Whew, look at that article title 😂. I just finished Part 2 of the Super Awesome Pinball Show Year in Review podcast. I don't think that I've ever heard a show more jam packed with amazing pinball information than that. It was a podcasting masterpiece.
Part 2 of the episode contained great interviews with Barry Driessen of Dutch Pinball, Bug from Spooky Pinball, Josh Sharpe of Raw Thrills and George Gomez from Stern Pinball.
Here's my notes:
Dutch Pinball
Goal is to get production to 20 games per week, 1,000 per year.
Company has production plans laid out for the next three to four years and another run of The Big Lebowski doesn't fit there
After the next batch of games ships out to the U.S. "within the next week" [this may have already happened if the interview sat for a few days] there will only be 12 Early Achiever games, i.e. games for the first customers who ordered the game, left to make.
Company has two projects that it is working on in 2024. Barry is optimistic that one will be shown and begin shipping this year. The other project may not be until very late in 2024 or early 2025. According to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, the first project is rumored to be a smaller run of a very high-end Alice In Wonderland Pinball machine and based on the wildly popular 1985 film the second Back to the Future.
Dutch Pinball will not attend the Texas Pinball Festival (March 15-17), but they will likely be at Pinball Expo in Chicago (October 15-19).
Spooky Pinball
Has had the license for Looney Tunes since around the same time that they got the license for Scooby-Doo.
Bug said during the interview that Spooky would never do a dual-theme pinball machine again because its so much work...but they also said that after the Halloween / Ultraman launch :). No plans for it right now, but that can always change.
More than two future titles currently in development.
Sales-wise Spooky Pinball had its biggest year ever in 2023.
Stern Pinball
George Gomez clarified a lot of the points that came out of the presentation that they made to distributors a couple of weeks ago.
"There's been a lot of concern [about second Limited Edition versions of games] from the people that are basically buying an LE because they want the uber model, they want the exclusivity, they want the best of everything. To respect that, we're going to turn the dial back at throwing LEs at anniversaries and all sorts of things...Things like anniversaries will be handled as Premiums. That means a new art package on a Premium." Black armor and none of the other LE goodies.
There was A LOT of talk about potential DMD Vaults, and more specifically TRON Vault. It doesn't sound to me as though a DMD remake is coming anytime soon. Stern has had very preliminary internal discussions about vaulting TRON and how it might work but nothing beyond that.
It definitely doesn't sound like a Lord of the Rings vault, which was on the Whitestar system, will ever happen.
Technology-wise, the easiest DMD game to vault would be Ghostbusters.
There is an enormous effort in porting a DMD game to Stern's new systems. We're going to be very selective in which ones we pick. If you have a game that is in super high demand and the customer is saying "build this for me" we might. It's not going to become a thing that becomes a regular cadence. Any time you buy a Vault from us, I guarantee that it's going to be better than the original.
Home Leaderboards may be part of the paid All Access premium service to help pay for server costs.
George Gomez and Seth Davis have had talks about how it would be possible to drop prices but it probably won't happen. At the very least, they want to hold prices steady.
Here's. Link to the show. If you're a pinball fan, it's a must listen.
The Super Awesome Pinball Show - Year in Review 2023 Part 2
