Gadgetory

we're gonna end the day our last interview of the day on something relatively low-tech but very close to my heart a pinball machine and none better to represent it than Gary Stern the founder Grand Poobah chief president everything of stern pinball Gary thank you for coming here thank you for having me please now tell me about this pinball machine this is actually a pretty special pinball machine this is one of the first of this type of pinball machine that are coming from certain pinball we're manufacturers of commercial pinball machines and we we'd make three or four different models a year we make them in different levels of complexity and we export half of them we ship them all over the world for people to play in arcades for enthusiasts to have in their home for just people to have in their home in a rec room we found that there are a lot of people who wanted games in the rec room and we decided that we should make a real pinball machine but at a lower price point this pinball machine this we call this the pin it's our entry-level game it is designed from the ground up to be a non coin op game but with the same play in the same parts as a coin op games it so the foot prints a little smaller it weighs 125 pounds instead of 250 pounds you can move it around in the house and yet it is a full-size play field with the full play futures of our commercial games it has our same flippers or same pop bumpers our same slingshots drop targets just like a regular commercial games and it's most important it's fun I think for me also most important is it's almost attainable for me as I've been talking about and writing about a lot of your pinball releases over the past year you've gotten some high-profile ones like The Avengers a lot of Marvel tie-ins ac/dc a big fan of the ac/dc pinball machine but it is priced if I wanted to go out and buy that machine it's gonna be over $5,000 for me to bring that into my home it's also gonna be a long explanation for my wife this machine it's gonna retails I believe for close to $2,500 yes it's a suggested retail of $24.99 but that was the purpose here was to get something a little bit more paintable to enlarge the pinball community very important to us that we do have more people playing pinball we are an American manufacturer very proud of that we make these games in Chicagoland area I've been in at 65 years I'm 67 so it's very important that pinball continues to flourish and grow I I know that there has also been a lot of interest in pinball growing because of apps I've seen like the all the different iPad apps for pinball that are out there you can play a virtual pinball on your your iPhone has that been something that's helped maybe bring a resurgence of interest to the to the pinball world I think it has helped bring the resurgence and there has been at resurgence in fact our commercial sales in 2012 were 30% higher than they were in 2011 and all over the world is the research I believe that the the different apps have are helpful we actually participate and licensed some of our titles to Farsight which is a company that does an apps and it for smartphones and for for consoles one of the games they built for us rollercoaster tycoon it has been very successful as an app but the use value of the game has increased of the real game has increased and all of these games have a value they've a lot of them almost all of them appreciate over time as you own them so it's it's not like buying not like buying a television where there's a brand new one a year later the doubt dates it they do increase in value all right now I'm getting some direction from our stage director here she she says we've been talking about this pinball machine a lot but we have not been playing it at all so would you would you do me the honor of playing that your own pinball machine I'd love to unfortunately we don't have any beer here to play for you have the request for this pinball machine is beer holders on the sides of it I think it's really gonna have a place in a man cave it needs to have like a kegerator version there are accessories that you can buy pinball this girl to the side of them I for you when you buy your game I'll make sure that you you know you get a case of beer and some nuts some cup holders for it thank you red cups will match this perfect yeah I think you're right yeah and no coins needed so I'm looking at this I realize this is definitely not a toy version of your real games this is the real game it's a slightly different play field than I know that the full-size transformers that you've you've done it's a real would play field just like the commercial games have a little different composition of wood but it's a real wood play field and it plays it plays great you're killing a carry this is great you're setting the bar too high though you're gonna get a high score on your own game which i think is only right all right Oh Gary don't worry there's no shame in this you've you can play all the pinball you want right you've got pinball Oliver you're coming back into the business part of the job at our company is you must play during part of the design process everybody has to play for 15 minutes I hope our manager hears that so thank you Gary for that and thank you for joining us here we're gonna wrap things up oh no I'm sorry I can't we can't do two-player or after the cameras played out yes absolutely you got it thank you for joining us here for Donald for cnet.com and Donald Bell for Donald Bell I'm in here at cnet.com