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Episode 27 - One more question Roger Sharpe

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·51m 14s·analyzed·Dec 11, 2018
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TL;DR

Roger Sharpe interview discusses Deep Root Pinball delay and pinball industry distribution challenges.

Summary

Special When Lit Pinball Podcast Episode 27 features an extended discussion with Roger Sharpe, legendary pinball designer and industry historian. The episode opens with Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb discussing Deep Root Pinball delay of their Texas Pinball Festival reveal, then pivots to a wide-ranging conversation with Sharpe covering his daily life, game preferences, remakes, and his perspective on Deep Root Pinball ambitious manufacturing and distribution plans. Sharpe emphasizes the importance of traditional distributor networks for service and support, while remaining optimistic about fresh ideas in the industry.

Key Claims

  • Deep Root Pinball announced delays to their Texas Pinball Festival reveal, citing need to ensure quality and staff wellbeing

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell opening statement, confirmed by Roger Sharpe acknowledgment of the announcement

  • Roger Sharpe was involved in providing input and guidance to Doug and his group on remake projects including Attack from Mars

    high confidence · Roger Sharpe directly stated: 'I've had the good fortune to actually be somewhat involved and, you know, I guess giving some input and guidance along the way'

  • Historical coin-op direct sales efforts have been 'an unmitigated disaster' from both financing and service perspectives

    high confidence · Roger Sharpe: 'The efforts in the past, at least again historically, with CoinOp have been an unmitigated disaster in trying to sell direct'

  • Traditional distributor networks are essential because they provide local service, parts support, and maintenance for both location operators and home buyers

    high confidence · Roger Sharpe detailed explanation of distributor functions including service calls, parts distribution, and technical support proximity

  • Most pinball machines being sold today go into private homes, not location/arcade venues, unlike the traditional coin-op model

    high confidence · Roger Sharpe: 'the majority of pinball machines in the world today that are being sold and manufactured are going into private homes'

  • Deep Root Pinball proposed direct sales and distribution model differs from established industry practice but could work with limited production numbers

    high confidence · Roger Sharpe: 'if they want to keep hands on and there's going to be a limited production number, then depending on what their business model is, then they can probably do it'

  • Roger Sharpe expected Deep Root Pinball aggressive timeline to slip from the beginning

    high confidence · Roger Sharpe: 'I think that the idea of coming out of the box with as aggressive a schedule that had been proposed when Deep Root first came on the scene, I thought was, I was going to say unrealistic'

Notable Quotes

  • “I think that Doug and his group have done an outstanding job. I've had the good fortune to actually be somewhat involved and, you know, I guess giving some input and guidance along the way. I think it's wonderful.”

    Roger Sharpe @ during discussion of remakes — Indicates Sharpe's active involvement in modern remake projects and his positive view of them despite collector concerns about original machine values

  • “The efforts in the past, at least again historically, with CoinOp have been an unmitigated disaster in trying to sell direct, not only from the financing aspect of things, but more importantly, from the standpoint of reliable service to keep games functioning.”

    Roger Sharpe @ during Deep Root distribution discussion — Strong historical precedent against direct-to-consumer sales models in arcade/pinball industry

  • “I think that the idea of coming out of the box with as aggressive a schedule that had been proposed when Deep Root first came on the scene, I thought was, I was going to say unrealistic.”

    Roger Sharpe @ discussing Deep Root's delay — Industry veteran's measured critique of Deep Root's original timeline, suggesting early skepticism

  • “I will wait with great anticipation to see when, I'm not saying if, when his first games are made public, what his plans are in regard to launching into this enterprise, and hopefully he's going to be as successful as he needs to be to maintain his business.”

    Roger Sharpe @ Deep Root discussion conclusion — Expresses confidence that Deep Root will eventually ship, while maintaining cautious optimism about their success

  • “One of the challenges for that, and we're seeing it a bit with the emergence of barcades where, you know, people can buy overpriced craft beer and play games... the issue tends to be zoning restrictions and certain regulations that exist in various cities and communities.”

    Bill Webb @ discussing barriers to pinball on route — Identifies regulatory and zoning challenges as key obstacles to expanding pinball presence beyond private collections

  • “My three-year-old, she knows when, you know, Mama leaves, you know, she'll cry and then she'll say, pinball? And that means we're going to go downstairs and turn on the pinball machines.”

Entities

Deep Root PinballcompanyRobert MuellerpersonRoger SharpepersonKen CromwellpersonBill WebbpersonJohn PapadiukpersonDennis Nordmanperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Deep Root Pinball delayed planned Texas Pinball Festival reveal, citing need for quality assurance and staff wellbeing

    high · Ken and Bill open episode discussing Deep Root's announcement of delay; Roger Sharpe confirms awareness and acceptance of delay

  • ?

    industry_signal: Significant discussion about whether Deep Root's proposed direct-to-consumer and drop-shipping model can succeed versus traditional distributor network

    high · Extended conversation between Roger Sharpe and hosts about historical failures of direct CoinOp sales, challenges of global distribution, and service infrastructure requirements

  • ?

    business_signal: Deep Root facing realistic challenges of factory startup including vendor relationships, lead times, parts ordering, distributor networks, and logistics

    high · Roger Sharpe's analysis: 'it's difficult to start a factory, staff up get vendors in line know what your development lead times are, know what your lead times are in terms of ordering parts'

  • $

    market_signal: Remake releases (Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Monster Bash) are negatively impacting secondary market values of original machines

    medium · Roger Sharpe acknowledges collector concerns about selling originals for less money post-remake release, though he defends remakes as positive

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Industry sentiment toward remakes appears positive among expert players and designers, though collector base expresses value concerns

    medium · Roger Sharpe calls Doug's remake work 'outstanding' and 'wonderful' while acknowledging and addressing collector concerns about original values

