Kevin Williams: The True Business Of Pinball

Welcome to the “dog days of summer”, where as the weather starts to cool just slightly, we also enter a season with a little more arcade news. We do have a few stories that should go live this month, but as of this moment, they still aren’t ready to go yet, so let’s fill the gap with a guest post. Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report and the LBX Collective is no stranger to the site, nor are his guest articles, as he’s been contributing content since I first joined Arcade Heroes back in 2007.

Today’s post deals with something that I have discussed a fair bit here on the blog as well as on video, that of the changed nature of pinball in the present day and age. Just like old sentiments of how video games used to be 40 years ago, many can’t shake how pinball was at its apex about half a century ago, but how consumers approach pinball has changed as much as the technology behind the games have. This puts pinball in a weird, almost limbo-like position within the commercial amusement industry, since the costs are driven by collectors, while earnings on location are all over the place.

Also, in the run up to my new arcade history & trivia book, I am working hard on finishing it up, but in self-funding this effort, it’s a little tough right now to make ends meet (especially where business at the arcade has been terrible lately). To help things out so I can spend more time on finishing it, instead of crowdfunding, you can now purchase two chapters from the book: one about the first use of a CPU in arcade gaming (and pinball), the other about how pinball ended up banned in much of the world, and how it was unbanned. In both cases I present original research, although I really have to give a strong nod to both Play Meter & Cash Box Magazine, which have provided historical anchors to many events.

Anyways, while I did contribute some minor edits to this article, Kevin will take his thoughts on the matter from here:

Pinball’s True Business

It is one of the oldest aspects of the amusement trade, but one of the most challenging. Today, pinball is seen to be suffering a schizophrenic split between two markets. On one side, the once profitable amusement trade has become a difficult and tempestuous sales market for the remaining amusement manufacturers, while on the other side there is the profitable and evolving consumer pinball collector and home gamer market. It’s a difficult tightrope to navigate, and with new entrants into the pinball business, some are leaning more one way than the other.

Upon recent contact with well placed distributors and operators, it was made clear that they had noticed a major shift in the business focus within STERN Pinball. These sources pointed to information that the pinball pioneer was now positioning the sales and market resources more towards the consumer and prosumer buyers and associated events, than considering the amusement trade. While still playing lip service to the operator, the reality is that the available business and margins in selling to the arcade or FEC, along with issues among established distributors, have made the business of pinball in our segment almost uneconomical.

One distributor source confided that while they will only work with STERN, selling pinball to the commercial market is becoming increasingly impractical; they will not even work with any of the other pinball makers out there, due to unrealistic sales demands that come from the expectations of how consumers are buying.

The last of the veteran pinball manufacturers, STERN Pinball has a long and storied history that can trace its origins back to Williams in the 1960s, where patriarch Sam Stern had once been president of that company. After Chicago Coin had gone bankrupt in the 1970s, Stern & son Gary bought the “ChiCoin” organization, which was considered to be one of the “Big Four” in pinball, and turned it into the first iteration of STERN Pinball. Thanks to various lifted bans on the game across the United States and Canada, this happened right as the Golden Age of Pinball was in full swing, Bally & Williams seeing most of their top sellers come out of the fantastic demand that locations had.

STERN would produce a number of popular games, opening STERN Electronics in 1980 to capitalize on the video fever that had gripped the public, but this fizzled out with the ’83 market crash, with STERN soon facing bankruptcy after a failed and expensive attempt to break into the flash-in-the-pan LaserDisc gaming market. Read a previous special feature on this aspect of the market’s history here.

The STERN of today instead looks back to when Gary would make a comeback in 1986 with Data East Pinball, thus marking the 40th Anniversary that the company has been celebrating throughout this year. Under Data East, licensing films became a mainstay for the company. They eventually would be sold to SEGA, who ran a pinball division in their own name as they saw fit for a few years until the bottom fell out of the pinball market. But Gary was keen to keep the flame of the silverball alive, and purchased the SEGA Pinball assets in 1999.

This created the modern iteration of STERN Pinball, which undertook the task of survival, as for a time, they were the only company involved in the manufacture and sale of this class of game. Their efforts would stave off the apocalyptic conditions for pinball, until they would raise private-equity investment in 2009 from Hagerty Peterson & Co. In 2022 STERN undertook considerable leadership changes, promoting a new CEO over the previous founder who remained on the board.

Recently the team was seen in London at the Electrocoin Open Day, celebrating their 40th anniversary, led by the name of ‘Pokémon’, and a little later with a new ‘Transformers’ table. Both of which received attention and accolades at the recent San Diego Comic Con.

STERN has been keen to focus on more consumer-focused shows and events, since that is where many of their buyers are located, from CES 2026 to SDCC, to Pinball Expo and more. The company continues to attend the likes of Amusement Expo and IAAPA, but one can perceive how far more capital is being spent on crafting elaborate and imaginative booths at the consumer shows, whereas commercial trades tend to simply receive a wall with games along it.

STERN’s greater need to link development to advance licensing agreements can be seen with the high-profile launch of ‘Transformers’, coinciding with the announcement of the ‘Transformers: The Movie’ remastered 4K 40th anniversary theatrical return through Hasbro working with Fathom Entertainment on the nationwide screening. The company has been viewed as a dominant commercial pinball manufacturer, with a strong diversification into the home pinball market.

