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Episode 427: Martin Ayub and Pinball News
PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago32 min listen
You'd be hard to find anyone in the last 25 years who has provided more pinball information than Martin Ayub of Pinball News. It was a pleasure to chat with Martin, who has seen and reported on so...
Highlights
- Martin Ayub has been running Pinball News since 2000, covering the pinball industry for 25 years with no advertising or sponsorship
- Williams closed its doors at the end of 1999, marking a crisis moment when many believed pinball was finished despite Stern's founding
- Jersey Jack Pinball's success proved Gary Stern wrong about the market's inability to support multiple manufacturers
- There are approximately 15-17 companies manufacturing pinball machines now, with concerns about market saturation and financial viability
- The UK location-based pinball market differs significantly from North America due to real estate costs and business economics favoring food/dining over arcade space
- Modern pinball development requires substantial content creation including professional voice acting, full art packages, and video assets, making licensed IP advantageous
- Major manufacturers like Stern and Jersey Jack require 30 months of development before a game's 18-month release timeline to fully complete all intended features
- Artistic talent is increasingly becoming employee-based rather than freelance, with companies securing exclusive agreements with artists
Notable quotes
“I've been doing pinball news since 2000. So 25 years, a quarter of a century now.”
“So I wanted something which could be updated...The story evolves...what's published is set in stone. So I wanted something which could be updated.”
“producing something which is unbiased is often seen as being biased...the people who have a particular leaning one way or the other think that if you're not reporting in news in their particular style then you must be against them”
“It breaks my heart because, yeah, there are a lot of great ideas and I'm not saying it's easy, but the making the pinball machine is maybe the easier part. It's the manufacturing that is, for many companies, sometimes the nightmare.”
“you better have a hit or else, boy, you're in some financial troubles.”
“It's a lot more niche. And I don't want to say that I don't think there is anything that can do it, but it's been tried a few times before, and the only way these things tend to get popular is through character-based programming.”
“Back in the day...John Norris in the Gottlieb days. He was putting one a month.”
“Jersey Jack creation was really significant because up until that point, everybody had believed it was impossible to compete against Stern.”
Entities
- Jersey Jack Pinball· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- Williams Electronics· company
- Dutch Pinball Open Expo· event
- Pinball Expo· event
- Texas Pinball Festival· event
- Pinball News· organization
- Pinball Profile· organization
- Gary Stern· person
- Jack Danger· person
- Jeff Teolis· person
- John Norris· person
- Jonathan Joosten· person
- Martin Ayub· person
- Peter Blakemore· person
- Roger Sharp· person
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