jonathan Houston expressed skepticism about its execution

  • Keith Elwin, Stern Pinball designer, won the Pinberg tournament with consistent play throughout

Notable Quotes

  • “wow, it's like a book”

    Wayne Nien @ early in podcast — Reflects positive reception of Pinball Magazine No. 5 pre-production preview; indicates high-quality presentation value

  • “you almost wonder whether that kind of thing was intended”

    Martin Ayub @ Monster Bash discussion — Speculation about whether the UL certification leak was an orchestrated damage-control strategy by Chicago Gaming

  • “They're not taking any money up front. There's no pre-orders in any of this.”

    Jonathan Houston @ Team Pinball discussion — Highlights unusual business model for startup manufacturer, indicating confidence in product and avoiding presale risk

  • “well, that's just business which is a nice way of saying like screw you we just don't want you to have it”

    Jonathan Houston @ Godzilla license discussion — Cynical interpretation of Stern's licensing strategy and competitive positioning against Spooky Pinball

  • “Charlie and his son Bug offered to consult with Stern in order to make sure that the game becomes a very good game”

    Martin Ayub @ Godzilla aftermath — Demonstrates Spooky's good-faith gesture despite losing license; shows sportsmanship in competitive market

  • “if you're the big player in the industry, then you get to defend your yard”

    Jonathan Houston @ Godzilla strategy discussion — Acknowledges industry power dynamics and Stern's market dominance justifying aggressive licensing tactics

  • “no company can really afford to have a game which doesn't sell”

    Martin Ayub @ Jersey Jack Pirates discussion — Explains urgency of Pirates production for Jersey Jack's financial sustainability after 10-month delay

  • “the Chinese will say you order parts for 500 games or else we're not even talking to you”

    Martin Ayub @ Dutch Pinball production economics — Explains manufacturing scale constraints that Dutch Pinball cannot overcome without major capital injection

Entities

Wayne NienpersonChicago Gaming CompanycompanyMonster BashgameTeam Pinball / JOR GamescompanyThe MafiagameJersey Jack PinballcompanyPirates of the Caribbeangame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Dutch Pinball facing existential financial crisis; unable to refund full pre-order payments; GoFundMe campaign failed after collecting $750 of $500k goal

    high · Newsletter disclosed insufficient funds; GoFundMe shut down after 3-4 days; hosts analyzed manufacturing scale economics proving small-batch production unviable

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball demonstrating market dominance through Godzilla license acquisition; characterized as competitive yard-defense rather than product development intent

    medium · Hosts speculated Stern may hold license without manufacturing game; Charlie's offer to consult suggests community perception of aggressive tactics

  • ?

    event_signal: Keith Elwin won Pinberg tournament; demonstrated sustained competitive excellence while maintaining full-time Stern design employment

    high · Both hosts confirmed victory; noted consistency throughout tournament and final display of skill

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Industry skepticism about Dutch Pinball's recovery prospects despite potential ARA settlement; manufacturing scale economics appear mathematically prohibitive

    medium · Martin Ayub provided detailed economic analysis showing minimum Chinese parts orders (500 units) incompatible with small-batch production strategy

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jersey Jack Pinball replaced innovative three-disc spinner with single disc due to technical failures, losing distinctive feature

    high · Both hosts acknowledged loss of 'eye-catcher' feature; JJP design team determined triple-disc mechanism too unreliable; rocking ship second playfield compensation insufficient

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.196

0:00
way nine celebrates his 100th birthday monster bash confirmed as the third remake team pinball revealed their first game hi and welcome to pinball magazine and pinball news's free monthly audio podcast in which we discuss the pinball news of last month. My name is Jonathan Houston. And I'm Martin Ayub.
0:34
And we're here to talk about what happened during the wonderful month of July 2018. Right. And despite it being the middle of summer and a time when traditionally not very much happens, actually quite a lot happened, didn't it, Jonathan? I was looking at what we need to discuss and i was impressed with what quite a long list it is and as since um many people prefer short podcasts let's not get into depth too much but just go with the headlines and then see how it goes and let's try to keep this one under two hours okay yeah absolutely that suits me and i'm sure it suits everyone listening okay so let's dive straight in with the very first headline and Wayne Nyen with his 100th birthday. Yes, that was July 29th, and I'm very pleased to say that, well, first of all, Wayne celebrated his birthday. He was in the company of quite a few pinball enthusiast friends. Some people from the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda came down.
1:40
Will White came down. Actually, I called Wayne on his birthday to congratulate him, and I talked to Will White for a little bit, who was very impressed with the preview that I sent off Pinball Magazine number five. I sent that to Wayne Knight, and so he could see what I had been working on. And Wayne was very impressed. He was like, wow, it's like a book. I'm not kidding. And Will White said the same. And I think what Wayne told me that everybody was just very enthusiastic about the book. And I should be expecting a couple of orders from people who were visiting the party.
2:23

high confidence · Both hosts confirmed the tournament result as noteworthy for Elwin maintaining competitive play while employed full-time

  • “ARA's strategy has been to bankrupt Dutch Pinball by protracting it, the whole thing, and using up all resources”

    Jonathan Houston @ Dutch Pinball analysis — Articulates theory that contract manufacturer ARA pursuing attrition strategy rather than good-faith settlement

    • Spooky Pinball
    company
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Godzillagame
    Dutch Pinballcompany
    ARAcompany
    Zyteccompany
    Charlieperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    Jonathan Houstonperson
    Martin Ayubperson
    Robert Muellerperson
    Will Whiteperson
    Pacific Pinball Museumorganization
  • ?

    leak_detection: Monster Bash details surfaced through FCC/UL certification database before planned announcement, forcing accelerated revelation

    high · Someone discovered UL certifications listing 'Monster Bash' in three models on Chicago Gaming's regulatory filings via Pinside forum

