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Team Pinball - Pinball Expo 2018 - Pinball News

Pinball News (Pinball Expo 2018)·video·26m 50s·analyzed·Oct 18, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Team Pinball reveals Mafia game and small-batch manufacturing philosophy at Expo 2018.

Summary

Romain Fontaine presents Team Pinball, a new Welsh-based pinball manufacturer, at Pinball Expo 2018. The company—founded by Romain, Janos Kish, and Ottilia—designed and built the Mafia pinball machine as a hobby project starting in late 2016, completed their first batch of 10 machines by July 2018, and shipped games to 8 countries. They use Raspberry Pi 3-based control systems, LCD screens, and polycarbonate playfield overlays, focusing on simplicity, customization, and manageable production rather than mass manufacturing.

Key Claims

  • Team Pinball started as a hobby project in Q3 2016 and established the company name in December 2016

    high confidence · Romain Fontaine: 'We started this project third quarter of 2016... We established the team Pinball Name in December 2016.'

  • The first playfield prototype was completed 3-4 months after starting (beginning of 2017)

    high confidence · Romain: 'We made the first play field prototype. That was about three, four months later after we started, so beginning of 2017'

  • Team Pinball built the first 10 machines in approximately 6 months, from moving into their office in early February 2018 to launch on July 20, 2018

    high confidence · Romain: 'we moved in the office at the beginning of February this year... we launched the games at the end of July. So you're talking about six months to do all the ten machines.'

  • The Mafia game uses a Raspberry Pi 3 CPU, a 10.1-inch LCD screen (not DMD), and a single custom driver board with direct wiring (no switch matrix)

    high confidence · Romain: 'the CPU used for the game is a Raspberry Pi 3... we use a 10.1-inch LCD screen, HD... a single driver board... everything is run off the single driver board in the back box and then directly drives everything into the play field. There's no additional PCB or network or anything.'

  • Team Pinball uses 1mm polycarbonate playfield overlays with reverse-printed artwork instead of lacquered wood, making replacements easy

    high confidence · Romain: 'a 1-millimeter polycarbonate sheet that is placed over the wooden play field... it takes 10 minutes at maximum, 10, 15 minutes... And we can also offer maybe alternative artwork for the playfield.'

  • The first 10 machines (Founders Edition) were shipped to Sweden, Austria, France, UK, USA (2), Canada, and Australia

    high confidence · Romain displaying map: 'one is in Sweden, one in Austria, one in France, one in the UK, two in the USA... one in Canada... one is in Australia.'

  • Team Pinball intends to manufacture games to order rather than a production line, keeping the company small and manageable

    high confidence · Romain: 'we decided to make games to order. We won't start, at least at the moment, we won't start a production line... That's not the idea. We want to keep this as a project that we can have fun with.'

Notable Quotes

  • “We started this project third quarter of 2016, so about a couple of years ago. We established the team Pinball Name in December 2016.”

    Romain Fontaine@ 4:51 — Establishes official founding timeline of Team Pinball

  • “We started working on this project as a hobby project, so we didn't start with this big plan of building this multi-million, billion company or anything like that. It was just a work of a homebrew project.”

    Romain Fontaine@ 4:16 — Core philosophy: grassroots hobby vs. commercial ambition

  • “Everything in the pinball world is imperial. But everything out there is metric. So we had to work with an imperial CAD but cut the playfield with metric tools. And that was a lot of fun.”

    Romain Fontaine@ 6:34 — Humorous account of UK-based team navigating imperial vs. metric standards in pinball design

  • “We decided to go for a platform that is running around parts that are ready available everywhere. So that allowed us to focus on what was important in the game, which was the game itself.”

    Romain Fontaine@ 10:19 — Design philosophy: accessibility and simplicity prioritized over proprietary hardware

  • “One of the distributors we sold the game to said, whoa, guys, that's impressive. After a couple of years, we still haven't killed each other. That in itself is an achievement.”

    Romain Fontaine@ 12:36 — Humorous observation about team cohesion during production stress

  • “It takes about a day in time to completely make a play feed including all the mechanisms... Actually, the wiring in itself is not that long once the wires are ready, once all the looms are ready. It took me about an hour for each playfield just to do all the solder joints.”

Entities

Team PinballcompanyRomain FontainepersonJanos KishpersonOttilia KishpersonMafiagamePinball Expo 2018eventRaspberry Pi 3productRobert BergpersonBrigitte BergpersonJoeperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Regulatory compliance testing (FCC/CE certification) significantly exceeds preliminary cost and time estimates; each day of testing costs over $1,000

    high · Romain: 'The original estimations were about a couple of days of testing. It took much longer. And each day is more than $1,000.'

