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Ep 32.2: Past, Present and Future with Roger Sharpe
47 Plays5 years ago
Here is part 2 of the Roger Sharpe interview. We wrap things up by finishing our discussion about Bally/Williams and also talk about tech videos, licensing, and the future of pinball!
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Transcript
Continuing with Roger Sharp at Bally Williams
00:00:06
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:08
Speaker
We are still on episode 32.
00:00:09
Speaker
This is our part two of the Roger Sharp interview.
00:00:14
Speaker
If you remember last time, we were talking with Roger about his days at Bally Williams, and we're going to pick it up right there.
Profitability Challenges in Pinball Industry
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm going to kick it over to you, Scott.
00:00:22
Speaker
Now, you have talked about this before, that really the end of the Williams-Bally era was more of a
00:00:30
Speaker
It was a money issue in that you were profitable, but you weren't as profitable as the shareholders or the company wanted you to be.
00:00:41
Speaker
So one question I have is, is it possible for the long-term sustainability of companies if you are answering to shareholders, if you're answering to a publicly traded company or a
00:00:56
Speaker
Is it do you have to have like private ownership like the way Stern has weathered the storm is because in many ways it's kind of an isolated company?
00:01:08
Speaker
What are your thoughts on the I guess how viable is a long term business plan in pinball solo ownership versus a pooled group of investors?
Impact of Video Game Boom on Pinball
00:01:23
Speaker
Everything changed dramatically and radically.
00:01:26
Speaker
back in the late 70s and early 80s with the advent of video games.
00:01:31
Speaker
Atari being purchased by Warner Brothers.
00:01:33
Speaker
I mentioned before, D. Gottlieb being purchased by Columbia Pictures.
00:01:40
Speaker
When everything became public, the problem that you have is, whether it's pinball machines, video games, or anything else, but we'll concentrate on pinball for now.
00:01:50
Speaker
When you're part of the entertainment industry, there's going to be peaks and valleys.
00:01:54
Speaker
The same way that there is with movie studios, same way that there is with casinos and slot machine manufacturers, the same way that it is with recording companies, publishers.
00:02:11
Speaker
Think of all of those things that are out there and all the things, unfortunately, now because of the current situation that are shut down and we wonder what
00:02:21
Speaker
everything will be like when things reopen.
00:02:24
Speaker
You know, amusement centers.
00:02:28
Speaker
You know, what's going to happen with our leisure time.
00:02:32
Speaker
External of being inside and being somewhere on a computer or on an app of some sort.
Cooperation and Competition in Early Pinball
00:02:41
Speaker
When it all changed, suddenly it became more cutthroat.
00:02:47
Speaker
God, I still remember I was sitting down and I was interviewing
00:02:52
Speaker
Sam Ginsberg at Chicago Coin.
00:02:55
Speaker
And in the middle, he took a timeout and I forget it.
00:03:01
Speaker
I don't remember if he called up Williams or Bally, but whoever he called, it was like, hi, I need X, Y, and Z. And all I heard was, you know, again, the request for whatever he was asking for that he needed to
00:03:15
Speaker
And on his side of the phone, oh, great.
00:03:18
Speaker
So you'll truck it over in a couple of hours?
00:03:20
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:03:21
Speaker
Thanks.
00:03:21
Speaker
I can keep the line going.
00:03:23
Speaker
I mean, it was like that.
00:03:24
Speaker
Everybody was helping everybody.
00:03:25
Speaker
Everybody was competitive.
00:03:27
Speaker
But it wasn't as if, you know, there were, to your question, shareholders and other people on executive boards that were making decisions that were going to have an impact ultimately on the profit and loss for that fiscal quarter.
00:03:43
Speaker
So, yes, I have made the statement, and I believe it wholeheartedly, that at the end of time in 1999, we were making money at Williams Valley Midway, but we weren't making enough to satisfy the shareholders.
00:04:02
Speaker
And a couple of years later, not making enough to keep video games alive, both the home that we had entered into as well as the arcade games.
Attempted Acquisition of Premier
00:04:13
Speaker
So going forward now, because we have a situation where you do have some stakeholders, if you will, who have funded and invested in a couple of companies.
00:04:27
Speaker
Whether or not their expectations are being met,
00:04:32
Speaker
across the board on a quarter by quarter basis, only they can answer.
00:04:37
Speaker
My feeling in all honesty, and I think I probably mentioned this either offhandedly or in some context before, I came very, very close to purchasing Premier when they were going out of business and I had financial backing.
00:04:54
Speaker
And we looked at their P&L, looked at the holdings and everything and realized that
00:05:03
Speaker
They were too far gone to actually resurrect them and become profitable within a meaningful period of time for what the downstroke investment would be.
00:05:13
Speaker
And having conversations to get those finances lined up, they were going to be in for the long haul.
00:05:21
Speaker
I expressed to them what I thought the cycle of the business was and where I thought I could take the business.
00:05:30
Speaker
And they believed in that.
00:05:32
Speaker
Now, having said that, it's one thing to believe up front.
00:05:34
Speaker
When the money's in and you've opened up the door and you started business, would they go along with
Publishing Challenges of Pinball Book
00:05:39
Speaker
it?
00:05:39
Speaker
Who knows?
00:05:39
Speaker
I kind of made a vague reference before as to my pinball book.
00:05:43
Speaker
I had an editor-in-chief who believed in the book and toward the end said, you know what?
00:05:48
Speaker
Nobody's really interested in all of this stuff.
00:05:51
Speaker
We need to cut down those interviews.
00:05:53
Speaker
We need to cut down this, that, and the other.
00:05:56
Speaker
And he goes, I mean, you're cutting out the heart and soul of what I want to do.
00:06:01
Speaker
And I made the decision to go forward because I felt an obligation for what I had promised and set out to do.
00:06:07
Speaker
But I will say it, and I think I've said it before, I have never taken the time because it's too painful to ever read the book from beginning to end the way that it was printed and published.
00:06:19
Speaker
So having said that, kind of surviving and living through a change in midstream, I think that what you have is...
Future of Pinball: Independent vs. Public Ownership
00:06:28
Speaker
an industry that is well-suited to exist, and we're talking about pinball now, as independent ownership, with or without financial backing, but hopefully with financial backing, whether it's a group of investors, a company, or whatever else, who understands the dynamics of what this business is now, what it can be, and fundamentally, what is that investment needing to be to get to where it can be?
00:06:58
Speaker
Because right now, it's on the cusp of where it can be.
00:07:02
Speaker
I mean, that's my firm belief.
00:07:05
Speaker
But again, I think if you wind up taking it public, you falter and lose almost instantaneously because history is going to repeat itself.
00:07:17
Speaker
You said it's on the cusp of what it can be.
00:07:20
Speaker
What would you envision it to be in five years?
00:07:25
Speaker
If you would have asked me that question back in January,
00:07:28
Speaker
I would have a totally different answer than what I have now.
00:07:32
Speaker
I don't know what the new normal is going to be.
00:07:35
Speaker
I have been asked over time, and I think I'm constant with my answer, Roger, if there was no pinball, what would you do?
00:07:45
Speaker
And it's like, well, when somebody can replicate the experience that I have, the tactile feel, sensory immersion of playing a pinball machine,
00:07:57
Speaker
in some way, shape, or form where it's not virtual, taking nothing away from Farsight Zen or anybody else, those are great.
00:08:03
Speaker
But to play a physical pinball machine, there's nothing like it.
00:08:09
Speaker
To have all of the sound and the music and the speech and the lights, the mechanical parts of it, I mean, my God, it sends a chill.
00:08:19
Speaker
That is not replicatable yet.
00:08:22
Speaker
with anything else that exists.
00:08:24
Speaker
So having said that, I think that there will always be a place for pinball.
Pandemic's Impact on Pinball's Future
00:08:30
Speaker
Having said that, where can it now go?
00:08:33
Speaker
God.
00:08:36
Speaker
The home market is wonderful.
00:08:38
Speaker
It has kept everything alive for a long period of time because the commercial market had either been relatively ignored or there was really no place for it just because of the cost of equipment.
00:08:51
Speaker
Arcades have kind of changed that.
00:08:53
Speaker
Some of the entertainment centers that have opened up have kind of changed that.
00:08:56
Speaker
But now we have a situation where there is unknown.
00:09:02
Speaker
When does everything reopen?
00:09:06
Speaker
Will movie theaters become different?
00:09:10
Speaker
Will they be taking out seats?
00:09:12
Speaker
How long will people be wearing masks if they're even wearing them now?
00:09:17
Speaker
When will social distancing become less?
00:09:21
Speaker
When there's a vaccine, probably.
00:09:24
Speaker
When there's testing for everybody, probably.
00:09:27
Speaker
I've made the comment to people in terms of my regular workday.
00:09:31
Speaker
In Illinois, and it might exist elsewhere, in Illinois, on some level of frequency, we get a notification where we have to take our cars in for a clean air check.
00:09:44
Speaker
And I'm given four or five places where I can bring my car in.
00:09:48
Speaker
When I get a notification saying, hi, here is your virus check, and I'm going in and somebody's going to swab me, take my temperature or God only knows what to tell me if I'm good or not.
00:09:59
Speaker
When that happens for everybody, then maybe we can get back to, again, whatever the new normal is.
00:10:05
Speaker
But right now we're on the precipice.
00:10:08
Speaker
So I am fundamentally very positively inclined.
00:10:16
Speaker
to believe that pinball will be fine, but to give you an answer now based on where we are now, I wish I could.
00:10:26
Speaker
Because the supposition that I would take would be based on where things were at back in January, where everybody was thriving, where locations were opening up, where, oh my God, you're telling me that Dave and Busters may actually bring pinball back in?
00:10:47
Speaker
Amazing.
00:10:49
Speaker
Where there's going to be more leagues and tournaments, not necessarily in people's basements and rec rooms, but actually out in the real world.
