Interview with Gerry Stellenberg of Multimorphic Interview with Daniel Janssen of Pinball Brothers Interview with Chris Turner of Turner Pinball And interview with Jack Guarnieri of Jersey Jack Pinball Hi, my name is Jonathan Houston, I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine and I'm joined here by... Hi, I'm Martin Aib and I'm the editor of Pinball News and we're here with a special bonus pincast where we are featuring four interviews which we, Jonathan and myself, did with four luminaries from the pinball business as you've heard, Jerry, Daniel, Chris and Jack where they can tell us all about the current status of their companies, their latest products and their thoughts on the pinball business as a whole. Right, so we already did the regular monthly recap or summary, if you want to call it, focusing on the Texas Pinball Festival and all the new games there. So without further ado, let's start things off with the interview that we did with Gerry Stellenberg of Multimorphic at the Multimorphic studio where Martin and I were able to pay a visit. Yes, we were. Gerry was gracious enough to show us around, take time out of his very busy schedule with the run-up to the show, and sit down with us after giving us a guided tour and letting us play the games to talk about what's been happening with his company, his latest game, and where the company is headed. So we're here in Round Rock at the headquarters of Multimorphic Inc. And Jonathan and I are joined by the owner, CEO, founder... Have you been here? Really? Gary O'Connor. Yes. Welcome, Gary. Hi, guys. How are you doing? Oh, we're doing okay. We're still ahead of the TPS show, so we've got a little time to talk to you. Thank you for making time in your busy schedule. Yeah. How is the TPS for the Texas show for you? Is it a sort of landmark show for you? Because it's your nearest big show that you go to. You've got Houston as well, of course. but I guess you do at least as much for the Texas Pimple Festival. Yes, TPF and Houston are both around the same distance from here in Round Rock but TPF being a bigger show and being one where a lot of companies do big announcements and stuff we like to do that one really big so we generally take 6, 7, 8, 10 machines we'll have 10 machines there this year, 10 P3s all set up with different games and we spend a lot of time planning and bringing a bunch of people to help us in the booth. So it's a big thing for us. So what will be the big announcement this year? The big announcement has already happened. We announced Final Resistance, a game Scott Denisey was the creative designer. It's a new game for the P3. We have Don Karras, Michael Ocean, Rory Cernuda, TJ Weaver doing the mechanicals on it. Really cool game. it's our sixth multi-morphic game module for the P3 machine. So this platform machine that we came up with five years ago, or we started selling five years ago now has a lot of game modules for it and a lot of software add-ons and basically we're continuing to add more content and new features for our customers. We don't know, I've just been playing it and we can certainly attest that it's very addictive and great fun. If I add one more game, factor. At least one more game. At least one more game. But you mentioned that it's a busy time for game releases. How does your announcement of your new game, how does that fit in with other companies announcing, or do you just ignore what the others are doing and release your game when it's ready? Besides the fact that our game is better than everybody else's, the P3 is a little different than a traditional pinball machine, and that is this multi-game system where people can buy the new, they can buy the P3 and they can buy it with the new games, but they can also add in any of the old games we've ever developed. Cosmic Car Racing, Lexi Lightspeed, even the first games that we've developed. Like a console for video games, but this is for pinball. Right. So our whole business model is getting people to buy into the platform and then helping them keep that system running. We want them to continue owning the P3 for as long as we are making games, and we want to make it attractive for them to add content to it. So releasing a game while other people are releasing new machines, we're not really competing directly against them so much. Yes, people have a certain amount of money, and they're making buying decisions, and they're deciding which game they want right now, but whether they buy Final Resistance right now or later, it doesn't matter to us. As long as they have and enjoy a P3, they can always add the game content to it. However, there's one important thing that matters today, which is we have a build queue. We have a lot of people that have ordered the machines starting back with our first games, but it exploded when we announced Weird Al last year. Well, I was hoping you would bring that up, and else I would ask the question, because up to Weird Al, you hadn't done any licensed games. was all original themes. Right. And then you announce Weird Al Natural Museum of... Sorry. Museum of Natural Heritage. That's the one, sorry. And you have... You announce the game and immediately you're a million plus dollar company with orders coming in that basically tell you like hire more people because we need to crank out games. How has that affected you and the company in a positive or negative way? But I can imagine that such a license and the impact that had on your company must have done something. So every business owner is hoping to sell a product that has explosive growth. Right. And we achieved that explosive growth with Weird Owls Museum of Natural Hilarity. It was our first licensed game, as you suggested. But we're still a small company, and we still need to make sure that we grow responsibly. So we couldn't go out the next day and hire 300 people to build all these machines. We wouldn't be able to manage them. We wouldn't have all the parts for them. We, again, are a small company. So this is a problem. It's one of those good problems to have. How do you grow to responsibly bring on more people, manage your supply chain, manage all of the individual contributors to the projects? How do you do that responsibly? And I say responsibly because if you do it poorly, you're going to put your company in danger. If you spend too much money, if you bring on too many people that you can't manage, then you're in trouble because you can't manage them effectively. So we are continuing to scale up. We started scaling up when the orders came in for Weird Al's game last year. We're continuing to add people, a couple people a week or a few people a quarter, depending on how quickly we chose to increase our build queue. And then we have to manage the supply chain around that. We have to make sure parts are coming in as quickly or, if not quicker, than parts are going out. We want to keep building up through the end of the current build queue. And our build queue right now is a year long. so many people bought Weird Al, and so many people are continuing to buy into the P3 system now with the new launch. We have to continue scaling, because I don't want to bill cute every man a year. I want to get it down to three months, six months, so that when we launch a new game, people can get it very quickly. Well, once upon a time, people ordered the game, and the idea of waiting a year until they received it was preposterous, but it does seem to be almost a standard now, but a lot of the new releases have come out that people, especially if they're buying, you know, not the highest end model that they could potentially be waiting a year or 18 months or more for them. You're not finding that that year wait is deterring people from buying into the P3 system then? I don't know how many people it's turning away. I know I read the forums like everybody else and there are people who comment and say I would buy it if I could get one in three months or six months. I don't want to wait a year. But no, our bill keeps growing. More people are realizing the value of owning a P3 and that's I was going before, with the launch of Final Resistance, people that buy the P3 today won't see their machine until 8, 10, 12 months from now. And in those 8, 10, 12 months, we're going to release at least one more game, possibly more. And so people who want the machine immediately next year, they better buy it today. They better get in queue today. So we're only asking for a deposit up front. We don't ask for full payment on the machine. People who saw the announcement for Final Resistance, who got pushed over the edge of interest and want to join the P3 family, want to own the system, they should be getting in today so that they have their machine when we launch the next games. Right. So you mentioned, or you knew already, that Multimorphic is doing or releasing two PlayFu modules this year, Final Resistance being the first one. any timeline on when we can expect the second? You already said the timeline. Well, two machines this year, or two games this year. Yeah, and you can even guess. We're not going to release two games back-to-back. That would be stupid business to steal sales from one game with the launch of a second game at the same time. But, yeah, how many more months are there in the year? Somewhere in those months we will release another game. Right, okay. But does the backlog of existing orders influence when you can release the next game? Because if you're already building, say, Weird Al games, and then you're doing Final Resistance games, and then you release a third, or announce a third one, then those orders will, for the modules alone, will go to the back of the queue behind the existing games that you're building. So then those people could be waiting a year just for the module. module. The more you do this, the more successful they are, the worse it's going to get. So, not exactly. We have multiple build queues right now. We have one long build queue for the machine, because so many people have bought into the P3 system and it takes more time and more people and more materials to put a full machine together. On the floor we have multiple production lines for various playfield modules. So we have a dedicated section that's building We Are Now playfields right now. There's another dedicated section right now that's building heist playfields because most of the people who buy into the P3 for Weird Al are buying it immediately with heist as well. We have some inventory that we're working through on our Lexi Lightspeed and Cosmic Cart Racings, but as we need to schedule time in to build those, we take different resources and build those. Final Resistance production begins in May. It's March right now. So in the next two months we'll be staffing up a fully independent, a separate production line for the final Resistance playfields. And if we announce another game by the end of the year, which is what we expect to do, we'll do the same thing. Because we don't want people buying the new game to have to wait behind I should clarify, we don't want people buying the new game kit for their existing game, for their existing P3 to have to wait behind previously announced game kits. So we will have shipped all weird out playfields to existing customers before May. And when May hits, we'll be able to start building final resistance for existing customers. And if they're waiting for a P3, we'll just get it when their P3's out. How does the fact that there's parallel queues, a queue for the entire machine that will have a playfield or more, more than one, with it, how do those playfields match up the key for those match up with the people who just find the key by itself. So if I bought a brand new machine now with a Weird Al in, that Playfield module for that would be made later, would be at the end of the Weird Al queue. Correct. Right, so... Correct. So