  • ?

    business_signal: New pinball manufacturer enters market with explicit commitment to small-batch, to-order production model rather than mass manufacturing or aggressive scaling

    high · Romain: 'We want to keep things manageable... We won't start a production line... we won't stop promising thousands of games per month... We want to keep this as a project that we can have fun with'

  • ?

    community_signal: Team Pinball positions platform architecture for potential homebrew adoption and third-party game development, signaling openness to community customization

    medium · Romain: 'because we have a simple and easy-to-use platform... it could also be used for homebrew games or maybe something a bit different than Pinball'

  • ?

    event_signal: Team Pinball holds public launch party July 20, 2018 at Cardiff office with local press, media, and pinball industry journalists; achieved local Cardiff/Welsh media coverage

    high · Romain: 'launch party which we had at the end of July, on July the 20th, 2018... Local press and TV was there... Made in Cardiff TV... couple of articles in the local price'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Team Pinball structure: three part-time/hobby founders (Romain—electronics consultant; Janos—software engineer; Ottilia—IT trainer/teacher) maintaining full-time employment while building company

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.080

0:00
Thank you. Anyone come further? Okay, we've got some Australians I've seen wandering around. I wondered if anyone was in the room. Can I ask you to raise your hand if it's the first time at Expo?
0:44
Okay, a lot of you. So it's the first time at Expo, first seminar. Well, a big welcome to you and a big welcome to all our old friends that have come back. Now, kicking off, we've got Romain here, who's come not from England, where I am, but from the next country, Wales. And we'll learn more about his story soon. But he's come to talk to you about Team Pinball and the Mafia game. And it's very interesting. It's a new pinball company, and it's always exciting when there's a new pinball company. but what's different in this case is pretty much the first time people are hearing about them they've actually got a game close to being ready to go whereas typically a company announces its birth and says we're working on this project or that project we're going to do this game we're doing stuff but we can't tell you the name in this case we know the game is Mafia There are some flyers that are going to be passed around so you can see the game. And best of all, there's actually a game in the vendor room so you can get the opportunity to see it in the flesh and play it. I'm going to hand over to Romain now, who's going to tell you about the company and about the game. So, Romain, over to you. Bonjour tout le monde, je m'appelle Romain Fontaine Yes, I'm French So, welcome everyone, thanks for being here Also, big big thanks to Robert and Brigitte Berg for organizing the show, obviously and inviting us here So this is our first time in the U.S. presenting our game, presenting our project, and it's a big honor to be here.
2:47
So the team, Team Pinball, obviously. Janos Kish, who was supposed to be here today, couldn't make it because he's having his day job, as we all do. So Janos has been playing pinball since he was a kid, going to arcade, playing all type of Bally Williams machines in the 90s. He has three machines himself and he's a full-time employee in a company as a software engineer. Ottilia, who is Janos' partner, she's handling all the business aspect of the company, of the project, placing orders, talking with suppliers, arranging sales. She's basically the face of the company. She also does IT trainings, and she's as well a full-time teacher.

  • FCC and CE certification testing cost over $1,000 per day and took significantly longer than the original estimate of a couple of days

    high confidence · Romain: 'The original estimations were about a couple of days of testing. It took much longer. And each day is more than $1,000.'

    • Romain Fontaine@ 18:55 — Production labor breakdown revealing hands-on, manual assembly approach

  • “We want to keep things manageable. So we decided to make games to order. We won't start a production line... We want to keep this as a project that we can have fun with.”

    Romain Fontaine@ 24:59 — Explicit commitment to small-scale, sustainable production model

  • “Because we are a small team, so we are open to customization and open to new ideas... because we have a simple and easy-to-use platform, you know, it could also be used for homebrew games or maybe, you know, something a bit different than Pinball.”

    Romain Fontaine@ 25:58 — Positioning for future diversification and community hackability of platform

    • Pinball Star
    company
    Nitro Pinballcompany
    Martin Ayubperson
    Jonathan Justinperson
    Balintperson
    Moonwalk Audiocompany
    Pinball Newsorganization
    Pinball Magazineorganization
    Made in Cardiff TVorganization
    Heighway Pinballcompany

    high · Romain: 'He's a full-time employee in a company as a software engineer... She... does IT trainings, and she's as well a full-time teacher... I am electronic consultant, that's my full-time job, and as a freelancer'

  • ?

