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Steve Ritchie

Pintastic New England·video·1h 3m·analyzed·Jun 3, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Steve Ritchie career retrospective and Stern factory tour at Pintastic New England.

Summary

Steve Ritchie, legendary pinball designer, delivers a career retrospective presentation at Pintastic New England covering his journey from childhood arcades through founding roles at Atari and Williams/Stern. He discusses early influences, design philosophy emphasizing collaborative teams, famous games like Flash and Star Trek, and provides extensive factory tour commentary showcasing Stern's production operations, personnel, and manufacturing challenges.

Key Claims

  • Flash was Steve Ritchie's largest selling game ever and took about a year to produce all units

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie, discussing his game history at Pintastic New England

  • Flash outsold Steve Kordek's previous production record, causing tension between the designers

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie recounting Flash's success and Kordek's reaction

  • The new Stern factory building is approximately 130,000 square feet with only about half currently in use

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie describing the new Stern facility during factory tour

  • Stern is currently behind in production due to supplier problems and has growing pains with two operational production lines

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie discussing production status at Stern factory

  • A typical pinball machine contains approximately 4,000 parts

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie citing part count during factory tour

  • Claude Fernandez copied half of Black Knight when Ritchie was designing it and later worked on Flash Gordon for Bally

    medium confidence · Steve Ritchie discussing design theft allegations during presentation

  • Steve Ritchie has never opened a pinball machine from production that was working perfectly except once in Germany with Star Trek

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie discussing manufacturing quality during presentation

  • Atari's rotary solenoid flippers were made from lead X's, which were channel changers for old shortwave radios, and failed frequently

    high confidence · Steve Ritchie recounting Atari's equipment choices and engineering failures

  • Wyman Sheets is described as probably the best programmer currently at Stern

    medium confidence · Steve Ritchie commenting on Stern staff capabilities

Notable Quotes

  • “Pinball is my life. It has been for, wow, ever since I can remember.”

    Steve Ritchie@ 1:14 — Sets the presentation theme and establishes Ritchie's lifelong commitment to pinball

  • “I could do better than this. I just, you know, I want to try it.”

    Steve Ritchie@ 10:01 — Describes his motivation after seeing poor game design at Atari, leading to his own pinball design career

  • “A Steve Ritchie game is not just Steve Ritchie. I've always had good teams and friends, you know, to help out.”

    Steve Ritchie@ 23:25 — Expresses his collaborative design philosophy and team-based approach to game creation

  • “I love to hear ideas. If you have a good one and you want to give it to me, I'll take it. I'm not insecure about it.”

    Steve Ritchie@ 23:33 — Reinforces his openness to team input and lack of ego in design process

  • “It is a pain to make a pinball machine. It's just a pain.”

    Steve Ritchie@ 24:24 — Candidly acknowledges manufacturing challenges and complexity

  • “There's always something wrong in a box.”

    Steve Ritchie@ 20:06 — Reflects on persistent quality control challenges in pinball manufacturing

  • “You just get out, right? You don't stick around, do you?”

    Steve Ritchie — Humorous response about the one perfect machine he witnessed—he left immediately

Entities

Steve RitchiepersonStern PinballcompanyAtaricompanyWilliamscompanyHarry WilliamscompanyGottliebcompanyFlashgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern is currently behind in production due to supplier problems and experiencing growing pains with two operational production lines in new 130,000 sq ft facility

    high · Ritchie states: 'We are Pinball a bit behind in production right now due to some supplier problems. And so we've got to a lot of catching up to do.' Also describes manufacturing as painful and complex.

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern factory maintains active production of multiple simultaneous game titles with dedicated quality control and testing personnel

    high · Factory tour photos and descriptions show QC lead Barty, testers, inspectors, engineers, and assembly lines for Game of Thrones, Ghostbusters, Medieval Madness

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Professional rivalry between Steve Ritchie and Steve Kordek after Flash outsold Kordek's previous production record; Kordek excluded Ritchie from Christmas presents given to other designers

    high · Ritchie recounts: 'It stole Steve Kordek's production record away and he was mad at me from then on... he gave everybody... a Christmas present, I didn't get one ever.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern maintains robust technical staff including mechanical engineers, programmers, testers, QC personnel, and specialized roles demonstrating commitment to quality production

    high · Extensive factory tour identifying Rob Leitman (mechanical engineer), Wyman Sheets (programmer), Raina (harness engineer), Roberto (inspector), Lewis (playfield inspector/polisher), and others

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Claude Fernandez allegedly stole half of Black Knight design while Ritchie was developing it, then worked on Flash Gordon for Bally

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.192

0:00
I know that our next guest has done some video games from time to time and has done some slot machines. A lot of those video games were driving games, which would be no surprise to many of you.
0:16
And the presentation, though, is entitled Pinball is My Life, and I think you'll see good justification for that. There will be some time for questions, and when we do the questions, I'm going to have you line up and come down the side of the room here. So if you remember how we did it last year. So when you have a question to ask, don't ask from way in the back. Come down to here. All right? So without further ado, here's Steve Ritchie, and we need to just get this launched, and then we'll go.
0:50
It's great to be here. I've never been out to the show, and it's like, it's a cool show. So maybe they all are. I don't know. I do like pinball. I'm trying to set this up here. I'm just going to put a picture up there for now.
1:11
Why isn't it working? Because I don't know how to work it. Anyway, pinball is my life. It has been for, wow, ever since I can remember. And there were times when I couldn't play or couldn't think about it in my past. but I grew up in California.
1:30
@ 20:16

  • “I know I'm good looking. I know I'm good looking.”