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Stern Pinball won competitive bidding war for Godzilla license against Spooky Pinball, characterized as aggressive market defense strategy

    high · Charlie (Spooky) addressed in podcast episode 101; Stern rep interrupted Las Vegas licensing meeting with Toho; Robert Mueller confirmed Stern licensee

  • ?

    community_signal: Charlie and Bug (Spooky Pinball) demonstrated sportsmanship by offering consulting services to Stern on Godzilla game despite losing license bid

    high · Martin Ayub reported gesture as demonstration of 'who is the bigger man' in competitive context

  • ?

    announcement: Team Pinball (JOR Games) officially revealed 'The Mafia' EM-style game with 10 production-ready units and Raspberry Pi architecture

    high · Jonathan Houston and Martin Ayub attended reveal event two weeks prior; played game; confirmed technical specifications and artwork style

  • ?

    announcement: Chicago Gaming officially confirmed Monster Bash as third remake title after UL certification leak forced unplanned announcement

    high · Jonathan Houston confirmed discovery of UL certifications on Pinside followed by Chicago Gaming damage control announcement next day

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack Pinball Pirates of the Caribbean delayed approximately 10 months from October 2017 announcement to July 2018 production start

    high · Game announced October 2017 at Expo; first production games completed July 2018 — 10-month window noted by hosts as unsustainable

  • ?

    technology_signal: Team Pinball pioneered simplified architecture using Raspberry Pi and single custom PCB for full game control, LED lighting, audio, and LCD backbox display

    high · Martin Ayub observed and described technical implementation directly; confirmed ubiquity and replaceability of Raspberry Pi as manufacturing advantage

