PINBALL EXPO 2017 – SATURDAY

The final full day of events at Pinball Expo 2017 continued for us in the Seminars Hall.

10:00am: The Lost Prototype – The Story of the Bally That Got Away
Casey Gardner, Chuck Gardner and James Hudson

Casey Chuck and James set out to make an original game in the style of a late ’70s Bally game and chose the Wonder Woman theme for their custom machine.

They picked the features they wanted on the playfield to keep in style, such as spelling out W-O-N-D-E-R and W-O-M-A-N on target banks.

Having designed and drawn out their playfield, they had to build it.  Casey escribed their trials and tribulations once they had to bring the design off the paper and onto the wood.  Right now they have a flipping whitewood with the basic code written but not cabinet paint yet or a backglass.  Their sound system plays MP3s off an SD card and they are about to start sampling originally Bally game sounds to bring them into the game.

Download the audio of this seminar here

11:00am: Pinball Wizards, Jackpots and Drains in the Cult of the Silver Ball
Adam Ruben

Adam has written a book about his personal experience with pinball and the pinball scene, and he was here at Pinball Expo to talk about why he wrote the book and read some excepts from it.

He said he wanted to let people outside the Expo community that pinball is still alive and at the best place it’s been in the past quarter of a century.

Adam spoke about how cyclical the popularity of pinball has been, citing Pat Lawlor’s target of 10,000 as the definition of a hit title and how no games are known to have sold that quantity since 1993.

The final reading  was about the future of pinball and how it has always survived because it adapts to changing circumstances.  Right now it has never been easier to build your own pinball, and the new start-ups are testament to that and a potential way for pinball to continue expanding its scope and reach.

Download the audio of this seminar here

12:00pm: Chrome Plating, Picking, Hot Rods and Family
Chris Royalty

Chris came to Expo from Nashville where he is a pastor and also runs the company Pinball Plating.  He explained how he got into pinball when he and a friend bought some arcade games to help with counselling troubled youngsters.  After eventually selling them, he changed to buying games in need of repair and restoration which he found in abundance.

Chris spoke about his friendship and business dealing with Mike Chestnut who restored and rebuilt games, and supplied the hobby with difficult-to-find pinball parts.  When Mike passed away unexpectedly, Chris called Mike’s father to help him cope with the situation and deal with the outstanding orders.  After some time Mike’s father asked Chris to take over Mike’s business and ensure it continues.

He showed a sample of the pinball parts he has plated – a lime green pinball leg and the head collar from Bride of Pinbot in two different styles.

He said stainless steel is really bad a being plated.  Regular steel is fine, but stainless doesn’t take plating well.  Stainless can be polished to the point it looks like chrome he said, so that’s a better way to get the chromed look.

He now offers an exchange service where you can send him a part and if he has it in stock he can send you straight back a chromed or plated replacement.

Talking about chrome plating plastic parts, Chris said it is a very hard thing to achieve, requiring expensive specialist equipment.  Chris has teamed up with one such plater to offer chromed plastic parts too.

Download the audio of this seminar here

1:00pm: Owning and Operating Galloping Ghost Arcade
Doc Mack

Doc said they currently have 615 machines set up in the Galloping Ghost arcade which is located in Brookfield, Illinois.  He said in the early days of arcades there was fierce competition between them, but now there is a great collaborative attitude, with arcades helping each other to grow and expand the player base.  He said that they are currently working with around thirty new arcades to help them open.

Doc said they are at maximum capacity now at Galloping Ghost, but will be opening a fourth building which will take their numbers up to 1,000 machines on the floor.  Their current payment model is $20 for entry and unlimited play.  The city of Brookfield only allows six coin-operated machines in any commercial premises, so a single-entry fee side-steps any issues.

He spoke about his annual events and tournaments which bring people in from all over the world, and some of the side businesses such as reproduction control panels and marquees to help the collector community beyond the arcade itself.

He said it is a phenomenal thing to be able to reconnect people to the games they spent countless hours enjoying in their younger days, generating so many memories, but hadn’t seen for years or even decades.

He said the pinball community is different with a wider range of genres and followers.  Keeping these games up and running is more complex than video games in terms of keeping parts stock to replace perishables.

Download the audio of this seminar here

2:00pm: Autograph Session
Various

The annual autograph session too place at 2pm in the front half of the Seminars Hall which had been divided into two during Doc Mac’s speech.

Here’s a short video from the Autograph Session.

After touring the autograph session we took a look around the Vendor Hall.  There were several big name companies missing this year such as Multimorphic (with their custom games display), Mezel Mods and Marco Specialties, but still plenty of games to play and parts to buy along with the odd non-pinball seller such as our first vendor, Quill Forest, who were on the left as you entered the hall.

On the right, in his usual place, was Expo co-organiser Mike Pacak’s stand.

Mike had loads of translites, pinball publications, manuals, flyers, schematics, as well as a few interesting games.

