Pinball Brothers to Cut Production, Increase Sales to Canada / Europe

Over the past several days, I have come across two articles in Swedish publications about the European pinball manufacturer Pinball Brothers. Pinball Brothers has made three pinball machines thus far, Alien, Queen and ABBA. The company is working on its fourth game, strongly rumored to be based on the 1987 film Predator. This is supported by the image below from the Company's LinkedIn page.

Unfortunately, the new tariffs implemented by the United States are having a significant negative impact upon Pinball Brothers' business and its manufacturing costs at its Italian Euro Pinball Corp. factory.

According the the articles below, which I have translated from Swedish to English using Google and provided links to the original, Pinball Brothers stated that it must immediately cut back on production. There was no specific mention of what sort of impact this will have on the production of Predator, but reading between the lines here I personally think that the launch of the game may be delayed or reduced to a smaller number of games.

For everyone about to chime in about how I should stay out of politics in the comments section, this is not a political post. It is a look at the reality of a European company trying to build pinball machines, the majority of which it sells in the U.S. market in the current high tariff environment. I obviously have personal feelings on the matter, as I'm sure everyone does, but I have not expressed those thoughts here. This is pure economics and numbers and how they impact our beloved hobby. I am always of the opinion that the more pinball we have, the better so I certainly hope that Pinball Brothers finds a way to economically make Predator. Time will tell.

This is how tariffs hit Sweden's only pinball manufacturer

PUBLISHED APRIL 9, 2025

Sweden's only pinball manufacturer is located in Örebro and is now being hit hard by the US's new tariffs. The company, with production in Italy, must now cut back and reevaluate its market strategy.

- This means that we are being hit doubly hard, says Daniel Janson, pinball manufacturer.

The fact that the US will impose new tariffs on goods from the EU of 20 percent was news that made Daniel Janson sigh heavily. The fact that tariffs against various countries will come into effect as early as April 9 will have immediate consequences for him.

- I don't think anyone could be affected much more than we are, he says.

The company has pinball game development in Örebro, and manufacturing in Italy. About 20 people work there.

Must cut back on production

– In the short term, we must immediately cut back on production there.

The company needs to buy components for the pinball games from the USA, then insert them into the games, most of which are then sold on the American market. Until now, that is.

– This means that we are hit doubly hard, says Daniel.

He has deliberately chosen not to start manufacturing in the USA.

– We were more thinking about starting a small-scale production here in Sweden. But for obvious reasons, that is no longer the case.

Other countries have contacted

At the same time, he sees a possible bright spot ahead, even though it is difficult to compensate for the dependence on the US market.

– Many people are now trying to do what they can to no longer be completely dependent on the USA. People from Canada and some other European countries have contacted us and shown interest in our games.

Daniel will now sit down and make a plan for how to approach other markets.

– I hope it works. I have been through downturns before, maybe this can ultimately lead to something else good."

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/sa-slar-tullarna-mot-sveriges-enda-tillverkare-av-flipperspel

DEBATE: My company is in the middle of Trump's tariff chaos

Our company sells pinball machines, primarily to American customers.

Trump's tariffs affect every game multiple times.

"Everything, absolutely everything, is about tariffs in everyday work these days, writes Daniel Janson, CEO of Pinball brothers.

DEBATE. The customs chaos affects everyone and everyone understands that the situation is extremely serious.

But if you have no concrete connection to the import and/or export of goods, it can be difficult to grasp what is actually happening.

We at Pinball brothers AB, a smaller Swedish company, are in the middle of the eye of the storm and even though we only see a small part of what is happening, it is easy for us to understand the enormous impact this is currently having on total world trade.

We develop, manufacture and sell pinball machines.

All design and prototyping of the games takes place in Sweden, both hardware and software. We then manufacture the games in our subsidiary's factory outside Bergamo in Italy.

Pinball is – and has been since the early 1940s – an American interest. Around 2015, something of a renaissance for pinball arose, strongly driven by a generally increasing interest in retro games.

75-80 percent of our sales are on the American market. So far, it is not difficult to understand that trade tariffs between Europe and the USA are therefore a big problem for us.

What is not entirely obvious, however, is how much more complicated this actually is.

The customs between Europe and the USA are just the tip of the iceberg.

Many have probably heard about the many times a car crosses the border between the USA, Canada and Mexico before it is ready. The same is true for us, albeit on a much smaller scale. A pinball machine consists of many thousands of parts made of every conceivable material: wood, plastic, metal, glass, electronics, etc.

The games are also powered by a complete modern computer. The parts are purchased from both China and the USA, although a lot of parts are manufactured in Europe.

Just like for everyone else, it is impossible to buy everything from local companies close to the factory.

Let's take a clear example to explain the rest of the iceberg: our electronics supplier operates in Seattle, USA.

However, they manufacture their electronics cards, as almost everyone in the industry does, in China. Right now there is a 145 percent import duty on goods from China to the USA. Only there would a gigantic problem arise because the price of the cards would go up when we go to buy them.

When we buy the cards from the USA, they are sent to our factory in Italy. At the time of writing, the European retaliatory tariffs against the USA have been paused, but they risk reaching 25 percent. After being installed in the games, many of the cards are sent back to the USA, only to be met with additional tariffs (currently 10 or 20 percent depending on what day you read this, it seems).

Breathtaking percentage

When our end customer, often a private individual (a very large proportion of all pinball machines are purchased today by private collectors), unpacks their game, it has been subject to customs duties three times and at a totally breathtaking percentage. To currently believe that trade tariffs do not cause price increases (and dramatic ones) for end consumers is not only naïve, it is basically like believing that the Earth is flat.

In addition to the purely financial challenge, there are several more. One is that the rhetoric around tariffs from the American leadership to its population has been completely misleading. When we talk to our customers, we notice that very few understand who actually pays for the tariffs. That it is an import tax that the receiving country pays and no one else.

Another challenge is that everything, absolutely everything, is about tariffs in everyday work these days.

Unforeseeable consequences

All conversations with customers, suppliers or basically anyone, are about this. It steals all the time that was previously used for product development, marketing or any other normal and critical activity.

I don't even dare to think about the total amount of time that is spent today on tariff engineering – as the American term goes –.

I find it completely unlikely that anyone would have been able to analyze and overview the extent of the actual consequences of these tariffs. And I haven't even mentioned the problems surrounding the uncertainty that creates regarding what actually applies from day to day.

No, something has been set in motion here without the slightest idea of ​​the fatal and completely unpredictable consequences that they will have. Let's hope that the course changes and quickly.

By Daniel Janson

CEO, Pinball brothers"