    Steve Ritchie@ 26:44 — Anecdotal comment about factory staff member, illustrating his observational humor

    • Superman
    game
    Star Trekgame
    Black Knightgame
    Airborne Avengergame
    Game of Thronesgame
    Ghostbustersgame
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Steve Kordekperson
    Claude Fernandezperson
    John Borgperson
    Wyman Sheetsperson
    Wei-Sheng Wesley Changperson
    Bob Jonasyperson
    Eugene Jarvisperson
    Pat Lawlorperson
    Barry Ouslerperson
    Pintastic New Englandevent

    medium · Ritchie states: 'He stole half of Black Knight when I was making it, went to Bally and started on Flash Gordon. Half the game.' Claims first two-level machine design priority.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Steve Ritchie emphasizes collaborative team-based game design rather than solo designer model; actively solicits input from programmers, engineers, and artists

    high · Ritchie: 'A Steve Ritchie game is not just Steve Ritchie. I've always had good teams and friends... I love to hear ideas. If you have a good one... I'll take it.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steve Ritchie transitioned from Atari to Williams (Harry Williams) via recruitment by Mike Stroll and Steve Kordek in the mid-1970s

    high · Ritchie describes receiving job offer from Harry Williams, flying to Chicago, and designing Flash upon arrival

  • ?

    product_concern: No pinball machine from production ever arrives in perfect working condition except one Star Trek unit in Germany; manufacturing defects are persistent

    high · Ritchie: 'I have never opened up a pinball machine and had it working perfect except once.' Audience asks 'How long did it take to break afterwards?' Response: 'I left town.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Atari's rotary solenoid flipper design, sourced from shortwave radio channel changers, was fundamentally unsuited for pinball and frequently failed

    high · Ritchie describes rotary solenoids as 'total damage' made of 'lead X's, which are channel changers for old shortwave radios' and states 'They would fall apart' under pinball use