At the end of the aisle was Mirco Stefan’s playfields stand but unfortunately he had already packed away by the time we came around with our camera.

Opposite Mike was the display from Jersey Jack Pinball, featuring their new Pirates of the Caribbean game alongside their current Dialed In! title.

Along from Pincades was Matt Reister’s Back Alley Creations selling customised and original pinball mods.

Facing Back Alley was a display from Chicago Gaming showing their remade Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness games.

Next came the Pingame Journal stand.

Over the main corridor we have Pinball Wizard Sales & Service’s long table of boards, cables and other assorted hardware items.

Further into the hall we come to American Pinball who had also brightened-up the playfield and made a number of other changes to their Houdini title.

The next row began with ColorDMD showing their Star Trek colourisation with their LED display compared to the LCD version.

A new product on display at the VP Cabs’ stand was this home tabletop bingo game called Dead Man’s Hand.

Over the aisle we found Gizmo Games with their Zombie League All Stars pitch & bat game.

Behind VP Cabs , the Pinball Plating stand had some suitably flashy pinball parts on show.

Stern Pinball took a large stand at Pinball Expo to show their latest releases in various versions.

Stern also had three stands to promote artists who have created packages for their titles.  All three were in the Autograph Session while we were taking pictures.

In the back left corner of the hall, Pinball Inc. had a display of artwork related to Pinball Circus and their intended future title Kingpin, as well as a range of pinball parts for sale.

To get the full atmosphere of the Vendor Hall, here’s our exclusive Twenty-Two Minute Tour video walk around all the stands.

At 7pm the Seminars Hall was turned into the Banquet Hall, as guests arrived for an evening of dinner, speeches and presentations.

The first event is always the Make-A-Wish charity auction, where items donated by individuals and companies are auctioned to raise money for the charity.

It was marked how few guests there were for this banquet.  The stand-alone ticket price of $90 might have had something to do with that, but there has certainly been a growth in alternative dinner events on Saturday evening.

After the auction it was time for dinner.  There was a good selection of meat and vegetable dishes, soup, bread, desserts, soft drinks and biscuits.

Following the dinner, the evening’s guest speaker stood up to give his talk. This year the guest speaker was game designer Jim Patla who is famous for his Kiss, Mata Hari, Centaur, Rolling Stones and Playboy designs.

Jim spoke about how the industry changed over the years and how, although they were business rivals, the various pinball companies in Chicago used to help each other out if one of them ran out of stock of a common part such as lamps, legs or balls.  If there was a dispute over one company using the ideas of another, they would agree not to do it again and move on. Competing companies would openly send their latest games to each other for inspection.

At Bally they had a pinball division, a slots machine section, a bingo department, and people working there might be moved on a daily basis from one area to another accorind to where they needed additional help.  Jim said it was a very open and empowering environment where ideas for new features or products were always welcome, with advancement within the company depending on merit.

Jim spoke about the first tests with electronics in pinballs, and how he immediately spotter there was a signifigant lag between pressing the flipper buttons and the flippers responding.  There was a similar delay between the ball hitting a pop bumper or slingshot and the kicker reacting.  Jim pointed out this problem, much to the annoyance of the electronics designers.  However it led to these three devices having their own dedicated circuitry separate from CPU control.

Download the audio of the banquet speech here

Next came the latest inductions into the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame.

The first was musician, sound designer and systems designer for Williams, Data East, Sega and Stern, Brian Schmidt.

Next, Steve Ritchie took to the stage to induct software programmer at Williams and team leader at Stern, Dwight Sullivan.

Two of the next three inductions were performed posthumously.  The first was for game designer at United and then Williams, Gordon Horlick.  His induction was made by Circus Maximus team leader, James Loflin.

Next came the induction of the still-very-much-alive pinball artist on such games as Fish Tales, Dirty Harry and Tales of the Arabian Nights, Pat McMahon.  His induction was announced by Greg Freres.

The final induction was made posthumously for software designer at Bally, Data East and Sega, Neil Falconer.  His induction was announced By Lonnie Ropp.

Two Service and Support awards were then presented.  The first of these was announced by Mike Pacak and went to owner and operator of SS Billiards in Minnesota and provider of front-line technical support to several pinball companies as well as numerous readers online, Lloyd Olson.

The second went to Twin Galaxies founder, Walter Day.  His award was announced by Pingame Journal Editor, Jim Schelberg.

Walter was then joined on stage by Billy Mitchell and the two of them announced Pinball Expo’s inclusion in the Guinness World Records as the Longest-Running Pinball Event.

The banquet ended with all the remaining guests gathering for a group picture.

Pinball News has recorded audio of all the seminars and the banquet speech.

They are available with each seminar description, or on our special Audio page where you can get all twenty recordings in one easy-to-access list.

Back to the Pinball Expo 2017 index