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.154

0:00
Broadcasting live from the Two Brothers Pinball Pale Ale Craft Beer Studios, this is the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast.
0:13
The Special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Thanks for hitting that start button and taking the plunge.
0:23
Here are your hosts, Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb. Hey, what's going on, Pinball Land? Thank you for listening to episode number 27 of the Special Win Lit Pinball Podcast. I am Ken Cromwell. My co-host is Bill Webb, and let's get right into the news. So recently, Deep Root Pinball, headed by Robert Mueller, had announced some delays on their initial launch date or reveal of their company, which was going to be the five days of Deep Root at Texas Pinball Festival. What are your thoughts on this? And for those that are just catching up lately, what do we know about Deep Root Pinball before we get into this? We know that they're a company that kind of made themselves known months and months and months ago. They're out of San Antonio, Texas. You've got Robert Mueller, who's a collector now, and he's invested time and effort and resources into a pinball company, which had involved some pretty bold statements in regards to the amount of pinball machines that are going to be manufactured, the ease of manufacturing, and a controversial first hire as far as pinball design with John Papaduke. Now, since then, they've made additional hires, and some of those were like Dennis Nordman, Steve Bowden.
1:34
So, respectable people in the pinball community. Not to say that John Papaduke isn't, but he still was trying to get over and is probably continuing to get over some shortcomings that had happened on the delivery of pinball machines that he promised in the past. Yep. So we were expecting to see the reveal, or at least the reveal of the company, the five days of Deep Root in March at Texas Pinball Festival. Part of the reason that I was getting down to Texas Pinball Festival was to see this launch of this company that I've been excited about because they want to make high-end machines at a low cost. They want to revolutionize manufacturing and revolutionize distributorship. Just change everything. Change everything. Which is cool, which is an awesome, awesome feat. Right. So within the last few days, they've had to kind of, you know, cut it back a little bit and say, listen, we for the better sake of our staff and our our customer base, we're not going to be able to get this stuff out at Texas Pinball Festival as we originally hoped. We still are supporting Texas Pinball Festival. But we have made a decision as a company to launch under our own terms. So I'm going to turn this over to you, and I'm going to ask you a couple questions. Okay. First of all, when Robert Mueller and Deep Root came on the scene, can you kind of share your thoughts on what your initial kind of reaction was to this pinball company and to this individual that was making pretty brash statements, so to speak. I thought they were real bold. I thought they were real extensive for the reach of what he was trying to accomplish.

  • The Beatles remake (based on Seawitch) represents an innovative approach to preserving classic game themes

    medium confidence · Roger Sharpe praised the concept of rethemeing Seawitch with Beatles, calling it a great approach for games people want to play

    • Bill Webb @ discussing accessibility and childhood pinball — Personal anecdote highlighting how limited accessibility to pinball machines is in modern era compared to the 1990s

  • “New approaches new ideas fundamentally are what is going to help continue to drive the hopeful success and popularity of pinball... I'm not one to sit back and suggest that whatever has been done for the past 80 years should continue to be the only and best way.”

    Roger Sharpe @ discussing Deep Root's unconventional approach — Sharpe's philosophical openness to innovation despite his historical knowledge and traditional viewpoints

  • “So you kind of go from there. You know, I would just love to be able to see, you know, them take off, them come up with some new innovative ways. You know, when you're learning to walk, you know, you're going to fall. So that's expected.”

    Bill Webb @ defining Deep Root success — Sets realistic expectations for Deep Root as an emerging manufacturer

    • Steven Bowden
    person
    Dougperson
    Brian Eddyperson
    Special When Lit Pinball Podcastorganization
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Attack from Marsgame
    Monster Bashgame
    Pirates of the Caribbeangame
    Sharpshootergame
    Cyclopesgame
    Seawitchgame
    The Beatlesgame
    Shadowgame
    Two Brothers Pinball Pale Alevenue
    Pinsideorganization
  • ?

    venue_signal: Emergence of barcades as venues for public pinball play, but facing regulatory and zoning obstacles that limit expansion

    medium · Bill Webb discusses barcades like Two Brothers as alternative to traditional route play, identifies zoning restrictions and liquor licensing as barriers

  • ?

    historical_signal: Pinball's presence in public venues (bars, pizza parlors, hot dog stands) has significantly declined compared to 1990s Chicago area golden age

    high · Bill Webb laments loss of machines that were everywhere in 1990s; Roger Sharpe acknowledges structural and regulatory barriers to restoring that presence

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Roger Sharpe and industry leaders view remakes as legitimate way to preserve and enhance classic games while making them accessible to modern players

    high · Sharpe advocates for remakes: 'to provide games that people still have an interest and a desire wanting to have, being able to update them technologically... I think it's wonderful'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Distributor networks are critical for mechanical support and parts replacement, particularly for home buyers who cannot easily service machines themselves

    high · Extended discussion about service calls, parts support, and why direct sales historically failed in arcade industry

  • ?

    industry_signal: Deep Root represents new competitive entrant bringing fresh manufacturing and business model ideas, though execution timeline proves challenging

    high · Roger Sharpe: 'fresh blood comes fresh ideas' and expresses optimism about new competition despite historical skepticism of their timeline

  • ?

    community_signal: Modern generation lacks access to pinball machines in everyday venues compared to previous era; industry seeking ways to expand public accessibility

    high · Bill Webb's three-year-old knows pinball only from home collection; discussion of Chicago's 1990s abundance versus current scarcity

