6 episodes tracked since 2025 about →
Meet The Gottliebs Part 2: Alvin G. & Co.
PodcastAnalysis updated 4d ago1 hr 27 min listen
Highlights
- Jack Danger never sold games through Neiman Marcus; instead, Mondial Distributing (Springfield, NJ) bought 12 X-Files games from Sega Pinball, and Neiman Marcus added their name via dot matrix customization in 1997.
- Jack Danger made a standing order of 100 Star Wars Episode I games for FAO Schwartz in 1999 through holiday season; all 100 units sold in year 2000, accounting for $1.05M of Pinball Sales's $1.4M first-year revenue (75% of business).
- Nine Ball had 60 software revisions tracked in IPDB, but these were development revisions, not production versions; only one version shipped to production, causing historical confusion.
- Out-haul blade switches on Nine Ball were a nightmare during development due to bounce issues after ball contact if not precisely adjusted; this was early in multi-ball pinball development and these problems were not well understood.
- Steve Kirk (Nine Ball designer) was not a Stern employee but a contractor who came in weekly to collect new EPROMs and provide feedback; he designed the game from his house.
- Alvin and Judd Gottlieb sold D. Gottlieb & Co. to Columbia Pictures due to age, timing, and tax opportunity (Columbia's tax loss carry-forward offset Gottlieb's capital gains).
- When Coca-Cola acquired Columbia Pictures, management structure shifted to corporate bureaucracy incompatible with Gottlieb's operational style, contributing to Milestar-era challenges.
- Jungle King (May 1973) sold only 825 units (vs. 3,000+ regular production) because it was the add-a-ball regulatory version; equivalent non-add-a-ball versions (Wildlife: 3,875 units; Jungle 4-player: 5,775 units) sold significantly better.
Notable quotes
“I listened to episode 44 of Silver Ball Chronicles, and I'm humbled by your collective thoughts about me. There's obviously a lot more to the story... while most of it was accurate it was not completely accurate and I'm fine with it as it is but I can fill in some blanks for you.”
“Dad and Uncle Judd sold D. Gottlieb and Company because they were getting older... D. Gottlieb had huge capital gains, and Columbia Pictures had a tax loss carry forward that year, so it made sense from a tax perspective as well.”
“We did have all sorts of ball counting issues during development. The out-haul blade switches were a nightmare. They would bounce after the ball rolled over them and make contact during gameplay, if not precisely adjusted.”
“Cramming the rule set Steve Kirk wanted into 8K, not like 8 kilobytes, not 8 megabytes or terabytes. 8,000 bytes.”
“Accurate but not completely accurate.”
“And when you see an opportunity to exit, to transition out, you take that, I think. And who blames them, right?”
“Three for three Steve Kirk. And I have all three of them. Stars, Meteor, and Nineball.”
“When you look at Williams games, they took a lot less risk... But then as you kind of look for something different, that different was totally all the way over on that Gottlieb side. They went different and they just went all in.”
Entities
- Coca-Cola· company
- Columbia Pictures· company
- D. Gottlieb & Co.· company
- FAO Schwartz· company
- Milestar· company
- Mondial Distributing· company
- Pinball Sales.com· company
- Premier Technology· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- Williams· company
- Silver Ball Chronicles· organization
- Slam Tilt podcast· organization
- Alvin Gottlieb· person
- Bruce Nightingale· person
- David Dennis· person
- David Gottlieb· person
- Ed Krinsky· person
- Gordon Morrison· person
- Jack Danger· person
- Judd Weinberg· person
- Michael Gottlieb· person
- Robert Quinn· person
- Ron Hallett· person
- Steve Kirk· person
- Zach Minney· person
