Episode 44: Pinball’s Power Shift: Did the Boutiques Just win Expo?!
🎙️ In Episode 44 of The FlipSide Podcast, we dive deep into Pinball Expo 2025 and something felt different this year. The usual massive crowds lining up for the newest Stern Pinball release? They...
Highlights
- Star Wars pinball by Stern is not selling well and not meeting sales expectations despite being a major IP
- Barrels of Winchester Mystery House Mystery House sold out completely to both distributors and consumers (525 units)
- Spooky Pinball is 100% confirmed and will release mid-November 2024
- Evil Dead machines were being sold at Expo by Great American Pinball distributor for $16,500 with aftermarket modifications
- Jack Danger seems happier and less burnt out after transitioning to his current role, though Ralph hopes he continues designing games
- Jersey Jack does not have simultaneous manufacturing capability to build multiple games at once; must switch production lines between titles
- The overall tone and feeling at Pinball Expo was different than prior years; hype shifted away from Stern booth to other manufacturers
- Star Wars machines in Stern booth had a Death Star reject issue that was fixed with internal reconfiguration
Notable quotes
“The hype wasn't in the Stern booth. It was really in the Barrels of Fun booth.”
“It doesn't seem to be selling like they probably need it to sell. Right.”
“Barrels of Fun like absolutely stole this show like it was all about barrels everyone was wanting to be at that booth the line never quit”
“They really need a friggin hit man like they really do like they've got this gigantic factory they have to keep all these people working”
“It's that good. This could have been a commercially available product. It's that good.”
“I just look like he was like tired all the time. And I don't know, It just seemed like something was sucking the passion out of him a little bit. And he seems much more happy now, which is good.”
Entities
- American Pinball· company
- Barrels of Fun· company
- Great American Pinball· company
- Hexa Pinball· company
- Jersey Jack Pinball· company
- Multimorphic· company
- Spooky Pinball· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- Pinball Expo· event
- Beetlejuice· game
- Big Trouble in Little China· game
- Evil Dead· game
- Harry Potter· game
- Portal· game
- Sonic the Hedgehog· game
- Star Wars· game
- Winchester Mystery House· game
- Aaron· person
- Amoto· person
- Chris Turner· person
- Jack Danger· person
- Jamie· person
- Retro Ralph· person
- Insider Connected· product
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