    • I think it was 1955, the first time my dad took me to this place called Playland at the Beach. It's a very old amusement park. It's gone now in San Francisco near the Cliff House.
    1:43
    That was the first time I ever played pinball. It was so weird because the pinball machines were bolted to like a big shelf. You couldn't wiggle them or do anything. You know, you just, and it was weird. Anyway, he took me there a few times. Then my next, you know, my parents were going to a bowling league, so I would always go to Seaball in Pacificville with them and play these machines. And there would be Gottlieb games there, mostly Gottlieb, occasionally a Williams. And it's like I would play them. I think there were like three games for a quarter at that time. And I would try to win some replays, and occasionally I would. I'm not a great player, but I do okay. Back then I didn't do very well, I don't think. Didn't get many free games. But one day I was there, I guess it was one night, and something was wrong with the machine. It was out of order, so a guy came in and took the glass off. He lifts up the play field, and I'm standing there looking at it. And it's a Gottlieb game. and stuff inside was all shiny and cool. It was like he told me, he said, godly machines are the Cadillac of the industry. And I said, well, how does it work? And he'd say, I'd have to spend hours to tell you. I did know about electricity. I was also, I don't know, when I was a kid growing up, my teachers sort of voted me most likely to be a mad scientist in a toy factory.
    3:16
    That's what I grew up to be. It's been fun. Crazy, too. I like to tinker with stuff. I'm an idiot, too. That's how you learn things, if you're an idiot on the way.
    3:30
    I had a Honda CB350. I took the baffles out of the pipes. I was commuting from San Jose to San Francisco in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. You're over Wayne Island. I was in the Coast Guard. So I took the baffles out and when I drove through San Francisco, okay, the pipes rattled the windows on North Beach, you know, Van Ness Avenue. And it's amazing that I did it for this long. So I had them out for about a week. And then I went home one night on Highway 101 and just opened the bike up all the way. And it just went poof and the engine just locked up. I squeezed the clutch, pulled over to the side, asked for help. Anyway, it turns out that if you don't adjust the fuel mixture, and you take the baffles out of the pipe, things get real hot. I melted holes in the piston, both of them. So I picked up the engine after I took it out of my bike, way down like three floors below, brought it up to my kitchen table apartment, and ripped into it over the manual. It was kind of interesting, and I did fix it. Anyway, back to pinball.
    4:42
    Pinball, later on, I played some when I was in the Coast Guard, but not too often. Didn't have a lot of opportunity. I spent four years in the Coast Guard learning electronics with the hope of becoming an electronics technician, you know, or something, engineer when I got out and used the GI Bill. Well, by the time I got out of the Coast Guard, I hated electronics. I didn't want to have anything to do with it. I just didn't. I knew what I wanted to know, and the mystery was gone. I don't know. It wasn't that cool for me. So I played in a bunch of rock bands, played pinball pretty often that time when I got back. I guess I got out of the Coast Guard in 1972. Played in a bunch of bands, painted address numbers on curbs. I owned a plant store, a tiny little room. My wife and I, Diana, would operate this plant store, make hardly any money. But I was always playing music, always being in bands, and making very little money. And I just got tired of being poor. And we moved to San Jose to another apartment, and I was walking around looking for a job. And I walked into Atari. And Atari was, okay, I'm a pig. Here's the deal. When I walked in there, there were so many beautiful young ladies just running around. I mean, it was interesting. And they had stereo everywhere in the building, including in the reception area. And it was all done kind of hippie stuff, like shingles on the inside and, I don't know, barn wood. It was very weird. And I ended up speaking to a guy, and I got a job there as an electromechanical technician. So thanks. It isn't there, though.
    6:31
    That's interesting. Okay, good. Is it upside down? No. Okay, this is a picture in the factory. We'll get to that in a minute. Anyway, so I walked into Atari. The first thing they gave me was a universal tester. They wanted me to build it and design it. And I did know how to do that, and so I made a universal tester for all the different games with, you know, all the voltages you need to plug in the board. So you just take a board and put it in there, and you had a steering wheel and joystick so you could play tank or what was it? Grand Track 10. Track 10, that's right, Track 10, tank, all those cool games. And then after that, I built burning ovens using bus bar and asbestos-covered wire so we could burn, you know, 100 boards at a time. Anyway, one day, I guess it might have been Nolan Bushnell or another vice president, probably Gene Lipkin, yeah. And he said, would you like to be employee number two of our pinball division? I didn't know we were going to make pinballs. And I thought, wow, we're going to make pinballs here. I mean, it was not a product that Atari could build while I was there. I mean, there was nothing. There was no line. I mean, these were all electronic games. There was lines, but just for video games. You know, you slap in a power supply and a control panel and the PC board and the monitor and speakers, and you're kind of done, and pinball is much more labor-intensive. So I was amazed that they were going to do this. So he gave me the job of overseeing the pinball lab, and then they hired this guy, just one other guy. They hired him before me. His name was Bob Jonasy, and he came from Williams to Atari. And he said he was a game designer, but he really wasn't, I found out later. He was an engineer, a mechanical engineer. Not that he didn't know how to put together pinball machines. He did. And he taught me how to assemble one, how things go.
    8:39
    And then we got a couple of machines, and then I could really dig into them. We got a space mission, I think, and then Captain Fantastic.
    8:50
    So both great games, you know, and it's like I got to get in there and move the pins around and change the scores. And he would come in and yell at me because I changed them. He would say, this company's never going to build pinball. And we almost didn't. I mean, it was like it was a miracle that it came together. So I built prototypes for him of Atarians. maybe the worst game on earth, Time 2000. A set of flippers over here and a set of flippers over here. Your brain didn't know what to do. You tried this.
    9:23
    You tried that. It went like that. But when the ball went over there, your instinct was to hit the left button even though, even, I don't know.
    9:33
    And then they tried this and it was even worse and this is how they produced it. You press the right flipper button and both flippers flip over here and both flip over here. It was ridiculous. I think the central feature was a captured jet bumper.
    9:49
    And they even ruined that kind of because it stayed in there too long. So they changed the angle of the rubber to get it in and out. So the one feature was kind of dead. And anyway, I did laugh because I just couldn't help it. And I started thinking, I could do better than this. I just, you know, I want to try it. So I went home. Let's see. a piece of plywood and a sheet of mylar, drawing mylar. And I drew a game on it. It was called Airborne Avenger. I didn't know that that was going to be the name of it until later, but I did name it. I remember Roger Sharp in his review, he said, Airborne Avenger, you have to spell that out. That's a mouthful.
    10:33
    It was. It was ridiculous, okay? This is a guy, you know, it was just a goofy kid. I mean, it's like a dopey game, but I did learn how to make pinballs, and we sold some. After that, I worked on Superman, and Superman was a much better game. I ended up doing like five Whitewoods on the way. I mean, just one after another. I hated different things about it. On the fifth Whitewood, though, it played pretty good. And I met Eugene Jarvis there also, one of the great pinball programmers and game programmers of all time. And we became good friends. And wow, that's a story in itself.
