Ep 40: New Horizons with Butch Peel

“A phone call from an H.R. rep in Florida letting me know that the company no longer had a role for me. And it was kind of informed right at that point that that would be my final day with the company. And while we're talking on the phone to top it all off, the IT people beamed into my laptop and start cutting me out of everything and closing my accounts and changing my password.”

“He went from being Stern's number one distributor to just selling, you know, a couple of hundred games a year. And it didn't take very long to happen. They were just getting tired of the same stuff over and over again.”

“I know they had some tough times. But, you know, we brought a lot of attention to pinball again. And, you know, I used to tell people at shows it was just amazing to look out at the myriad of faces at these shows.”

“I've been to a lot of different types of events... But you looked out across a pinball show at all these people and it's just amazing the cross-section we have people you know with spiked up hair and mohawks and tattoos and earrings and girls and boys and men and women and old men and old women and you i would defy a lineup of people at a pinball show to be identified by somebody as you know what they all came together for”

“You'll never see another pinball machine that has all in it like like Wizard of Oz... It almost bankrupted a company.”

“Jack of all trades, master of fun. I knew from talking and seeing him that he was just so proud of all the things he'd done in pinball, all the different roles he'd played, and how much he thought a game had to be fun to actually be a success.”

“Whatever else Kaneda has or hasn't done, he certainly got it right in my case. He called it like it was, and it was kind of therapeutic to hear it actually.”

“I got my first call from Chicago Gaming Company on the following Monday. So that was kind of exciting... not much time went by before I got my answer.”