    • Great. And was that a pre-production preview then? Yes. Or was it just the article or just a section about Wayne? Well, that's the majority of the magazine anyway. But basically I printed like the cover story, the part done by Gordon Hesse and the part done by me. There's two parts to the cover story. And that was like 250 pages, something like that.
    2:52
    Most of the side articles I did not include. And this was just a basically I went to a copy shop. so it's black and white photocopies printed on two sides and through a plastic wrapper around that end that was it but it looked very nice usually I make a test print like that to see how photos come out when you look at them printed on paper and I still need to do that once I have all the side articles done and I'm still working on a few but we're getting there And the thing is, well, life keeps happening and interfering with my deadlines. Yeah, life, eh? Who needs it?
    3:40
    But going back to Wayne, then, he had a pretty good celebratory party there by the looks of it. I saw some pictures from the event where there was a nice, really excellent birthday cake presented to him. And I think he got an award from the Pacific Pimble Museum. He did indeed, yeah.
    4:02
    I was going to say, there was also a citation from the Arkansas legislature congratulating him on his 100th birthday and naming a number of his many achievements, including the donation of his Spirit of 76 game to the Pacific Pimple Museum. Oh, they already have games enough. Why would they need that one? Well, there's always that one more special one, isn't there, to add to the collection. Yeah, well, okay.
    4:35
    And who knows, perhaps it will have a starring role in the next show in Lodi next year. If they take that game away from him, then what's he going to do at home? The pinball game that he has at home is the only thing that sort of keeps him going to the garage and playing some pinball. If they take that game away as well, what's going to happen? The guy is going to be watching TV in his chair and that's it.
    5:03
    No, I'm serious. They shouldn't take that game away. Well, he donated it, presumably. But I don't know whether they've actually got it yet or whether that's kind of in perpetuity.
    5:14
    Well, I hope they let him keep it until he really no longer needs it. Well, we'll see what happens about that. But the important thing was to mark such an amazing milestone, reaching 100, and celebrating his career in pinball in such an impressive and enjoyable way from what I saw of everything that happened there. Right. And, well, if people don't know, in the upcoming Pinball Magazine No. 5, you can read all about Wayne's accomplishments in the industry of pinball and way beyond.
    5:54
    Excellent. Okay. When we finally go to... We'll probably know about that. Yeah. Okay, moving on then. So this past month, after much stalling and cancelled announcements, Chicago Gaming finally admitted, probably better to say that than announced, but they admitted that Monster Bash was indeed their third remake title. Right. And it came about in a rather unusual way, not their traditional way of announcing games. No. The first two, anyway. Do you want to describe exactly what happened there, Jonathan? Well, what basically happened is that they posted on, I think, their Facebook, it was that they were in the process of getting the certifications for UL and CE for their third remake. and then I don't remember who it was but someone on Pinside started to look up their UL certifications that were listed for Chicago Gaming and there it was printed clearly Monster Bash in three different models so then the cat was out of the bag and the next day Chicago Gaming probably did the best damage control that they could do basically by admitting okay you guys you caught us and we're confirming that Monster Bash is indeed the third remake and hoping that the excitement for the game will still be as big once they are ready to show the game with the extras that they are currently working on. Yeah, it was a bit of a sort of lame way of announcing it rather than any kind of... I thought it was rather amusing actually. It was amusing, and you almost wonder whether that kind of thing was intended.
    7:51
    But, you know, it still lacked the sort of punch of a big reveal of the game. Just what they wanted to do, of course, all along, is why they claimed that they were delaying the announcement, they wanted to have all the games ready to display, and in fact they haven't got any of the games ready to display at this time. Right. but at least okay so we know it's coming but we still don't know what the access will be for the limited edition and the special edition whatever they call it so of course we know there will be the big color display like we've seen on Attack from Mars that shouldn't be a surprise but then the question is what are they planning to do for a topper I guess that's it I'm not sure whether they I don't think they will be enhancing gameplay in any ways, although they could probably, but I have no idea. We'll just have to wait and see when they are ready to reveal what actions they have been working on. And of course, they have been raising the bar pretty high so far, so they better come up with something else. It's going to be disappointing to anybody.
    9:03
    Yeah, well, one company who were in a position to reveal their game was a brand new company based in South Wales.
    9:13
    And they are, well, the company is called JOR Games, and the brand with which they will be producing their pinball games, and including their first one in this, is called Team Pinball. Right. And you and I were both there, what was it, two weeks ago? Yeah, that was two weeks ago. Wow. And I have to say thank you to Team Pinball for flying me in to be part of the presentation.
    9:46
    So you and I, we both played the game. What was very impressive is this is a startup company, and they already have 10 games ready to ship.
    9:59
    Yeah, indeed. When I first went there a couple of months back and sort of wandered in, they showed me into the room where they had been building these games, or I thought they'd just been designing the games, but then to go in and they open the door and there's ten almost mechanically complete games sitting there in two rows. It's quite a sight when you didn't even know these games existed. and they do look very nicely finished. The artwork, the quality of the printing is very good, the mechanical construction of the game looks good. I like the artwork too. I have to admit that. It looks very nice. It's a very interesting approach for Pinball to use artwork in such a...
    10:50
    I don't know what the style is to describe it, but I think it looks good. So let's just backtrack and mention that the game is called The Mafia.
    11:03
    It is an EM style, it's a modern take on an EM style game. So it's a single level play field, no ramps, no real big toys on the game, just basic what we consider staples of most games these days, pop bumpers, spinners, a-spinner, stand-up targets, two flippers, two slingshots, three top rollover lanes.
    11:32
    Single ball, no multi-ball? Yeah, no multi-ball. It's a real throwback game. It does have a captive ball though.
    11:41
    It does indeed, yes. And yeah, orbit, lanes left and right. Yeah, that's about it. Yeah, LED lighting throughout. The play field is, the artwork on the play field is actually done on an overlay,
    11:57
    which rather than printing directly onto the wood, which should in theory give them increased durability and make it more easily replaceable if they need to. Right. It actually comes on a printed sheet which has a protective cover over it. So in some pictures you might see a little wrinkling somewhere where they've cut the protective cover, but the idea being that when the game arrives at the customer's house, they can pull the protective sheet off the playfield and there it is, pristine, with no marks or dust or anything on it. All that can be done in the factory if that's what the buyer prefers. Right. So I was very impressed with their effort, and especially, I'm not that much of a technical guy, but the whole thing is basically driven by a Raspberry Pi and a single PCB that they designed themselves, and that's basically everything the game needs.