    11:13
    Anyway, we made those two games together, Airborne Avenger and Superman. And they wouldn't really let me. My boss would not let me make a pinball machine. I had to take my drawing to Nolan Bushnell and say, can we make this? And he said, did you do that at home? I said, yes. Then we can try it. So he gave me a drafting table and a cubicle, and I was a game designer.
    11:42
    Anyway, after Superman, actually it never even came out, I ended up getting an offer from Williams that I could not refuse. And watching Atari stumble and fumble and bumble, everything, playfields coming in from Chicago, you'd open the back of the truck and they'd all be warpy. and we didn't know how to fix them. We didn't know anything. Even the bosses, nobody knew.
    12:09
    I mean, it would be humid in Chicago. It'd get to California and it'd be dry and the wood would just bang. There were thousands of other problems. Ad Poster also made our back glasses in Chicago. In fact, almost everything was imported from there. Bally, flippers, and of course these rotary solenoids which were total damage. This is a bunch of clowns and I say that respectfully, okay, Nolan Bushnell, Al Alcorn, a bunch of guys in the design department, Pete Takahichi, they're all sitting around going, wouldn't it be cool if the displays were down here, where no one could see them?
    12:50
    Where they were totally worthless and kind of not working all the time, a mess, okay? And we want to use Rotor Solenoids, that was Nolan Bushnell's baby, made of lead X's, which are channel changers for old shortwave radios. Automatic. I mean, if you were on the bridge and your radio was down there, you could change the channel on the radio up there or down here on this deck. That's what they were designed for. Not for wham. Not for flippers. They would fall apart. I don't know if you guys have ever seen an Atari rotary flipper or just a mess, a train wreck. We had a, I guess three or four of us went to Nolan and finally said, can we stop doing this? Can we just do linear solenoids? Can we make flippers with plungers that get pulled in like everybody else? And finally he said yes. So they ended up being on Superman and from then forward. All right, getting back to the offer from Williams. This guy Mike Stroll, he comes out to California, he brings Steve Kordek with him. And he was a charismatic guy, definitely. He was like a, I don't know, he had a great personality. He was definitely a salesman, but he was also an electronics guru, and he had come out to Chicago from California from Silicon Valley also. So I was very interested to go, and they made me a great offer, and I packed up everything. We flew to Chicago, and on the plane, this is the only time this has ever happened to me ever. I had a napkin drawing of a game that I wanted to call Flash, with a cross shot, because, I don't know, I think, you know, 4 million BC kind of influenced me. That whole, you know, that Ted Zale, man, he was like way ahead of his time.
    14:43
    Anyway, I had the name, and I knew that I wanted to have flash lamps in the game. Because, you know, you get in your car, you step on the brake pedal, and you get a bright red, you know, flash. It's super bright. And I knew we had the voltage and the power to do it, but I just wanted it to be dazzling and entertaining, make you feel like you hit a jackpot. It was a cool idea, but it was more difficult to do than we thought. Yet they did do it. The magic was preheating the element before hitting it with all the voltage. So Flash was my largest selling game ever. Maybe that's when I was the most motivated in my life. I don't know, I think some of it was just luck.
    15:28
    We actually sold boxes that had xenon flash tubes in them. And when we showed the game, it shows way up high above you on poles, they would light up the whole game area. Four or five of them would go off at once. And you could feel the flashes that you were causing, but there were other machines that were causing them also. Anyway, it was a good game for us. I think it took us about a year to make them all And it stole Steve Bardak production record away and he was mad at me from then on He was a good man I not going to say that he wasn but you know he gave everybody, all the other designers, Barry Osler, Dennis Norman, my brother, you know everybody else got a Christmas present, I didn't get one ever. So it's like, okay. I mean, I didn't do that to Pat when he stole it away with Adam's family.
    16:27
    Super game. You can't deny it. By the way, I have favorites of every designer that ever made a pinball machine, except Claude Fernandez. I'm not a fan. He stole half of Black Knight when I was making it, went to Bali and started on Flash Gordon. Half the game. So we weren't the first two-level machine. We were the, we don't know. Actually, we do know. I did it first, but he copied it. Isn't that a horrible story? How many people know that? Am I lying? No. He stole other things too. That's what he did. All right. Maybe I should get this picture of Jazz out of the way. I have a picture here. On the other window. Two taps should open that, right?
    17:21
    Okay, now I can go through. Okay, these were taken, this particular picture was taken, I don't know, a couple months ago, I think. Maybe, yeah, a couple months ago. These are Spider-Man VR on the On the line, I should have taken some pictures when people were in the factory, because normally it's full, but I wanted to have factory pictures that looked like what you saw when you walked through at 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, something like that. That's about the only time where I had it. This is upside down. How can that be?
    18:00
    Are they all? No, it's not upside down. Okay. It's like, how do you get into your computer and turn the slide over? You don't.
    18:09
    This is, I don't know how many of you have been to the factory, but I've got to stare at this. Yeah, this is a bunch of toppers for Game of Thrones, upper play fields.
    18:20
    It's interesting to watch all these people mass produce these things and make 60 to 70 a day, sometimes less, sometimes more.
    18:31
    This is Jody. Do you know Jody? He's our, a marketeer and a character. Very smart guy. A bracing personality. I'm not that happy. No, I'm kidding. I'm happy. I'm glad that you got it. Wow, okay, this is some weird stuff that I have. It's like I made Star Trek side armor. This one, this particular design had the Starfleet emblem down below the ship. I mean, it's pretty much the same, but I found out that these would be $200 a piece to manufacture. So, we kind of cut back on that. Anyway, I have two sets of them. One black and one silver. This is actually Roberto, who is a great worker, and he knows everything about pinball production and problems too. Very smart guy.
    19:36
    He's an inspector at the end of the line, and he catches a lot of stuff. Obviously not everything, but a lot.
    19:43
    I'm going to say this too. I think you guys even know it. I have never opened up a pinball machine and had it working perfect except once. Once it happened to me in Germany. We brought over, it was Star Trek. And it worked out of the box completely and absolutely correct. And that's the only time. There's always something wrong in a box. Then when did it break afterwards? Say it again. How long did it take to break after it worked? Oh, I have no idea. I left town. That was it. It was just there for a while. You just get out, right? You don't stick around, do you?
    20:20
    This guy is also, he doesn't speak any English, But he's like, you know, kind of like the master cleaner. He cleans out cabinets, every speck of dust, anything that's not in place, checking stuff that's stapled in the bag that goes in and all that.
    20:36
    These are a bunch of Ghostbusters. This is a more recent picture. This may have been Wednesday, no, Thursday.
    20:42
