Episode 376 - Interview with Steve Young 8-7-16

TL;DR

Steve Young chronicles his pinball restoration expertise and Pinball Resource founding

Summary

Key Claims

• Steve Young has been selling parts and doing mail order since the late 1970s

  high confidence · Steve Young directly stated in interview: 'I've been selling parts and doing mail order stuff since the late 70s, using a typewriter and packing stuff in my free time'

• Steve Young owns approximately 36,000 blueprints from Gottlieb's operations (part number one through closure in 1995)

  high confidence · Steve Young stated: 'I'm sitting here with a galley of archives here. There's 36,000 blueprints here. That's part number one to when they closed in 1995. That's 10,000 pounds of paper sitting in filing cabinets.'

• Gottlieb part numbering system encodes manufacturing information (A-sized drawing, stamping type, turned metal, molded plastic, assembly)

  high confidence · Steve Young explained the system: 'a 1 which became 01 once they digitized a 1 is a stamping... If it an 02 it was a turned metal part... an O3 part was a molded plastic part'

• Steve Young's first game played was Cabaret in college residence hall

  high confidence · Direct statement: 'It's a Williams game, Cabaret'

• Steve Young's first games purchased were a Palisades and a United game in senior year of college (1974)

  high confidence · Steve Young stated: 'One was a Palisades and one was a United game that I don't remember sitting here. I bought them when I was a senior in college... This was 1974'

• Steve Young believes electromechanical multiplayer games are problematic due to interference between players and oversimplified objectives

  high confidence · Steve Young detailed criticisms: 'when player one turns some kind of feature on it but didn't collect it, player two... can collect that bonus... So you have to start all over to light it up again'

• Williams 8-Ball (1966) used a double-bank design essentially creating two single-player games in one cabinet

  high confidence · Steve Young stated: 'Williams tried a game called 8-Ball in 1966, where they put a double bank in the game... It's basically two single players in one tab'

Notable Quotes

• “I started with IBM in 1976 with a master's degree. I took a cut and pay from operating pinballs to work for IBM.”

  Steve Young @ ~23:00 — Illustrates Young's commitment to pinball despite financial sacrifice for stable employment

• “Dennis said hey you're a real pinball resource and it stuck”

  Steve Young @ ~35:00 — Origin story of the Pinball Resource name and brand that defines Young's legacy in the industry

• “I'm sitting here with a galley of archives here. There's 36,000 blueprints here. That's part number one to when they closed in 1995. That's 10,000 pounds of paper sitting in filing cabinets.”

  Steve Young @ ~42:00 — Demonstrates the massive archival documentation Young has preserved from Gottlieb's operations, critical for historical preservation

• “When you play a single player game, you have five balls to work toward an objective. The objective tends to be more complex or you have multiple objectives. When you have a multiplayer game, you know, light A, B and C for extra ball. That's it.”

  Steve Young @ ~95:00 — Core critique of multiplayer EM game design philosophy and the tradeoffs between complexity and multiplayer mechanics

• “I became accepting of attaball and an advocate of all pinball I don't advocate one over the other but it's all pinball so it's all good.”

  Steve Young @ ~30:00 — Shows evolution from regional bias (replay vs attaball machines) to inclusive community advocacy

• “To understand how things are today, to look back and see... one of the questions that we always had was how many of each game was made. And no one would tell you. The factories were, their lips were sealed.”

  Steve Young @ ~110:00 — Explains motivation for serial number database project and manufacturers' secrecy about production figures

• “If you had nothing else to do, I could just document pinball. There's that much that's not documented or pulled together.”

  Steve Young @ ~52:00 — Highlights the scale of historical documentation still needed in pinball and the depth of Young's expertise

Entities

Signals

• ?

  historical_signal: Steve Young maintains 36,000 Gottlieb blueprints and 10,000 pounds of archived documentation spanning the company's entire operational history. This represents a critical historical archive for the pinball industry.

  high · Direct statement: '36,000 blueprints here. That's part number one to when they closed in 1995. That's 10,000 pounds of paper sitting in filing cabinets.'

• ?

  restoration_signal: In the late 1970s-1980s, replacement parts for pinball machines were extremely difficult to obtain through official channels. Distributors like Irving Morris Sales served commercial operators exclusively and were unwelcoming to individual collectors.

  high · Steve Young: 'I found it difficult to purchase parts to repair the games... They were really set up for the commercial guys to buy stuff and they weren't very friendly to the guy off the street.'

• ?

  design_innovation: 1950s-60s EM multiplayer games had fundamental design flaws where secondary players could inadvertently sabotage primary players' scoring opportunities, and objectives had to be simplified. Williams 8-Ball (1966) attempted to solve this with a double-bank design but was abandoned due to cost.

  high · Steve Young detailed how player two could collect bonuses lit by player one, and Williams 8-Ball used 'double bank... basically two single players in one tab'

• ?

  product_strategy: In the 1970s, Steve Young believed 'replay' pinballs (found in NY/Pennsylvania) were superior to 'attaball' games (found elsewhere), which led him to source games exclusively from Pennsylvania suppliers. He later evolved to embrace all pinball.

  high · Steve Young: 'New York State is a replay state... I was kind of a replay snob... I became accepting of attaball and an advocate of all pinball'