00:10:57
Speaker
Phenomenal.
00:10:58
Speaker
I mean, that's where my vision was.
00:11:02
Speaker
More leagues, more tournaments, more opportunities to be exposed to pinball, to enjoy the joys of pinball, to have new generations of players
00:11:17
Speaker
experience pinball.
00:11:19
Speaker
As I see sometimes, Joshua posts the picture, or back in the day when I was allowed into the house, I could play pinball with Colin and with Charlotte.
00:11:30
Speaker
You know, I am incredibly optimistic, but I am cautionary because I don't know what the world is going to be that we're going to be entering into.
00:11:42
Speaker
So I don't know if that's the answer that you were looking for, but I have to preface it with that.
Manufacturing Logistics in Pinball
00:11:49
Speaker
There seems to be a huge unknown for what's going forward.
00:11:53
Speaker
I guess from a manufacturing standpoint, another question I would have.
00:12:00
Speaker
And JJP, they had their pirates, the Caribbean.
00:12:04
Speaker
And yes, there were some stumbling blocks.
00:12:06
Speaker
They showed it before it was a little ready.
00:12:09
Speaker
They had a big long lag time before they actually brought it to the public.
00:12:14
Speaker
And in some ways, my take is that the desire for it cooled down a little bit.
00:12:19
Speaker
So I think they tempered what they made.
00:12:22
Speaker
Now that people have been able to play it, the demand is up.
00:12:27
Speaker
So from a manufacturing standpoint, you've been involved in all these things.
00:12:32
Speaker
And in the Williams Valley days, once you were done with a run, you said you were done.
00:12:37
Speaker
It was on to a new thing.
00:12:39
Speaker
But with the ability to actually scale up, do small runs, do things like that.
00:12:46
Speaker
What are some factors that would limit JJP from actually saying, you know what, there's a demand for this, let's make it?
00:12:57
Speaker
Well, let me answer the question this way.
00:12:59
Speaker
I take my hat off to Gary Stern for being able to create a factory and a production line
00:13:08
Speaker
where he has been able over the years to go back in, whether you call it a vault edition or some other thing, but to go back in and do short runs, revisit, and all the rest of it while still having a functioning production and assembly line for whatever the new game is.
00:13:26
Speaker
Without him being able to do that, I don't know if anybody else would have ever thought of doing smaller runs, going back and forth.
00:13:36
Speaker
To answer your question more thoroughly in terms
Branding Decisions: Bally vs. Williams
00:13:38
Speaker
of Jack, I think it's two things.
00:13:40
Speaker
One, what's the demand?
00:13:43
Speaker
Do you know up front?
00:13:45
Speaker
It was very difficult for us as a company going back to Williams Valley to do the eventual 1000 gold edition Adams families.
00:13:55
Speaker
We reached out to distributors to ask if we go back in or if we continue and do a special limited edition run on
00:14:04
Speaker
Will you guys step up?
00:14:06
Speaker
Can we get pre-orders, if you will, not necessarily pre-order, but a commitment to know, is 1,000 too much?
00:14:13
Speaker
Should we only do 500?
00:14:13
Speaker
Is 1,000 too little?
00:14:16
Speaker
Should we do 1,500?
00:14:18
Speaker
Because I knew that Larry and Pat and the rest of the team, myself included, wanted to get that record as the best-selling pinball machine of the modern era.
00:14:29
Speaker
And it wasn't something that we went into blind.
00:14:34
Speaker
So in terms of pirates, as you mentioned, I think there's two factors.
00:14:40
Speaker
One, does the license term still exist or does it run out and you have to renew it?
00:14:48
Speaker
Which is what he did on Wizard of Oz because I was involved with Wizard of Oz as well as pirates in terms of getting the license for it.
00:14:59
Speaker
So does the license term run out?
00:15:01
Speaker
And then more importantly,
00:15:03
Speaker
What kind of risk do you take to build more now that it's, in quotes, done?
00:15:10
Speaker
What parts do you have?
00:15:12
Speaker
Did you go through all the parts?
00:15:13
Speaker
What was it?
00:15:14
Speaker
Gene Cunningham was only able to build X number of Big Bang bars because that was all the parts that he had.
00:15:21
Speaker
And it was some ridiculous number.
00:15:26
Speaker
It wasn't a round number from what I remember.
00:15:28
Speaker
Maybe it was 107 or 122, whatever it was.
00:15:31
Speaker
That's all the parts that he had.
00:15:33
Speaker
He wasn't able to go back in, or he could have, I suppose, to go to the vendors and say, hi, I'd like to buy X number of more ramps and X number of this and that.
00:15:44
Speaker
So some of it becomes, where's the cost effectiveness to go back in on a whim and a desire to think that, can I sell 100 more or am I going to be stuck in a warehouse with them?
00:16:00
Speaker
And, you know, Jack has done very nicely, I think, can speak on his behalf, for doing multiple runs of Wizard of Oz.
00:16:09
Speaker
Here's the ruby red slippers edition, and here's this edition, and here's that edition, you know, where he's gone back because obviously he has some parts and has the extension for the license to do that.
00:16:24
Speaker
So with Pirates, whether it was cost prohibitive, whether the margin is
00:16:30
Speaker
on what he was selling it for, made sense, or it made more sense to go forward with other projects and not to hold back, whether he had the ability, and I don't know this, to do multiple production lines, to say, all right, I can do Willy Wonka on this line, and I can do Pirates over here on this line.
00:16:54
Speaker
I don't know if he has that capability.
00:16:56
Speaker
So I think that those are some of the factors that go into play in regard to how your factory and production line is set up and whether or not it's only a single game at a time.
00:17:07
Speaker
You know, at Williams Valley, it was two games at a time, a Valley game and a Williams game.
00:17:12
Speaker
And, you know, the two never crossed over.
00:17:16
Speaker
That was just the way that it was.
00:17:19
Speaker
And the only other time we ever went back in to redo a game
00:17:23
Speaker
was with the Harley-Davidson license that I had gotten.
00:17:28
Speaker
And I had gotten Harley-Davidson to agree to buy 220 Harley-Davidson's for their dealers and distributors and whatever else, not to be resold into the public necessarily.
00:17:43
Speaker
And they pre-ordered, pre-paid for it.
00:17:46
Speaker
And I talked the powers that be to go back on the line and
00:17:50
Speaker
do 220 Harley Davidsons.
00:17:52
Speaker
And we did, and we delivered it to Harley Davidson.
00:17:56
Speaker
And that was that.
00:17:57
Speaker
But there was never any talk of going back in.
00:18:01
Speaker
And I guess Doug Duba and Chicago Gamey have gone back in and have shown there's a market 20 some odd years later for a medieval madness.
00:18:10
Speaker
You know, the thought was never to go back in where we cut something short.
00:18:14
Speaker
It was always move on.
00:18:16
Speaker
I would send out to distributors last call.
00:18:19
Speaker
Here's your last chance.
00:18:21
Speaker
And then there was a new one.
00:18:23
Speaker
So I don't know if that answered the question totally.
00:18:26
Speaker
But again, I give all the kudos and all the credit in the world to Gary to being able to create that as an opportunity for everybody and for Doug to go back in to mine some gold from games that people thought highly enough that they wanted one.
00:18:43
Speaker
and for Jack to at least do some multiple iterations on Hobbit and Wizard of Oz and don't know why he did not choose to do the same for pirates other than the fact that maybe the response and the accolades came too late for him to accommodate that request.
00:19:04
Speaker
So one question that popped into my head while you were talking is,
00:19:07
Speaker
When you're working at Bally Williams, what determined which game was going to be a Williams and which one was going to be a Bally?
Distinguishing Bally and Williams Games
00:19:18
Speaker
Good question.
00:19:20
Speaker
It becomes a little bit sensitive, but with time passing, what the heck.
00:19:25
Speaker
So with the combining of forces, which took place over the summer of 1988, after I had started, there were the Bally designers.
00:19:38
Speaker
Ward Pemberton and his brother Kent and was Dennis, Peter Perry, and there were the Williams designers.
00:19:51
Speaker
And it was, the two would never meet.
00:19:58
Speaker
And what wound up happening was police force sold more games than Elvira, the first Elvira.
00:20:08
Speaker
And Dennis felt very strongly that if Elvira had been a Williams game, it would have sold more.
00:20:18
Speaker
The Bally name didn't have the same luster that it once had, which was true.
00:20:24
Speaker
I mean, the latter part of Bally, as Bally under Bally Midway before Williams purchased the amusement game division, it had fallen on hard times.
00:20:35
Speaker
And, you know, games like Cyclone and
00:20:37
Speaker
F-14 and others had, you know, basically elevated, firepower had elevated Williams to being in a premium position, premier position, if you will, over Bally, because Bally had really taken the lead back in the late 70s.
00:20:56
Speaker
So it was Pat Lawler who stepped up specifically on Adams' family to say, I'll show you.
00:21:05
Speaker
Because Pat had already done Earthshaker, had already done Bonsai Run, and he was willing to say that it doesn't matter if it's Bally or Williams.
00:21:15
Speaker
Now, I have to say, at that point in time, under the hood, it was all Williams.
00:21:23
Speaker
We had kind of gone through all of the Bally parts that had existed on Truck Stop,
00:21:33
Speaker
had existed on Atlantis, had existed on Transporter.
00:21:40
Speaker
By then, everything was the same.
00:21:41
Speaker
So to answer your question, Pat demonstrated that it could be a ballet game and sell an enormous number of games.
00:21:51
Speaker
And then it just became a question of, was the theme more appropriate?
00:21:56
Speaker
Not the designer necessarily.
00:21:57
Speaker
Was the theme more appropriate for a Williams game versus a ballet game?
00:22:01
Speaker
I mean, Steve Ritchie was going to always do Williams games because Steve was Williams.