    And I walked through. There were a few people there. We're also building Medieval Madness. I don't know how many we built. They don't tell me, but it just seems endless. They're all sold. We are a bit behind in production right now due to some supplier problems. And so we've got a lot of catching up to do. Stern is a big company and this building is huge. The new building is awesome. It's, I think it's like 130,000 square feet, something like that. We're only using about half of it. The other half is for storage pretty much and parts and that. parts in that, but we have two lines that are operational and we've had some growing pains trying to get that all together, no doubt. More Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters playfields. These are in carriers that go down the line. They have like walls on the bottom that roll. It's not really, yeah, it's weird I think, but they work. Works good. More Ghostbusters about right. This is ramp land. We're building many models simultaneously, so we stack all the ramps there. And they're actually assembled nearby by about five or ten ladies. They rip all the parts on them. This is dragon land. It's a very fuzzy picture. I didn't take this picture. Yes, I did. All right, these are some upper play fields in Iraq waiting to go on to Game of Thrones. This is the store room, stock room. The wall on the left is the beginning and I've got a bunch of pictures here. Well, I guess I took some out. But anyway, it's big and long. 4,000 parts in a pinball machine. 4,000. Many, many play fields. We have a lot of different games going and coming in also so that we're ready for production And if we can't make one game for one reason or another, then we start building another model.
    22:46
    Again, more plate wheels. This is not the same set of racks here. This is like our little arcade. It's actually a terrible place to play pinball because right above our windows, and you look at the glass and you see this window. It's not fun. You have to get down like this to not see the glare and reflections. The guy on the right, his name is Elliot Iceman. Excuse me. He is a very bright kid from Purdue, mechanical engineer. I love working with him. Whenever I work with people on my team, everybody gets to say what they want to say. A Steve Ritchie game is not just Steve Ritchie. I've always had good teams and friends, you know, to help out. I just say, I say this, I love to hear ideas. If you have a good one and you want to give it to me, I'll take it. If you've got a good idea, I just do that. I'm not insecure about it. I don't think I'm going to think of the last thing. I don't worry about, oh, I don't know if I can think of another idea or something else to do. I'm not insecure about it. Because some of us have a lot of ideas. Okay, so the guy on the left is Wei-Sheng Chang. He's a programmer. I've worked with him a little bit. He worked on Star Trek with us. This is like big banners we have hanging in the factory of most of the games that we have made in recent years. It's interesting to look up and see all those things and how much grief we've gone through to make them happen. I'm not looking for sympathy though. It is a pain to make a pin-mult machine. It's just a pain. Ask these guys like Yap or you know Andy Highway. It's tough. It's not so bad to make one or two. To make ten is good and you know it's something but you're at the base of the mountain and you want to build a thousand machines. The mountain is high. It just is. There's so much to do and coordinate and make things happen and a lot of errors that you have to suffer through, especially if you're new at making them. It's just, it's a tough thing to do. These are more pictures of the line. This is, this is, this is our main line, the one that's closest to, I'm looking like towards the entrance of the factory and that's where it's from. This is, this is like, these are final testers in here, but again, it's late in the afternoon. not many of them are there. Usually there's about 20 people there. You bored yet? Okay. I'm kind of like a blunt speaker. And I'm not bashful. So I'm going to stop right now and tell you guys the true stories. I'll just injure him, okay? I think I was in Seattle And this guy and his wife were sitting there, and he was asking me the question.
    25:53
    Well, first she said, he has so many pinball machines that he wanted to get rid of the couch, and I said no.
    26:04
    So this guy was kind of looking down, and I go, do you have any in your master bedroom? Yes, there was a couple. Have you guys thought about bunk beds? They needed to think about that. Alright, so that's a true story, honestly. This is Jody Dankberg and John Borg. Good friend, good guy, good designer. I don't know who he is. I have no idea. Okay, this is in the old factory. This is when we were making ACDC. This guy's a great tester. He still works there. The one next to him too, with the run noise. This guy, this man says, I know I'm good looking. I know I'm good looking. This guy here is like the shortest man in the factory. And his job was to pick up the transformer and put it down in the cabinet. That was his job and then put bullets in. It's like some people are just mean. This guy, this guy still was turned to, his name is Gilbert. He's the star tester, no question. He finds problems. Occasionally we get testers who find problems and don't fix them, just sort of, because they don't want to deal with it. And we try to get rid of them when we catch them. If we catch them we do get rid of them. That's it. This guy is still there too. Great. A great fixer, a great final tester with a great sense of responsibility. These guys too. That's Roberto and the other guy I told you, cleans cabinets out and makes sure they're all nice. These guys are too, they're mean. No, no, no, they're good people. This guy, this lady, this guy, this lady, this guy, I'm moving on. This is Lewis. Lewis is awesome. He's willing to do anything. He's helped me with a ton of stuff. I've helped him too. He's kind of like, he's out, when the play fields come in, he wheels them over and starts inspecting them. And we've actually started polishing some, you know, inside. If they look keeping or, you know, less, if we can fix them, we will by polishing, if we can. I don't know if you've noticed, but the play fields look a lot better. This is a picture I took in, I think it was like a steam bath or something. Actually, that's a crew of us. This is Ed Van Der Veen and his wife. They run the Texas Pinball Festival. My wife is on the left. I'm not in the picture. And, I don't know, Texas people. Fun. We run a cruise together. This is Star Trek. That guy is no longer with us. Interesting story. This is a Lucy. I can't tell all the stories. I just can't. More Lucy. Okay, this is Barty. And she is the mistress of QC. Buck stops with her. She writes everything up. I get a list of problems every day on every game we make. She does the best she can. More Lucy's. Again, this is the old factory. Some upper play, no, lower playfields, sorry. And these might be Lucy's. They are, huh? Yeah. People working on the lines, assembling, I'm not sure what. This picture is tiny for me it's huge for you but I can't see it from here. Yeah, these are Lucy, Laura Playfields. These guys aren't doing anything. They shouldn't be determining anything. Just kidding. Yeah, Upside Down Playfields, are we bored at looking at Playfields yet? We must be bored of it. I love making this game. I think this game is pretty. It's like, I don't know. John Yossi, who's in the room, did this back glass and it's like one of my favorite back glasses of all time. The Enterprise Edition. Where is he? Where's John Yossi? It's like, that is so cool. It's just coming around and stuff. It's awesome.
    30:39
    It's fun to make. A lot of grief. Two programmers. One took over for another. I'm not going to go into it.
    30:46
    Those of you who know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. Those of you who don't, you don't know.
    30:53
    This is a Whitewood. This is like an LE Whitewood. How do I know? It's got clear inserts and it's going to have multi-color LEDs under every one of them.
    31:05
    This guy's name is Steven Martin. He's an excellent artist and wow, super enthusiastic. He works with Greg Forrest and production art.
    31:15
    Greg, he's a cranky old man. No, he's not. He's not a cranky old man. He's a good guy and an old friend. He's messing around with Wonnelly. How many people think that Wonnelly is a sexist gang? Two? Okay. Interesting, they're both men. How about that? Okay, here's John Trudeau in his favorite position. Actually, he's working on this game. This is an office, excuse me, that was an office in the old building And John Borgen is I just come in and take pictures Sometimes I look shocked like John what are you doing