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Roger Sharpe actively mentoring and advising modern remake designers (Doug's group, potentially Brian Eddy) on design philosophy and execution

    high · Sharpe confirmed involvement with Attack from Mars and other remakes; expressed desire to ask Brian Eddy questions about design philosophy

    • 3:20
    But at the same token, the confidence in which he had making these statements made me really curious to see what was going to happen. Here we are a year, year and a half later, and they've had this setback, But looking at it from this perspective, I would rather them delay their start than put out a product that might not be what they want to put out. And everything that they seem to want to shoot for is, you know, above the bar, you know, quality, top-end stuff. So, you know what, and, you know, given the stuff that I've done, stuff takes time. And you know what, you'd rather put more time into something and have it be right and delay it than have problems down the road and put a brand new company with brand new machines into homes or barcades or whatever and have an issue knowing that you could have just delayed it a little bit and had a much better outcome. Right. I think we're in the same camp in that, you know, we were both looking forward to just another option for pinball machines. Not that we're unhappy with the options that are presently available, but it's always exciting to see something new come in and give you an opportunity to choose for. Competition is good for the marketplace. It's good for the consumer. So that's fun. I also agree with you in this. If these machines, regardless of the bold and brash statements that were originally made months ago and as recently as Pinball Expo in October, If the timeline changes because of the overall product that's going to be introduced to the consumer, I'm on board with that. Oh, yeah. I think at some point – and it's not even so much swallowing your pride. It's just making an educated decision based on what may have been a turn of events or like an underestimation of what may have been thought was going to happen. So I can appreciate that there has been something altered or there's now like a plan B on the initial launch. I don't have a problem with that. I think where a lot of pinsiders and pinside.com is an online forum group that participates in user discussion of pinball machines. So if you get a chance, if you don't know what it is, go check it out. But pinball, pinsiders, people in the know in the industry, I think where the problem lied was that a lot of people were kind of accepting the challenge of the original statements of Deep Roop saying that, you know what, this is not going to happen how you guys think. You're kind of coming across directly saying that pinball is easy. Now, that statement's kind of been altered a little bit as of late as far as what is exactly easy on pinball. Now, if those initial statements weren't made, I don't think anybody's talking about this, but they were made, and you know what? But you need those statements in order to drum up interest and excitement. You wouldn't want to just start this out of nowhere. So you think it was a marketing ploy, or do you think the intention was there? I think the intention was there, but I think, you know, I mean, could they have started a company kind of under the radar? Yeah, they could have, but you're not building hype. You know, this whole time they've been building hype about what they're building and what they're doing. and no one really knows. A handful of people under NDA have seen what they've done and say great things are coming.
    6:35
    And honestly, because of that, I still have great faith that good things are going to come out of this. So whether it's a month, two, three, six-month delay, whatever it takes to come out with a far superior product than putting out something that might not be the best quality or you might have problems with. It's like when you get a brand-new game and you have a switch error or a Translate that doesn't fit right or some non-life-altering issue, but it's not right, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Whether it's a current manufacturer or anyone else, you want things to be right. So my hat's off to them for making this decision and look forward to seeing what they have to offer. My hat's off for making the decision. I understand that because it's for the better good. It's just the problem where a lot of people have a problem digesting is kind of the first impression as a company, It's kind of like in your face to everybody else, we're going to do this that nobody's been able to do. We're going to do things that nobody even thought of, and it's going to be easy. I mean, that's kind of how I took it. And I'm going to hire on somebody on my staff that's been pretty controversial because he hasn't been able to deliver on his personal business ventures with Pinball Machines. So those two things in general, I think, caused such a huge uphill battle for Deep Root and for the staff. and now when I think there it opens up an opportunity for people to say well here you go I told you so now on the flip side of things because I've been looking forward to Deep Root I can't say that I'm a Deep Root supporter because I don't know enough about the business I don't know enough about the product but I do support the ideas in which Deep Root is trying to convey and implement into the pinball community okay oh yeah so I'm excited about it so yeah i guess is it unfortunate that their countdown to their reveal which is texas pinball festival is going to be delayed absolutely that's disappointing i will also say this whether it's three six nine twelve two years from now if those machines are revealed and they are nice playing machines with nice art packages with some innovation at an affordable price and distributed properly, nobody's really talking about what we're talking about today because that ultimate reveal will supersede anything that we're nitpicking on right now. This being a pinball podcast, it's pertinent, it's in the news. And what we actually wanted to do is we wanted to reach out to somebody that's been in the pinball industry for a long time, somebody that knows pinball inside and out, knows about games and and and licensing and that was roger sharp yep and uh we had roger on and uh was only supposed to be about a 10 minute call but it wound up being a little longer just a bit outside just a bit outside so on this episode of special when lit pinball podcast this uh conversation that we had with him really was the core of what we wanted this podcast to be that's why when we have you know like this interview really i think you know it wasn't even an interview like yeah i know i say interview but you know it was just a discussion because he called and we just kept going on for you know exactly and that's that's kind of the beauty of the podcast the beauty of our pinball night the beauty of the beauty of the way that we met bill it was just we we just love talking about pinball yeah so when we have these podcasts we just love talking about pinball in general and they have somebody like roger sharp on the show where we had just a couple questions we wanted to talk about with him as it pertained to like what we had wanted to cover in the podcast it went on because you know what we were having a pinball conversation and it was fun because you know what it was like he's like the chuck norris of pinball oh yeah you know absolutely it's roger freaking sharp and we're just casually having a conversation with him and at one point i forgot we were even recording anything so i didn't stop the recording it just kept going and going and going and uh we had we just had a fun conversation all that being said There was some side banter that's not going to be interesting to people. So before you listen to this, I will edit that out for your benefit because, I mean, you're just not missing anything.