00:22:06
Speaker
Dennis could do either.
00:22:07
Speaker
He could do Williams or he could do Valley.
00:22:10
Speaker
Didn't really matter.
00:22:11
Speaker
So he could do Whitewater and he could do Indianapolis 500 and have it be under two different brands.
00:22:19
Speaker
So it tended to be more brand specific as well as wherever the heart laid, if you will, for the given designer and design team.
00:22:31
Speaker
hopefully that kind of answers the question in some way, but it wasn't necessarily a flip of a coin where it's like, okay, this is who it's going to be.
00:22:39
Speaker
Some of it tended to be just timing.
00:22:41
Speaker
So if Python was going to do a Williams game, then he's going to turn around and do a Valley game.
00:22:46
Speaker
Python and Barry could do that.
00:22:49
Speaker
So it was just a question of kind of filling in where things were on schedule and production as to what game was going to happen next.
00:22:57
Speaker
And again,
00:22:58
Speaker
Truthfully and admittedly, sometimes it was more a question of theme.
00:23:03
Speaker
If something tended to have more of a female-centric approach, let's call it, in its art or its theme, that was always going to be ballet.
00:23:12
Speaker
If something was going to be much more, you know, I won't say hardcore necessarily, but something that had some kind of nature of speed, of whatever, it was probably going to be not only Steve, but it was probably going to be a Williams game.
00:23:27
Speaker
And if you go back and you take a look at the titles that came out during that decade of 88 to 99, I think it pretty much holds true that there isn't anything there that you would say, God, you know, I'm surprised that that wasn't a Williams game.
00:23:44
Speaker
That seemed more like a Williams game.
00:23:46
Speaker
Or conversely, I'm surprised that wasn't a Bally game.
00:23:49
Speaker
That seemed much more like a Bally title, a Bally theme.
00:23:53
Speaker
I mean, what do you guys think about that?
00:23:55
Speaker
Is there anything that stands out where maybe I'm missing the boat and miss me miss remembering?
00:24:02
Speaker
That actually fit exactly with what I was thinking, but I hadn't put my finger on exactly what designated a Valley versus a Williams.
00:24:10
Speaker
So I have black rose in my basement and I was just thinking, yeah, that sounds like a Valley game.
00:24:16
Speaker
And it is.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yep.
00:24:19
Speaker
It's interesting because when the acquisition first happened, one of the things that I requested and scheduled was a meeting of all of the creative people, artists, programmers, designers from both sides, both camps, to meet in a separate conference room off-site and up on a board meeting.
00:24:45
Speaker
I wanted to get a list.
00:24:47
Speaker
What makes a ballet game?
00:24:48
Speaker
What makes a Williams game?
00:24:51
Speaker
So that all of us would be on the same page.
00:24:53
Speaker
I thought it was important to express that because truthfully, in the very beginning, there was some not hostility.
00:25:02
Speaker
That's the wrong word.
00:25:03
Speaker
There was some friendly competition, if you will, understanding that we just brought in the bastard children into Williams.
00:25:11
Speaker
You know, how are they going to be treated?
00:25:13
Speaker
Are they going to be accepted?
00:25:14
Speaker
Are they going to be part of the family?
00:25:16
Speaker
Or are we going to keep them separate?
00:25:18
Speaker
I know that Jeff Nauman and Brian Collin felt that way coming in from Midway to what was then Williams video games.
00:25:26
Speaker
You know, were they going to be excluded in some way, shape or form?
00:25:29
Speaker
And it took a little bit of time.
00:25:31
Speaker
to get people friendly under one roof and understand that we are, we are all family.
00:25:37
Speaker
And, uh, the brands are kind of like meaningless and unto themselves, other than again, uh, how those brands translate into the themes and the titles that are being done and who's working on them.
Educational Resources for Pinball Maintenance
00:25:50
Speaker
So one question I had, uh, and this really goes along with sustainability of, uh, pinball.
00:25:57
Speaker
I know with car manufacturers or these other manufacturers, they actually have some sort of program that they'll send their technicians to to learn how to maintain them.
00:26:07
Speaker
I've always found it interesting that pinball is such a complex beast, but a lot of the manufacturers rely on outside either distributors or third-party people to figure out how to maintain the games, which is one of the most difficult things in a pinball machine.
00:26:29
Speaker
Do you know any of the companies that are making pinball machines, have they thought about putting sort of a
00:26:37
Speaker
a guide, either an online guide or a book or whatever, or videos to say, Hey, here's like the, the pinball, the pinball basics of how to maintain your game.
00:26:47
Speaker
Here's the pinball mid-level, here's the advanced stuff or like what is their philosophy in maintaining the games that they send out there?
00:26:56
Speaker
So you can play them in 20 years.
00:26:59
Speaker
Interesting and good question.
00:27:01
Speaker
Because one of the factors that,
00:27:05
Speaker
that has limited pinball's growth and popularity in the outside world is just that, the lack of technical support.
00:27:15
Speaker
There are no technicians, or not enough, who are skilled in keeping games functioning on location at a bar and a family entertainment center.
00:27:25
Speaker
There used to be.
00:27:25
Speaker
That was part and parcel.
00:27:28
Speaker
And there used to be a time
00:27:30
Speaker
when the factories, all of them, all of us, had technical people.
00:27:37
Speaker
Greg McKay, Pat Riley, Tom Cahill from Williams Valley, Bernie Powers from Valley, back in the day, who was doing seminars and tech schools with the changeover from
00:27:51
Speaker
Electromechanics to solid state.
00:27:53
Speaker
You would go around to various distributorships.
00:27:55
Speaker
You have Pat Powers and others now at Stern.
00:27:58
Speaker
And you have others, I believe, that exist in the other companies.
00:28:03
Speaker
The problem that you have is that it's very difficult to do the type of what I believe is necessary hands-on approach when you're working primarily and solely for the home collector.
00:28:19
Speaker
You have to understand something.
00:28:20
Speaker
When you were working with distributorships that were full line coin operator amusement game distributorships who did open houses.
00:28:27
Speaker
You could go up to Lieberman in Minnesota.
00:28:30
Speaker
You go to Betson in New Jersey.
00:28:32
Speaker
You could go back in a day to C.A.
00:28:33
Speaker
Robinson in California, greater Southern.
00:28:38
Speaker
American vending sales, and you could get location owners and operators there, and you could open up the game and you could take them through it hand by hand, part by part, and take them through the entire process.
00:28:52
Speaker
You could do tech schools.
00:28:54
Speaker
You could have their technicians be there and learn on the spot.
00:28:58
Speaker
Look, when, when we started up a pinball league at GameWorks, it was my son, Josh and others.
00:29:07
Speaker
Um,
00:29:08
Speaker
who took a couple of the techs that were there to keep track of the video games and the novelty games and taught them how to fix pinball machines.
00:29:17
Speaker
It was local people, Dan Cachetto comes to mind, Gavin comes to mind, and others who fix games on location.
00:29:26
Speaker
They're hired to come in on some regular basis and make sure that all the games are working.
00:29:32
Speaker
And ideally through the network,
00:29:35
Speaker
they get to come into people's homes and make sure that their games are working.
00:29:40
Speaker
And I think that what you're suggesting in terms of doing it virtually in some way, shape, or form is wonderful.
00:29:46
Speaker
Ideally, if you had all the manufacturers currently in play, bringing people in that could provide a tutorial, if you will, a hands-on, here under the hood, let us take you through this.
00:30:02
Speaker
Let us show you how to fix these things.
00:30:05
Speaker
I think it'd be great.
00:30:06
Speaker
I mean, it used to happen that way in various coin operator amusement game distributorships at various state trade shows.
00:30:16
Speaker
But the problem that you have now is that that world hasn't really been tapped into and everything is being done for home.
00:30:25
Speaker
Enthusiasts, hobbyists, and many of those folks either have a certain level of skills or they don't and they need some help.
00:30:32
Speaker
And I think that if any of the various pinball festivals and events and shows were to say, hi, we're going to do a technical forum.
00:30:43
Speaker
And it's going to be with Stern being there and Jersey Jack and Spooky and Chicago Gaming, American Pinball and Deep Root and whoever else I'm missing are all going to have people there and they're going to have a machine and they're going to open it up and they're going to take you through their system
00:31:03
Speaker
I personally think that hands-on, a personal approach is best, but I also understand and appreciate the fact that things are being done virtually now and probably are going to be done virtually much more so in the future.
00:31:16
Speaker
And yes, if there's programs that you can set up for any of the manufacturers who say, look, this is what we're going to now do and take you through our manual, take you through basic setups, take you through basic fixes, that would be great.
00:31:32
Speaker
I think that that's what's lacking right now in regard to people being more comfortable in buying machines who do not have a particular inclination to being either mechanical or electrical in fixing things.
00:31:47
Speaker
I'm not.
00:31:48
Speaker
I mean, I need help.
00:31:51
Speaker
And, you know, there have been times where, you know, I've looked at my games and it's...
00:31:58
Speaker
It's somewhat sad.
00:32:00
Speaker
And I know that my sons would give me all sorts of grief, but you know, I can work on the old mechanical ones.
00:32:07
Speaker
It's the new stuff where, you know, I don't want to plug in a board and screw up any of the pins.
00:32:12
Speaker
And suddenly it's like terrible.
00:32:14
Speaker
But I think that, you know, locations find themselves now with people who are independently going in and have taken on the chore of maintaining and fixing games on a contract basis.
00:32:26
Speaker
The only way that we are going to expand pinball into the real world is by providing technical support because any and all of those locations don't have it.
00:32:39
Speaker
And that's what's holding pinball back from kind of reaching where it can get to.
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:46
Speaker
And from a, from a medicine standpoint, there's two, two things that I deal with on a daily basis.
00:32:53
Speaker
One is,
00:32:54
Speaker
I know something's wrong, but I don't know what's wrong.