    32:02
    This guy's name is Jim Shurd. He's, like, in the wiring and electronics department. Clever guy. He can fix anything on a pinball machine, and he's a great player.
    32:12
    He plays tournaments all the time. He's in several leagues. This guy's no longer with us, and I don't even remember his name. I don't. This is Dave Cadeau, who once managed an arcade. He's now working in our lab, building up the games and getting them wired. Prototypes. I really do have to blow my nose. I hope you don't mind. When you have to, you have to. This is Rob Leitman. Rob Leitman is a very good mechanical engineer. He's like, I don't know, he's like so incredibly meticulous about drawings so that everything is right, every single detail. He'll write me an email saying, you have the wrong dash number on plastic 98, it's supposed to be 99.
    33:03
    So I have to change them. He's a very bright guy. And these two ladies, the one on the left is Raina.
    33:12
    And the one on the right is Gabby. She's like, Gabby is building materials, rounding up parts. She sits right outside my office. There's always a parade of men going by, too.
    33:27
    All day. Raina is a great engineer. She's our harness lady, and she has a long history in the coin operating business, making harnesses. And you know what? She's a great AutoCAD user too. Sometimes I ask her, how do I do this in AutoCAD, even though I've been using it for 25 years or something. I don't know. Anyway, she knows stuff. This is Mike Riddleplay. He's another mechanical engineer. He did the Dragon on Game of Thrones, among lots of other devices. He's a character. We like to shoot. I don't know if you guys know that. We do like shooting. I don't want to kill anybody, but I like to shoot. And he does too. How many other people like shooting?
    34:18
    Okay, I don't feel like such a criminal. It's like it's very controversial now. It just is. Everybody's thinking, you know, guns are not bad or good. It's the people that point them and what they point them at.
    34:34
    That's just my opinion. This guy is an inspector also. A tester. This guy sold the company, Jesse, and he's been a very good employee. In this picture, he had only been there for a few weeks. He picks up everything very quickly. He's moving ahead. He's either in customer service or part sales now. Wyman. Wyman Sheets, a good friend, a crazy man, a partner in crime. The man who did, oh, you know, he's probably the best programmer there is right now. I would match him though with Larry DeMar if Larry DeMar was still working actually in software or Eugene. They're all great. Wyman's got a passion though for excellent rules and fun. But he's like such a high level player. When I play the game, like on ACDC, I beg him, can I please win an extra ball in this game? Can I please win it? It's too far out. You've got to move it up. And so he does. So we are a good balance. I'm with the bad players. I'm a little better than the bad. I'm above average just because I play a lot. But he is a great player. Incredible champion. Another Wei-Sin Chang picture. He helped out with running our speech and modes and missions on Star Trek. Mike Kizabat. This guy's a character, okay? He's got pipes, great pipes. He is the voice of the Klingon in Star Trek. And I don't know, that's a, it's a personal contribution when someone does that. You know, you're doing your work, but, you know, if If you really want to, you know, if you enjoy it and you get into it, it's awesome. You were the voice on Black Knight, right? Say it again, please. You were the voice on Black Knight, right? The voice on... Black Knight? Yes. Yeah, that was your voice, right? I'm the voice in Firepower. I'm in many of my own games. Not all, but many.
    36:49
    And a lot of other people's games. Like Barry Osler stuck me in Comet. I said, what was it? Hey, turkey.
    37:00
    Come on, hit me. I said, he's being this, you know, the dunking deal. He thought he was making fun of me. I'll tell you another story, too. Interrupt the pictures. This is a true story also.
    37:14
    Okay, in Chicago, we were big on fireworks, illegal fireworks. I think I was like 37, 38 or something, and I found out I could get these M1000s. They were like gigantic. This big, silver, that big around with a big long waterproof fuse. So I went outside the building, like Roscoe Street ended right at the Chicago River, and that was the side of the building you walked in here or there. Anyway, so we went down the river, and I put the first one down on the ground and walked away. Boom! The boom was so huge that the cops came. We ran inside right after that. I was not expecting it. And about a week later, this is the progression of dangerous stuff. I don't know, I'm just kind of addicted to it. I don't know, motorcycles, whatever. Anyway, I have a risk rocket. I have it like this. I got an M1000 in here that Eugene likes to fuse. It's my cigarette. I want you into the river. And when it goes off, it's just as loud as the other one, maybe louder, and makes a huge plume of water. And cops came. We were gone already. And people inside the building, you know, they said, let us know you're going to do that. Now, deep in the building.
    38:35
    Anyway. Okay, this is also another true story involving fireworks. Barry Osler, he was and is a prankster. It's like he put a car bomb once in my game. So we're playing along, and boom, all of a sudden there's a huge explosion. The hole fills up with smoke, and my wife went. I couldn't believe it. I thought, what happened? That looks like a capacitor failure or something.
    39:01
    So I open it up, and I see what he did. So from then on, it was war. He had his desk against the wall with a window that overlooked the lovely Chicago River. and his door was here, so I lit bottle rockets, multiple, and put them, you know, they would go, boo, slam up against the wall. It would blow up, and he would go, you, never mind.
    39:28
    Children in the room. Okay, so once the president, Ken Trudezna, saw me doing that, but he was there for all the other fireworks, and I thought, uh-oh, and he goes, you know, if you put a piece of metal there, it won't burn the carpet.
    39:47
    That's how he was. This is Lonnie Robb. I've worked with him twice, I think. Star Trek and Elvis. This is some clown.
    40:00
    I don't know. It's a weird face. I don't want any more of those. Okay, this is, I think I'm back to the beginning. It's over. So that's my slide show. Wow. I don't know if it's been an hour or not, but I don't care. I can tell you the rest of my life. It's like it has continued in a pinball vein as long as there was a company to make them. And pinball's had its heavy duty ups and downs. I've spent long periods of time not working, 28 months recently, before I got back to Stern in 2011. I'll tell you right now, I'm not stupid, and I'm not going to stand here and be, I don't know.
    40:47
    I'm not stupid, but I'll just tell you this. If you're 60 years old and you can't hear good, you're not getting a job anywhere, especially in California. It's all about young people there.
    40:59
    And I have an opinion about that, too. I have noticed that, I don't know, some, not all, but some. people, young people have a work ethic that is not acceptable to me. And I just want to say that's to their disadvantage, definitely.
    41:22
    And I don't know. That's another strange opinion that I have, but it's like I can deal with almost anything else. And most of the people that I work with are very hard workers. there for a long time. And it's white. And Dwight Sullivan's a character too, totally. We probably made, I think we made around 52 or 53,000 machines together. Sold that many. I think I sold more with him than any other programmer. Anyway, it is a, it's a team project. Every pinball I make, people get to speak their mind and tell me. I want them to be involved. And I don't mind if the mechanical engineer is looking at the art and he says, wow, this could be maybe different, you know, or maybe we could put this there, you know. Everyone has a different idea, so we all look at everything together. I do reserve the right, you know, to make a final decision if I have to, and it's like, it doesn't happen often. Usually we just say, yeah, this is the right thing to do. What else can I say about making games at Stern? It's fun. It's misery. It is a lot of work. But I've got to tell you this. I feel like I'm the luckiest guy on earth. I get to do what I love to do.
