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Pinball Industry News: January 2020 Re-cap
PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago1 hr 19 min listenBy Martin Ayub, Jonathan Joosten
Martin Ayub (Pinball News) and Jonathan Joosten (Pinball Magazine) discuss the pinball industry news of January 2020, including an interview with Dave Peterson (Stern Pinball), Gary calling in...
Highlights
- Spooky Pinball announced all 750 Rick and Morty buyers will receive a free interactive motorized topper with flashes
- Stern's Star Wars topper was priced at $750, making the free Rick and Morty topper a bold statement by comparison
- Stranger Things was shown at EAG with code version 0.81 dated incorrectly as 8th January 2019 instead of 2020, placing it far down the code update list
- Dave Peterson stated Stern had a record month, quarter, and year in 2019 and expects continued growth in 2020
- Stern plans to bring three cornerstone titles to market in 2020, with Stranger Things as the first
- The Stranger Things Premium model's projector technology allows animated targets on the playfield, functioning as a modern evolution of Pinball 2000
- George Gomez initially expressed apologies for Stranger Things having a 'fan layout' similar to Attack from Mars, but later seemed to question why players were critical
- On the Stranger Things Pro model at EAG, observers saw few successful Demogorgon toy shots despite many attempts, while the Premium model showed successful shots during most games
- Stern has no current plans to implement projector technology on other games in development
- Spooky Pinball Fan Club members received mailed packages including colored can cozies, a large poster, keychain, and membership card as part of their 2020 annual membership
Notable quotes
“It's interactive, motorised with flashes, not just some cut-out piece of acrylic that's back or bottom lit.”
“We ended December with a record month, a record quarter, and a record year.”
“The number of people that are interested in pinball continues to grow. And what that means is that the overall market is growing at a very healthy pace globally around the world.”
“We invested in the community. Yeah, and the thing that made us interested in the company was when we looked at it, we were impressed with how pinball enthusiast collectors, pinball people supported pinball during a very very difficult time which was the Great Recession.”
“It's almost like a Pinball 2000, but without having the mirror glass, so you actually can see the back part of the playfield. I think it has a big potential.”
“Stern's version of pinball 2000 which is like 20 years after actual pinball 2000 so it took them 20 years but they finally sort of caught up”
“I think that mostly has to do with probably the music of the theme I mean it might be very true to Stranger Things as a theme but it's very calm synthesizer 80s sounding music but it's not very exciting”
“I don't think I saw anybody being able to shoot the ball through the Demogorgon toy. Lots of people were shooting at it. It didn't award almost any points at all, so it was hardly worth it.”
“Black Knight probably is the one game that falls into the category of surprise. We've been delighted with the reaction to Stranger Things.”
“Hey everybody This is George Gomez from Stern Pinball and I in London with Jonathan Happy New Year, and hope you like what we're doing.”
Entities
- Electrocoin· company
- Spooky Pinball· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- EAG International Expo· event
- Attack from Mars· game
- Black Knight· game
- Elvira· game
- Jurassic Park· game
- Pinball 2000· game
- Rick and Morty· game
- Stranger Things· game
- Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast· organization
- Spooky Pinball Fan Club· organization
- Brian Eddy· person
- Dave Peterson· person
- Gary Stern· person
- George Gomez· person
- Jonathan Houston· person
- Martin· person
- Stranger Things Premium· product
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