This Week in Pinball: Iron Maiden Stream, MGC Preview, Pinball Expo, Trudeau, More

Part of the problem is lack of volume, which you need to bring costs down. I can buy a brand-new small car for the price of a brand-new pinball machine (or near enough). Yet, the car is infinitely more high-tech, contains ultra-high precision parts that need to perform under extreme environmental conditions and, just putting a car and a pinball machine on scales, the car contains about ten times as much material, pretty much all of it way more sophisticated than anything in a pinball machine.

If we were to manufacture pinball machines on the same scale, they wouldn’t cost more than $2,000 a pop, probably less.

I don’t know whether deeproot will be able to find some sweet spot between ultra-cheap mass-produced and expensive hand-built. But it seems possible, especially if they can do most of the manufacturing in China. The idea of making pinball machines in the US or UK is ludicrous from a cost perspective. I would expect 30–50% of the manufacturing cost to be labor.

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I also work in the private equity world so I’m going to respectfully disagree.

  1. Financial people don’t necessarily know how to run companies. Lots of great investors are shitty managers.

  2. PE Fund… Size matters::wink: His fund is tiny. 15M is nothing in the PE world. Hell, 100M is small in that world. I’m not saying he isn’t successful, but if the world of Private Equity was retail stores with Walmart and Target he is running a bodega.

  3. The language that he has done the impossible in other industries… boy, that just wreaks of overconfidence. The dude is a lawyer who went into wealth management. I don’t see any industry disruption in his bio. https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-mueller-43b5b113/

Anyway, I’ll end on a positive note. I think industry outsiders can sometimes do great things because they aren’t afraid to try new things. I wish him the best.

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I welcome a new pinball company to the business. Competition promotes growth and helps take pinball to its next level.

This post has been edited. I jumped to conclusions on my first post and deleted all of that subjective content. We should never “Assume” and pre-judge anything or anyone.

I look forward to learning more about Deeproot Pinball.

Jon Norris

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faster, clearly.

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And in private, preferably. Because airing these sorts of things in public is unprofessional. And that goes for both parties involved.

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Original post has been edited. Please reread it.

THIS WEEK IN PINBALL

  • Statement from deeproot Pinball
  • 1st Annual TWIPY Awards!
  • New Info on Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle
  • Stern Updates - Code Updates, Callouts, Stern of the Union
  • December Deals and Giveaways
  • New Gameplay Videos - GOTG, Alien, Houdini
  • IFPA Power 100 Championship
  • Tips from Zach Sharpe on How to Play Better
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Any reason that you excluded all the Multimorphic games that shipped this year in the poll but did include games that might be released next year?

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The reasoning to leave off the P3 games was my ignorance of the platform. I had initially included LL-EE, along with Lexy Lightspeed - Secret Agent Showdown, Barnyard, ROCs, and Cannon Lagoon. I came up with the TWIPY awards idea Saturday night, and made the poll Sunday morning before starting on the Monday This Week in Pinball post. I pulled them because I didn’t understand the depth and scale of the games and wasn’t sure how they fit into the poll. Obviously I should’ve spent more time researching it.

I PMed Gerry this morning after his post to apologize for leaving them off. It wasn’t meant to belittle their efforts at all. I’d like to do a full post highlighting the P3 platform and the games so I can get educated on it and share that info with others.

Take 2!

Introducing the 2017 TWIPY Pinball Awards!

Vote NOW for your favorite artwork, favorite theme, favorite podcast, etc. LIVE awards ceremony! Takes two minutes, vote here: https://goo.gl/forms/5tUPMcGcVPiZe0Eo2

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THIS WEEK IN PINBALL

  • The TWIPY Pinball Awards - Vote Now!
  • Batman ’66 Channel Changing – A First for Pinball
  • List of Thunderbirds Playfield Changes, Shipping Update
  • Stern of the Union – Code Updates, Stern in China, More
  • The Impact of the Project Pinball Charity
  • Poem about Pinball Bulbs and December SALE!
  • Poem about Pin Stadium Lighting and GIVEAWAY!
  • What’s Happening with PAPA 21?
  • The Queensland Pinball Championships
  • Victory Laps – End of Post Bonus
  • MATCH! – Next game…what is Coming Up on This Week in Pinball

DEEP DIVE into Houdini Pinball by American Pinball -Overview, Likes, Dislikes, Code, Features

I THIS WEEK IN PINBALL

  • Planetary Pinball Reveals “Likely” Remakes
  • Clues from “Ask Steve Ritchie”
  • Host Announced for TWIPY Pinball Awards!
  • Houdini Deep Dive – Likes, Dislikes, Features, Code
  • Code Code Code Code – Guardians, Star Wars, Alien, WOZ
  • More Alien Info
  • Win a FREE set of Pin Stadium Lights
  • Mystery Playfield in Background of Ask Steve Ritchie
  • Victory Laps – End of Post Bonus
  • MATCH! – Next Game…What is Coming Up on This Week in Pinball
  • Several Changes to Upcoming Games and Rumors

Url is bad, but I’m on phone in a car dealership so can’t be of much more help atm.

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Thanks - fixed now.

The Desire to Create - Interview with Joe Balcer, designer of Houdini Pinball

  • How Houdini went from a piece of paper to a flippable game in four months
  • Why the unique head shape
  • An extremely cool one-of-a-kind mod is coming
  • The magic and illusion of the design and code
  • The development of the catapult
  • Houdini sales goals and how many can be produced each week
  • Game #2 - licensed or unlicensed?
  • Game #2 - who is the designer?
  • Game #2 - when will it be announced?
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**LAST CHANCE to vote for the 2017 TWIPY Pinball Awards! https://goo.gl/forms/5tUPMcGcVPiZe0Eo2

Please help spread the word in the pinball community and VOTE NOW for your favorites!

LIVE TWIPY AWARDS SHOW coming up which is going to be a very fun time, details here: http://thisweekinpinball.com/live-twipy-awards-show-date-announced-last-chance-vote-last-chance-free-pin-stadium-lights/

THIS WEEK IN PINBALL

  • Happy New Year!
  • **EXCLUSIVE - New Themes Being Revealed
  • Is That a Kingpin?
  • LIVE TWIPY Pinball Awards Show coming 1/19 at 7:00PM EST
  • Pindigo Version 3 Released
  • Total Nuclear Annihilation Album Release Date, plus TnA Background and Updates
  • Chicago Gaming Updates on AFMr and Game #3
  • Guardians of the Galaxy - New Songs and Limited Editions Shipping
  • First Houdini Officially Shipped
  • Last Day to enter to win a FREE set of Pin Stadium Lights
  • Pinball Bulbs Sale
  • Alien Limited Editions Shipping?
  • NYC Pinball Championship Updates
  • IFPA Announcments
  • Victory Laps - End of Post Bonus

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THIS WEEK IN PINBALL

  • Alice Cooper’s Nightmare Castle Teasers and Secrets
  • The Two Themes Obtained
  • “Talk to TWIP”
  • LIVE TWIPY Pinball Awards Show coming 1/19 at 7:00PM EST
  • Batman '66 - More Code with LOTS of New Video Clips
  • Total Nuclear Annihilation Updates
  • Giveaway Winners!
  • Big Bang Bar at a New Location
  • It Never Drains in Southern California
  • Thunderbirds Update from Homepin
  • Pinball Profile - 100th Episode with Roger Sharpe
  • Custom Black and White Twilight Zone Pinball Machine
  • Total Recall Pinball Machine - Playfield Art Seen for the First Time
  • Victory Laps - End of Post Bonus
  • What is Coming Up on This Week in Pinball

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