    announcement: Team Pinball officially announces Mafia pinball machine with first 10 units (Founders Edition) shipped to international customers (Sweden, Austria, France, UK, USA x2, Canada, Australia) by July 2018

    high · Romain Fontaine presentation at Pinball Expo 2018; playable machine in vendor room; machines listed on map with distribution complete

  • ?

    technology_signal: Polycarbonate playfield overlay construction (reverse-printed 1mm polycarbonate over wood) as scalable alternative to traditional lacquered playfields, enabling easy replacement and customization

    high · Romain: '1-millimeter polycarbonate sheet... takes 10 minutes at maximum... we can also offer maybe alternative artwork for the playfield'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Team Pinball adopts Raspberry Pi 3 CPU with 10.1-inch LCD backbox display and simplified single-driver-board architecture as alternative to traditional Williams/Bally-derived or proprietary pinball control systems

    high · Romain: 'CPU used for the game is a Raspberry Pi 3... 10.1-inch LCD screen, HD... single driver board... no switch matrix, nothing funny in between'

    • 3:45
    Now, about myself, my dad bought a couple of games when I was a kid, and Adam's family and a Terminator 2, and since then I have 12 pinball machines.
    4:00
    I am electronic consultant, that's my full-time job, and as a freelancer, and all the three of us decided to come together and work in pinball, design our own game. We started this project as a hobby project, so we didn't start with this big plan of building this multi-million, billion company or anything like that. It was just a work of a homebrew project. We wanted to design one machine for ourselves by using as many standard parts as possible and also share our passion with people. And it was basically just working on a project for fun.
    4:51
    So we started working on this project third quarter of 2016, so about a couple of years ago. We established the team Pinball Name in December 2016. So we started by laying around sketches, refining with a couple of friends, a first design of a machine, a play field. Then we went through computer simulations, which are much easier and much faster to iterate than making whitewoods, obviously. We made the first play field prototype. That was about three, four months later after we started, so beginning of 2017, and improved over the prototype. We had a second prototype and then we made the decision to go for a first batch of 10 machines. So we built the first 10, we had the launch in 2018 and then we shipped the machines and we're still shipping machines now. So how did it start? Home solutions, when you don't have any equipment or anything, you start in your living room and you just do with whatever you have at hand to work. So we really started with a blank page. So we didn't have any CAD or anything. So we started working on a CAD with a friend who's a CAD engineer. We worked on the CAD and thinking that we want to start CNC, meaning the play field. So obviously, to go from CAD to CNC, you have to split the layers for the tooling and do all this very long process. And the funny thing is that because we based in Wales, which is in the UK everything out there is metric But everything in the pinball world is imperial So we had to work with an imperial CAD but cut the playfield with metric tools And that was a lot of fun And what you can see here on the right is the first test fit of the playfield in the cabinet.
    7:00
    So we... That's the first playfield, so we started, like, putting everything on the playfield. start checking if everything was fitting together from the models we had, so we had to improve on that. And then to do that, we had like this play field holder. So actually, this picture is older than the one I just showed you, because back then we didn't have a full blown cabinet. We just had this play field, what we call the play field holder, the open frame, which is just sitting on the table and putting the play field at the right angle so we could work on it. And because it is an open frame, it's really easy to reach under and adjust anything you may need on the prototype. And as soon as we had that, then we could design the cabinet later on. Carrying on the work, so that was still for the first machine, so we did a lot of things ourselves, I would say most of them. So these are some pictures of the assembling the boards ourselves, the drivable that drives the machine. I don't know if you can see that on the slides, but all the chips are mounted on sockets, so it's all through all technology and through all components mounted on sockets. So, you know, it's easy to work with. There was a bit of pressure when everything was coming on, so that's the very first switch on of what we considered to be like the pre-production, I can't really say pre-production, but like finished prototype of the game. So that's actually the moment when we had to decide whether we just wanted to make more of the same game or just to keep this unique game for ourselves. And that wasn't an easy decision to make, because there was a lot of implications. But so we decided that at the end we wanted to share all our work and everything we were trying to do with this game. We wanted to share that with as many people as possible. And we thought, okay, just take a step back and see what we can do. And we decided to make a first batch of ten machines without announcing anything. So as Gary said in the introduction, it was quite a challenge to do and we think we made the right decision. So just a quick word about the platform before I introduce the game in itself. So the platform is running off a single driver board which is in the middle of the back box there and the CPU used for the game is a Raspberry Pi 3. The Raspberry Pi 3 runs everything game code, display, animations, and sound. All the animations, so we don't use a dot matrix display, we use a 10.1-inch LCD screen, HD, and for the power supply side, so you see the couple of power supplies we used. So we decided to go for a platform that is running around parts that are ready available everywhere. So that allowed us to focus on what was important in the game, which was the game itself, doing the sounds, doing the logic, the game, the code, and all the engineering for the play field. So we really wanted to go for an easy to work with solution and something that was simple to use for this game or maybe for future projects.