    42:51
    That's an important thing. Wow. I guess right now, I don't know what you guys have heard. There are some stories that are true. some I fold a few times. Does anyone know the story of high speed?
    43:11
    Does anyone know the story behind high speed? Good. That's what I know. A couple of you guys do. Okay, so this was like 1982. The bottom had fallen out of the pinball business. So I talked to Mike Stroll at Williams, and I said, look, I want to go back to California and start a video game company with a couple of guys. And he said, sure. So I was contracted to Williams to make two video games. And I had done well with my kind of ball machines. And when I got there, I thought, I'm going to buy a nice sports car. So I bought a Porsche 928. It was used. I think it had 30,000 miles on it or something.
    43:57
    And it was definitely an emotional purpose. You know what I mean? I looked at the car, and I thought, this is just a space machine. And when you sat in it, the cockpit was like a jet fighter wrapped around you. And a big old manly shifter. And the clutch was stiff, you know. And it's like a very nice car with an aluminum V8 engine. And you could sell cylinders. I remember that. Anyway, it went fast. And it was so easy to drive. It made anybody look good. It just did.
    44:28
    So I had the car for about three months. My company was in a town called Loomis near Sacramento. We were going to go back down to Silicon Valley to buy some parts that we needed, visit some friends and come back, my partner and I, all in the same day. It's not that far away. We get on I-5. It's a huge, brand new freeway at that time. That's what we call them, freeways, because you don't have to pay any tolls. It's awesome. What a concept. So, bike lanes in this direction, going up and down, some rolling stuff, and then big, flat, like in the middle of the Sacramento Valley, you cannot see the Cascade Mountains, and you can't see the Sierras. It looks like Illinois or Nebraska. Okay, that's part of it, if you come down from Sacramento and some of those areas. Anyway, I'm going this way, and I open the car up, and my partner's watching for me, you know, and just, you know. So it went 146 miles an hour, but we had to calculate it. The speedometer only went up to 55. It was dopey. We calculated it off the tachometer. So 146 miles an hour, smooth as glass, I'm paying attention to nothing but driving. There's some tomato trucks. It's 7 o'clock in the morning. Tomato trucks in the right lane and really no traffic. And then from the distance comes a highway patrolman. And my partner says, that's a cop. So I slow way down very quickly. And I'm coming down a hill. He goes over the hill. And I don't see him. I hit it again. We're going 146 miles an hour. I know it sounds dangerous and irresponsible.
    46:08
    It kind of is. But I mean, it had new tires. It was a great time to do it on a brand new road with little traffic through an agricultural zone. And I was like, that was the place to do it. So we're moving along for about 15 minutes, and I just kept it at 146. Maybe slowed down a little a couple times.
    46:30
    And then a sheriff's car is coming with his lights on, screaming siren, and I was thinking, that could be for me.
    46:40
    And he turned around in the median, and he chased me down. I didn't even wait for him. I just pulled over.
    46:48
    He got out of his car and he says, just stay there for a second, okay? Stay there. So I did. Nothing happened for a couple minutes. And then the highway patrolman comes in in his black and white Mustang and does a giant broad slide in the gravel. He's all angry, like stomping over my car. And he tries to pull me out the window of the car. And I go, wait, officer, I'll just get out. He throws me down on the hood, frisks me, puts handcuffs on me and puts me in the passenger seat of his car.
    47:18
    Meanwhile, more cops are showing up. There are a total of nine cop cars. They're going through the car looking for the stuff we stole or whatever. There was nothing. My partner tried to tell them. They first came, too. He tried to tell them, look, he just wanted to try the car out. And so the cop comes back to the car where I am. And he takes the handcuffs off me and he goes, you want a cigarette? And I go, sure. And he says, why did you do that? And I said because I wanted to try the car out I wanted to go as fast as it could go And there isn any place to do that And this was the best safest opportunity I didn hit anyone There was no damage to anything, no harm done.
    48:04
    And he goes, did you know I was behind you? And I said, no. You went over that hill and I took off again. Okay. He goes, I have to take you straight to court. This is all I know.
    48:17
    And I'll tell you what. court wasn't in session, you'd be going to jail. And I said, well, that's a bummer.
    48:28
    So we went to court, and there was this commissioner there. And he, you know, on and on and on. And they told me that I should never have been driving that fast. It's ridiculous.
    48:43
    I wanted to do it, and I said I wanted to try out the car. and the officer spoke for me. He said he wasn't trying to run away. He didn't know I was behind him. And he did speak up for me. And it's like, the commissioner said, you're not going to do that again, are you? I lied and said, no.
    49:07
    So in order to get out of the building, I had to pay $250, which I had on me. And I got 90 days restricted driving for business only.
    49:18
    A little business in the country behind a house. And then reckless driving. That was a drag. A few months later, the video game market fell through the floor. Williams had lost $17 million on various video games like Star Rider. Is that it? The Blazer Disc game. You guys remember that thing? Yeah, it is. And some other stuff. You know, it's like, I mean, Williams was hurting bad. And they couldn't buy my game. It was called Devastator. It devastated me. So it's like I said, well, okay, can I have a job back and make pinball machines? And Mike Stroll said, sure, come on. So packed up everything, moved back to Chicago, and started working on a game. And it just crossed my mind. It would be great to make a pinball machine about a police chase. And so that's what I did.
    50:19
    I'm blabbing for a long time. It doesn't bother me at all. Does anyone have any questions? I think so. Yes, yes. Okay, I'm not going to hear any. You might have to pass it on, Dave. Okay. Now, I know George Gomez, you know, obviously is your boss, right? Yeah. So I was listening to Coast to Coast, and George was saying that he has certain limitations that he gives you when you build a pinball machine. Basically, keep it under the glass, has to have flippers.
    50:55
    Those are limitations I put on myself. Okay, yeah. But anyways, have you ever had some constraints where you say, I want this feature in my machine? Many times. And how do you guys work that out? Well, we work it out by me doing it. it and they accept it or I leave the company. Oh, yeah. That's not what George said.
    51:15
    Okay, that's not always true. I mean, I will make concessions, but I'm not a... What is it? He said you're a fighter. I am not willing to compromise pinball for any reason. I can put less in a game. That's okay. I want my games to be fun. I do want to make it clear that even while I'm making a game, I am thinking how many can we make? How many can we sell. I'm in the business to make pinballs to sell them because if we don't sell them, there's no money. And if there's no money, there's no company. And so I'm always thinking about selling pinballs, what will sell the most. Luckily, it comes down to having a player and a buyer who is satisfied or loves the way it plays. Right? If you love it, you're going to buy it and we sell pinball machines. Anyway, there hasn't been many things. One of them was, okay, on Spider-Man, I had four toys. Gary would say, you can only have three.
    52:19