    13:05
    Yeah, pretty much. A couple of power supplies. Yeah, but still you get all the modern features like, well, you got audio and music playing and voice calls. You have the RGB LEDs throughout the whole play field. So apparently it doesn't take that much to create a platform that supports that. And also there's a 10.1-inch LCD display in the back box, which the Raspberry Pi also drives. Right. So, yeah, it's a very simple processor. It's ubiquitous, readily available if anything goes wrong with it to replace it, and cheap to replace. And, as you said, a single driver board to deal with the inputs, outputs, and drive the lamps and the solenoids. Right.
    13:59
    The Gabe only has a single speaker, I should mention that, in the base of the cabinet. no back box speakers but the back box is where the LCD display is I played the game honestly maybe because it was the only game playing that I was playing but the audio sounded just fine to me I wasn't missing like speakers in the back box I thought it was maybe lacking a little bit in the top end but not too bad considering the you were able to hear everything that was going on without any problem. Right. And the game does have a soundtrack of its own, which they sourced out to a company in America.
    14:45
    You might be more familiar with what style to call it. I would call it like this piano sort of... Yeah, sort of ragtime, I would call it. Yeah.
    14:57
    When we played it, there were a limited number of voice calls, but more were being recorded that very weekend. And I think you had some input as well into possible voice calls that could go into the game. Right. So with the game being themed around the Mafia, what they did was they recorded a lot of famous voice calls from classic Mafia movies or TV shows or whatever that sort of get an appearance in the game in a sort of funny way. So it's an original theme that is borrowing heavily from licensed themes, which in a way is amusing, I would say.
    15:38
    Yeah, you're almost trying to name the movie or the TV series that the voice call came from. Right. So, but I like that kind of stuff. while the game does not remind me at all of something like Medieval Madness that humor of trying to use voice calls that sort of does remind me to like a game that also used to do that and well Medieval Madness sort of reminds of Monty Python so in a sense you can see where that comparison is coming from although it is completely two different games but I do like their approach to that Yeah and they come out they produced the first 10 production games and said, here they are, if you want to buy them, buy them, and then if you buy them, we'll make some more.
    16:34
    They're not taking any money up front. There's no pre-orders in any of this. You can see the game. They'll be taking it to a number of pinball shows this autumn, certainly the UK Pinball UK Pinfest they will be there, I know that and I think there's some other shows they're going to I think there's a show in France they're also taking the Mafia 2 beyond that I don't know it's probably a little early for them to make the arrangements for shows further afield but who knows maybe they'll end up in maybe they'll have some games for Expo maybe they'll have something next year in the US.
    17:15
    But, yeah, it's certainly an interesting game and it's an interesting design and probably unexpected, I think, in many ways.
    17:30
    You think any new company coming out now with the pinball game will try and throw in all the bells and whistles and make it as complex and as full-featured as you possibly can, but they've started off, as I said, they're walking before they start running with their first game. And the idea being it's a solid what you see is what you get modern take on an EM game. And in that regard, I think they've achieved what they set out to do. Right. So it's an interesting take, and I hope that they will be successful so that they can make a second game which will be more fully featured, so to speak. And I just hope that they get to do more pinball. That would be great. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, more pinball is always good and new ideas and new manufacturing techniques as well come out of new startup companies. There are plenty of smaller companies out there, and it's good to see another one onto that list and doing things in a different way. Right.
    18:51
    So if we move on to one of the bigger, smaller companies, if you want to call it that, Jersey Jack Pinball finally started production of Pirates of the Caribbean.
    19:04
    Yes, absolutely. the first production games were on the line and were off the line as well when they were completed I haven't seen any pictures of the finished games so I still haven't seen anything with a single disc in it yet have you seen that? well I saw a picture of a game on the line and it does have a single disc I have no idea whether the artwork it wasn't detailed enough to see whether the artwork that is as detailed as it was on the three discs. But, oh well, we'll have to see how that turns out once they're ready to show pictures. I still think it's a pity that it's no longer the three spinning discs because that was like the eye-catching thing to the players. Although I understood that the design team figured that the eye-catcher on the game would be the rocking ship, with the second play field, but oh well.
    20:07
    There are plenty of things on the play field still. So, yeah, it is a shame that that's not in there. And it was an innovative feature that we hadn't seen on any other game. But ultimately it proved a little too innovative and they couldn't actually get it to work. So, yes, we're back to the single disc. But, yeah, there's a whole lot going on in that game. so the loss of that one thing is not too bad although it obviously will detract from people's enjoyment or expectations of the game but there is apart from the rocking ship there's also the LCD display at the bottom with the compass and the disc is still a spinning disc it just spins a different way now it still will be interesting to see how Jersey Jack Pimmel will move forward. I mean, obviously this game has been heavily delayed and I'm not so sure whether they could keep the production line going all the time with just Dialed In and some Hobbits and Wizard of Oz games. So I'm assuming, and it's just an assumption, that they really need to start cranking out pirate games in order to stay healthy as a company. Let's call it that.
    21:30
    Oh, I assume that's definitely the case, yes. No company can really afford to have a game which doesn't sell.
    21:41
    And Pirates has been around while it was launched, you know, almost a year ago now. October last year. Yes, at Expo. or at least it was announced at that point and shown. Yeah.
    21:58
    And here we are, what are we, 10 months later, and the first games are going out. That's not really a sustainable model either, and I think everybody knows that, and they are certainly pushing forward with the plans to be much more in a position to ship games when they announce them. So I don't think we'll be seeing an announcement of the next game at this year's Expo. I would be very surprised if they did. Then again, we already know what it's going to be, but that's a different story. Yeah, well, knowing what the title is and knowing what the game is are different things, of course. True.
    22:37
    But congratulations to Jersey Jack for finally getting Pirates on the Line, and now let's just hope that it will be a mess of success and a fun game to play. Yeah, we look forward to seeing how the production version plays. Right.
    22:54
    Okay, so one of the other I would say smaller, but bigger smaller companies then, as you call them. What about Spooky Pinball? Because they've had some I guess bad news this time? I guess you could call it bad news.
    23:17