    10:53
    I don't think people want to know the, you know, steakhouses in Chicago. No, and they don't want to know about the next three themes at Roger Sharpe's landing. Yeah. No, I'm kidding. Absolutely not. That was not discussed. No, it was not. But, you know what? This is where I want to jump in and say, listen, so if you listen to this podcast, Hopefully you feel engaged as if you're sitting in this basement talking with us. That's why we ask for your feedback and opinions because we like the interaction between people, number one. And number two is, you know, pinball is a good hobby, a fun hobby. I think for us it's just about getting together, having a good time with our friends, talking smack, and just making it a point to, you know, interact with people and getting outside of your daily lives and interacting and having a good time with friends. I mean, we talk more about pinball than we do playing pinball when we get together. Yeah, I mean, that's true. I think the other thing is, whereas, I mean, there are some talented individuals that are able to kind of contribute on a major, massive basis to the pinball community. I think just us kind of sharing our thoughts and discussing pinball and asking people to interact with us, it's kind of the way that we have an opportunity to kind of give back. at such a low scale that might be, it still makes me feel like I'm doing something to contribute instead of sitting back and taking advantage of the wealth of knowledge and the friendship and the enjoyment out of the hobby. We're doing something to try to give back a little bit. And if there's 10 or 20 or 500 or 1,000 or 1,500 people that like to listen to us on a weekly basis, that's awesome. And if there's just as many people that don't want to listen to us on a weekly basis, I get it too. I mean, that's fine. At the end of the day I still feel good about just having fun and talking about this stuff and sharing what we like to discuss So without further ado I think what we should do at this point is just kind of air that Roger Sharp discussion that was supposed to be what just a couple minutes Five or ten minutes.
    13:02
    No fault of Roger because he said he was happy to keep it short. We wanted to keep him on as long as we could because it's not every day you get an opportunity to pick the brain of one of the messiahs of pinball, being Roger Sharp. Every time we'd ask a question, it's like the two steps forward, one step back type of situation because we'd ask a question and it would provoke two more questions. How many times did we say, hey, we've got one last question for you? Oh, that's the line of this episode. I think that's what we named it. One last question. Twelve more times. One last question cubed. Yeah. So it was fun. So you know what, guys? Without getting crazy and without a proper ending of the show, let's air the Roger Sharp discussion. Thank you for listening to Special One Lit Pinball Podcast, episode number 27.
    13:52
    Getting the news from around the industry in this week's Industry Buzz. In this week's Industry Buzz segment, Special One Lit Pinball Podcast welcomes Roger Sharp to the show. Let's get into it, Roger. What's a typical day for a Roger Sharp when you wake up and you hit the alarm and you get out of bed?
    14:15
    Seriously? Yeah. I mean, can you take a minute and just kind of walk us through the day? It is not alarm waking. It is dog waking. And I get up and I go out in the backyard with our two dogs, two beagles, Blue and Ivy, and get their act together. Are you a Cubs fan there, Roger? uh i am as a matter of fact but that's not the reason for their names okay one can dream story okay but uh and i'm not like bryce harper who named his dog wrigley oh there's a reason for that that's some foreshadowing i i hear you yeah but uh so take care of the dogs get my act together uh head into the office more often than not which is uh downtown in Chicago, do work, come home, as I just did tonight.
    15:05
    If Ellen's not here, I feed the dogs, I walk the dogs, and then I try to get a game or two in and have some dinner, kick back, watch TV, and guess what? The next day is basically the exact same over and over and over again, and that's kind of an average day for me. You said you try to get a game of 2-in. What's on the game radar right now for Roger Sharp? What are you playing? I've been playing a little bit of Medieval Madness, the remake.
    15:35
    I'm just thinking of the games that I have in the living room. A little bit of Monster Bash, Pirates.
    15:42
    Those tend to be the games that I've been focusing on the most. Sometimes I'll head down to the basement and play some Sharpshooter.
    15:51
    Cyclops, I know I have to get a replacement target because I broke one. So that's kind of the lineup of now. I noticed you said you're playing Medieval, a remake, and that you have a Monster Bash, which is currently being remade. Yes, I know. What is your general feeling on the remakes? I think that Doug and his group have done an outstanding job. I've had the good fortune to actually be somewhat involved and, you know, I guess giving some input and guidance along the way. going back to Attack from Mars. I think that it's wonderful. I know that there are some prevailing thoughts that, oh my God, why is he doing that? It's going to lessen the value of an original.
    16:37
    But I think to provide games that people still have an interest and a desire wanting to have, being able to update them technologically and then to add some extra bells and whistles, I think it's wonderful. I really do. And I'm hopeful that many people out there have kind of lessened some of the bad feedback as to, wow, I was hoping to be able to sell my original medieval, my original attack for, you know, $15,000 and now I can only get $10,000 for it. I know, right. It's like, oh, man, that's a rough day. Yep, tell me. Yep. So I give him a lot of credit. I think that it's a great approach, and even looking at the Beatles as a remake of Sea Witch with, again, some added ingredients, play field, game rules and such.
    17:32
    There's a lot to be said for some of the, I'll call them the older games, that maybe there are people that would love to have the chance to actually play them in some way, shape or form, if possible. I always thought it'd be really cool if there was somebody whose favorite pinball machine was Sea Witch and their favorite band was Beatles. I mean, that's like the Grail pin that comes out at that point because you've got to retheme Sea Witch with added mechs and whatnot. But that's pretty crazy. I was going to ask you this too, Roger, because we have Brian Eddies coming into the studio in a couple days to kind of do an interview. And I know you had mentioned Medieval Madness. Attack from Mars is arguably one of the top five pinball machines of all time with Medieval Madness.