00:32:58
Speaker
That's the first step.
00:32:59
Speaker
The second step is, okay, now that I know what's wrong, how do I fix it?
00:33:04
Speaker
And that's the two prong approach.
00:33:06
Speaker
I am with you, Roger.
00:33:07
Speaker
I, I have a 12 to 13 games.
00:33:10
Speaker
And for the most part,
00:33:13
Speaker
I really don't have that kind of time to troubleshoot.
00:33:16
Speaker
So I, there is a technician here that I call up and I say, Hey, I've got these three problems on games.
00:33:23
Speaker
Come and check them out.
00:33:23
Speaker
And he can, he can do it in two hours where it would take me two to three days of frustration and possibly injuring the machine by me trying to, to get under the, under the hood and do it.
00:33:36
Speaker
I can do basic stuff, but you know what I'm saying is that I can't actually fix a lot of things that are going on.
00:33:43
Speaker
Well, and then the problem sometimes is you can go into a self-test mode and it pinpoints the problem.
00:33:49
Speaker
And then to your point, it's like, all right, now what do I do?
00:33:54
Speaker
Where do I go from here?
00:33:56
Speaker
And, you know, I know that where my limitations are and to your point as well, I don't want to do something where I'm going to break something even more than what it is.
00:34:09
Speaker
And, you know, I've had my sons out here and
00:34:12
Speaker
Joshua has been kind enough to leave all sorts of notes on many of my games saying, here's what the problems are, dad.
00:34:19
Speaker
Here's some boards and things for you to put into these games, dad.
00:34:24
Speaker
Here's fuses to put into your games, dad.
00:34:27
Speaker
And it's like, yeah.
00:34:29
Speaker
So when you're here next, do it.
00:34:34
Speaker
Or have somebody come over and do it for a birthday present or whatever else.
00:34:38
Speaker
And I think we'll get to that point.
00:34:39
Speaker
But, you know,
00:34:41
Speaker
I think for average people, it becomes a much more daunting task.
00:34:46
Speaker
And then I'm calling up the company or I'm calling up the dealer or distributor that I got the game from.
00:34:52
Speaker
Can you come over and fix this?
00:34:54
Speaker
And that becomes an enormous amount of stress that is put on all of the people who are manufacturing the game and selling the game.
00:35:07
Speaker
As I said previously,
00:35:09
Speaker
when the factories were in full mode and 99% of our business was commercial, we did have the distributor and we did have the tech support internally to be able to handle those problems if somebody was calling from a bar and needed somebody to come over to visit with them.
00:35:37
Speaker
Whatever the case might be,
00:35:38
Speaker
you know, we were able to do that.
00:35:40
Speaker
We were not necessarily able to do that if we were selling to the home through a distributor, because typically what will wind up happening is, oh, Williams is the name on the game.
00:35:51
Speaker
We're going to call up Williams.
00:35:52
Speaker
Hi.
00:35:53
Speaker
Hi, Mrs. Smith from Fargo, North Dakota.
00:35:57
Speaker
We can't help you, but here's our distributor in the area.
00:35:59
Speaker
Please contact them and they can send a tech out to help you.
00:36:04
Speaker
You know, it's one of the
00:36:07
Speaker
One of the big barriers, if you will, for pinball to become much more accessible, we're not Best Buy.
00:36:17
Speaker
As a manufacturer, any manufacturers, what kind of warranty can we put on?
00:36:22
Speaker
What kind of service can we do to follow up?
00:36:24
Speaker
There's not a central place.
00:36:26
Speaker
You have to go back through that dealer or distributor as part of the channel, which is why when I hear some companies or individuals over the years talking about selling direct,
00:36:38
Speaker
It's like, good luck.
00:36:40
Speaker
I don't know how you're going to accommodate that person calling up from Kansas, from Alabama, from wherever, who has a problem with their purchase.
00:36:52
Speaker
Are you going to fly somebody out?
00:36:54
Speaker
Are you going to send them something with, you know, a tutorial on how to put it in?
00:37:00
Speaker
Are you going to guarantee that they're going to put it in the right way?
00:37:05
Speaker
Wow.
00:37:05
Speaker
You know, I, I,
00:37:06
Speaker
I can't see it.
00:37:07
Speaker
But again, the world is changing before my eyes.
00:37:11
Speaker
And maybe I'm just old school and not pragmatic enough to understand that, Roger, those concerns don't exist.
00:37:19
Speaker
So I have a few other questions too.
00:37:22
Speaker
So marketing.
00:37:23
Speaker
So your whole background has been in marketing and you talked about being able to elevate pinball in 1988.
00:37:32
Speaker
So if I called you, if I were one of the major, so say you knew someone who was the marketing guru at one of the major companies may have a relationship with them.
00:37:45
Speaker
And he called and said, Hey dad, how can I do this?
00:37:47
Speaker
What would you say?
00:37:50
Speaker
I would absolutely give him advice, but Zachary doesn't need it.
00:37:54
Speaker
He's doing great on his own.
00:37:56
Speaker
It would be, look.
00:37:58
Speaker
You're right.
00:37:59
Speaker
He's doing great.
00:38:00
Speaker
I'm just saying, say you were in the driver's seat, what would you do?
00:38:05
Speaker
Oh, well.
00:38:09
Speaker
I'm old school.
00:38:12
Speaker
To me, print medium and broadcast, and I know everything is done now online.
00:38:20
Speaker
You know, there's there's streaming and there's podcasts and there's Pinside and and all the rest of that.
00:38:28
Speaker
You know, I'd be reaching out to newspapers and magazines.
00:38:31
Speaker
You know, I'd go back to, you know, the things that I kind of.
00:38:35
Speaker
Carved my my my teeth on, you know, 30 years ago, I'd want to be on major TV.
00:38:44
Speaker
I'd want to be part of a backdrop.
00:38:45
Speaker
And some of that happens.
00:38:46
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
00:38:48
Speaker
And, you know, the CES coverage with Stern and Comic-Con and all that is fantastic.
00:38:54
Speaker
And some news coverage and some specials.
00:38:57
Speaker
And, you know, we don't have to talk about drunk history or anything else, you know, all of those things.
00:39:01
Speaker
But I guess that I would try to do it even more so.
00:39:07
Speaker
I would want to reach people who are not necessarily pinball people.
00:39:13
Speaker
and preach to the choir.
00:39:14
Speaker
I'd wanna try to expand it out in some way, shape or form and to get to that media that is focused on a totally different world and
Marketing Strategies for Broader Audience
00:39:25
Speaker
marketplace, both in trade media as well as consumer.
00:39:33
Speaker
But again, to me, it would be a different process.
00:39:36
Speaker
Look, I will be the first one to say every year,
00:39:41
Speaker
Joshua and Zachary reach out to me because, Dad, there's a new state championship coming.
00:39:48
Speaker
We need a press release.
00:39:50
Speaker
Dad, there's a new IFPA.
00:39:52
Speaker
It's going to be IFPA number 19 or whatever.
00:39:55
Speaker
We need a press release.
00:39:57
Speaker
And I will do the press release, and I will get it to them, and they'll do some massaging or whatever else.
00:40:02
Speaker
And then...
00:40:04
Speaker
with Zach and Josh doing their, it goes out into the world.
00:40:08
Speaker
And suddenly, you know, I wind up seeing if I go to the IFPA website that, you know, there's been this news item on somebody on the local news touting their player who's representing the state of Missouri, or there's something else as a profile.
00:40:24
Speaker
So I know that they've gotten it out there.
00:40:27
Speaker
And I guess my feeling would be to do it even more so, to work in greater tandem.
00:40:33
Speaker
And maybe that's happening already with some of the license themes, to see if you can't work with other licensees to do joint promotions, consumer promotions, dealer incentives, those kinds of sweepstakes and other activities and events that I did in the past.
00:40:54
Speaker
is probably where I would be fundamentally of wanting to just have a constant stream of information, news, whatever.
00:41:06
Speaker
I don't know if that makes any sense at all or if it crosses the barrier of, well, Roger, if you kept track of what Stern's doing, they're already doing all of that and even more.
00:41:18
Speaker
And I would be the first one to say, fantastic.
00:41:21
Speaker
Yeah, Stern actually has really, I've noticed the last few years, has done an amazing job of being much better and more proactive into the market of trying to get people talking about pinball.
00:41:34
Speaker
They've been more active in actually putting forth the information and what's going on.
00:41:41
Speaker
I think that Zach is actually doing a great job.
00:41:46
Speaker
One question I... Well, thanks.
00:41:47
Speaker
I'm actually very, very proud of him and...
00:41:50
Speaker
You know, it's great to know that he has the skills, the talent and the support of everybody there to to do all that he can to not only promote Stern, but obviously to also promote the whole idea of pinball being something that everybody has to experience.
00:42:11
Speaker
So with a lot of this pinball stuff out there, how you mentioned it before, one of the limitations on, uh, on having pinball tournaments and being able to show things is that the better you are, the longer the game, which is why you see how, uh, you know, the pinberg banks or any of them, they've been modified basically to an exceptionally challenging level.
00:42:35
Speaker
So you don't have someone who competes on them for 30 minutes or 40 minutes.
00:42:40
Speaker
the how do you actually translate that to being able to show it on TV or show it not necessarily on TV, maybe maybe streaming or that type of thing?
00:42:53
Speaker
We have talked when we when we had Keith Elwin on, we talked about the escape from Nublar was actually a great speed run option for these type of tournaments to be able to say, OK, here's a quick way of saying, hey, you have less than five minutes.
00:43:07
Speaker
How do you do this thing on the pinball machine?
00:43:10
Speaker
and someone can understand what they're doing.
00:43:12
Speaker
But what are your thoughts of how to actually get, because they have video games that are being competed on, and they're actually being televised, and they have a much bigger market.