    This week in Pinball mentioned there was a bidding war going on for the Godzilla license and Charlie just addressed it in the monthly Spooky Pinball podcast which I recommend everybody to check out as well. Go to spookypinball.com and you will find it there. It's episode 101. what it basically came down to is that Charlie and Katie went to the licensing expo in Las Vegas where they had a meeting with Toho who is the license holder for Godzilla apparently in that meeting they were interrupted by someone from Stern walking in unannounced and not being welcome to that meeting of course and Stern went after the Godzilla license as well and basically Toho told Spooky at some point like sorry but we got another offer and we're going with that something like that happened and it was immediately I think Robert Mueller from Deep Root did some researching and he quickly found out that Stern Pimple was the party that secured the license.
    24:37
    What is interesting, which Charlie also notes in his podcast, is that Godzilla is not Iron Maiden or it's not Metallica or it's not Ghostbusters or Guardians of the Galaxy. It's not a big license world.
    24:59
    It's a worldwide known theme, But there's not any movies attached to it right now that are drawing in millions and millions of people, which is sort of what Stern usually uses licenses. They need the audience, the familiarity of a certain license to appeal to millions and millions of people in order to sell thousands and thousands of games. and here we're talking about a license that Spooky at best could have sold 500 games off and I don't think Stern will do a much better job Stern admitted that they got the license and they basically said well that's just business which is a nice way of saying like screw you we just don't want you to have it which is yeah okay they are in a position where they can do it, but it's not a nice gesture.
    25:59
    What actually was a nice gesture is that Charlie and his son Bug offered to consult with Stern in order to make sure that the game becomes a very good game.
    26:14
    I'm not sure whether Stern will take them up on that, but I think it's a nice gesture from them, and it certainly shows who is the bigger man. I'm also, well, you can still wonder, like, okay, sure, Stern gets the license, but that doesn't mean that they are going to make the game. I mean, there's always an excuse that you can say, like, oh, sorry, we didn't get to that, or whatever.
    26:39
    They just took the license off the market in order to make sure that Spooky didn't get it. Hmm, that would be a rather unkind and unreasonable thing to do, but I don't think we have any evidence of Stern having done that in the past, have we?
    26:59
    I know there have been bidding wars between Stern and Jersey Jack. We haven't discussed that much, but obviously, I think a certain... If I recall correctly, I think Star Wars was supposed to be a Jersey Jack game, and eventually Stern managed to outbid Jersey Jack, while the license originally already was confirmed with Jersey Jack. Yes, that's correct. But again, that did lead to a Star Wars game being produced by Stern. Yeah, well, but Star Wars is not Godzilla. I can see why they would be going the extra mile to make a Star Wars game, regardless of what you think of that game. But Godzilla, they might just take that off the market just to make sure that the collectors don't spend their money on a spooky game, but rather spend it on a Stern game.
    27:56
    Yeah, I guess so. It would be nice to think that kind of thing isn't happening, but we'll find out in due course. Well, it's an industry, so it is happening, unfortunately. And if you're the big player in the industry, then you get to defend your yard, I guess.
    28:12
    Okay. Well, slightly more positive stuff from Stern as well this time. They've been producing some code updates for the games Batman, Guardians, and Guardians of the Galaxy, and Star Wars. Right. And they also did go to Comic-Con in San Diego with quite a number of games. I think they had like six games on the show floor, and then they had, in the Marriott, there was a special area where people could play Iron Maiden.
    28:44
    Jack Danger was hosting tournaments there. and people who wanted to put up a high score got into some sort of final and they gave quite a lot of prizes away.
    28:56
    Yeah, and Stern also had a pretty impressive display at the ReplayFX show alongside Pinberg at the Pinberg tournament with a very nice looking stand with a sort of wire forms and sort of pop bumpers and it really stood out I think, even with a show with that many pinball machines and video games set up, Stern made a big impression, I think. Yeah, well, good for them. So obviously they have learned over the years how to make a big impression at shows. I think we've seen the setup that they use at Pinburg. I think that's sort of like the same booth that they have been using at Amusement Expo as well and some other shows. but usually at the pinball shows they don't use that booth because they team up with Marco's specialties and they sort of organize everything.
    29:52
    But it's nice to see that they moved that booth to Pinberg and Replay Effects. And speaking of which, congratulations to Stern Pinball Designer Keith Elwin for winning Pinberg. Yeah, an amazing display in the final there. Well-deserved victory, I would say. Right. He was consistent through the tournament, and that carried on into the final. So it's hardly a surprise when Keith wins a major tournament like that, but still gratifying to see that he's maintaining his high level of pinball play, despite holding down a full-time job in the business. Right. So I'm just happy for him that he's still on a consistent role as a player. And congratulations.
    30:47
    Yeah, absolutely. So moving on to a different company then. I think you got some news from your side of the, I would say, the North Sea from me and the Atlantic from some of the other listeners to this podcast. Dutch Spinball some happenings over there well I'm not sure whether there's something happening basically they sent out a newsletter and I think I don't have it in front of me but the first part of the newsletter was that their lawyers are going on holiday until the end of August so much for things happening because that basically means that there's not happening anything since basically we're waiting for lawyers to talk to each other. But the reason why they mentioned was that they apparently wrote a defense of over 140 pages.
    31:46
    And as a result, the lawyer of their former contract manufacturer, ARA, suggested to meet after their holiday to discuss whether there is some settlement possible, something like that. Now, some people got enthusiastic, and I think even Dutch Pinball themselves sort of hinted that there might be a possibility that ARA might be willing to start production again. I seriously have my doubts about that. I just think ARA wants to get rid of the parts that they have in stock and move on and never look back. but I don't see them turning 180 degrees and all of a sudden becoming their favorite new contract manufacturer and sure or building all the games so the other thing that was in the same newsletter is basically Dutch Pinball announced that they are not able to refund anybody who already paid in full because they are basically low on financials and if you know well knowing that then you might wonder like okay so what's going to happen next they're not going to spend all their money on a lawyer i guess even though they might have a strong case but still and even if their former contract manufacturer wants to settle even if they settle with where they are just giving back the parts to dutch pinball and then they still need to be assembled and there's no money.
    33:29
    So we're still looking at a problem. Yeah, absolutely. And they did try to do this GoFundMe campaign. Well, actually, that wasn't Dutch Pinball. That was initiated by people who are a couple of early achievers, as they call them, people who are paid in full on the pre-order model who wanted to support Dutch Pinball. The so-called Seattle 7. Yes, which has nothing to do with people from Seattle.
    34:02