    18:19
    And there are similarities as far as the layout, but there's different experiences for each one of those pins. If you were to sit down and talk to Brian Eddy, is there any comment that you would have on either one of those pins as somebody that's been in pinball for a long time or somebody that's a professional pinball player? I don't know if there's a comment so much as it probably would be a question. I would love to hear a Brian Eddy question from a Roger Sharp. And if you don't mind, I'd love to ask him this question when we see him in two days. Please feel free to. Okay. Unless it's something that you feel it's somewhat insignificant. But, you know, Brian's background wasn't necessarily begun in the world of pinball. And he has had some massive success. You know, the shadow being the starting point for his somewhat still, I think, based on the body of his work, embryonic career as a pinball designer. I'm looking forward to seeing what he has coming up now as he gets rebirth, if you will, as a designer. But I suppose my one question would be going back to the very beginning. What inspired him?
    19:26
    What was the design philosophy in his head, either geometrically, rules, or anything else that led him on his path? and why does he believe that he has been as successful in regard to everybody feeling the way that they do about his games.
    19:45
    Why is that? You've got a couple more minutes. Do you want to talk a little current pinball, what's happening in the news?
    19:51
    Yeah. All right. So recently I've been anxiously awaiting the reveal of Deep Root and their pinball machines that they were going to bring down to Texas Pinball Festival for the five days of Deep Root. And I understand recently Robert reluctantly kind of said that, hey, we're not on our timeline as originally planned. And out of respect for our staff and our potential buyers, we're going to kind of delay what we're doing. And eventually we're going to get there. But as of right now, we're not going to meet that Texas Pinball Festival deadline. Anything that goes through your head, because I know you look forward to seeing what's happening in pinball recently, the evolution and what's going on in general. So anything that kind of strikes you as exciting or different or disappointing with that whole general statement and what's going on at Deep Root?
    20:41
    I guess none of the adjectives that you just used. Well, that's why I'm a very good interviewer, Roger.
    20:50
    I don't have awards for nothing here. There you go. Right. I guess my reaction to it was one of accepting and recognizing that that was going to be happening anyway. I think that the idea of coming out of the box with as aggressive a schedule that had been proposed when Deep Root first came on the scene, I thought was, I was going to say unrealistic. and I don't mean that necessarily in a negative way I just think that as so many find out whether they're doing homebrews or anything else, it's difficult to start a factory, staff up get vendors in line know what your development lead times are, know what your lead times are in terms of ordering parts and getting specs down right putting all that together working out a distributor network of some sort, whatever it might be, resellers or however, or selling direct and then shipping, all of that is a process. Do you find that selling direct from Deep Root would be something like direct sales and eliminating the distributor? Do you think that that has a positive or negative impact in pinball, or do you see pros and cons as a manufacturer? The challenge is, and, you know, again, from a software standpoint, everybody is sending out updates and you do them and you download them and whatever else. But if there are technical issues that happen to be mechanically based and there's parts that you need, whether or not you can start drop shipping around the world, because I'm assuming that Deep Root has the aspirations to be a global provider. You know, it's one thing to ship, if they're based in Austin, to Houston or even to Chicago. But if you have somebody in Italy wanting something, you know, how do you get it to them? And I think that, you know, the coin operating amusement game industry, and again, this is maybe going on a tangent, but I think it's relevant, has always been predicated on a very specific channel. That channel is manufactured to a distributor, from a distributor to we'll call it a location owner, an operator, or a home buyer. And I think that that distributor provides parts, service, follow-up. It provides an access point to someone that is within reasonable proximity to you. So, again, whether it is somebody in France dealing with a French distributor, somebody in New York dealing with somebody who is controlling that part of the United States with their network and you're calling and talk to their tech person, whatever the case might be. And the efforts in the past, at least again historically, with CoinOp have been an unmitigated disaster in trying to sell direct, not only from the financing aspect of things, but more importantly, from the standpoint of reliable service to keep games functioning. So you're clearly a proponent of basic modern-day distributorship. I mean, do you think it's a situation where if it's not broke, don't fix it? Or do you think that there's something open for a level of ingenuity in regards to getting machines, whether they be pinball machines, arcade machines, coin-op machines, out to the customer? I think if there was a new way to do it and the current situation was not working, then sure. I think anybody and everybody should consider that. And again, I do appreciate and understand that the majority of pinball machines in the world today that are being sold and manufactured are going into private homes.
    24:55
    And that is something that traditional coin-operated distributors are not really geared to handle. To go over to Mary Wilson's house because she's calling on a Friday night because her son Johnny has his birthday party tomorrow and the machine isn't working. You know, to send somebody out on a service call like that as opposed to going to Joe's Bar and Grill where maybe there's four different machines and that person is working not only to do collections but also to do routine maintenance. Sure. That a totally different situation as is undoubtedly the service contract that that location owner or operator has in place So you know it makes it tough It really really does Whatever your warranties and guarantees might be it one thing to deal with I don't know. We'll use Best Buy as an example of buying some type of, you know, electronic piece of equipment, a big screen TV or whatever else, and you get a warranty and a guarantee, and they have their geek squad and all the rest of it there to help you. You know, it's another thing. You know, I just had a situation with a TV. It's like, hi, I need somebody to come out to deal with my 65-inch TV. I had a similar issue with the TV. I'm not going to go back into the back of that and take out a board or God only knows do what. You know what ends up happening, though, is eventually, even going through Geek Squad, I'm dealing with the manufacturer at some point. So it's kind of like it can be frustrating. Yeah. But you are going through that middleman, that distributorship. That's the challenge when it comes to the idea of going direct. But I give them all the credit of the world. And if they want to keep hands on and there's going to be a limited production number,