00:43:26
Speaker
But pinball still tends to be in their own little niche.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah, I find it remarkable because of all the streaming that has been done at various tournaments.
00:43:37
Speaker
I guess, what is it, Carl D'Angelo has his setup where the camera's overhead and you have people that are doing play-by-play commentary and all the rest of it.
00:43:47
Speaker
I mean, it's become so sophisticated where you're not only getting the action, but in many ways, you're actually getting a tutorial on this is where they should be going.
00:43:58
Speaker
This is the shot that needs to be done.
00:44:00
Speaker
This is the sequence.
00:44:01
Speaker
I mean, you're kind of learning on the fly.
00:44:04
Speaker
And I don't know what it is for the hesitancy, especially now in this day and age where people are watching virtual IndyCar racing and NASCAR racing and all the rest of it.
00:44:17
Speaker
Why no one has reached out and maybe they have and there's been hesitancy or there's no time in the schedule for an ESPN or somebody else to pick up any of the vintage stuff that's been done or any new things.
00:44:30
Speaker
So with that out of the way, I think that, yes, if there's something that's going to be time-based, what I mentioned before in regard to that first IFPA tournament that we staged, we didn't really do post adjustments.
00:44:47
Speaker
We didn't make things harder.
00:44:49
Speaker
There were still random features.
00:44:50
Speaker
I mean, we didn't go in and really do lots of tweaking the way that games are now.
00:44:57
Speaker
And I've played in a pin masters and I played in others where, you know, my God, the games have become so much more difficult based on my level of familiarity, if you will.
00:45:11
Speaker
So I'll use it that way.
00:45:13
Speaker
You know, posters are changed and tilt settings.
00:45:17
Speaker
So, you know, you're shortening the games.
00:45:19
Speaker
Now, when you talk about time, I think of something like, I guess, pin masters where there's a target score to reach.
00:45:28
Speaker
OK, or some other thing like a pin golf where there is something that you wind up putting out there for somebody to do.
00:45:38
Speaker
And I guess it's like this mini game within a game for Jurassic.
00:45:44
Speaker
Where you just have to get this one shot.
00:45:47
Speaker
Can you get this one shot?
00:45:48
Speaker
Can you get the five inline targets in a row and how long will it take you to do it?
00:45:54
Speaker
I think that what we may find are going to be tournaments within tournaments.
00:45:59
Speaker
Look, for anybody that plays golf, maybe they do or do not watch the long drive competition.
00:46:06
Speaker
I don't know.
00:46:07
Speaker
And do they get the same performance?
00:46:09
Speaker
You know, same feel for that if there is something like a miniature golf competition.
00:46:14
Speaker
I know there was some show that was out that Stephen Curry was behind.
00:46:19
Speaker
But I think that there are ways to accommodate it being more user-friendly, more viewer-friendly.
00:46:27
Speaker
For pinball, and I think the biggest thing right now already exists, you are able to actually place a camera over the play field.
Visibility through Tournaments and Media
00:46:36
Speaker
Another camera is set to see the back glass and another camera is set to watch the people commentating.
00:46:44
Speaker
I mean, it's wonderful.
00:46:46
Speaker
That can work on TV just as easily as it can working on my computer screen.
00:46:50
Speaker
It's just a question of getting some station, some executive to buy into it and say, here, try this.
00:46:57
Speaker
There's an audience out there.
00:46:59
Speaker
And I think that the bigger thing is the fact of there's not the same kind of audience that exists, you mentioned before, in terms of e-games.
00:47:12
Speaker
That audience does exist.
00:47:13
Speaker
There are sponsorships.
00:47:15
Speaker
There are people that are playing with a certain kind of joystick or a certain type of system.
00:47:23
Speaker
There's a certain age demographic so that advertisers know that that's the group that they want to be with.
00:47:29
Speaker
It's very difficult to go after a liquor company for a beer when you have somebody like Escher Lefkopf winning who's underage.
00:47:42
Speaker
But again, I think that there are ways around it.
00:47:45
Speaker
And it's just a question of biting a bullet and going after it.
00:47:48
Speaker
You know, for Papa, for the first Papas, God, I got Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
00:47:54
Speaker
We had Subway.
00:47:55
Speaker
That was one of the sponsors.
00:47:56
Speaker
We had a trip that we gave away.
00:48:00
Speaker
I mentioned before in terms of Valley Super Shooter, there was a Datsun 280Z that was won in 1978.
00:48:06
Speaker
My God.
00:48:11
Speaker
I mean, that price was better than watching professional bowlers on a Saturday afternoon competing for, you know, a $5,000 prize, giving away an actual car just for playing pinball.
00:48:25
Speaker
So I think that there are opportunities.
00:48:29
Speaker
And I think it's just a question of
00:48:31
Speaker
How does that get mobilized?
00:48:33
Speaker
And maybe it is through an association.
00:48:36
Speaker
Maybe it is through PAPA.
00:48:37
Speaker
Maybe it is through IFPA, as opposed to being through a single manufacturer or a group of manufacturers forming some association.
00:48:47
Speaker
And I don't know if that's even remotely possible based on the fact that everybody is fighting for their little square part of ground.
00:48:58
Speaker
I don't know if you would ever get everybody under one roof saying, all right, look, let's fund something.
00:49:03
Speaker
I think it has to be through an association or through some type of an event.
00:49:08
Speaker
And maybe there's some central force that brings together TPF, GDC, Louisville, Houston, Pinball Expo, and whatever else.
00:49:18
Speaker
And they say, look, this is how we're going to do it.
00:49:20
Speaker
And, you know, among all of us, we reach 150,000 attendees.
00:49:28
Speaker
And then we're going to band together all of the different associations and events.
00:49:33
Speaker
And maybe this is already taking place and I'm speaking ill of not knowing about it and not being familiar with it.
00:49:39
Speaker
But then you take all the things in Europe and you bring them all together.
00:49:43
Speaker
I mean, there's got to be some some way to do it where we can get some kind of a broadcasting help, I guess.
Pinball Innovations and Technology Integration
00:49:52
Speaker
So Roger, you've been around for a little bit.
00:49:54
Speaker
You've seen the industry.
00:49:55
Speaker
It almost seems like it changes every decade from so, you know, from EMs to solid states to, you know, Bally Williams area to now we're into this modern gaming is what we're calling it.
00:50:06
Speaker
Where do you think the future lies with pinball?
00:50:12
Speaker
Interesting.
00:50:14
Speaker
I think that.
00:50:16
Speaker
Obviously, there's been an attempt, and I think it's with Jerry, as two games connected where you're playing against each other, kind of like what we did with NBA Fast Break.
00:50:31
Speaker
I know that Jack incorporated some way that dialed in, you could play with your phone to control the flippers.
00:50:41
Speaker
That there's, you know, codes that you can go on and post things.
00:50:49
Speaker
I think those are all component parts of the game itself.
00:50:56
Speaker
So if you're asking the question, I think that
00:50:58
Speaker
The outside way of approaching pinball, where they're competitively head-on, two games next to each other, posting things virtually and scores and things doing that now, I guess, where somebody gets to post and show how they're playing and the fact that they did this event, this particular objective in four minutes, who can beat it.
00:51:21
Speaker
All of those types of things not only exist now, but they're going to start to mature.
00:51:29
Speaker
And they're going to become much more vibrant and things that we are going to be expecting on a much more regular basis.
00:51:37
Speaker
I think where you are potentially asking is where are the games going to go?
00:51:44
Speaker
I mean, right now we have a camera that's embedded in Stranger Things.
00:51:48
Speaker
How is that going to work?
00:51:51
Speaker
What other technologies are going to become part of pinball?
00:51:56
Speaker
Are we going to see more virtual imagery like that that exists on Stranger Things or as it existed previously in another era on Pinball 2000?
00:52:07
Speaker
where you're able to project things in some way, shape, or form and take a space or an area and suddenly it is populated by something.
00:52:17
Speaker
Or the way that Jerry does it with his screen as a major part of his play field and you're rolling over things or, in quotes, hitting things abstractly.
00:52:29
Speaker
And by doing so, you're scoring points and getting further into whatever the gameplay objectives are.
00:52:40
Speaker
I think as long as there is something that is physically interactive, however you wind up displaying that in whatever way, shape, or form, that's going to be what the next era or generation of pinball is.
00:52:55
Speaker
I think the other...
00:52:57
Speaker
accoutrements, if you will, become a subset for the people who are truly pinball fanatics.
Balancing Innovation and Simplicity
00:53:09
Speaker
Probably the wrong word, but pinball enthusiasts, skilled pinball players.
00:53:14
Speaker
Pinball still needs to be accessible to the average person.
00:53:18
Speaker
It still cannot be something where there is a level of intimidation, where somebody is...
00:53:25
Speaker
frustrated, not understanding what they should or shouldn't do.
00:53:28
Speaker
It should not become so complex with all these other extraordinary aspects to it.
00:53:34
Speaker
There still needs to be a basic, intuitive, straightforward part of pinball.
00:53:40
Speaker
It is why I believe, and we've discussed it previously, why some of the games from previous eras have endured.
00:53:50
Speaker
have become games that everybody really kind of likes.
00:53:53
Speaker
And in some ways, maybe an outpouring of, God, I wish that they would remake Starz.
00:53:59
Speaker
What a super spectacular game if they only did that.
00:54:04
Speaker
There was a greater level of, I won't call it simplicity, but there was a greater level of purity for those games that have withstood the test of time in the same way that great books,
00:54:19
Speaker
Stand the test of time.
00:54:20
Speaker
Wonderful movies you don't mind going back to and watching over and over again, even though they may be 30, 40, 50, 60 years old.
00:54:31
Speaker
I think that there is something to that that needs to exist for pinball.
00:54:39
Speaker
I think that some of the more complicated games that all of us wound up manufacturing during that period of time in the 90s,
00:54:48
Speaker
with a lot of extraneous pieces and parts that became more difficult to maintain, more difficult to service.