    And basically, so they started this campaign. I mentioned last month in our podcast that I knew that was coming up and I didn't think that they thought it through very much. And basically what happened is the whole thing got shut down on Pinball massively. And after three or four days, basically the GoFundMe campaign was canceled. I think some people got a refund. They only collected like $750 of the half million that they were looking for. and even half a million was like a number that I don't think is sufficient enough to save Dutch Pinball at the moment no I'm sure that it would take quite a lot more than that to get I mean the whole campaign was really just to pay for lawyers wasn't it? well that was the idea but still I was missing all the there was nothing to it to say like, oh, yes, sure, I want to support this. There was a lack of back information or information for people wanting to know what's going on exactly.
    35:24
    Yeah, it was a very poorly written and poorly described campaign in the first place with no clear goals and no clear definition of exactly how the money would be spent or I don't know, it just seemed like a non-starter to me and as you say, it didn't last long. Right, so the interesting thing is I still believe that Dutch Pinball might be able to pull it off but they will need either a bank loan or an investor stepping in or something but I did some math based on numbers that are completely taken out of thin air, but based on that I still say, yes, this can work.
    36:14
    The game is good and the demand for the game is certainly there, but they need to go into production to make money. You can't survive as a company just by sitting with your arms crossed and waiting for lawyers to talk to each other, as has been the case. Obviously, they have been doing their homework in the sense that they wrote a defense for themselves in which they probably put all their cards on the table in which they showed the lawyers of IRA, look, this is all the documentation that we saved over the years. we can prove you're wrong on this on this on this on this on this and this and hopefully possibly the ira lawyers realize like okay if we take this to court then we might have a very bad case and they might end up winning so that's why they might want to meet like okay let's not go get this far but then the question is how much losses are willing to take in order not to in order to just walk away from the whole thing and leave Dutch Pinball to figure it out themselves because that's I think what what will happen in the end and then the question is can Dutch Pinball figure it out themselves because then they still need a big money injection so to speak in order to get production going and based on the math that I did you can't it would be very optimistic to think like oh we're going to start producing 50 games and with the money that we make on 50 games we can then build uh 75 games and then we can build 100 no it's not working like that because if you're going to manufacture games in china the chinese will say you order parts for 500 games or else we're not even talking to you or the parts get so incredibly expensive that your the whole math doesn't add up anymore and it's basically not worth it to building 50 games because they become too expensive in the first place.
    38:17
    Yeah, that sounds reasonable. But it does seem that thus far, ARA's strategy has been to bankrupt Dutch Pinball by protracting it, the whole thing, and using up all resources that Dutch Pinball might have on lawyers and legal fees to the point where they're not actually able to produce the game with Zytec because they haven't got the – Zytec want the money up front in order to build the games. I'm sure they're not willing to go on this, you know, we'll sell two new ones and we make one old one policy for a long time without getting the orders up front. So I don't know. It's interesting that they are interested in talking. You think they just wait for Dutch to run out of money? Well, the thing is, even if Scitech would be willing to start making games, they would be saying, like, okay, but we're going to have to order parts for 500 games. Who is going to pay for those?
    39:20
    Because they are a contract manufacturer. They're not a financer. That's right. So, even if Dutch Pimple wants to go into production, basically they need to find the funds to order the parts for the games that they want to be building. Even if ARA would give back all the parts and say, like, take this crap away from us and you figure it out yourself, they would have to find someone to put it together and they don't have the money to do that anymore. So, they will need a financial injection of some sort. the good news is if you have the money to invest in Dutch Pinball there's money to be made because they have a hit game on their hands and as soon as they are able to start producing the games finally they will sell I'm very confident of that so there is a big opportunity for people who would love to invest but as long as the whole our court case thing is still going on. Nobody is going to.
    40:31
    I think that's true. Yeah. Okay. So there's nothing happening there until the end of this month now. Right. So maybe in the next month's podcast, we might have a little update on that or a little inkling of exactly how that meeting went. Right. Well, the question certainly is even once that meeting happens, at the current pace I think the lawyers of ARA and Dutch Pimble are talking to each other like every six weeks so even if they have a meeting most likely what will happen is they will confirm that they had a meeting and then you won't hear something for a couple of weeks because they need to discuss internally what are we going to do so you might not hear something for six months and then it's like, okay, we heard back and we got an offer and we said no.
    41:24
    That's most likely what we're looking at. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but chances are one of the parties is not going to agree with the others, and especially if Dutch Pimble is very confident that they have a strong case, but no money, then if they would go to court and court would rule in their favor then what would they end up with? That's the question. Because if the court says, yes, you got screwed by this contract manufacturer and they have to reimburse you for all the bad street credibility that you got from their behavior, yada, yada, yada, yada. I still don't think they're going to make millions on that because it's the Netherlands. it's not America so they the question still remains even if they win in court what do they win aside from it being a matter of principle and still you have no money yeah and that's even assuming they can afford to go to court in the first place well that's another thing but okay if a court might rule in their favor but it could take years and that takes money and, well, then you're playing right up our strategy, like you said, to just play with them. Yeah, that's it, yeah. Okay, well, we'll hang far on that and see what happens.
    42:52
    So we mentioned earlier about code updates for games, but also some new color DMD titles have been released or at least announced.
    43:03
    Do you want to tell us about those? Last Action Hero, I think, has been released by now and announced has been Slugfest, which is a pinball pitch-and-bet game. Yeah, a bit of a surprise, that one. It's the first non-pinball title Colour DMD have done, isn't it? Yeah, but it is a game designed by Mark Ritchie, and you can read all about it in Pinball Magazine number 4.
    43:26
    Mark Ritchie actually did two pitch-and-bet games while he was designing for Williams. and the second one he probably went as far as he could go with a designer and it was at that time the first game with a dot matrix to even well come out of Williams even before Gilligan's Island which was the first pinball with a dot matrix so historically significant then yes and oh well but one of the later games to get to ColorDMD I guess not that many of them around well the funny thing is most of the American shows where I go to there's always a Slugfest somewhere so the game is still around you know people have it so there might be a small market for people who want to upgrade that game.
    44:32
    Hmm. It would be interesting to see it then. Hopefully next time you see it at a show, it will have a color DMD in it and we can draw our own conclusions as to how good that looks. Right. Okay. And then we have one final topic to discuss.
    44:47