    26:46
    then depending on what their business model is, then they can probably do it. But if they want to grow their business to something of greater significance and, again, more global reach, I think that the idea of going direct and drop shipping to Australia may become more problematic as opposed to shipping to somebody in Australia that is handling your product line and you're shipping out a container of game. Right. I completely see that. That makes complete sense. I just always wonder what – because Robert Mueller seems to have a different approach to things, whether it be distributorship or manufacturing.
    27:25
    Although he'll self-admit that he's not done this in pinball, but he does have – he has ideas. So I can appreciate the approach or the ideas. It's just I really would like to see what happens when he starts implementing these ideas. so well and again i think that look new approaches new ideas fundamentally are what is going to help continue to drive the hopeful success and popularity of pinball so with fresh blood comes fresh ideas and i'm not one to sit back and suggest that whatever has been done for the past 80 years should continue to be the only and best way.
    28:12
    So I will wait with great anticipation to see when, I'm not saying if, when his first games are made public, what his plans are in regard to launching into this enterprise, and hopefully he's going to be as successful as he needs to be to maintain his business. That's a great segue to kind of my last question with Deep Root. And, Bill, I don't know if you want to chime in here before we let Roger go. In your opinion, what constitutes a success for Deep Root at this point?
    28:48
    Well, I guess you can answer it in the abstract, which is that they are able to manufacture reliable, quality games. we'll use plural, whether those are multiple models or a single model with multiple games being manufactured on an assembly line, that they're able to deliver those games in whatever fashion, as we were just talking about, that they decide that they want to follow, that the end result by pinball aficionados out there is positive. and as a result, there is the encouragement, if you will, financially and otherwise, to continue to be part of the business and that all of us wait in great anticipation eagerly to see what are they going to do next. Oh my God, did you remember their first game or their first games and wasn't that wonderful and great and they actually delivered and we're all happy and the games are working and, you know, you kind of go from there. You know, I would just love to be able to see, you know, them take off, them come up with some new innovative ways. You know, when you're learning to walk, you know, you're going to fall. So that's expected. But, you know, I'd love to just see that this grow and more pinball just becomes in the public forum. So my three-year-old, she knows when, you know, Mama leaves, you know, she'll cry and then she'll say, pinball? And that means we're going to go downstairs and turn on the pinball machines, right? That's nice. There you go. But not every three-year-old has access to a collection in the basement. And when I was growing up and down the street you had three machines you could play at any given point, and that's just where I'd love to see it. So if they could help be able to make machines cheap enough where you could put them on route. For the operator. I would just love to see it even resemble a little bit close to what it was growing up in the Chicagoland area in the heyday of the 90s. Well, and I got to tell you, you know, one of the challenges for that, and we're seeing it in a bit with the emergence of barcades where, you know, people can buy overpriced craft beer and play games.
    31:09
    Right, like Two Brothers Pinball Pale Ale, who we're sponsored by, by the way. There you go. Roger. That's not overpriced for the quality you're getting. Right, an inadvertent plug on my part. Right. But I think that, you know, the issue tends to be zoning restrictions and certain regulations that exist in various cities and communities. You know, do I need a liquor license? Can I actually operate the machines on coin play or does it have to be free? You know, those are some of the obstacles that I don't think many people really can appreciate, other than the fact that, and to your point about Chicago, and remembering back to the day where every bar that was worth its weight had a pinball machine. And I'm not even talking bars. I'm talking, you know, I was 12, 13 years old, and I was walking down the street to the hot dog stand. Or the pizza parlor, right? The pizza parlor, you know, a couple blocks further down the road had one, and a sports car trading place, you know, a lot of which have gone by the wayside now. Sitting and waiting. Yeah. You know, you put a quarter in a machine and pass the time. Which cracks me up, though, about slot machines. And I guess that, you know, you guys were blessed and fortunate because I grew up in Chicago and there was no pinball. Yeah. So there you go, you know, in terms of different times, different access points. But yes, I would love to see there be a greater number of games out in the marketplace for people to be able to experience. A chain like Dave & Buster's doesn't have pinball, and it's very discouraging when that's the case. Chuck E. Cheese. I remember Dave & Buster's having pinball. And I think, to your point, Roger, I just don't think – they had pinball like right before the resurgence started happening, maybe five – because I remember I was exposed – first time I played X-Files was at Dave & Buster's. I remember pinball machines in there.
    33:12
    But I think they just weren't earning. It was out on Lake, just the west side suburbs. It used to be a test location for us when I was still at Williams Valley Midway. Okay, cool. I got it. You know, we used to feed our games in. It's what has happened now with level 257 at Woodfield. Yeah, right. And some of that is because of the leagues and so on and being able to have a receptive manager who recognizes that maybe he can do something different with their cards and their pricing model as well as being able to have a healthier array of pinball machines. But if you go further west to Punchbowl Social, the problem that you have is one of the zoning requirements there and the fact that you have to do pen in order to play a game. Okay. So there's no cash box per se on their machines, which, you know, unless you are proficient with PayPal and you want to take the time to, you know, scan your phone or whatever else in order to charge up a game, that's a little bit discouraging. Yeah, I agree. Well, you know, and I got one thing I wanted to say and then one question for you, if you don't mind. Sure. No, please. I'm still good. Okay. The dogs are not barking, so I'm fine. When he wants to get off, he's going to start, like, stepping on the dog's tails to make them start barking. That's right. Which the zoning requirements, I mean, out here in the Chicagoland area, you have slot machines going in gas stations. You know, just all these different areas that you think, you know, really how can that survive in that sort of environment? But the VLT marketplace is one where each town has decided whether or not they want to allow slot machines in. The revenue is there. It becomes, I guess, a good business model for the people that are involved location-wise, whether it is a restaurant or what have you. to have those machines in that are going to be generating far greater revenue than a video game or a pinball machine or even a dart pool table or a jukebox.
