A STERN REPLY

Story dated April 4, 2005

Following our exclusive news about the sale of Williams' pinball rights to Mr Pinball Australia, Stern Pinball President Gary Stern has issues a response.

In a defensive statement designed to reassure his distributors, he takes a side-swipe at Wayne Gillard saying he has been "attempting to design a pinball machine for about a year" and calling it a "hybrid video pinball".  A simple check of Pinball News reports would have shown the game using a dot matrix display.

The statement could be in part explained by a response he gave in an interview for Business Week.  Asked about another company entering the pinball manufacturing market, "One of two things would happen," Stern says. "One is they would lose all of their money. The second is they might kill us because there's room for one. We're striving towards 10,000 machines a year, our breakeven is 65% or 70% of that. If somebody else came in, they would bring us to breakeven or below -- and maybe kill us both."

Gary Stern's statement is shown below:

Dear Ladies & Gentlemen:

It has been reported by a pinball enthusiasts' publication that WMS has sold and/or licensed some of its assets formerly used in its pinball business to an Australian game distributor, Wayne Gillard.

We have not verified this report. Mr. Gillard has been attempting to design a pinball machine for about a year.

We believe that the assets transferred include:
. Certain copyrights and trademarks, including old WMS game designs and names to the extent that the titles and art are not licensed from others;
. Pinball patents that have not yet expired (U.S. patent laws require the owner to pay substantial maintenance fees); and
. Some information regarding WMS parts.

It was also reported that Mr. Gillard acquired a right to use the Bally name. We question the extent, if any, and the duration, of the right Mr. Gillard has received.

We believe that inventory, tooling and Williams' name are not included in the assets transferred or licensed. Existence, ownership and location of the tooling is questionable.

It is unclear whether Mr. Gillard now intends to remake old WMS games and/or manufacture original designs. We believe that the design and manufacture of hybrid video pinball games would be no more financially viable for Mr. Gillard than it was for WMS.

We believe the assets included in the transaction would not have added to our business if we had acquired them, nor do they detract from our business in the hands of others. Stern Pinball has all tooling, intellectual property rights and other elements necessary for our business. We continue to have games designed by the best designers of the pinball industry. Our service and parts departments are second to none, supporting the games we have manufactured. We will continue to develop new and exciting products as we have for nearly 20 years.

Should you have questions, please contact me.

Best regards,

Gary

 

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