    Yeah. Which is a very recent announcement by Tim Arnold from the Pinball Hall of Fame. Yeah. Done in a typically Tim way, which got picked up by a few news outlets who got kind of the wrong end of the stick after only reading the first line of his announcement and then sort of launched off and saying the Pinball Hall of Fame is going to close, which is their headline, which was also Tim's headline, but he followed with announcing it's closing because it's moving to a brand new location actually on the Las Vegas Strip just with a plot which they have just recently purchased. It doesn't actually have a building on it yet, so they've got to build the new home, but they have bought this long strip of land to the, I think it's the south end of the strip. Right. just beyond Mandalay Bay and just before the world's largest Harley Davidson franchise and very close to the sign, the iconic sign the Welcome to Las Vegas sign which everybody seems to want to stop and take pictures of yeah but that's really out of Las Vegas, that's like you're still on the freeway almost there kind of yeah certainly there's a central median there where with trees and things. So it's not, it won't be visible entirely in one direction. So they're going to need to get a big sign put up to show it is the Pinball Hall of Fame. So it'll draw people in. But it is right, it just backs onto the airport there. And, you know, it should be a lot more accessible than the current location on Tropicana, which is, Tim says, is 3.2 miles from the strip. And he sees that as something which turns a lot of potential visitors to the Hall of Fame. I think he made an interesting comparison saying that the money that people pay for a cab ride is probably more than they spend inside the Pimble Hall of Fame because all the games are on a quarter.
    47:12
    Or at least most of the games. Well, the older games are certainly, yes. yeah he does say that reduced fares from Uber and companies like that have helped getting people in at a more reasonable price but still if you know something over three miles away from the Strip and a lot of people I would guess who are potential visitors there just don't really want to go that far from the Strip they just sort of go up and down and go to the casinos there and the restaurants and marvel at the various attractions on there and if you suggest to someone they need to go or get a taxi ride or hop on a bus and take a long ride to get to the pinball hall of fame they'll opt to do something more locally instead so yeah this is a good move for him Is it still walking distance from the strip? That's the big question because I know where the sign is and that's not a place where you would walk up from the strip because that's just too far well I guess people do go to the Harley Davidson dealership down there which apparently earns more money from merchandise sales than it does from bike sales that's a very popular attraction so I guess if they're going that far they will pass the Pinball Hall of Fame on the way a big sign will be needed because what you don't want is people driving out of town like oh right there was the Pinball Hall of Fame we should have gone to that and then, oh, well, now we're on our way out.
    48:45
    Yeah, an interesting little tie-in, actually, I was thinking of earlier with Harley-Davidson because that was one of the companies that Dave Peterson, the Peterson company helped turn around earlier on before they got involved in Stern Pinball Right And that was where Dave Peterson sort of learned the business of financial restructuring Right. And to continue on that, inside at Stern, or internally at Stern, they still refer to the Harley-Davidson model for their own games.
    49:23
    There's a big similarity, and they are really applying that. I talked to Gary Stern, was it last month, this month? I'm not even sure anymore.
    49:34
    No, it was this month. Gary Stern and DocScore, who recently switched from Chicago Gaming to Stern Pinball, did a European trip to introduce DocScore to Stern's distributors here in Europe. as Gary is stepping down a little bit and he wants to travel less internationally and all that kind of stuff. So I was able to do an interview with Gary Stern, which will be published in Pinball Magazine No. 5. And in that interview, he referenced a couple of times the Harley-Davidson model as the three-legged stool, as we all know it. But even for Harley, it's like, okay, you got your professional users, you got your rec room users, and there's the collectors. So in that sense, Stern is applying the same model, and it's working out for them pretty good.
    50:42
    Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So just a little tie-in there with Harley-Davidson. Of course, there's the Harley-Davidson pins, so you can imagine. Several. The Hall of Fame might go knocking on the Harley-Davidson dealership's door and say, oh, by the way, we've got all these Harley-Davidson pins here you might be interested in. Right. And they could do a kind of tie-up to put machines donated by the Pimple Hall of Fame just up the street and maybe get some of that traffic as well. Now, I'm curious. I read the whole thing, but I didn't understand most. Well, I understood most of it, but there's a fundraiser going on. There is a fundraiser because although the Hall of Fame, the Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club, who run it, have built up a sizable cash account from their running of the Hall of Fame as it is now. that wasn't enough to actually buy the plot of land outright. They needed a bridging loan of around about a million dollars, and that obviously attracts interest all the time it exists. So they need to pay that down as quickly as possible so they're not paying the money on interest anymore. and then they obviously need to start building up a fund to build the building on the new plot because at the moment there's nothing there and that will probably take, you know, two million to build the home that they want.
    52:23
    And of course, in the meantime, they need to keep the existing place running so it's not like you can sell that straight away and get the money to build the new building because they need to have two buildings running for a while they do the transition from Tropicana to the Strip And then once they've done that, they can sell the current location and use that to pay off the cost of the new building. Right.
    52:49
    So that's why they're doing this fundraiser of selling memberships to the Las Vegas Pinball Collector Club for varying amounts and getting varying rewards for doing that. But the key thing is to support the Pinball Hall of Fame in their move to a new, bigger, and it will be at least three times the size of their current location. Wow.
    53:18
    Yeah, their new home. I think they've probably got the machines to go in there, exactly how they're going to deal with the maintenance issues. Well, that's the key thing because a lot of people who have been to the Pinball Hall of Fame And no disrespect to Tim Arnold, but a lot of people are complaining, okay, so I play this EM game for 25 cents, but the flippers are weak, or this, or that's not working. And that's, you know, if you're working with volunteers like Tim is, then you obviously don't get trained pinball technicians. So you can train people maybe to do some of the easy tasks, but you'd really need games to be playing in good condition. And the problem with pinball machines is, even if you have them working in good condition today, that doesn't mean that they will be playing in good condition next week.
    54:11
    No, because a place that size and with a higher profile location is going to attract more visitors. That's the whole point of the move. So, yes, the games, especially the more popular games, are going to get played even more than they are now. So I think a serious rethink about exactly how they deal with that and how they run the place is probably well overdue. They've done an amazing job to get to this point, but this is a significantly different operation if it's three times the size. Right. Well, currently they have like 200 games at the Tropicana address right now. and that's already difficult enough to maintain technically i mean um i remember talking to tim a couple of years ago where he's basically complaining how much time it takes him to empty the cash boxes from all the games um that takes up so much of his time and he can't do any repairs during that time but he doesn't trust anybody else to do it because he's afraid that they might run with the quarters.