00:54:58
Speaker
I think that those are the games that people probably don't have as much appreciation for, that they fell victim to the time where everybody was more concentrating on elevating and elevating rather than remaining pure to the essence of pinball.
00:55:14
Speaker
And I think that, you know, there is room.
00:55:17
Speaker
a place for that.
00:55:19
Speaker
I think total nuclear annihilation proves that as a single level game.
00:55:24
Speaker
I may not think that the layout and the play field are the best that they could be, but at least it showed that if you can provide something that is dazzling visually and audibly, all of it comes together.
00:55:42
Speaker
It's telling a story.
00:55:44
Speaker
And it's a question of how you tell that story.
00:55:46
Speaker
And if you break that story into chapters and you say, look, here's a sub game that you can play.
00:55:52
Speaker
Let's see how you like that.
00:55:55
Speaker
I think the capabilities with the amount of memory in games allows you to do that.
00:56:01
Speaker
Look, sometimes we may do that ourselves when we're playing just casually.
00:56:07
Speaker
Let me see if I can just destroy all five castles.
00:56:13
Speaker
Let me see if I can just do that.
00:56:15
Speaker
I'm just going to concentrate on that.
00:56:17
Speaker
I mean, I think that for people who have games in their collection, how do you keep them fresh?
00:56:24
Speaker
You keep them fresh because maybe you wind up doing it a little bit differently when you approach the game on that Thursday night versus how you played it Tuesday night.
00:56:34
Speaker
So you wind up doing it as a game within a game for yourself.
00:56:39
Speaker
I think that's what the outgrowth is.
00:56:40
Speaker
And if the game has enough depth, if the game has enough architecture to it in regard to its layout and design, yeah, I mean, look, my sons have joked about my style of play.
00:56:58
Speaker
Yeah, our dad will make a ramp, even if it's not worth anything, just because he can make the ramp and he'll do it over and over and over again.
00:57:06
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's not a bad thing, but I think that that becomes something.
00:57:14
Speaker
Look, maybe the best way that I can describe it is with an example.
00:57:19
Speaker
We had a game.
00:57:23
Speaker
Wow.
00:57:24
Speaker
I've just lost it for a moment.
00:57:28
Speaker
All right, guys, help me.
00:57:31
Speaker
What was the game with Captain Bizarre?
00:57:35
Speaker
Dr. Dude, thank you.
00:57:37
Speaker
We had Dr. Dude.
00:57:39
Speaker
We had Dr. Dude at Pinball Expo, which was the tournament game.
00:57:46
Speaker
I wanted to be really nice.
00:57:49
Speaker
Big mistake.
00:57:51
Speaker
I put in that you could get an extra ball after you hit 100 ramps.
00:57:57
Speaker
I didn't think that anybody was going to make 100 shots to get the extra ball.
00:58:03
Speaker
Guess what?
00:58:04
Speaker
I was wrong.
00:58:06
Speaker
People heard about it, found out about it, and suddenly it was like the rest of the game did not matter.
00:58:11
Speaker
The example I'm using is if you have a game like that at home, and whether there's an extra ball waiting for you or whatever else, you can wind up testing yourself.
00:58:22
Speaker
I have to believe, and guys, help me if I'm wrong, because you play.
00:58:26
Speaker
I don't know if you play in tournaments or leagues, but you have your games at home.
00:58:30
Speaker
Do you ever find yourself...
00:58:33
Speaker
taking a different approach to playing the game, or do you just play it the same way each and every time?
00:58:40
Speaker
I was actually just playing Medieval Madness today, and I was doing exactly what you were saying.
00:58:45
Speaker
I was saying, I'm just going to focus on the peasant ramp, or I'm just going to focus on the damsel ramp.
00:58:53
Speaker
And I was just seeing how far I could go just by playing that.
00:58:56
Speaker
And it certainly was interesting because usually it's, oh, let's just see how far I can get in the game.
00:59:01
Speaker
But when I focused on one
00:59:03
Speaker
little thing.
00:59:04
Speaker
Yes, it did make a difference.
00:59:06
Speaker
Same thing with Black Rose.
00:59:07
Speaker
I've done similar things with Black Rose to say, I just want to focus on this aspect of the game.
00:59:12
Speaker
And yes, it does make me come back to it more by partitioning different goals.
00:59:21
Speaker
And see, that's what I'm saying.
00:59:23
Speaker
I think that that's the beauty of it.
Reintroducing Pinball to New Audiences
00:59:25
Speaker
the two games you just mentioned, and other games that are out there and what is taking place now where there are different challenges going on and different ways to highlight one's level of playing expertise and skill.
00:59:39
Speaker
And it means that you have this evolving universe under glass that is more than just one storyline.
00:59:49
Speaker
And I think that that is the beauty of pinball.
00:59:51
Speaker
So when you ask me, where is it going?
00:59:54
Speaker
I think we're going to find that to be more and more evident in future games.
01:00:00
Speaker
I think the designers and the programmers are going to start working on those types of games within games, the same way that video games have had it on any number of occasions.
01:00:15
Speaker
where there have been different ways to kind of progress and segment so that you're not taking, you know, all the time in the world to get through from beginning to end.
01:00:27
Speaker
You get to do some side trips.
01:00:30
Speaker
And I think the beauty of pinball is it's already there.
01:00:33
Speaker
People probably haven't done it consciously unless they're practicing, unless they're practicing for a tournament.
01:00:40
Speaker
And maybe you want to really perfect that shot, that approach.
01:00:44
Speaker
because you know that that's how the game is going to be set up.
01:00:47
Speaker
So you want to make certain that you're going to forget about all this bad stuff over here.
01:00:51
Speaker
That's not going to buy me anything.
01:00:52
Speaker
I want to concentrate on all of this.
01:00:56
Speaker
So I think that that is where the future lies for pinball development going forward.
01:01:05
Speaker
Aside from the home arcades and the bars, where do future locations of pinball go?
01:01:14
Speaker
Wow.
01:01:16
Speaker
Without the COVID?
01:01:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:21
Speaker
Let's pretend like we're in a normal world.
01:01:23
Speaker
I'm just wondering where the other location, the people who can't buy a game themselves, where can they go to play and where should they go?
01:01:35
Speaker
Okay.
01:01:35
Speaker
Because they've disappeared in my lifetime.
01:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, no, no.
01:01:39
Speaker
And it's a great question because I'm going to go back to the end of last year.
01:01:43
Speaker
Where could you go?
01:01:44
Speaker
I could go to a bowling center.
01:01:46
Speaker
I could go to a family entertainment center.
01:01:49
Speaker
I could go to a barcade or a bar arcade because I guess somebody has already copyrighted, trademarked that name.
01:02:02
Speaker
I can go to a bus station.
01:02:05
Speaker
Any place where anybody has time on their hands, any place in any business that wants that people come back more often and stay longer.
01:02:16
Speaker
I can go to a casino that may have a game room attachment to where the cards are being played and where the slots are being played.
01:02:25
Speaker
Airport terminal.
01:02:27
Speaker
I mean, I played games in a variety of places.
01:02:30
Speaker
Those are the places where you could find games.
01:02:34
Speaker
And
01:02:36
Speaker
That still exists.
01:02:38
Speaker
I can go to a hotel and there's a game room next to the fitness center.
01:02:46
Speaker
Think about it.
Pinball as a Promotional Tool
01:02:48
Speaker
The scope and the magnitude of where you can place a pinball machine is literally limitless.
01:02:55
Speaker
And if I go back in time to when I was working on my book, the pictures that we took, again, only a fraction of what we actually put in to the book because we ran out of space.
01:03:08
Speaker
it was staggering.
01:03:09
Speaker
It was everywhere you could find a pinball machine.
01:03:15
Speaker
I still believe that that's possible today.
01:03:18
Speaker
Again, the only thing holding it back is the ability to maintain a game and more importantly, the cost.
01:03:27
Speaker
But that's not to suggest that someplace can't buy an older game at a fraction of the cost and at least have something there for their clientele.
01:03:38
Speaker
If I take a look at senior centers and ball machines, if I take a look at automobile repair places like a Pep Boys or a Midas where I'm going to be there for an hour or two, okay, place a game there.
01:03:57
Speaker
Pizza Hut, pizza places where I'm ordering and waiting, put a game there.
01:04:05
Speaker
Put a pinball machine.
01:04:06
Speaker
And some of the places I'm talking about already have a game, probably have a redemption game or maybe a video game or something.
01:04:13
Speaker
Put in a pinball machine.
01:04:18
Speaker
And I think that that is where the opportunities are for us to get a much broader dispersal of growth and much more touch points to an audience that may in fact become buyers.
01:04:36
Speaker
You know, wouldn't it be great to go into your local pizza parlor?
01:04:42
Speaker
And I know that we did this actually with Josh when he was in high school here.
01:04:46
Speaker
They didn't do what I'm about to say, but they could have.
01:04:50
Speaker
They put in pinball machines because the children, yes, I guess I'll call them children.
01:04:56
Speaker
The children who were coming over from high school for their lunch were
01:05:00
Speaker
incentivize them.
01:05:02
Speaker
If you get a high score on this game or a certain score, I'm going to give you a free soft drink with your pizza.
01:05:08
Speaker
I'm going to give you a dollar off of your pizza.
01:05:11
Speaker
I mean, use the pinball machine as a promotional vehicle.
01:05:17
Speaker
Every mall should have a game room.
01:05:19
Speaker
If they don't have a game room, they should have some area where there are games that are set up for people to play.
01:05:25
Speaker
And work with the local merchants where if you get something really, really good, you get a couple of dollars off.
01:05:33
Speaker
It spits out because we have the capability.
01:05:36
Speaker
You can vend something.
01:05:37
Speaker
It spits out a coupon for a discount at the record store, at the shoe store, at the department store, in the food court.