right now we have multiple, you saw the tables out there, we have multiple sections for Weird Al, and we call those logistically their separate queues. So we have a queue that's building Weird Al playfields for the machines that are coming off the line. Right. And we have a separate queue of Weird Al playfields that are going to existing customers. Right. So all existing customers will get their playfields before we're anywhere near the end of the P3, the machine build queue for even for Weird Al owners. Right. Okay. And the last time Martin and I visited this location, that was like four or five years ago. and since then you more than doubled in size can you talk about what have you been I mean you have already your parts stocked over here but now you're also doing the woodworking you're making your own cabinets in here and the playfields and spray so so there's a lot of more work involved in expanding like that can you talk about it how it is I mean the sort of people working here is not unlimited right so we're all about figuring out ways to improve our efficiencies but doing it like I said earlier responsibly when we were building P3s before with half the space that space was fully used for assembly, for assembly of all of the machine parts into a machine and all the playfield parts into playfields. And we were outsourcing, we were buying from cabinet makers, external cabinet makers, the machine, the cabinet, the wooden box that all this stuff goes into. For various reasons, it made more sense to bring that in-house. We bought our own 5 by 10 foot CNC router. We buy the raw sheets of plywood and throw them on that thing. And out comes panels for cabinets. We also cut our own playfields now, which we were outsourcing before. So we're in control of our own destiny as far as all of the woodworking required to go into these machines. And woodworking is something that, it's skilled labor, but it's commonly learned skilled labor. There are a lot of woodworkers, a lot of carpenters, a lot of people who are comfortable putting cabinets together and sanding wood and installing inserts and prepping a play field. We don't have our own printers and our own metal bending machines and all of the things that require huge investments and specialty skills in order to do. but yeah we're super glad that we got the other space and we're able to start doing our own woodworking because when we need five more cabinets we just pull them out of the paint booth and start assembling now one of the things we were talking about before was the supply of parts for machines and the fact you can't just go and ramp up production as fast as you necessarily would like in order to produce more kits and more complete machines. A lot of companies have been heavily impacted by supply chain issues, and I'm sure you're not immune to that as well. What's the situation as far as you're seeing when it comes to supplies of electronics and the more difficult to source parts? So COVID has been a problem for every part of every aspect of every situation in business. Basically, everything's been affected. Everything's more expensive. Everything's harder to get. I'm an electronic engineer. I was a double E in school, and that's what I did for most of my career. So I'm more in tune with the electronic supply chain than some of the mechanical stuff. So I was pretty ahead of the game on ordering circuit boards, and the chips needed to make those circuit boards with our partner manufacturers. So we did not have a slowdown of circuit board availability. And what we've found is that some of the suppliers of chips and things have changed course over the course of COVID, and they've decided to make more of one chip and less of another chip or whatever. So we've had to navigate those challenges, but it's pretty easy for us to change a board to use a different chip because that's how I used to make my living, and we have a couple of people here who can help with that. The metal, the plastics, all of those things, the supply never really dried up on those. They just got more expensive and take a little bit longer. and wood certainly ramped way up there in the middle of things, but we never lost supply of those. We just had to spend more money. So we have a lumberyard actually less than a mile away from our factory where they've had a constant supply of the Baltic Birch and stuff we use for our playfields and cabinet, MDF, and half-inch, three-quarter-inch plywood, those kind of things have been flowing pretty freely. It's the length of time that's really affected us. it takes to get some specialty parts made overseas you have to have about a six month window where they're going to build them and then they get put on a boat and it used to take two to three weeks to get overseas on a boat now it takes two to three months so everything has to be planned a little more carefully and everything has to be purchased well in advance of you needing those parts we've managed, it's been a challenge but so far so good. So has over the years your role in the company changed other than being involved with far more strategic ordering of parts and finding solutions for parts that are no longer available? I mean, you started out as a small company. Aside from the big bang when you announced Weird Al, I mean, everything changed with COVID. And, I mean, you're one of the few hands-on owners of a company that's really involved in almost every aspect of the company. So, how do you manage? I started a company because I wanted to be in control of my own life, my own decision-making. I wanted to be the one to blame if I made a wrong decision because I don't like thinking, man, I could have made a better decision. I could have avoided that problem if I made the decision. So I have my hands in most aspects of the company. I hired people to help where I needed specific skill sets. We have TJ. He's a brilliant mechanical engineer. He does all our mechanical design. I work with a lot of different software people all over the world, actually. We have BJ's in New Zealand and Michael Ocean's in Connecticut or Massachusetts or Connecticut or Massachusetts. He's in Massachusetts. We have people over at Rory's in California, our graphic animator. We have people all over the world to do our creative process. I participate in those meetings and design decisions and game design, but I offload a lot of the specific tasks to other people. I don't do the assembly anymore. I used to. I used to be turning a screwdriver with everyone else. We all used to because we didn't have enough resources. So I've built every sub-assembly that goes in these machines myself. Sarah, my wife, has. Sarah built the first hundred heist game kits to ship out. Wow. Sarah built them herself. Now we have a team of people who are building heists and weirdos and everything else. But I'm still here doing everything that needs to be done. What I like to say is I hired people to do very specific things, build playfields or do mechanical engineering, and I literally do everything else. Right, but you still test play every game before it goes out the door. I do, yes, because I want to know for sure that every machine we ship worked properly when it left this building. and I can say that with 100% certainty because I tested them. Now we talked about the changes that have been taking place here and as part of your new building next door you have a kind of mini museum of the history of the P3 from the very first iterations all the way up to the current ones. Now even now things do change from the different versions or different builds of the base P3 cabinet, you know, things like the scoops and walls, they've changed from solar noise to motor driven, they've had upper flippers added now. How do you manage any future changes to the base kind of platform, which will still be back with the compatible with all the existing machines that are out there, and while adding extra features or more reliability to the actual game itself, or the physical game itself, because that must be knowing that there's so many of those machines built out there and they all need to be able to work with every kit that you produce. You can't go making massive changes to the base of the P3, can you? So everything is a measured decision. There are pros and cons in making changes and the impacts they have on future design decisions are real. So far the changes we've made have all been functional changes that don't impact the rest of the system. And what I mean by that is we added a light panel, a light box to our backbox to add backlit graphics. Well, the backbox is just an aesthetic thing for the most part anyway, so that can be what the new machines are, and the old machines will still work fine without the backlit speaker panel, and that's just fine. However, we are making the upgraded backbox available to old P3 owners. Yeah, things like flippers, the way the flippers are driven, for a start, and also, as I mentioned, the walls and scoops are now motorized, but solenoid driven, and that's potentially changing further down the line, but we don't quite know yet. But so far, all those changes are within the same form factor. So the wall and scoop module, yes, it's a new version, but it looks the same. It fits in the same space. And the only thing we had to change to use it with new software is software. We had to change the way that software talks to the controller boards that either drive a motor or drive a coil. The flippers, we did an upgrade kit that added some functionality that added into stroke switches to our floating flipper assembly. Again, just software changes. In fact, software is smart enough that it can detect whether that switch is present or not, and it'll drive the flipper differently depending on whether or not it's doing a timed pulse or a stroke-based pulse or however it needs to be most efficient. So, so far, we haven't done any what I call platform-breaking changes. And if we ever did, we would come out with a new product, a P4 or a P5 or whatever. But so far, we're completely focused on this P3. We want to keep adding value. Do we want to keep doing upgrades in a way that people can continue improving the playing experience on the machine that they own? The latest game, Final Resistance, uses static inserts on the playfield monitor. So the ball rolls on the monitor, the inserts are animated, but they are in a static place and they are always there, which is a feature that I personally appreciate very much and I understand or I understood that more people are fond of it. But what if this is a direction that you really didn't want the platform to go to? I don't have a strong opinion about where the platform should go. I have a strong opinion about what I like, what I enjoy. and the company started out with me delivering experiences that I was passionate about. So being able to tell a story on the play field is really important to me because that's where you're looking when you're playing. You're looking at the flippers and maybe a little bit above the flippers to see where the ball needs to go or have the ball coming in. So presenting information on that screen, on the play field service, in a way people can connect more with the story is what's important to me. We've done that in different ways over the years. In all of our games, we present information in a different way. Scott Danesi's vision came out of, it grew out of his Total Nuclear Annihilation game and kind of what he did on Rick and Morty. And he has a way of designing things in a presentation style that people connect well with. So, of course, we wanted to leverage those connections, allow him the freedom to create a game that presents according to his vision. And I have no problem with the way it's presented. I quite like it myself. And I'm in pinball. I'm building a pinball machine, and I own