    55:21
    Yeah, so I mean, it needs a real rethink about how the place is run when you're dealing with that volume of customers and cash flow. Right. I do have to say, I'm always surprised, even if you go on a Tuesday morning to the Pimble Hall of Fame,
    55:40
    there's still 40, 50 people in there any time it's open. and seriously that's just amazing to me I mean they hardly don't do hardly any advertising or whatsoever just big one yellow sign Pimple Hall of Fame and people manage to find it and 30-40 people in there any time of day and that's impressive I mean it is certainly a dedicated hardcore of people who are there all the time. I went there several times on my last trip and I did see some of the same faces day in, day out. So it seems like people have a kind of routine almost that, you know, get up, have breakfast, have a coffee, go to the Hall of Fame and then do whatever else they're going to do, whether they go to work or on vacation and they go to other attractions. I do have to say the Pimple Hall of Fame is probably the cheapest amusement you will find in Las Vegas.
    56:43
    Yeah, true. And if you're into pinball, probably also the most fun. But so with the new location being like three times the size of the current one, I don't think, and I certainly don't hope that Tim is intending to put there 600 games because that would be like, it would be insane in a good and a bad way because try maintaining 600 games. That's going to drive you crazy. Well, there's no point moving to a bigger location unless you can put more machines in there. Sure, but 600 would be like... Well, 500 maybe. It's going to be three times the size. Unless you're going to start doing other things or subletting some of the space out to other companies to get some income that way. Or maybe doing lectures and training areas and that kind of thing. Or business events or whatever. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, you could have, obviously, you could have a sort of corporate area or a party area where you put a selection of games in there, maybe duplicates that you have, which could be hired out, which would otherwise not be on the floor because they wouldn't have two of the same games on the floor. But if they put them in a different room with dedicated access, then, yeah, that could be a good fundraiser too. Right. Well, I do wish Tim best of luck. Yeah, good luck. And do support his fundraiser because I would love to see this happen and get them to move to this new location and preferably without a large depth that keeps increasing because of the interest. So please do support this initiative. Yeah, details of the fundraiser are on Tim's Facebook post for the Pinball Hall of Fame and also on the story on Pinball News site, which gives the details of the fundraiser too, as well as some history of the Pinball Hall of Fame's locations. Right. So I guess this wraps up our summary for July 2018.
    58:57
    Any specific highlights coming up this month? Oh, yeah, I'll put me on the spot there. This month being August.
    59:07
    We've got the UK Pin Fest. Well, there's some shows. Yes, I say there's some shows coming up. UK Pin Fest where Home Pin will be there. Mike will be there as well showing Thunderbirds game and doing a seminar all about it as well, which will be streamed live. Details will appear on the UK Pinfest website.
    59:30
    And also Dennis will be there as well with his Kill Bill game, and he'll be doing a talk about exactly how he and the others in his team made that game from World Cup Soccer. Excellent.
    59:44
    Other than that, I'm sure there are other shows. I should look at the diary on Pinball News and confirm it all. But other than that, we're not expecting – are we expecting any announcement yet? I think maybe we are expecting an announcement from Stern Pinball this month. Actually, yeah, people have been speculating. We might see the reveal or the announcement for Deadpool. Yes, that's what everybody's expecting. And so far, most of these expectations have turned out to be right. so if that is indeed the case then Deadpool, the George Gomez design will be announced at some point during August Right, I don't see it well, the thing is this CERN obviously have a winner on their hand with Iron Maiden so as long as they are cranking out Iron Maiden and selling them there's not really a need for them to start production on Deadpool no absolutely not but they do i'm sure they have a schedule that they want to want to hit um if they're doing a couple of reveals at pinball expo in october they need to give some breathing space between announcements so i don't want to announce deadpool in like september and then then a month later announce two more titles well because i won't get deadpool much of a much of a day at the One of the things that sort of got confirmed by Joe Kamenko in, I think it was a Head to Head Pinball podcast, is that one of the Kapow titles that was originally scheduled to be released at Expo is now scheduled for January. And that would be Beatles.
    61:23
    So at Expo, CERN is only going to reveal one new game, Monsters. and so Deadpool and Monsters might still be close together and even, who knows Stern might even say like hey if we're selling this many Iron Maidens let's just keep on selling them and we'll do Deadpool at Expo and we move Monsters to January and Beatles can wait well I doubt that but in theory they could I mean who knows Yeah, true. Yeah, they do have that flexibility in their production. But, yeah, it could mean they end up with other designers or designers on other teams and other team members as well. I am pretty confident that... They're twiddling their thumbs, wondering what they're going to do next when their title, which they finished ages ago, is still not on the line. Well, usually extra time for designers is usually a good thing, especially for the programmers involved. because I think that especially what happened with Iron Maiden is hopefully the model of the future for Stern Pinball in the sense that they present a game that is within a couple of weeks after being announced already at software code 1.0 and not waiting two years to be completed and immediately shipping the game. and shipping within a week.
    62:56
    Yes, that's how Stern roll. And that's how other companies are trying to emulate as far as their production schedules go with varying degrees of success. But yes, announce the game and take orders and ship them within the week or very soon after.
    63:18
    But anyway, that's what we're looking forward to. this month. I can't think of anything else. Well, I know that Jack Danger did stream Alice Cooper from the Spooky Headquarters, and there was also a stream of Cosmic Card Racing. I think it was on the Buffalo Pinball streaming channel.
    63:44
    But there's not much news to report on that, other than that those games are in production. Gary Stellenberg did announce that all orders have been fulfilled for the P3 which means that it's a good thing not sure whether that also means that they don't have any orders to fulfill whether that's a good sign yes I was wondering that as well does that mean that they're not actually making any more then at the moment that could be to be honest I haven't been that well informed so that's something that we might have to cut back to next week next month sorry absolutely so we did say we're going to wrap this up fairly quickly so let's do that thank you very much for listening to this combined Pinball Magazine and Pinball News monthly update podcast I'll wish you all the best and until the next time and I'll give the closing words over to Jonathan. Thank you very much Martin Always a pleasure doing this podcast with you.
    64:52
    Both of us will be attending the UK PIN Fest later this month. So in case you happen to be over there, do come say hi. We'll both be there. And if else, who knows, we might run into each other at another show and then we look forward to seeing you there. So until then, thank you and bye-bye. And goodbye.