01:05:50
Speaker
I mean, pinball is just, I think, the most logical way of being able to provide entertainment and what I would call value-added.
01:06:00
Speaker
I know that there were attempts and have been to put a ticket dispenser on a pinball machine so when it's in a family entertainment center, you can play the pinball and then redeem tickets the same way that you can if you played skee-ball.
01:06:13
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with trying to do that.
01:06:17
Speaker
So...
01:06:19
Speaker
Don't know if that answers the question, but yeah, I mean, I think that there is limitless opportunity and very significant barriers to tap into that opportunity, but the opportunity is there.
01:06:35
Speaker
So over the last few decades, I feel like pinballs went through a change gameplay-wise.
01:06:42
Speaker
I know that we've seen advancements from, let's say, even the 80s games that were starting to get game rules versus now that it seems like everything's so...
01:06:53
Speaker
in depth.
01:06:54
Speaker
Do you think, because we were talking about like trying to get stuff televised, do you think games are going to get too in depth that people lose interest to get involved in pinball, that the simplicity's starting to go away in favor of longer ball times and whatnot?
01:07:10
Speaker
Simple answer.
01:07:11
Speaker
Yes.
01:07:13
Speaker
I think it's daunting and overwhelming for someone who is not into pinball and
01:07:19
Speaker
to watch somebody play a brand new game that's streaming or part of a tournament where it's like, oh my God, I mean, what's going on versus watching somebody play a game from the 70s?
01:07:33
Speaker
or the sixties where it's like, Oh, okay.
01:07:36
Speaker
It's just the ABC.
01:07:38
Speaker
It's the red targets and the yellow targets and the blue targets.
01:07:41
Speaker
It's this, that, and the, I mean, that's still compelling to watch.
01:07:46
Speaker
It's, it's, it's very much understandable.
01:07:48
Speaker
The couple of times where people have, I don't know why have requested me to sit in and put on the headphones and do some play by play.
01:07:58
Speaker
It's like,
01:07:59
Speaker
I don't know what to say about that game.
01:08:01
Speaker
I know what I would do, but I'm not going to say it because I'm going to sound stupid.
01:08:05
Speaker
Because going back to my sons, I would hit the ramp.
01:08:09
Speaker
Because I talk about ebb and flow.
01:08:11
Speaker
I talk about the rhythm of the game.
01:08:13
Speaker
And right now, everything is so strategic in regard to how people approach a game and how they play it.
01:08:20
Speaker
You could literally take off 40 or 50% of the play field, and that would be sufficient in terms of how they have carved out
01:08:30
Speaker
their mindset and approach to playing the game.
01:08:33
Speaker
I mean, I felt that way playing in Pinmasters.
01:08:36
Speaker
I had to get 30 million points on Black Rose.
01:08:40
Speaker
All right, how am I going to do that?
01:08:41
Speaker
Well, I can play it this way, but this way is not really the most effective way.
01:08:45
Speaker
Let me do it this way.
01:08:47
Speaker
Or I can play Elvira and the Party Monsters, and I need 3 million, so why am I bothering doing anything else?
01:08:55
Speaker
Let me just go for the ramp over and over again.
01:08:58
Speaker
And I'm going to get the million plus and I'm done if I can make that shot.
01:09:02
Speaker
So I think that it becomes a bit more cumbersome, if you will, in regard to the way some of the current games are being designed and the amount of depth that is being put into play.
01:09:21
Speaker
There was a situation years and years ago where I was approached by this organization coming out of Canada
01:09:27
Speaker
that wanted to create standardized pinball machines because their vision was that if they did it the right way, they could create their own Brunswick or AMF type of center and Brunswick AMF being bowling centers where all the games would be the same.
01:09:44
Speaker
And then you could have leagues on those games.
01:09:47
Speaker
And I thought that would be marvelous.
01:09:49
Speaker
The problem that I pointed out to them was, and it kind of falls into place for people who are bowling people,
01:09:56
Speaker
the amount of oil when you're bowling and whatever else, no two pinball machines of the same type, same model, play the same.
01:10:08
Speaker
So if you're on alley 32 at the bowling alley versus alley six, it may not necessarily hold the hook that you're playing the same way.
01:10:18
Speaker
And you have to make those kind of adjustments and accommodations.
01:10:21
Speaker
So that really didn't go anywhere in terms of what they wanted to do.
01:10:24
Speaker
But in essence, what you're potentially talking about is, can there be a way, and this would be extraordinary, to come up with a televisable tournament type of machine for people to play?
01:10:46
Speaker
And do multiple versions.
01:10:48
Speaker
I mean, it's somewhat similar to, you know, taking taking what was done with.
01:10:59
Speaker
Oh, I can see it.
01:11:00
Speaker
I can feel it.
01:11:02
Speaker
The stern heads up.
01:11:03
Speaker
Juicy Melons.
01:11:03
Speaker
Okay.
01:11:05
Speaker
No, no, no.
01:11:06
Speaker
What's what's the name of Dennis and Greg's game?
01:11:09
Speaker
Yeah, it was.
01:11:10
Speaker
Whoa, Nelly.
01:11:10
Speaker
Whoa, Nelly.
01:11:11
Speaker
Thank you.
01:11:12
Speaker
Wow.
01:11:13
Speaker
See, time and age.
01:11:15
Speaker
Whoa, Nelly, and turning it into the Paps game and whatever else, is taking a single game and not suggesting that would be a tournament game, although not suggesting that it couldn't be.
01:11:27
Speaker
But taking something and saying, okay, here, we're going to bring it down to its bare essentials.
01:11:35
Speaker
And maybe there are ways to do something like that where it doesn't seem to be overwhelming to the viewer who is not necessarily totally prolifically into pinball.
01:11:48
Speaker
Look, a lot of people don't watch golf unless they're golfers.
01:11:55
Speaker
And even then they may not watch it because it's too complex and confusing.
01:12:00
Speaker
How do you get people to watch rugby?
01:12:03
Speaker
unless you're familiar with watching rugby.
01:12:06
Speaker
Soccer, how boring, but not really, if you really understand it.
01:12:11
Speaker
I mean, sports, I think, is the quintessential way of showing as an example, or what wound up happening, watching people playing poker on TV.
01:12:22
Speaker
Until they were able to have a camera that could show you the hold cards,
01:12:27
Speaker
You were lost.
01:12:28
Speaker
You didn't know what was going on.
01:12:30
Speaker
That turned that entire endeavor, I won't call it a sport, into something truly engaging.
01:12:39
Speaker
Wow, he has pocket eights.
01:12:40
Speaker
I wonder what he's going to do with that.
01:12:43
Speaker
I mean, you now knew what everybody had.
01:12:45
Speaker
It was like you were the cheater looking over their shoulders.
01:12:51
Speaker
Chess is an amazing game.
01:12:54
Speaker
Televising it, not so amazing, unless people really understand the intricacies and the strategies.
01:13:01
Speaker
Shelby Lyman did a great job with the Boris Spassky-Bobby Fisher match back in 72.
01:13:10
Speaker
It brought chess to life.
01:13:12
Speaker
Who knew that there was a history with that kind of gambit, that kind of opening?
01:13:17
Speaker
It's the same thing with pinball.
01:13:18
Speaker
Just got to give it a chance and start it with the right games.
01:13:23
Speaker
so that people can be brought into an era of more complex layouts.
01:13:30
Speaker
Does that make sense at all?
01:13:31
Speaker
Or am I just missing the boat totally and sounding completely silly and stupid and naive?
01:13:38
Speaker
It sounds like you're trying to streamline something for a television audience, which I think is, it makes sense to have a limited rule set, but still show the skill.
01:13:50
Speaker
I think that actually makes sense.
01:13:52
Speaker
Okay, good.
01:13:54
Speaker
I don't want my sons to come back at me afterwards if they listen to this and say, Dad, cannot believe how foolish you sounded.
01:14:00
Speaker
Dad, cannot believe you said that.
01:14:04
Speaker
That's my big concern in life.
01:14:06
Speaker
So I have one last question about licensing.
01:14:10
Speaker
And one, we've really appreciated you spending your time here.
01:14:12
Speaker
It's been amazing storytelling that many aspects that I don't think anybody has heard before.
01:14:19
Speaker
They've heard referencing, but it's been an amazing night.
01:14:25
Speaker
Your main job has always been- It's been a marathon.
01:14:29
Speaker
That's okay.
01:14:30
Speaker
My apologies for a marathon.
01:14:32
Speaker
We prepared for it.
01:14:34
Speaker
But I wrote a billion questions and we've got to about a third of them.
01:14:40
Speaker
Your main job is licensing.
01:14:43
Speaker
It's been licensing your most of your career.
01:14:47
Speaker
And licensing has completely changed in the last 30 years where it's
01:14:52
Speaker
It seems so many things are fragmented that you don't get to buy.
01:14:58
Speaker
You don't buy a Terminator 2 license.
01:15:02
Speaker
What you're doing is you're buying the music license or the theme license or this actor's license.
01:15:08
Speaker
So what is essential in making a good license?
01:15:12
Speaker
And I'll use Jurassic Park as an example.
01:15:14
Speaker
With Stern, they have the name and theme, Jurassic Park and the music license.
01:15:21
Speaker
And Nedry.
01:15:22
Speaker
And that's basically it.
01:15:24
Speaker
But it has come together as a great integration where it doesn't feel like you're missing anything.
01:15:30
Speaker
So exactly what is essential to making a good license?
01:15:35
Speaker
I think what makes a good license is that, well, let me back up for one second.
01:15:41
Speaker
I think...
01:15:42
Speaker
when you're able to bring the signature elements of a particular brand, personality, movie, book, whatever, when you can bring that to life, I think that's where the magic happens.