    10:59
    Now, the Mafia. I was thinking if I would come like these guys as Al Capone, but I didn't have time to buy a suit. So the Mafia from concept to first batch. So some pictures of the game, close-ups. So we had a shooting done with a friend who's a photographer of the game.
    11:24
    Just a couple of slides on FCC, EMC, and safety testing of the game. So that was the first prototype we made. So because we wanted to, you know, we already made the decision of making 10 machines. So you can't just make 10 and sell them. They have to be compliant. So we went to a test laboratory to have all the CE for Europe and FCC certificate for the USA and North America, so USA and Canada. The original estimations were about a couple of days of testing. It took much longer.
    12:02
    And each day is more than $1,000. So the game was tested for both 200 volt and 115 volt used here. So they were checking whether the game was emitting, not emitting too much RF noise, or doesn't react to perturbation. And the game was tested for safety as well. Next slide is about team management.
    12:36
    One of the distributors we sold the game to said, whoa, guys, that's impressive. After a couple of years, we still haven't killed each other. That in itself is an achievement. So yeah, but we were training for it.
    12:51
    That's the current office. Well, at least it was in that state when we moved in. So pretty bad state. So we made it pretty. painting, flooring, fixing walls, fixing floor, fixing everything. And one thing I've got to say is that we got a lot of help from friends and family who came over to help us prep the office I know the office is a bit more like that So we got some oldies Some of the games are our own collection Janos and myself What you see on the right is our wiring holder to make all our wiring rooms. So we made a lot of parts for the machines. So it is part of an office, part of a workshop, and part of a showroom where we had the launch party. But before the launch party, you have to work on marketing and communication. So that was the photo shoot that we had set up over a couple of days during the weekend with a friend photographer who's now moved back from the UK back to Hungary. And that was very interesting to see him work on the game and set up the lighting and all of that. And I think you can see from the pictures that he did an amazing job here.
    14:31
    So getting all the parts ready for the first batch of 10 machines. So, of course, that involves electronics, PCBs. What you see on the right are what we call the playfield overlays. So it is a 1-millimeter polycarbonate sheet that is placed over the wooden play field, the wooden board, which has the artwork reverse printed on it. And by doing the play field that way, we can work on the play field quite easily because we don't have to, like, you know, manage lacquering, clear coat, all of that. And the print quality is really, really good when printed on plastic. And that also gives us freedom If we want to offer replacement protectors for the playfield, they are very, very easy to change. It takes 10 minutes at maximum, 10, 15 minutes. And we can also offer maybe alternative artwork for the playfield. So that's things we can consider.
    15:37
    Decaling the back boxes and the cabinets. So that took a few days to go through. So just to give you an idea, we don't manufacture the cabinets like the wooden box ourselves. So we get that made by a cabinet manufacturer who just knows what they're doing. And we get the cabinets pre-assembled together, of course, completely empty of any pinball parts. So the first thing we have to do is obviously clean them and then apply all the cabinets and do all the fittings inside the cabinets.
    16:11
    apply the decals and then do the fittings. So now you can see the coin doors are fitted, power supplies are fitted. We still don't have any electronics or transformers in the machine. Our, again, our family helped a lot. So Janos and Otilia parents came for a few days to give us a hand assembling the machines. My mom came for a few days helping with the back glass, putting the protective edging around. It was really a family effort to get there.
    16:47
    The wiring. Guess what? There is a lot of wiring in a pinball machine. So what you can see on the left are all the switches wiring. So that's all the wiring for the, actually that's not all. There's more than that. That's the wiring for the 10 machines for the play fields. and then there is a big loom for the whole cabinet. So in green, you have all the switches looms. In red and orange, that's the coils. And in yellow, that's the bulbs. And that was a lot of fun.
    17:29