    35:24
    And feeding addiction. You're up against the wall there in terms of pinball. The other part of it, in all honesty, and this boils down to some of the points that we were just talking about,
    35:36
    the slot machine is not going to need any maintenance. pinball machine, I'm afraid if a rubber breaks or there's a problem with it, suddenly it's a service call. And that machine is down for however long it might be until it's put back up and running. Great point.
    35:56
    True. Well, all right, so my final question to you, I'm sitting here staring at Star Trek Next Generation, watching the animations run through the DMV. The attract mode, right? The attract mode, and I see them running through the credits, and your name pops on that machine that says Roger Sharp. So thinking about this, in the 90s or even now, have you ever been in a position where you've walked into an establishment,
    36:22
    someplace public, seen a game that you helped get the license for, and you're like, wow, that's awesome. This dream came to reality. Something I helped get the license for is out here making money and bringing people happiness. Yeah, like a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. Right, I love that. To answer the question, from 1988 until 2001, every licensed theme that Williams brought into the marketplace for pinball, every licensed project that came through for video games, every license for any novelty redemption games that we did, I had a hand in. so to say that you know randomly when I walk in yeah I mean it is it's something that gives me an incredible amount of satisfaction by the same token my hope is that when I encounter a game that I had a hand in and I put some money in that it's actually going to play the right way rather than being disheartened and saying oh god what a shame I wish that this was working but it's not. But yes. That's half the allure. I think that, you know, hidden beneath the surface for many of the machines, some of them there may be an acknowledgment either in rolling credits or somewhere on a play field or what have you. Yeah, I mean, I take an incredible amount of pride in what I was able to achieve for that period of time. Look, when I started at Williams back in 1988, One of the express purposes that I wanted to do, even though I was hired to head up marketing, was I wanted to do some brand licensing. The company had never done licensing in its history. One of the comments that I got when I first brought it up was what it did for Bally and look where they are now We buying them It like well yeah but for a period of time Bally was incredibly successful And all of the efforts by Tom Neiman to launch into brand licensing back in the mid-'70s with Wizard and Captain Fantastic and the list goes on, put Bally Pinball on the map where they hadn't been before. And I really believed wholeheartedly, not to the extent and exclusion of doing original themes, my first thought was wouldn't it be nice to just do one licensed game in the spring one in the summer one in the fall one in the winter and continue to do original games and uh you know there was a period of time where we did embrace that notion of not all of the pinball machines coming out were licensed you know we were talking before about attack from mars and Medieval Madness, definitely not licensed themes, where I believe that there is room out there for original themes. And I think that Total Nuclear Annihilation and Dialed In have proven that you don't need a license necessarily to be able to have an impact on the pinball audience. A good game is going to generate excitement, enthusiasm, and interest. yep a license is going to add to it absolutely if it's the right license and the right license means that you're going to go for the broadest audience possible so hopefully we'll see how things go moving forward and whether or not that you know plays out so that we don't feel compelled that every single pinball machine needs to have a license theme attached to it i don't think that it's necessary but again maybe on some levels i'm in the minority and maybe I am speaking from a different era and that that is no longer valid for today's audience I I think it's subjective I I know myself personally I don't mind if a game is not licensed uh as to your point as long as it shoots well and it's fun it's it's coded well it's it's got an appealing art package and and some of those things don't even need to be you know perfect for me to enjoy pinball machine but I do have for my final question here I know we only have you for a couple more minutes and if you want to if you don't want to speak of this i totally understand because it kind of directly uh involves what you do uh for pinball but i know there's a big part of pinball fans that think about the ultimate license theme and and like a personal friend of mine who's jeff patterson who um he hosted this week in pinball website and he's got his podcast that Zach Benny drives every single week.
    41:08
    So Jeff Patterson's dream theme is, can you guess what the dream theme is? The total dream theme that pinballers want to see but they fear will never happen. Harry Potter. Yes, Harry Potter. How did I guess that? I don't know. I'm not going to lose any sleep if Harry Potter gets released or not, But for those that are so passionate about this license coming to fruition, do you think that potentially in the next 10 years you might see a Harry Potter-themed pinball machine be manufactured by somebody? Yes. That's awesome. That's a great answer.
    41:46
    I don't even care about it, but I think it's cool. But I also think that the expansiveness and scope of the Harry Potter universe is going to be incredibly difficult to achieve in a single game. That's not to suggest that there couldn't be multiples. Yeah. But since you have such an ardent base of people who are fans, myself included, the challenge is going to be how do you not disappoint people because, oh, my God, I can't believe that they didn't include X. Yeah. Whatever that X is. It wasn't a mode. It wasn't a character. It was something that was missing. and there's disappointment because that was the one thing that that particular person or group of people absolutely had to have as being part of their Harry Potter game. Right. And it did not deliver. So, you know, the expectations become much more difficult. You know, not going off subject, but think of it in the context of my apologies for a phone ring. No, if you have to grab that, go for it. Yeah. No, I don't. Okay. That's my wife's phone. but okay i was going to say i mean and i don't follow a lot of things i have to admit um so my apologies in advance for what i'm going to say i don't follow a lot of the things in terms of the podcasts and all oh roger well thanks for coming on that concludes this interview with and all of the sites that exist the pin sides of the world and whatever else but if memory serves and i still have the majority of my faculties there was an outpouring when people heard about the specific music that was going to