a pinball company because I love pinball. I love traditional pinball. Static artwork is great. I have old machines in my house. I love them. and Scott's tying into that traditional kind of presentation. And we'll probably do a lot more games with traditional styles of presentation, but we're absolutely going to keep doing games that present information and moving graphics and things in a way that tell the story better. Because ultimately, I believe the P3 is the most immersive pinball experience on the market, and it's the best storytelling platform or machine available because we can present information and we can tell that story while you're playing the game. Can you tell us a little bit about how Final Resistance came about? How did Scott end up here with Multimorphic and producing his next game with you and becoming part of the design team? What was the... Who approached who and what was the process for which you settled on exactly how this game was going to be developed? Yeah, Scott and I go way back. I met Scott in 2011 when I was developing the P-Rock, and he was interested in the P-Rock for a custom project he was doing. So this is a board that people can use to customize games or create new custom games. We have a community of P-Rock users and developers, and I've developed some pretty good friends in the community, and we have some chat channels where we're talking literally daily. Scott and I and a bunch of other of the early developers literally talk every day and a half for the last 10 years on these online forums or whatever. So I've always known what Scott's been working on. He's always known what I've been working on. He seemed to have an interest in the P3. He bought one for himself a couple years ago. And he's the type of guy who's always thinking about how to connect people with that traditional style of gameplay. So he came to me and he said, hey, I have an idea. I think it would be great to build this game concept out on a P3. I think people will really connect to it. Can I do it? Do you want me to do it Can you help me do it And Scott had the vision and we put the resources around him to allow him to be successful doing that So is that a one and done, or the start of a beautiful friendship? I mean, it's always been a beautiful friendship. He's used the P-Rock board in all of his games throughout his career, so we already have a mutually beneficial friendship and relationship. We're pretty good friends. TBD. We'll see. Maybe you'll see another Dvisa game on the P3. Maybe you won't. But if I were betting, I would lean on that friendship that he and I have and expect more cool stuff to come. It's been a pleasurable experience in developing Final Resistance. We are still friends. We are still good friends. Right. So, any chance for the final... Well, the chance is always there, but the final resistance the game itself is there but any chance for a different game using the same playbook module expanding on the same theme so to speak even more fun so I won't go too much into our plans and roadmaps and business strategies but I will say that we've always wanted to continue increasing the value of the products we sell. Cosmic Heart Racing is a game that came out with a game software for it. It was the racing game. And then we added a whole new rule set for it called Career Mode, Cosmic Heart Racing Career Mode. And then we added a wholly new software game called Sorcerer's Apprentice that uses the same play field and is a whole new experience. we want to continue giving people more value for their money, it makes us different than every other pinball manufacturer out there, we don't want you to sell your machine to make room for a new game we want to continue giving you value for your purchase and we will continue doing that so if I looked at Cosmic Kart Racing Playfield and said I've got this really cool idea for a game that could run on that I come to you and say Jerry, I've got a really good idea for a game we can run on this, and you say what? I say one of two things. Either I love the idea, let's build it together, or I say, Martin, we have a fully open development kit that you can use. Team up with your development friends and do it yourself. We give you all the tools to do it yourself. So there are a few third-party designers that have created content for the P3. They've done that on the backs of our development kit. But in order to get that game into the P3 infrastructure, it needs to be approved and integrated by you and your team. Yes, we have an approval process. So if you had that game idea, you would come to us and say, I want to build it, and we would say, here's our development kit, which you can freely download from our website, by the way. You can download it. You can fully develop it. You could pitch it to me as a fully developed product and say, here's the game. And then, yes, we have an approval process to make sure the game interacts with our system properly. That's not going to blow up coils or lock on things or do anything bad to the system. We want to make sure the content kind of meets our... Well, that was the next question. If I want to do a Pulp Fiction-type game with language, which is of an adult genre, is that the kind of thing which would get approval or is it also very much a family friendly it needs to be a family friendly theme or presentation we've done family friendly themes up to this point or limitations but no we're not necessarily tied to that we would just want to protect the content in a way that parental controls or something we'd want to build something into the framework to make sure that parents can can make sure kids aren't saying things or hearing things that they shouldn't be. Yeah, we're not opposed to any of that stuff. To round things up, all credits to Scott and his team for Final Resistance, which is a really fun game, I have to say. There is another game coming and we can guess who's working on that. Can you tell us anything about whether it will be a licensed game or an original team? I cannot. So we have a corporate strategy now where we want to release both. We want to continue doing original themes because we can sell them basically forever. We can make them sell them forever. And licensed themes have generally a term, some amount of time you're allowed to sell it for. So in order to make the P3 a long-term good value proposition for people, we need to continue building, we want to continue building original themes games. but obviously we all know the power of a license we saw it with the Weird Al license and we have licenses in our pocket that are turning into games that will be coming so I won't say what the next one is I will say we will be doing both moving forward just picking up something you mentioned there though if you do a license, say, not Weird Al as such but any licensed game with its own playful module does that then prevent any other software running on that same module you know if I've got a a Weird Al play field and it's got all Weird Al stuff all over it and pictures of Weird Al and then I go and do a Blood and Gore type game that's nothing to do with Weird Al and run it on there that would seem to be against the idea of licensing it's a conversation that we have with every licensor we talk to should we lock this playfield down or are you open to allowing third party or future multi-morphic developed apps to work on it? It's a discussion point. There's no hard and fast rule in each one. Is Weird Al open to other games being made on it? Yes. Okay, that's good. Well, I guess that rounds it up for multi-morphic. Thank you, Jerry. I'm taking time out of what's obviously a very busy time to run up to the show. Thank you guys for coming down and seeing the factories. Always good to see you. Yeah. So we wish you a very successful Texas Pinball Festival. Thank you. And we'll see you there. And there you have it, Gerry Stellenberg of Multimorphic. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Jerry. Yeah. And, well, that's one of four, so one down, three to go. And let's move on right away with Daniel Jensen, who is the CEO, I suppose you can call him. Yes, of Pinball Brothers. Daniel is based in Sweden, in the city of Örebro. I see you to say. Yeah. And, of course, he's not alone. alone. He has brothers, so to speak, who are not part of this interview, but he will explain a little bit about that. Most of them are in Scandinavia as well. One is in Germany. And of course, they have the Queen game, which they have been working on, and the highly successful aiming game and they announced a new company which is the combination of forces of Pinball Brothers and Pedretti Gaming. Yes indeed Euro Pinball Corp which was not entirely clear exactly what what that entity was you know what the business was but we'll clear that up obviously when we speak to Daniel because he was kind enough to take time out from the Texas Pinball Festival where he had a very busy show but he sat down with us in a little side room there and we were able to clarify that and find out more about what's going on with Pinball Brothers and the Queen game and the future plans. So we're joined by Daniel Janson of Pinball Brothers or should I say Euro Pinball Corporation Pinball Brothers I think but you can say both Well on that basis can you clarify exactly what Euro Pinball Corp is. I know it's a collaboration with you and Pedretti Gaming, but you still exist as individual entities, but what does Euro Pinball do? Yeah. I'm not going to do a longer intro introducing it to talking about Alien and Queen so that the listeners... Well, only because you mentioned Euro Pinball right at the start. You've blown the gap, really. We might as well do this. We're going to start over. Oh, this is great. Okay, we're not going to start over. But so Daniel Jensen runs a company called Freeplay in Sweden, which is a pinball part and you also sell machines? Yeah. But yeah, okay. He's also the head of Pinball Brothers, who recently merged with Pedretti Gaming, forming Euro Pinball Corp. Well, at least that's the way we understand it, but we're here to get some clarification. Exactly. Thank you. Yeah, I think I have to correct you on the word merge, because there isn't really a merge. I can give you the background. It's quite simple, really. We, PimpleBuzz, have been working with the Petretti for two years, or a little more, I think. And they have manufactured our games. So it's Alien and Queen? Yeah, correct. And this partnership has just been deepened along the way. And we decided to join the forces, basically, in the manufacturing. So we founded the European Ball Corp. It's basically a manufacturing plant. Right. A factory. So does that mean that Padretti is still doing their own stuff like 2.0 kits and the toppers? And this is a new facility that you're putting together or is it taking over the facility that Padretti previously had? Yeah, it's a new facility, but it's very close to the Padretti premises. So it's just five minutes walk between the premises. Right, so a new manufacturing facility under the European Bucco name. But the designs for it still come from Pinball Brothers. Exactly. And Pedretti provide what? Pedretti, they run the manufacturing aspect of it? Yeah, some stuff from Pedretti moved. I should clarify that. Basically, all the stuff that previously manufactured the games for Pinball Brothers at Pedretti moved into your Pinball Corp. Right. Okay. So is the intention that you're a pinball court will only produce games supplied by pinball or designed by pinball brothers and marketed by you and Bill? Well, what's Progetti's interest ongoing in that then? Because they're obviously doing their own stuff as well. Yeah, but they focus primarily, as before, on the 2.0 kits and some other stuff. But they are non-humble products as well, don't they? When they've been treated gaming. Yeah, but