01:15:58
Speaker
Now, if you are taking something and then creating your own unique path, which is effectively what happened with Jurassic and what Keith did,
01:16:09
Speaker
you're seeing the elements that you know so well, and they are creating this world.
01:16:13
Speaker
They've done all of that remarkable work, which engages you.
01:16:19
Speaker
And I understand and know that there's been some feedback that hasn't been overly positive in terms of, God, I wish that they had done something with the movies.
01:16:28
Speaker
Where's Chris Pratt?
01:16:30
Speaker
Where's Bryce Howard?
01:16:31
Speaker
I mean,
01:16:32
Speaker
why didn't they do this, that, or the other?
01:16:33
Speaker
And it's like, no, let them be creative within the context of what they did.
01:16:38
Speaker
It's the same thing with Deadpool and having the wonderful animations as part of the screen action that interfaces.
01:16:47
Speaker
So I think that there are a variety of ways to approach content.
01:16:52
Speaker
My feeling has always been that whatever is necessary to carry things through, that's what I'm going to do.
01:17:00
Speaker
There were many licenses that I decided not to go after, despite maybe designers wanting them, design teams wanting them, because I couldn't get the talent necessary, the images necessary, the assets necessary to make it happen.
01:17:17
Speaker
And I think that you take a look at it from the standpoint of, let's look at a movie, just a general.
01:17:24
Speaker
I need to have the stems and splits.
01:17:29
Speaker
That's the breakout of music, speech, sound effects.
01:17:36
Speaker
Need to have assets.
01:17:39
Speaker
What am I working with?
01:17:41
Speaker
The world has fundamentally changed in the past couple of years because of one particular inclusion in the world of pinball.
01:17:50
Speaker
It's called an LCD.
01:17:53
Speaker
Before, when it was a dot matrix, I could get away with doing Dracula the way that we did, taking the movie footage, giving it to the guys, and suddenly that is Gary Oldham and Winona Ryder dancing on the dot matrix.
01:18:06
Speaker
Now, I actually physically need that footage to display on the LCD.
01:18:15
Speaker
When we were doing Terminator 2 Judgment Day as a video game,
01:18:19
Speaker
George Petro and Jack Hager needed Robert Patrick as a T-1000 to face a certain way.
01:18:27
Speaker
At the end of the shoot of that day, they asked Robert Patrick to put on his arms.
01:18:33
Speaker
Ha ha.
01:18:34
Speaker
And can you face this way?
01:18:35
Speaker
Because the way that it is in the movie, you're facing to the left and that doesn't work for the angle that we need for the video game.
01:18:42
Speaker
Because that was a visual part.
01:18:44
Speaker
I could get away with him without doing it that way to have him be on the dot matrix display.
01:18:51
Speaker
But for the video game, I couldn't because the guys are going to take that and they were going to animate off of that.
01:18:57
Speaker
What I do in the other part of my world with slot machines is getting footage.
01:19:03
Speaker
It is getting access to all of those particular pieces of film, movies for the mass, for the Karate Kid, for Casablanca, for Singing in the Rain.
01:19:16
Speaker
It's getting Penn and Teller to go into studio and doing work for us.
01:19:21
Speaker
It was getting Aerosmith, Stephen Tyler, and the rest of the guys to go into studio when we were doing Revolution X and to do the stunt work, go in for the audio.
01:19:32
Speaker
and put all of that together right now for a pinball machine, I need to have those elements for the LCD.
01:19:40
Speaker
Either that or I need to make an accommodation.
01:19:42
Speaker
I need to do it in some form of animation.
01:19:46
Speaker
And maybe that was a decision that was made for Jurassic.
01:19:49
Speaker
Maybe it was, you know, we can't get all the right footage that we want, so we're going to create our own mythology here within the context of the Jurassic universe.
01:19:59
Speaker
And I appreciate and I applaud what they have done because what they have done is something that is truly magnificent and spectacular.
01:20:08
Speaker
So you're drawn into that world.
01:20:10
Speaker
But again, I need speech.
01:20:12
Speaker
I need speech calls.
01:20:14
Speaker
I need music.
01:20:16
Speaker
I need visuals.
01:20:18
Speaker
And I need all the other associated elements that give me that sense of being part of that world and universe.
01:20:27
Speaker
And I think when you look at
01:20:29
Speaker
games, however anybody feels about the execution, look at the amount of stuff, for lack of a better word, that's in Willy Wonka.
01:20:41
Speaker
The amount of stuff that is in Pirates.
01:20:46
Speaker
The amount of stuff in Wizard of Oz.
01:20:49
Speaker
The amount of stuff, I guess, that is going to be in Rick and Morty.
01:20:55
Speaker
the amount of stuff from what I've heard and seen that's going to be in Hot Wheels.
01:21:00
Speaker
I mean, you kind of go down the line with all of that and you realize that this is a different world when you are looking at licensed content and how is everybody going to deal with it?
01:21:12
Speaker
You know, WrestleMania, however good, bad or indifferent that people thought that it was, had the little monitor and you had actual footage of people wrestling.
01:21:23
Speaker
I mean, that's a starting point of doing things like that.
01:21:27
Speaker
So I think that the world of licensing becomes much more multidimensional.
01:21:33
Speaker
And for me personally, it really becomes a question of what does the design team need for me as a licensing person?
01:21:45
Speaker
Whatever they need may not be sufficient for what I think they need.
01:21:50
Speaker
And I'm going to try to secure for them everything that I believe that they need and whether or not they choose to use it is up to them.
01:22:00
Speaker
But I want to ensure that they can get everything and anything available and possible to ensure the best quality product.
01:22:09
Speaker
And that goes for many of the other clients that I work with in the video game space, in arcades, in slot machines, and everything else.
01:22:21
Speaker
So, you know, I think the question then becomes, what is the cost to get that?
01:22:28
Speaker
Is it going to be cost prohibitive?
01:22:30
Speaker
Do I have to go through extraordinary lengths to get approvals?
01:22:36
Speaker
And in some cases, yes, but if it's worth the effort, then it's worth the effort.
01:22:41
Speaker
And I'm willing to go to the mat on all of my projects to ensure that everything is there.
01:22:48
Speaker
Nothing is missing.
01:22:49
Speaker
And if something is missing, then I would walk away from it.
01:22:53
Speaker
I mean, I'll be very blunt.
01:22:56
Speaker
I'm not going to do Apollo 13 and have Tom Hanks in a helmet.
01:23:00
Speaker
I'm sorry.
01:23:02
Speaker
I mean, I have to have everything be absolutely, totally pristine and right.
01:23:08
Speaker
I can't get away with not having...
01:23:12
Speaker
the principal characters, the principal actors, and whatever else.
01:23:15
Speaker
I want to have a Maya Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford, and everybody else.
01:23:20
Speaker
And thank God, as the first time he's ever done it, and he's done subsequent studio sessions, having John Rhys Davies be my voiceover, but also having speech picked up where you hear Sean Connery, and you hear Harrison Ford, and you hear all the other main characters, because that was important for me to be able to have us convey that story.
01:23:43
Speaker
Does that kind of make sense at all?
01:23:45
Speaker
No, that makes sense.
01:23:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:23:48
Speaker
Yeah.
01:23:48
Speaker
Okay.
01:23:52
Speaker
No, it was all that's that's all fantastic.
01:23:55
Speaker
You know, Roger, we really appreciate you coming on.
01:23:58
Speaker
We appreciate you answering all of our questions that we had.
01:24:02
Speaker
And it's, it's just been fantastic.
01:24:05
Speaker
It's, I can't believe it's been a quick three hours.
01:24:08
Speaker
I'm not going to lie.
01:24:09
Speaker
Has it really been three hours?
01:24:11
Speaker
I appreciate your patience and your indulgence.
01:24:15
Speaker
Well, Roger, we did have one followup question from Jeff Teolis.
01:24:19
Speaker
He wanted to know who's your favorite son and why is it Zach?
01:24:26
Speaker
Jeff will always be the favorite.
01:24:28
Speaker
He knows that.
01:24:31
Speaker
That's a running gag for us.
01:24:33
Speaker
I love it.
01:24:34
Speaker
I love it.
01:24:37
Speaker
Well, awesome.
01:24:38
Speaker
I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to put a pin in it.
01:24:42
Speaker
We're going to have to wrap things up now.
01:24:43
Speaker
Cause cause it's yeah.
01:24:47
Speaker
Well, it's probably past everybody's bedtime now.
01:24:49
Speaker
So yes, we have, we have young kids that we need to feed and get to bed.
01:24:53
Speaker
So again, really appreciate it.
01:24:56
Speaker
Talking to a legend.
01:24:57
Speaker
This has been a dream of ours.
01:24:59
Speaker
And we are very appreciative of you, your legacy, everything your sons do for pinball.
01:25:06
Speaker
The enthusiasm that you and your sons have for pinball is contagious.
01:25:12
Speaker
And it sets us off for a good future of pinball, even in a post-COVID corona world.
01:25:21
Speaker
Well, and I have to thank both of you.
01:25:24
Speaker
This has been a pleasure.
01:25:25
Speaker
Thanks for thinking that I might be worthwhile to talk to.
01:25:29
Speaker
And I just wish you both well and your families and hopefully everybody and anybody just to stay safe, stay out of harm's way.
01:25:37
Speaker
And somehow we're going to get out from under all of this.
01:25:41
Speaker
And God, it's going to be a brave new world.
01:25:45
Speaker
Thanks, Roger.
01:25:46
Speaker
Appreciate it.
01:25:48
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming on.
01:25:49
Speaker
Stay safe and stay healthy.
01:25:52
Speaker
You too.
01:25:53
Speaker
And maybe we'll do this again sometime when you have another couple of days to waste.
01:25:56
Speaker
Sounds good.
01:25:58
Speaker
Sounds great to me.
01:25:59
Speaker
Thanks.
01:26:03
Speaker
Shut up and sit down.