    And I said, I can't have three. He goes, how about if you just build a house with the words Doc Ock on the outside of it, a muterate. And I said, Gary, do you know that there's whole movie, a whole movie about Doc Ock. Okay, that guy's like, you know, he was important. And it went on and on. He would just be grumpy. One day we were screaming at each other so loud that everybody in the meeting just got up and left. They were scared. And it's like, it was nasty. But it stayed in because it didn't cost us that much more. Other times I have conceded stuff. I just have. If I feel like I have one too many ideas in the game. Star Trek is pretty loaded when you get down to it. The laser and all the LEDs and stuff on the side. It's elaborate. I didn't have to remove any toys, but I think that maybe that might have been a little bit over the top, but you don't think so, so I don't either. Any more questions? Yes. Audience member 1 I love your games, first of all. Thank you for making your games. Thank you. I'm honored. Audience member 1 Thank you so much. I know you did some voiceover work, like Immortal Combat. But I don't know exactly, I love that game, and I don't know exactly what you said. So would you mind telling us? I can't believe that you're in a pinball seminar. I don't know what you're going to call that. Pinball's my first love. I'll try a few. It's like I don't remember everything. I was Shao Kahn, who was kind of like the narrator. It's hard for me to remember. I got coached by a guy named Dan Forden, standing outside the studio, and Ed Boon, too. He's like the designer of the game. And he's like, they're telling me how to speak, and I like that. Whenever anybody's in a studio, you need coaching. You need somebody who's got a good ear to hear everything, because you don't really hear what it sounds like. You hear it in the headphones, but you don't hear what it sounds like in the studio. So this is an old Chinese man, old, I don't know, 200 years old.
    54:32
    Fatality. You know, I hardly remember any lines. I did not do toasting. Dan Fortin did toasting. Dance killer. Finish it. Fatality. Okay, all right. Finish him.
    54:52
    Get over here. One more. I can't hear you. What? Get over here. Really? Whose voice? Shao Kahn said get over here? No, a scorpion. When he does the scorpion. Okay. Grappling hook there. That was my voice? Maybe. I don't know.
    55:13
    I don't think so. Get over here. I have this devil that lives inside of me. He came out for an open-air and for ACDC. He says bad things to people too. Very rude things. Lyman thinks of as many as I do. You know, like, you're worthless. Do you feel you can be as creative as you want to be even though you have to do licensed games rather than originals today? I feel good. I get to do what I want because I'm the king. It's good to be king. Now, I think you're right and that's like, there have been big restrictions, okay? I'll just say this. I'll say HBO was extremely difficult to work with. Disgusting. No humor, right? I didn't want nudity, but they said no nudity, no humor, and cut back on the violence. I don't know how many have seen Game of Thrones. It's like, yeah. They wouldn't let us make it authentic. But in some cases, I would agree with them. Like originally, I sort of hate to say this because I'm a bad man. The sword, you know, that holds the balls back, comes down. There was a guy bent over like this with no head. And the ball was going to be his head. After the B headings, you know. In the Middle East, we decided not to do that. And even before, they called me up and said, you cannot do that. We couldn't do anything. It was two young ladies, and it's like, I just, never mind.
    56:50
    But I hear you. We wouldn't have to deal with that at all. Once I asked, you know, do you guys know Matt Cristiano and Rick from Bay Area Amusements? They own all the old Williams trademark and I said, what if I made a Black Knight game, another one, what would you guys want? I'm not promising, I'm not saying anything. I said, what would it cost us? And they said, we each want a game, that's it. That's pretty cool. I would love to make a unique title, you know, a non-license.
    57:35
    It's tough, though, to say, well, it's difficult to say that you've had great success with titles. Why rock the boat? Why change things? I don't know. And I agree with it somewhat. I do. A good title will help propel everything. There are things you love. You know you love Ghostbusters. the movie, it's like it just pulls you right in because you remember all that. Cool music, funny stuff in our past. I'm ready for another question if you got any. I have a question. This morning John Trudeau said that he designed starting at the LE level and then taking things out for pro. Yes. I wouldn't describe it exactly like that. If you look at Game of Thrones, okay, there's quite a bit different. The upper play field is gone. A lot of other things had to change too. But yeah, that's how we start because it's crazy trying to add things on after you've got that design. It's got to be built in originally and you have to think about what you're going to eliminate or change for the lesser-priced model.
    58:51
    So, yeah. You're the king of flow. Thanks. I'm Steve. Jim. What are your three favorite shots out of all the games you've done and kind of why? And is there a shot that you haven't done yet that you are just trying to get? I'm on ACDC, premium in LE. That's fun.
    59:13
    That's one. Wow, it was totally fun to put the ball in a lock shot at the top of firepower and out of the plunger. If you, you know, if you thumbed it, it would go ding-bang and it's going the hole and you needed that third one. That was the hardest one to hit because it was the furthest away. Third shot, let's see. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, those two I can think of. And so the rest are just kind of like, well, they're bad shots. That's it. The rest are bad shots and those are the only two new ones. What about a Picard maneuver? What do you think of that? What did he say? A Picard maneuver? The carbon era. Yeah, you're right. That is a comfortable shot, making the orbit and then up the ramp. It's a similar thing that can be done on Star Trek in darkness.
    60:17
    Any other questions? Hey, Steve. So what about the opposite? Wait, what's your name? Bob. Bob, I'm Steve.
    60:26
    The opposite of that. Do you have any shots or any ideas that you look back on and say, what was I thinking? Yeah, I didn't like the left orbit roll down on the right side of T3.
    60:40
    I hit the slingshot too often. I didn't like that. I didn't fix it, and I don't know why I didn't fix it. I mean, I had an opportunity, but then when I really looked at it and felt this thing, I mean, who knows what happened. I mean, if you make the ball go around really fast, it doesn't hit the slingshot, but it didn't always go around real fast. And so I should have fixed that.
    61:02
    Other things, I'm not real happy about what's happened on the top of Game of Thrones, but I'm not going to talk about it either.
    61:15
    I can't. I have nothing to say about it. I don't know. Next question. You have to come up here. Can you talk a little about Black Knight and how it came about? Do you have any? Yeah, sure.
    61:38
    Okay, one night I was sleeping and dreaming that I was a black knight. No, that's not what that's about.
    61:45
    I like the idea of a bad character because if the player is a good guy and you've got a bad guy, the battle between good and evil is just a winner. You know, it's like every great, you know, Schwarzenegger movie. Sorry. A lot of movies start out with some horrible wrong that's done to a guy. And he's usually like, you know, Steven Seagal or somebody like that. And also a murderous, dangerous soldier, we'll say, or warrior. Anyway, that's where it came from. And it's like, and I thought, you know, I want to be that guy. I am the Black Knight. They lowered my pitch with an even-tied harmonizer. I like that thing. I brought one to a show once and this woman yells out, I need that for my kids! Get in your room. Do one more bad thing and I will twist your neck. Sorry about that. How are you doing?
    62:54
    So is there any themes out there that you never got to develop against? Or is there a dream theme for you that you never got to make? I'm working on it right now. Really? Star Wars? I really am working on it. So it's a theme you always wanted to do? It's what? It's a theme you've always wanted to do?
    63:12
    Yes. Nice. Since the beginning of it. Star Wars? And it's called the beige knight. He's kind of a nice guy.
    63:31
    He's friendly. He's someone you'd love to know. Just want to say to you guys, it's really fun to be here. Thanks for having me.
    63:44
    Thank you.