I... Actually, I guess there is a question for Marco, who runs VET Gaming, to answer. But I think today... I mean, historically, VET Gaming, I think they have been around for 50 years or something like that. So it's a family business. So they have been... I know that they have been doing jukeboxes and slot machines and some other stuff. But I'm not sure how much of that they are doing these days. And going forward, games will be branded as Euro Pimple? Games or Pimple Brothers games? Pimple Brothers games. Right. Okay. It sort of makes me wonder, with Podretti being so long in the business, how did you find them? It actually started with Freeplay, because I got to know them as a distributor for their parts. They have been doing parts for licensed parts from Pinball. Yeah. And then we... Exactly. So Freeplay became a distributor. So I've known them for... I had known them for a couple of years before we sort of started talking about manufacturing of Pinball machines. so that it wasn't a new it was a new partnership for Pinball Brothers but we knew each other from before right, ok, so now we're here at Texas Pinball Festival you brought Alien you brought Queen Queen has developed quite a bit since Pinball Expo when it was first public showing I would say What can people expect if they play Queen? When they play Queen, I should say. Today, I think they should expect a much more immersive game than they experienced at Expo. Because Expo was very early when it comes to software, especially. The rules were quite shallow. And also there's been a lot more work done to maybe the area of content, animations, sound. So for me, I think the version we have here today is really sort of a complete package that is a much more over-ready game. So when it comes to first showing a game in a public location like a Gimbal Expo or here at the Texas Film Festival. What are the driving forces that let you say, yes, this game is ready to show people? Or it's simply the fact that the show is here, we've got to have the game ready for that, and whatever state it's in at that point, we're going to show it, and we'll get feedback on what people think about it and incorporate that into the future. Because the ideal thing would be you would turn up at the show with your game, with complete code, and everyone will be thrown away by it. But you're having to do a certain amount of expectation management early on and saying this is not finished code, there'll be more and show it later. Yeah, you're right. But I mean, I guess the answer to your question is a mix of all of that. I think that to some degree you want to show the game to get feedback because you actually use the feedback. It's important to get feedback from experienced pinball players who can say what they like and what they don't like. But at the same time, we obviously have a sort of a development plan for the game. So there could be things reconsidered, obviously, from the feedback. But the main course is already set for what we want from the game. But why the decision to show a game at a certain point is really hard to say. You have to make that decision at some point. Is the game good enough to show? And we thought it was, really. It's shooting great and you can get a sense for the game. and then from that point it only will sort of improve. The physical aspects of it are not really going to change. Exactly. The shots are, the ramps and the lanes. All you're going to do is enhance the package that surrounds that, the multimedia, the ruleset. Exactly like that. And I think the feedback that we got from Expo, for instance, you always collect audits. So you can see how hard the game is to play, And in the end I think that is pretty important. Even if you make a great game, I think if you don't get the balance right, it can really ruin the game. So it's very important to... We... maybe we wasn't surprised, but we had confirmed that the game is really hard. And that made us do some changes. So if you play it today, it is probably a little bit easier. with standard settings, you see more of the game. Yeah, exactly. And that's what we want. Now, if we're talking about Queen, that game has had an unusually long development cycle, I would say, in the sense that it was shown in London first at the pop-up store for Queen merchandise, and then it took 11 months before the game finally got announced. with some changes, visible changes noticeable, but the code is still being worked on right now, and we're like five months after Expo. So is there a reason why there was such a long gap between the first showing of the game and where we are now? Obviously you have the European Bowl situation with Pedretti, which also took up time, I assume, but still. Yeah, but I think that, again, there are multiple answers to the question. I think that, first of all, the showing at the pop-up store was very, very early, and it was made from sort of marketing reasons, not entirely decided by us, if I put it that way. That said, I think it was still fun to show it to people, and so there was no harm to that. And, of course, we wanted to have the game completed or announced earlier. So the 11, if that was the 11-month, 8-month gap. It was in January of 20... It was in September 21 that we showed the game at the pop-up store. I think it was the end of October. I think it was the end of October. Oh, yeah. It ran until January. Oh, that's what I was thinking of. Yeah, yeah. I should know I was there. Yeah, yeah. We met there. Yes, that's right. Yes, indeed. That was a... That was... I couldn't even call it a prototype. It was an example, a representative sample of what the game would look like when it was completed. Yeah. It was unplayable at that point because there were big parts of it missing. Yeah, and we... I mean, oils and stuff wasn't even connected. It was meant to be sort of a jukebox, basically, in the store. Which it is very well. Yeah, sure. We got a lot of positive feedback. And the queen was happy and the management was happy. So it was all good. But I think that even if we wanted the time after showing it that the shop was, We would have wanted it to be shorter, for sure. But, I mean, there's a lot of struggles going on still with the post-COVID situation. Supply chain issues. Yeah, exactly. So, and as a small, fairly small company, we, I mean, we have to focus on, we have to make prioritizations. That's right. So, prioritize, basically. So I wouldn't say that we stopped working, but it took longer. And we had to prioritize the production of Alien in the meantime. So, yeah, that's... So when it comes to things like software updates, and we were talking about that recently, what's the process? And you've done two license titles. You've done Alien and Queen. Are those very similar in the way that when you produce an update to it, you have to get that past the licensor? Or is it actually a lot easier than that? And if you want to add some new code to Alien or to Queen, it doesn't have to go back to the licensor to be approved, and you can just put it out there. I don't think people really understand how licensing works, how detailed it is, or whether it's a lot more sort of broad brush, and they're saying, okay, well, as long as you don't add any more assets or use the support, which we haven't already agreed, you can do whatever you want with it. It's basically like what you said last, that normally you get a certain amount of assets. Those are approved and those are the ones you can work with, both from the digital contents, the sounds, and also the art. But what you can do, obviously, is that you can always submit for approval of using new assets. But that is, I think, that is quite, at least for us, that is uncommon. We do have the assets that we work with. So animations and sounds and all that that is included today, that wasn't there at Expo. They were all sort of already in the agreement. agreement. Right. So, okay. But that could be animations which you created. Yeah. Not necessarily using any assets from the license or a good you know, internally generated graphics. Sure. Or movie clips or let's say jackpot animation or something like that. It doesn't include licensed assets itself. You're allowed to add all those as much as you'd like. Yeah. And that's the case for, was it Fox that does some Alien and From the beginning. Then they were acquired by Disney in 2019, I think, 2020. So when we relaunched Alien, Disney was the licensor. And who does the Queen's office? Is that Bravado or is that somebody else now? Yeah, that's Bravado. It is Bravado. Okay. I actually want to talk a little bit about the company structure within Pinball Brothers, because when you run your free play company, at shows we see people like Roger, like Kato, and a few others, depending on which show you go to. And so how is Pimble Brothers sort of structured so that we can get a better idea of how the company functions? Yeah, that's a good question. And I can fully understand that that could be hard to see from the outside. But basically, we were a number of founders of Pimble Brothers and shareholders. and we worked closely together. And then as we, I mean, we have evolved as a company and then you have to add more people and you have to create an organization for that. And at that point, that is maybe one and a half years back or something like that, I was appointed CEO and Roger and Katu decided not to be part of the daily operations and also some of the other shareholders. So it's nothing strange in that. Why we are all I mean even if they are not part of the daily operations everybody loves Pimble and loves the industry and are interested in the product and so that's why we all meet at shows and so on and we'll continue to do so I guess for example Roger and Kato are not part of the daily operations but if there is a pinball design on the table do they have input in what they think it should do or the direction it should go in or are they more in the background and... These days they are in the background, but that doesn't mean that it always has to be like that. I mean, for the last 18 months, I've been in charge of the company and run it and hire people in different positions and build the organization together with Marco, who is CEO for EPC. but that could obviously change in the future so some of the other shareholders could at some point step in and do more it's a sort of evolving thing I think because everybody are very much involved in pinball in general So it seems like you have a pretty functional and forward-focused organisation now with your manufacturing partners. What's the focus of Pimble Brothers now then? Is it on developing Queen and basically getting that out there in as many units as possible and marketing it? Or is that done and you're now looking forward to the next? Okay. Yeah, if I start by repeating about the situation with the long time before making Queen happen, at that point we had fewer resources than we have today. So we are in a much better place now to run projects in parallel to production. And so I would say that now that Queen is sort of in production, We are very much into designing and preparing for new titles. And that's a really great feeling because we have been, to some extent you can say, we have been on the back foot for a long time and having to play catch up for a long time. So we are much more on top of that now. and with production now at EPC running well and hopefully increasing over the year, next year, we hope to add a couple of more games. And also the license titles or original themes? There could be. I mean, mainly these days it's really, really hard to do something other than licensed games, I would say, for a small company. But I know others are doing that, but for us it's been licensed that is the focus. Right, okay. So as a pinball manufacturer here at the Texas Pinball Festival, during