be featured in the Beatles game oh my god I can't believe that they don't have this and they don't have this and they pick this over this over this you had fans of the Beatles who were disappointed never seeing the game only hearing either speculatively or you know based on fact that there were only going to be x number of songs and these were the songs so it becomes much more difficult to please everybody i think that makes sense yeah no it's pinball in general i i think you know the um the thing that says you can't you know make all of the people happy all the time is so exponentially represented in pinball because it it's hard to even make a portion of the people completely happy some of the time you know it's it's just one of those things true it is well here if there's a hundred thousand people that play pinball there's a hundred and one thousand critics yeah you know right so you're gonna be a tpf this year right uh no oh okay well that's killer no all right i saw you in las vegas for asi and then i guess pin masters okay i said i was going to introduce myself when i saw you at expo because we've been i mean we we promote expo all the time it's our hometown expo we're in st charles and uh i i finally saw you and i'm like I'm going to go introduce myself to Roger Sharp. And I'm like, hold, hold me back, Bill. Yeah. And the, but you were playing mafia and you looked like you were seriously on that game. And then, um, I think one of the designers, he's, he went in there and he was explaining the game and I'm like, Hey, give me your phone and I'll take a couple of pictures of you talking to Roger Sharp, you know? And he's like, that would be awesome. So that, that's what I ended. I was your photographer, uh, without you knowing. Hey, if you get a chance and I don't know if you've listened to it yet, but I, And I know you know those guys, Ryan and Marty, at Coast to Coast, because they had a great interview with you. Listen to Chris Granner's interview, because I'm sure a lot of these stories you've heard before. But if you want to hear somebody that isn't even directly involved in pinball anymore, that's like so completely, ridiculously passionate and just nailed great stories, it might have been one of the best interviews I'd ever heard. So if you get a chance and you're flying or driving, throw that thing out in the car, because it was a real treat. It was awesome.
    45:49
    Well, I will do so. And I appreciate it. And, you know, the point that I made before, I'm trying to get better. I'm trying to get caught up in listening to things while I'm at work. I turn off the radio and put on a podcast.
    46:01
    And it's fascinating. So last one, I think. The last one. My third last question. This is the last, last, last, last, last one. All right. So TNA, single-level play field. Yes.
    46:17
    What are your feelings on that game? Street-level TNA. my feelings up front was that it was a great presentation. It was a lot of flash, great music, great sound effects, and the unbalance of a play field where effectively that top portion doesn't come into play the majority of the time left me feeling somewhat less than satisfied. Okay. Having said that and knowing that, you know, one of the keys was multiball and it's like here and I can steal it. I just wish that there were greater access to the top, but I also can appreciate and understand that I have a three bank right in my face with an angle that is going to kill me if I hit them precisely that I need to complete, a kick-out hole that's going to launch a ball and, God willing, it's going to launch it to the inside of the left flipper rather than to the middle of the left flipper because over a period of time it's going to start moving further and further to the tip and ultimately, potentially, and hopefully not, it's going to become a drain. I thought it was, again, a great appetizer, if I can put it in that context. Absolutely. Was I over? I thought it was a very good first effort for somebody that really, I don't know, was looking to get into designing stuff. Right. I mean, I probably would have done things a little bit differently, but I think, again, the overall presentation was the thing that captivated everybody and has led people to believe now that I can do single level. I don't have to have ramps a la the Beatles. Let's come out with something. There's like a resurgence of the street level design now. Right. All the mafia we were just talking about. I mean, Tokyo, Drift. I mean, here are some games that are now being deployed in some way, shape, or form where we don't need all of the bells and whistles of height, I guess. We had Jack Danger on our show a couple weeks ago, and he brought up an interesting point because I was talking to him about Beatles. And then I'm going to wrap this up with you, Roger, because you've been more than generous with your time. I think we're over an hour with you. He was saying that a common misconception is that if you don't have ramps, that it's going to be less fun. But his point was without ramps, the game is faster because you don't have that slowdown time to return the ball back into the inlanes to the flippers, and that there are shots that are now available that normally wouldn't because they'd be hidden under ramps.
    48:57
    So he put it into a perspective that I hadn't really thought about, and it made complete sense. I think a lot of people like the bells and the whistles and the flashiness and the ramps and the twists and the turns. But if you look at pinball at its core, whether it be competitive pinball, scoring pinball, or just the overall experience, a street-level design isn't a bad thing. I think that you're right. I've taken great satisfaction and incredible surprise when my sons are asked what their favorite pinball machine is, and they wind up saying it's Cyclops. Wow. Okay. And, you know, again, a lot of depth there for the era that it was designed in, but no ramps or anything else. It's just, you know, it's a basic playing game. And I think that there's room for that. If you take a look at some of the strongest and best games of the 70s, you don't need to have ramps to have a compelling pinball experience and a challenge. Yeah. So we'll see the direction that everything goes as part of my forecast for the coming year. I'm looking forward to whatever those surprises are going to be. As long as the game keeps having you come back and hitting the start button. One more game. Yeah, the one more game. Yeah. That's the trick. There you go.
    50:15
    I want to take an opportunity here, Bill, and just thank Roger Sharp for his generosity with his time, his insight. I feel like I am just so much more educated and intelligent in pinball overall just by the osmosis of having him here on the interview. So, I mean, Roger, thank you very, very much from the bottom of my heart. Yes, thank you very much. And absolutely, you know, just being able to talk with you, it just refreshes, you know, being in this hobby and being a part of this. Absolutely. So thank you again. Thanks, Roger. Well, guys, let me thank you as well. I appreciate you wanting to talk to me. and it's been a pleasure and anytime so hopefully it's been enjoyable for those who are also listening so again, appreciate it all and wish you guys well with the holidays coming up thank you Roger, we wish you well thanks for your thoughts and your candidness and we'll catch up with you real soon