    Yeah, so for simplicity, so maybe we have a bit more wiring that we could have achieved, but we decided to go for direct switches, direct coils, direct everything. So everything is run off the single driver board in the back box and then directly drives everything into the play field. There's no additional PCB or network or anything. There is a single custom PCB in the game. So that makes troubleshooting really, really easy because one switch, one wire. There's no switch matrix, nothing funny in between. Now we have the playfield assembled and wired, just waiting to be fitted in the cabinets. I think at this moment we were still attaching the side rails on the cabinets and finishing a couple of things in the back box. So that was five playfields ready. So each playfield was sitting behind each cabinet. And because the cabinets were already wired, we could just plug the play feed in the cabinet and check that every play feed was working properly before actually fitting them in the cabinet. It takes about a day in time to completely make a play feed including all the mechanisms, putting the tin-nuts in, applying the overlay on the play feed, putting the plastics and doing the wiring. Actually, the wiring in itself is not that long once the wires are ready, once all the looms are ready. It took me about an hour for each playfield just to do all the solder joints. Quick view inside the cabinet. So we have the boomer and the sound amplifier and, well, the rest is in the back box in terms of electronics. good old-school ball plunger tilt mechanism. And because we try to keep things simple, I mean, you can see it's pretty clean in the play field, in the cabinet in terms of wiring. Movie night. That was maybe a month before the launch party, which was held in July. So we were editing the teasers video and trailer videos, which you can see on YouTube about the game.
    19:58
    That was video editing, and then we have sound editing. So that was a voiceover recording with Jason who is a local and native English speaker The sound and music was made by an audio engineer Moonwalk Audio an audio studio sorry who is in the West Coast in the U.S. and a lot of the sound effects were made by Balint, our game designer, and he also worked on the rules for the game. He made some sound effects, made some jingles. So sound effects are more like coins and gunshots and all of that, and jingles are more musical interaction.
    20:52
    And here we are. the first ten machines completed in the office. And that was a relief to see these machines done. So it took us, we moved in the office at the beginning of February this year. It took us about a couple of weeks to refit the office and we launched the games at the end of July. So you're talking about six months to do all the ten machines. Time to play pinball. So that was the launch party which we had at the end of July, on July the 20th, 2018 in our office. So we invited Martin Ayub and we invited Jonathan Justin. So Martin is from Pinball News and Jonathan from Pinball Magazine to come over at the party and I think we had fun. And we got, because the office where we are is in a big building which is a shared building so there are a lot of startups and entrepreneurs and a lot of artists and people doing so many different things. and one of them is a cake lady, and so she made some pinball cupcakes for us. Local press and TV was there, so they went over the game and they showed a couple of things and put them on their Facebook page. It is the Made in Cardiff TV, and we had a couple of articles in the local price as well about the launch. Now we go on to the very first machine shipped. So about the first 10 machines, because we did absolutely everything ourselves, these machines are a bit unique. They are kind of here to celebrate the inception of the project and the introduction of the Mafia game into the pinball world. So we decided for these games to do something a bit special. So we've put a number plate on each of the games, an engraved plate, and we ship the games with a lot of little bit specials. So we've had T-shirts, we've had different goodies, we have plastics, custom plastics that are not in the game,
    23:31
    a signed certificate, flyers, all of that, to say thank you to all the people who helped us getting one of the first 10 machines without actually even playing it.
    23:47
    So that was the first game leaving the office. It felt a bit strange to see them leaving. We were really, really happy and a bit worried, not knowing if the games would make it intact into its destination. So this one was leaving to Sweden. And the game made it. So packaging, packaging obviously that's a big, big thing. Not the first thing that you start working on when you start a project. But it's almost as important as the machine you're building because if the packaging goes wrong, then you know, bad things can happen. So where are the machines now? So the Founders Edition, so one is in Sweden, one in Austria, one in France, one in the UK, two in the USA, thanks to Joe at Pinball Star, one in Canada, thanks to Nitro, pinball, Tony, and one is in Australia. It's way to Australia. Takes a long time to get there. So what now? So we want to keep things manageable. So we decided to make games to order. We won't start, at least at the moment, we won't start a production line. We won't stop promising thousands of games per month. That's not the idea. We want to keep this as a project that we can have fun with. I mean, for the last couple of years, don't get me wrong, has been stressful and there has been challenges. and a lot of times we decided whether to continue or not, but we stick to the original plan. But we don't want to get overstressed by that. It stays something that we want to have fun with for ourselves and for the pinball community to share the same hobby, the same passion. Because we are a small team, so we are open to customization and open to new ideas. You know, you want your game to have, like, custom artwork or something like that, you know, that's definitely something we can discuss. And because we have a simple and easy-to-use platform, you know, it could also be used for homebrew games or maybe, you know, something a bit different than Pinball, really. And that's it. So thank you very much for coming. Big thanks again to Joe from Pinball Star and Tommy from Nitro for being here and bringing it in today. Thanks to everyone who helped us.
    26:26
    Of course, I'm thinking about my business partner, Janos, who was supposed to be here, and Otilia, who stayed in the UK as well.
    26:35
    And thank you very much for coming. Thank you.