setup, the show still has to start, but the past two weeks, like six new games were announced and are here at the show. What's your point of view or perspective in all that? Obviously, you look at what your competition is doing. Is it a situation that well explain to us how you feel about the current situation if you would like that Yeah I understand what you mean Does it affect our way of thinking that there is suddenly a very crowded field and a lot of competition where there wasn't that the case two years ago or three years ago? But I mean, I think it's just great. I mean, for us, it's just great when there's a lot of pinball machines being made. We just have to, that just means that we have to acquire licenses or making designs that really appeal to people to buy our games. And I'm not, I still think that, maybe naive, but that the industry is growing. And as long as the industry is growing, it isn't really competition. It's more like diversity. I mean, like Queen, for instance, maybe there are people deciding between having a Scooby-Doo or Queen, but, I mean, it's very different things. So if you're a Scooby-Doo fan, you probably would go for that. And if you like Queen, you might go for that. So it's, yeah. Now looking ahead to future games, to a great extent I'd say, the first two titles were, I'd say inherited, but they were developed by other people. And now you're at the point where you're going to be developing your own titles, entirely of the Moore Brothers, with no inheritance from any previous companies. Previous company with a bad reputation. So people know who developed, or who designed, Alien. They know who designed, more or less, or who designed Quill. Who's working now? Who's in your team, basically, in designing new games? Because we want names. We want to know who to give the credit to. Yeah, yeah. Rather than some nameless people who designed this game. We want to be able to put names to pieces. Yeah, that's a good point. I think that... You've become a secret. Maybe, maybe not. As I say, we know who did those games. Yes and no, because I think that Alien started off with a design from Dennis Nordman. Well, it had a lot of changes along the way. Exactly, and then Dave Sanders worked on it, and then for Queen we had Barry Oursler doing the original design, design and then that has been reworked to a standard game and then we have been working on it internally. So I might be a bit boring, but saying that I think maybe it's the, I mean, in the US, most games have one single game designer, but our sort of way of working is more team based. So that means that for the next title, I would say we are designing it as a team. But I think most game design teams have what they used to call a game daddy at Williams, which was a game lead. It was a person who was in charge, who would make the big decisions, say, yes, that shot is too tight or it needs to be widened up, in collaboration with the rest of the team. and we were talking to Jerry Stenberg about this and it may have a very similar collaborative process there at Multimortem how they put their game together but they still have a lead design and people have sort of assigned jobs somebody is in charge of sounds and you're not going to ask your sound guy to program the game no yeah I'm not sorry even if I know that David Thiel is actually programming also So it's a funnily to... But it also comes with a certain amount of cachet as well, in that you can say, oh this is a game by, or it was developed by such and such a person, and then they go, who's also worked on this, worked on that. Then, you know, particularly at MultiWolf, we talk about Scott Denisey and his current game. When you know it's a Scott Denisey game, it's like, oh wow, a Scott Denisey game, that's really interesting. Well, it's called Pixians of Margaritie. so he didn't do it alone he had a lot of help from a lot of people but culture is personality led so it helps you I think if you can build up your personalities of the design team yeah but I think this is I mean this ties into the I think the the fact that the company has evolved from the original shareholders and then into a company with more people involved. And that the games have taken quite a long time to design and to make. If you look at Queen, for instance, we have the guy who made the sort of final parts of the design is Alexander Alexander Spohr, who is one of the shareholders. So in that aspect, it's fair to say that he was the lead designer for Queen. But he sort of inherited the design from Gary and others along the way, and there were other people also involved in making decisions, as you say, like the others who collaborate. So, and our, in the future we, I think that there will be, there will definitely be a lead designer for future games. I just don't think you should be shy about celebrating the success of your designers. You should be, you know, you say this is a great game, bye, let's bye, we beat people working on it. Because at the moment, nobody knows who worked on that game. Nobody knows really who was behind Queen. Okay. Who was in the team. Yeah, the credits for Queen is that Alexander is the guy who tied the game together and he's sort of the lead designer for finalizing the game. And the original design is made by Barry and also Dave has been involved to make the game a standard body from a white body. So that's basically it. Some people like to know who did the sound. Yeah, who did the rules. It's a band called Queen did the sounds. Yeah, yeah, sure. No, David Thiel is doing the sounds. Exactly. Together with Michael Stöckemann from Germany. Oh, okay. Yeah. But you're right, I mean, we have been really sort of quite poor. We've only got two titles out. We still have time to improve. And we will, we will. I think it will be to your benefit to get your reputation built up. Right, okay. Now, of course, Production of Queens just started, so you hope to run the title for a very long time. But as you mentioned, you're also working on upcoming titles. Can you reveal anything, like, are we going to see a new Pimple Brothers game this year, or would it be next year, or 2025? I would say within 12 months. Of now. Of now. so March 2024 so you might be back here in one year's time with a new Civil Brothers game we could be yeah okay well we wish you the best of luck developing that game thank you very much such a big rush of new titles for March of next year yeah and well we'd love to see you again next year here at the show of course and thank you for your time right now yeah thank you thank you And there you have it, Daniel Jensen. Thank you, Daniel. Yeah, Pimble Brothers. The future is looking very bright for them right now, so hopefully it all goes as planned, although it rarely ever does. Yeah, they've got their act together by the sounds of it. So someone who's much earlier on that journey is Chris Turner of Turner Pimble. Now, we weren't expecting to see Chris or indeed Turner Pimble at the Texas Pimble Festival. No, we didn't expect him to turn up. No, and we certainly didn't expect him to turn up with a game. And indeed he did, as we reported in the main March. Ninja Eclipse, the game is called. Yeah, you played it, you liked it, actually. I played it. One of the funny things was that When I played it I think I got pretty much all the way through Most of the game And he said, oh, I've never seen anybody get that far Because it's only been us playing it so far In the factory Because this was before the show opened So I was one of the first people to play it there And he said, you know, it's really different When you actually get people who are pinball people Who know how to play the game But you're so good, Martin Yeah, I wasn't quite as lucky on that as you were with Pulp Fiction, although it was obviously skill in your case. But anyway, it was a fun game to play, and it was a surprise to see him there, as I say, and it was a good opportunity to speak to Chris. We've seen his videos before where he explained how the company was formed and what the background of that company was. So you had a chance to talk to him and had the presence of mind to record that as an interview. And let's see what I recorded. Yes, before the show started, but it was still in the hall during the set-up. So, you know, it's a little bit of background noise, but perfectly legible and some good information from Chris. So let's hear what he has to say. So here with Chris Turner of Turner Pinball who brought Ninja Eclipse, a totally new game that nobody saw coming, to Texas Pinball Festival. Chris, how are you doing? What can you tell about the game and Turner Pinball? I'm doing a great job. It's a pleasure to meet you here today and we're really excited to be here with our game. And we're really looking to get feedback from people that can play it. Right now, the people that have played it have really been limited to my team. We've already had some really great players walk up and test out the game. And we just need to watch them work the different shots of the game. I think it's going to give us an opportunity to learn and improve on this. This is our third version of this whitewood. And we've got a prototype graphic applied for the show. We wanted to try to make it look as nice as we can. You can also see some of the lights. We've got all the main shot lights cut, but not all of them are there. And we just wanted to have enough there so people could play it and get a feel for the game. And enough to gather good feedback on the game. You bought a lot of assets from Deepwood Pimble when they went up in smoke. Yes, sir. This is not a Deepwood Pimble design inherited or anything like that. No, sir, it's not. Did you use elements from Deepwood Pimble designs that were part of what you bought and figured like, okay, well, I like how this looks, but nothing that way, and we're going to put it somewhere else? This is actually an entirely new creation. So my strategy, so first of all, the Beaker stuff, there were a lot of people, including my team, who put a lot of effort and time into all that stuff, and I didn't want to see it all get thrown away. And so I tried to acquire that so that we could do something with it, but I didn't think that doing something with that as our first game was the right thing to do. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to come out with something that was completely our creation and prove ourselves that we can build something new that people like and then work to get to the point where we can manufacture this and provide it to customers. And once we do that, I want to go back through some of those Western and Deep Group titles and I want to be able to finish what got started there and not let the work of so many people get thrown away. Okay, that's a very nice and ambitious foresight, I would say. I appreciate that. It's been a challenge getting this ready for the show. You made it ready further than needed because they made it to the show. Yeah, well, that board, the playfield, we cut it about a week and a half ago, if you can believe that. and got all this done here and we had some late nights getting it all ready. Well, you're not the only film company that is facing that problem. Yeah, I'm sure that's true. So, it looks like a very nice and colorful film machine. It looks like an original theme as well. Yes, sir. It's an original theme and we've got a great artist in it, Brad Duke. And so he's done the plate-filled design and the art. And we haven't announced this publicly yet, but I'll do it right now. Jon Norris actually joined our team about a month and a half ago. And did he have any input on this game that you could immediately utilize? He did, yeah. So we showed him the shot layout, and he provided feedback on some of the areas. Actually, the ball hold up for the cat bowl, he was advising on different ways we can do that. We ended up going with a magnet. This works really great. we catch the ball, and then we can, with timing, throw it out the back. And so it lets us capture and show a video and then continue to play. And, yeah, I think John has worked on some games that are kind of in the people's portfolio. And one of those is the New Orleans Arcade. And I know that he'd love to complete that game. That's something I would do with him. And then just a little bit ago, Dennis Norton was walking by, and I got to meet him again. And he was asking me about the game he was working on with people. with the team on Yeti, and he seems interested in still working on that, and so it's exciting to get to see these folks. And again, just to not let the work of so many people get thrown away, I think there's a lot of value in it, and I hope that we can make something really good of it. Okay. Is there a reason at all for a timeline on this game, or are you not at that stage yet that you can predict what we expect to do before that? Yeah, it's hard to predict. And I don't want to be the one that comes out and makes a bunch of promises and then misses these delivery dates and things like that. Which would be very deep, I'm sure. I know, right? So I try to be a little more conservative. I am really hoping that we can get this for sale by the end of the year. I think that's an ambitious goal, but it's one that I'm going to try to get the team to work towards. And if we can hit that, I would be ecstatic. Right. Now, getting a design finished is one thing. Getting a manufacturer is a totally different thing. Oh, yeah. There are a lot of challenges to overcome. Is this something that you're going to do yourself, or are you going to source it out to a company? If you can't talk about it, we respect that as well. Yeah, so I'm figuring out the process and trying to learn how to go on some of these things. But the plan that I have right now is, I've got a small set of equipment that allowed us to build some prototypes. But like, for example, like, BMPs to play field. I can't imagine trying to do a hundred of those, you know, or a thousand of those. It's just not feasible for me to do that in my little workshop. And so I think that we can essentially refine the design on the prototype manufacturing equipment that I have. And then when I want to get the main in quantity, I'll go to a cabinet shop and I'll say, hey, we need X and Bs, and then I'll get the main, and then we'll continue to finish ourselves. But I think we're going to be integrating all the components, assembling all the components, and sourcing all the different things. So I guess that means we're doing the manufacturing, but it doesn't mean that every piece is getting made in-house. Right. Well, you can't force things out of the field. Yeah. Well, we've seen many startups, so the response they make is exciting. And some of the startups get 10 days out of the month, others 40, 50. Right. And if you're starting Bimbo, you're not a startup anymore. You get to do a couple hundred in a month. Yeah. Well, yeah, we've got to start small and, you know, learn and grow in a controlled and smart fashion. Right. I'm very curious to see how you play I will play it later on I'd love to have you play it It should be done And let's end this up for now But we're happy to see you Chris Turner here at Texas Film Festival I wish you a very pleasant show And I wish you best of luck Thank you, Charles Thank you, Chris Turner For clarifying all of that Yeah, good stuff Well done for recording that Thank you Yeah, and then last but not least, I would say, we had, well, I got a text and you got a text as well. Jack Migneri asked if he could come on the show. And, well, Jack's a close friend. Yeah, a longtime friend. Yeah, exactly. And as we said in our main pincast, looking back at March, at the Texas Pinball Festival, Jack had lost his voice. So he wasn't actually able to speak to us or do an interview at that time Yeah But as soon as he got back home he recovered fully and regained his voice And was able to give us an update on what's been going on with him With Jersey Jack Pinball and with the Lord to the Godfather And his views on the state of the business and licensing Amongst many other things Right So, let's hear what Jack has to say. Indeed. We are now joined by Jersey Jack Pinball founder, Jack Guarnieri, who had a very successful launch of The Godfather at the Texas Pinball Festival with Jack's presence in tuxedo, I may add, as well. And welcome, Jack. Hey, guys. How are you doing? We're doing good, Jack. Yeah, we're doing well. And good to hear your voice back because at the Texas show, you were certainly sort of, you lost your voice pretty much. Yeah, you sounded like a BG. Yeah, I think I was channeling Marlon Brando and the Godfather. Yeah. I was really not in good shape. I don't know what it was, I mean, I've been channeling. Well, you looked great. You looked. Well, thank you. Tuxedo covers up a lot, but not the voice. You're fully recovered now. I'm fully recovered and ready to go to other shows. I'll be in Australia next week, the week after Easter, I guess. Wow. Easter week, whatever they call that. That's the work, is it? I assume. And is there a show down there? Or is it just a show? There is. There's a show on that weekend. I think the 15th, the 14th, 15th, that weekend, there's a show. Nice. And then the end of the month, I'll be at Le Trepoir. And I don't know if you guys will be drinking champagne and eating chocolate. I wish I could be there, but I think it's pretty unlikely, to be honest. Okay. It's still up in the air for me. Okay. I have an obligation to go to in Italy, but I'm not sure whether I can make it, and then I'll have to see if I can. You better watch out the obligations in Italy, you know. Before you know it, you get fish in the newspaper. Yeah, especially with the golf club. You've got to watch out. but well speaking of the Godfather obviously that was one of the I would say many games revealed the past month how has the reveal of the Godfather been for you? it's been great and as we've said before I work on these things you know a few years, a couple of years depending before the launch you know, getting the license, getting all the assets together so that our designers and all our creative people can actually make something for the assembly line to build. So it's been a while for me, but it was exciting because one of the things I hoped for with this license was bringing new people to the market and to buy pinball, and it's happening. some of the distributors I talk to tell me things like you know we had people just call us up out of the blue to order a Godfather and they're not on our customer list we never sold them a game before so that's pretty cool is the game still appealing to the your initial type of customer because obviously you start off with much more family friendly type themes how can you say Godfather is not family friendly well it's all about the family It's just a different family That's all Yeah Guns and Roses Things changed a bit It's kind of interesting You have a good point The people that buy our games Some of them Actually said to me I didn't think I would be interested In the Godfather game Until I played the game And not all of them said that because the CE games sold out very quickly. And, you know, I was pleasantly surprised to hear people tell me that at the show and after Texas, I heard from people that said, yeah, I ordered a game. I didn't think it would appeal to me. I didn't know how you were going to do it. And then I heard things like the game is great. I love it. I love the way it looks. I love the way it plays. and personally, it kind of jogged my memory. I didn't hear that since really Wizard of Oz where people were surprised. They didn't think they'd like the theme or the integration of the theme into the game and I'm happy to hear it worked out for them. It's not an obvious theme for a pinball machine, but again, similar to the Wizard of Oz, you probably had a vision with that. I did. You know, again, it's a kind of crazy thing with me. I mean, I love The Wizard of Oz, and I wanted to bring that. You know, as a pinball, we know the story. I wanted to have women and young people discover pinball. And with The Godfather, it's one of my favorite movies. I've seen it, I don't know, hundreds of times. Anytime it's on, sometimes if I'm flipping TV, I have to stop, and I quote every line, and Joanne just rolls her eyes, and, you know, she just... I guess. Yeah, but, you know, it's like something you'll love. You know, it's pretty cool. And Eric and the whole team, I think they did a great job with the game. And, you know, this is the first game where we had Christopher Franchi do artwork. I think he did a great job, so... Yeah, I agree. It looks fantastic. But this follows on from Toy Story 4, where you haven't done a base standard edition. Now, Toy Story 4 was limited anyway to a maximum of 6,000 machines. We had 1,000 collector editions, I think, and 5,000 limited editions. I don't think Godfather's limited in any way, is it, the lower model? So what's the idea with not doing a standard edition anymore? Or is it just too much work and everybody wants the full-featured version of the game? Yeah, you know, Martin, I always say the only thing unlimited is aggravation. And I think on the LE of Godfather we limited it to 5,000 games. Oh, that's interesting. And the GE was 1,000 games. So it's the same as Toy Story then. Yeah, really, the lowest production games that we've ever done are standard games. It's just was a model. They're real limited ones. Yeah, they really are. I mean, there's only maybe, you know, 150 Wizard of Oz standard games. And there's in the hundreds or two hundreds of all the other ones. I don't think there's anything more than 300 of anything where we did a standard game. And with Dialed In, I think our standard was $6,000 at the time to try to promote operators and put them on location. And then operators pretty much bought the CEs, believe it or not, and they bought the LEs because they wanted, I think they wanted, you know, to really say to their customers, hey, we have the best full-featured, most expensive games for you to play. Come on out. Because they hold their value as well. Yeah, and they have, yep. Doesn't have to cost them anything in the long run. Exactly. I mean, the residual value, or if the game appreciates, as a lot of them have. So it didn't make sense to be spending time and money developing a whole art package and everything that goes with another model, so we just dropped it. Right. Okay. Now, Martin mentioned Toy Story being limited to 6,000 units in total. Is that production completely finished, or is Toy Story still on one line and Godfather on a second? Well, we're still building Toy Stories as we speak. It'll probably trail off in the next few weeks as we finish orders that we have on the books. And I think, I'm not sure, but I think the plan is to have one line building collector edition Godfather and one line building limited edition Godfather. You know, there'll probably be more when we post pictures, when we make a changeover in coming weeks when we do that. So going back to Godfather, you mentioned about when you've been working on the license for a couple of years or so. Can you tell us about how that came to be? Were you just going through the list of licenses available and you saw that and you knew immediately that that would make a great game, or was it something which you'd known was available for a long time and just sort of put on the back burner in favor of other titles? Well, I thought about it for a while, the title. I didn't know if the title was available in the category or not. And I reached out to Consumer Products of Paramount, and it was available, and I secured the license. And I was really happy about that. And I thought, here's another iconic, amazing movie in the same vein as Wizard of Oz was. Of course, different subject, obviously, but a very revered, epic production. And I thought that if it was treated the right way by the design team and the designer, of course, you could make a really compelling, fun game. You might not think so, but I think the way they did it, they accomplished that It certainly an interesting one but can I just ask before I let Jonathan have another question it does strike me immediately you know as soon as you see a game that's licensed and based on a movie with a large cast of characters that it's potentially going to be a licensing nightmare getting agreement from all the actors and their estates, if they're no longer with us in order to share their likenesses and I know that's certainly been about an issue in the past with Albertino when it comes to the Godfather. How was that all from your end? I don't want to say it was easy, but for me it was easy. I didn't have any problem at all. I mean, there were a lot of assets and included in the license. And there were a couple of actors that we wanted to add, and I was able to secure them. and everything was great. Paramount was really great in the whole licensing and the whole approval process because we have calls pretty much every week with people that license us property, either every week or every other week, and we submit things as they're going along, and we get sometimes different licensors give you different directions for things. certainly they want to get it approved and there are different stakeholders at these studios and places that have to see things that you're doing and you know I think the important thing for not really for us but the important thing overall to remember is that you don't own the property you're just kind of renting it for a little while and being respectful of it and being respectful of the assets you're giving I think if you could enhance the license by creating something really great then I think you've been a great licensee right now you working on securing the license for the Godfather is one thing but then there is the creative team Eric and well everybody who has eventually put their forces together to come to the game that it is but do they have a say in like I really don't think that's a game that I would like to do or are they enthusiastic or do they have choices like I'd rather do this one than that one how does that go I mean you securing a license and then what happens then I mean I'm just curious yeah so you know we've talked about it a little bit I actually talked about it a little bit in Texas when I didn't have a voice I said, you know, Eric's first game was Pirates of the Caribbean. I wanted him to do that. And handing somebody a game that's kind of, gee, that title's been done before. How do I do it differently or how do I make it great? And I think he did. And the whole team did. And I said, well, don't worry. Your next game will be an original title. And that was great. And then the next game came along and, you know, I went to Eric and I said, I got the titles you get to do. Great. What is it? Guns N' Roses. What? I thought you said it was going to be an original title. Well, listen, it's really hard to make the same title a different way, and you're really good at that, and you've proven that with Pirates, and what am I going to say? You know, I wanted Eric to do it, and I think he and the team did a great job, and it's a great selling game, and I love it. You know, it's bringing that concert home. So when I went to him with The Godfather, he said to me, that's good. I never saw that movie. Seriously? Yeah. Yeah. I never saw the movie. I said, okay, this is going to be interesting. So you bought him a DVD box. well he climbed into it and he became an expert where um he's asking me trivia questions where i was uh almost stumped a few times too so uh it's it's nice to have people that love what they're working on you really um you're really challenged if you give something to somebody and they don't like it and you expect them to do a really great job with it i think it's a lot better if they buy into the theme and they buy into what the story is and then they get very creative on how they're going to tell the story of that property through playing pinball. It does seem like you're almost developing a family of your own of people who work on the games who are not actually directly employed by Jersey Jack such as Slash as one and Mark Mark Tremonti as another. Well But Yeah But Slash and Mark seem to be Contributing Music to Various games now Which is nice to hear Because obviously they're talented people But how did How did Mark I mean I know Slash is a friend of Eric now but And how did Mark come to be involved in this? Well, I know Splash for about 15 years. So he actually, you know that story. I mean, he had to convince me to make Guns N' Roses. I was kind of not, I think we talked about that. I was kind of not on my radar. But after I went to a concert at China Stadium years ago, I said, yep, we really do need to do a Guns N' Roses game. It would be, especially the way we do it with the assets and you have the amazing sound and video and everything like that. With Mark Mark Tremonti, I mean, we're friends since about 2000 when he was the lead guitarist with Creed and founding member with Creed, and he was a customer of Pinball Sales. We used to have this guy call us up and order parts for, like, Indiana Jones and different games, and he always seemed like he was on a bus, and we thought he was a bus driver. and uh yeah we thought he was a bus driver he would call the shop and we talked to him and me or somebody else in the shop would talk to him for like an hour or two at a time believe it or not and he'd always be on a bus and okay whatever you know and one time i think uh me or one of the guys working for me at the time was listening to creed in the background because it was one of our favorite groups and it would be playing in the shop and he and he remarked about the song and then we kind of discovered who he was and i met him i met him that september of 2000 at jones beach before a concert and we've been friends ever since he's he's a really great guy he's involved in a lot of charitable works and uh He's got the project now with the National Down Syndrome effort because his daughter was born with Down Syndrome. So he's doing his Frank Sinatra, Mark Tremonti Singh's Sinatra album. All the proceeds are going to that. So we're involved in that effort as well. and it's just a really great person and he loves pinball. I mean, he's a pinball guy, so any contribution he can make. You know, when you hear the music that accompanies our logo at the beginning of the game, there's a riff there from one of his songs. I think the song is Waste Your Time, and I picked that riff with him. that that's the music that accompanies our logo when it's played in the attract mode if you have the attract mode sound on. And that goes back to, you know, 2011, what Wizard of Oz. Yeah, yeah, I remember, yeah. Great. I got no question. Oh! If you were waiting for that. No, I was just listening in a very entertaining story. Thank you, Jack, for that. Yeah, I mean, Mark's, you know, between Slash and Mark, it's nice to see people that are pinball fanatics that want to contribute to pinball. And the community is really great that way. I think you'd agree. There are a lot of people that just want to see more pinball. And I think it's great to see a lot of games come out. I wish everybody the best. I think more pinball is better for everybody. So it's been a while since we spoke. How has your role at the company changed since we last spoke, or hasn't it? Are you still doing what you've been doing for the past couple of years? Yeah, I mean, look, you know, every day I'm involved with what's going on in the company. Typically, I'm involved with Zoom calls or visits to the factory or being at a show or something like that. With game development, I'm involved with the development team all week, every week, between things that get submitted to the licensor and how they get submitted and making sure things get approved or watching what's going on as far as suggestions to games, selecting people to work on different games, artists and different members of the team. So it keeps me busy. I'm happy. It always sounds like you're a relationship manager then as much as anything else. You deal with the relationship between the company, the licensors, external contractors and people within the company as well. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, and we have three games typically in development at any one time. So multiply it by three, you have three teams of people designing games. And you have to figure out timelines. The good thing is that we have a lot of really great people in the company that do a lot of things. It's not like in the beginning where, you know, it was pretty thin and you had so many different jobs for so many different people. At least we have a good amount of people that are very talented to figure things out, what's getting ordered, what the bill of material is, what the vendors are, vendor relationships. There's obviously a lot involved in building a pinball machine that a lot of people have come to learn over the past 10 or 12 years. Yeah, we were, I think I was about to say, Jonathan and I, We both certainly learned some lessons when we went around the factory with Eric, and he was showing us all the various test fixtures and mechanisms that had to be built for every new game. And it's an aspect of the game development process that you don't really appreciate unless you do it for yourself. So, yeah, I've no doubt that people don't necessarily appreciate the sheer amount of work that goes into developing any new title. they just think, oh well, you know, it uses the same parts as the previous games, so it's got stand-up targets, it's got pop bumpers and that kind of stuff. But everything is different on every game, and it's a credit to the team, I think, of the factory, and I'm sure this is true of other manufacturers as well, but they have to build all these assemblies, all these test fixtures, program them as well, you know, to write the custom code in order to do the test procedures. it's very very intent I should say and I think Jonathan and I, when it's fair to say were both impressed by the amount of work that's required just to test the system right it's a good point so now I do have a question good so production for the Godfather is similar to the one of or limited to the same numbers as Toy Story. Between Toy Story and the announcement of Godfather, that's been like nine months. So that's the first time for you to announce a new title within a year, not necessarily the same calendar year, but a 12-month period. Does that mean that we can expect the next title also in a nine-month period or maybe not? Well, I've been on this show before, and I said yes to that question before, and I was wrong. So it's the plan. The plan is to have another game in nine or ten months after Godfather. That's the plan. We know what happens to plans, but you have to aim at something. You have to have a target to aim at or you don't know what you're shooting for, right? So we're diligently working on that every day. Now, one of the things that we always ask everybody in the industry when they're releasing a new game or indeed developing an upcoming one is about the ongoing supply chain issues and the availability of parts getting them shipped around the world. How has that been for Jersey Jack Pinball? Obviously it was a problem at some point But is that easing now? Is the situation improving? Is it slow? How is it about getting Even things like chips for boards Or items from the Far East? Right Well, it's been better I think I don't think we're going back to where we were two years ago or three years ago, certainly with 100 ships and port waiting to be unloaded, that kind of thing, thank goodness. But it's managing vendor relationships and managing expectations and trying to be on time with people. You know, if we're running late, you can't expect the vendor to always pick up the slack and rush and complete something in some kind of time frame. So there's a lot of planning that goes into it. And as far as inventory and buying, not just for us, but for everybody, you know, there was a thing years ago, I remember, people talked about it and they preached it. It was just-in-time inventory. And you wouldn't have anything on your floor until it was ready to go out the door, ready to be produced, assembled, manufactured. and they would go out. And then when people realized that that wasn't a possible thing anymore, ordering went differently. It became just-in-case inventory, so people ordered extra just in case. Just in case you got extra orders, just in case one vendor didn't make something and you had a second vendor make the part. So I think what happened with the whole COVID episode, I don't think it's a secret. I don't think I'm a genius to say it, but a lot of people overordered a lot of things. And right now in the world is absorbing a lot of things inventory-wise. And then if you have a little bit of a slowdown in certain segments of the economy, it takes longer to absorb the inventory that people have. But really for us, I think we're in really good shape. We have a lot of really great people that are buying, that are managing vendor relationships. and we have really great vendors that care about what we do. We pay very well, so they don't have to worry about, you know, am I going to get paid on time or, you know. I mean, we'll take care of everybody, which is really important. And the loyalty and the relationships are really treasured over so many years with the vendors that we have. Right. So, does it also mean that when designing a new game, the creative team keeps in mind, like, okay, if we want the game to do something like this, we need chip X, but that's difficult to get. So, let's see if we can work around that and get a chip that can do something similar, but is better or easier to obtain. Yeah, I don't know if it revolves around chips or board sets and things like that, but everything in the world is changing all the time. And you have to stay ahead of it if you can. You don't want to have, you know, there's certain things you could buy a good inventory of so it can get you through two or three games. And then there are certain things when you get to that next cycle that you have to jump to the next, you know, rope kind of thing, swing to the next rope. and now you're on the next version of whatever you're using. And, you know, electronics is probably a good example because that's always changing. Pretty much a lot of other things in the game that are molded or made out of plastic or wood or metal, that's a whole different type of thing. It's a lot easier most times to get those parts. Right, okay. Now, speaking of parts, there is a limited edition for the Godfather and a collector's edition. Who comes up with the ideas what to put on the collector's edition? And in this case, you have like these golden colored leg covers that go on to the cabinet. That's not a very typical pinball part. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen that before. So who comes up with that and gets that approved internally? And then you have to go to the licensor and discuss whether they would like it as well. But first of all, the creative process, like, hey, how about we do these covers for the legs? I'm just curious, you know. Well, Eric and the design team, they don't sleep much. So they think of these things in the middle of the night. They talk to each other. They bounce them off each other. We discuss them. You know, a lot of times when I hear these things, I kind of laugh, but I try not to say never say never and see where they go and see if it's possible. And you have some expensive and extensive tooling charges for some things you create sometimes. So you want to get the most bang for your buck for what you're trying to create. And we're always trying to create something new, you know, something that's going to give our games the wow factor, something that might not have been done before. And while you think that's challenging, the truth is they have so many more ideas that they could do and that they will do in the future. that it just amazes me what happens and what goes on in a pinball machine. Now, obviously, the last few games have all been licensed titles. I have to go all the way back to, I think, what dialed in before you had the first unlicensed title. Do you see yourself going down that route again in the future? I mean, obviously it's a hard sell to convince people of a brand new idea and introduce them to a new world in which they are totally unfamiliar. Although, obviously, you just said that Eric was unfamiliar with The Godfather when he got it. But he obviously picked it up very quickly. So do you imagine or can you see attempting an unlicensed title again in the near future? Well, you guys know me a long time as, you know, never say never really. I don't know. I mean, I would be open to it if there was something really compelling. But, you know, we know the challenges involved. We knew the challenge with Dialed In. And you're saying you know the companies as well? Well, you know, there are other companies making original title games, which is commendable and admirable, and it's great. And at the time with Dialed In, I do remember I said probably to you guys and other people who would listen, to me the license was Pat Lawler and John Yassi at the time. That was the license. And today I still hear great things about Dialed In. A lot of people say it's one of our best shooting games. It's a fun game. It's something creative. So sometimes you need to wait until, I guess, something gets appreciated after a while. I remember there was a time where Pirates people were canceling Pirates because it was spinning discs. It wasn't three discs, it was one disc. And now Pirates is this revere game that people search for and are willing to pay a lot of money for. So, you know, the pinball community knows what they want. But just like all humans, we may not know what we want right away. sometimes I need to play it, taste it, touch it, feel it feel differently about it and with a license if I tell you we're doing The Godfather then you can have your imagination run wild and think of all kinds of things that might be in the game. If I tell you some original idea you might say okay well I don't know what that's going to be. I don't know what that is. So that's the wow factor of a really great license. And I think there's, I think, yeah, I'll just finish my thought here. I think it's great to do an original title. It's not for everybody. I mean, you have to be very creative. It's probably as difficult to do an original title as a licensed title because you have a blank piece of paper and you need to create the whole storyline, the characters and everything that goes with it. Well, it's more risky, isn't it? And you need to be in a situation where you can afford to take those risks. You can try something which, and if it doesn't sell in big numbers, it doesn't sink the company. You need to be that financially stable. So, I mean, if you're producing one game every nine months to a year and you're expecting to have nine months to a year of production out of it, then you can't afford to have an unlicensed title which doesn't catch the public's imagination. Right. And look, you know, maybe there are some people that look at a license and say, well, it's difficult because I have to pay a royalty for the license and then I have to answer to somebody for what we do. But I could tell you from where I am, anyway, my opinion, that's probably some of the best money invested has been the license, really. Having done a licensed game and an unlicensed game, it was just as difficult to do dialed in, to be honest with you, as doing The Hobbit or anything else we've done. Right. One other thing I wanted to ask you about, which you did touch on in your seminar and was raised from the audience, was about your relationship with Scorebit and the fact that you apparently severed that relationship after several years of integrating Scorebit into your game software and it now no longer works. You said at the time that you had other plans for doing similar kind of things. Could you expand on that a little bit or explain why Scorebit, for those people who use it and enjoy using it, why that's no longer available to them in their Jersey Jack games? Well, let me tell the story, not related to Scrawbitt. I think they're really great people, and they have a great system, and I respect them, and I respect all the people that use it. When we first started the company, we had an opportunity to select a board system that would run our games, and we investigated it, and we talked about it, and we decided it probably will run our games, but we're better off with a known known than a known unknown. And what that means is the old, in quotes, controlling your destiny, right? Being able to create your own, yes, it's a little bit more difficult, and it might be a little bit more expensive, but I think that's the way we're going. We're going to have our own. system at some point and it'll be the way we want it and we'll control it and people will love it or people will hate it and i think there'll be more people that love it but that's that's where we're going but why would you cut ties with school bit almost instantaneously before your system is ready to roll out i don't know you're gonna have to answer that one yourself you know i think i think when you have an opportunity to do something, you really need to do it. And perhaps what we're working on would give us more effort and more time to work on what we're working on than working on something with somebody else. So take the people that we're working on, cooperating with the party, and have those people work on something that will be ours. So now the question is, who are those people? who are working on and I know that sounds like one of your trivia questions for a year or two from now okay I don't know if Martin has any other questions but we have a very lengthy show and I don't want to cut you short Jack but no you beat me up enough I guess well thank you for joining us and taking time out of your Sunday, your palm Sunday afternoon or early evening as it is with you I guess. I'm going to go back downstairs and have some cannolis now. Good for you. Yeah, and I assume you have a Godfather machine at home, yes? Yes. You do? Ah, right, okay. Good. Well, I hope that's a hit with the rest of the family then as well. It is, it's a hit. I like the way you say it. I was going to say take the canardy but leave the gun thank you Jack thank you guys for joining us and bringing us up to date on all the all the excitement going on at Jersey Jack Timble thank you Jack Wannier thank you very much thank you Jack pleasure as always yeah well we hope you enjoyed listening to these these four interviews there's bonus Pincast Based around the Texas Pinball Festival 2023 We hope you found them interesting And enlightening Because we certainly enjoyed doing them Right So that rounds it up for this episode As always We'll be back with the regular Pincast at the beginning of May Looking back at all the events That happened in the pinball industry During the month of April absolutely right so until then from me Martin Erb of Pinball News and me Jonathan Euston of Pinball Magazine we wish you a great month and we'll see you soon bye