Selling both collectors editions as well as commercial editions of their pinball lines (Pro, Premium and Limited Edition), STERN creates extensive licensing agreements to release tables based on popular movie and brand properties in music as well as popular culture. It is now suggested that they have reached a position as a brand, following releases such as the recent ‘Pokémon’ table heavily trending across social media, where they need to focus on the profits – which are increasingly less coming from out-of-home entertainment venues.

STERN is not the only pinball operation that has found itself in this position. Having nearly singlehandedly restarted the pinball business from the doldrums of the 2000’s, those efforts created a landscape for other retro, collectible and amusement pinball manufacturers to emerge. This began with Jersey Jack Pinball being the first to challenge STERN’s dominance in 2012 with their ‘The Wizard of Oz’ game. Featuring a full color screen and RGB LEDs, all of these are now standard features across all pinball tables.

While Jersey Jack initially began with a strong operator focus, they found that locations were hesitant to make the extra spend, while collectors were happy to invest. They have adjusted their sales strategy towards that prosumer, with licensed releases like ‘Sonic’, ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Avatar’ and ‘Elton John’ carving out a niche that enjoys a bigger presence in man caves and garages over the noisy aisles of an FEC. Jersey Jack had attempted in 2024 to offer a new approach beyond this to the amusement pinball platform, following their collaboration with Diverted River and Creative Works to launch the ‘Pinball XP’ platform. An ambitious enclosure that combined five of Jersey Jacks pinballs, connected to a digital ticket redemption and stream capability, all promoted via 65’’ displays.

The pinball hub created offered a deluxe draw for pinball players and offered an audience experience in a package suitable for amusement and even social entertainment venue consideration. But the target price for the platform was too rich for an amusement industry focused on other revenue streams. STERN themselves has attempted to push their own tournament platform in support of pinball. The company field their Inside Connect score and achievement app for their products, as well as a connected pinball table finder in your area.

Custom hobbyist collectible pinball table releases are now driving much of the interest in the sector. From companies like Dutch Pinball developing ‘The Big Lebowski’ to Barrels of Fun and their recent ‘DUNE’ game, to Spooky Pinball and their acclaimed ‘Beetlejuice’ table, these ’boutique’ pinball manufacturers have discovered a lucrative niche among collectors, leveraging movie licenses that companies like STERN does not touch, to their advantage.

Some have struggled along the way, such as American Pinball – leading to their recent acquisition by a private investment firm, now working to ‘reimagine’ classic tables such as ‘Cirqus Voltaire’. Others have sought to innovate in the space, such as Multimorphic. Originally founded as PinballControllers in 2009, they have grown off the popularity of components they created for pinball hobbyists. The company then entered into the full machine market several years ago with their unique, modular pinball product known as the ‘P3’ system. This allows the owner to convert the game from one to another, swapping out all of the art and the playfield.

As the only conversion kit available on the pinball market, it is versatile enough to offer a wide variety of themes, both licensed and original, including the recently announced ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ and ‘Ender’s Game’ designs, both of which based upon popular novel series of the same name. Multimorphic also previously released ‘The Princess Bride’, and ‘Portal’, the latter adapting Valve’s highly popular video game.

While traditional amusement operators are averse to spending on such pinball, the nostalgia value sees the explosion in competitive socializing, and especially “Retro Arcade Bars” swarming around the classic and the collectible tables. This is one aspect where pinball is king, and profits remain to be made. Chains like ‘Barcade’ see their locations housing on average 10 pinball tables, alongside classic video games. Competitive socializing venues seem more willing to invest the time and money into maintenance and support of classic and conventional pinball than most amusement operations. On the whole, social entertainment venue guests tend to be better placed to pay, and support their nostalgic game choices.

However, this has its limitations. Sources among operators show that an arcade bar with pinball is not a guaranteed money maker in all situations. The success it has seen in certain venues does not translate into the same kinds of sales across the broader market, hence the lack of strong pinball selections among FECs and some independent locations. While it was once common to find a pinball table on a route, now it is a rare bird, with cranes, boxers, Skeeball and bulk vending dominating the street.

For the more budget conscious operator, the hard reality seems to be that those pieces will pay themselves off in a matter of months, whereas pinball is lucky to see a decent ROI after years of operation. The untold story behind this strange bend is that consumers who would be keen on paying to play a pinball game, often have access to one at their own or a friend’s home. If a location does not maintain a machine properly, or cannot sustain upkeep with the returns, it naturally also becomes a less satisfying experience.

This would also indicate why some traditional amusement distributors do not carry contemporary pinball machines on their list of games. Feeling that this market is not economic, and if an operator wants these machines, then in most likelihood they will choose direct sales, rather than buy through them, or they will use the parallel pinball distribution market. Several companies specialize in the sale of pinball machines, parts and mods, offering more competitive prices, variety, and speed of purchase-to-market, than one might find through the traditional method.

The situation explains what led to this investigation into STERN Pinball’s move towards allocating more of its resources in a hobbyist and consumer direction. Questions must be asked whether the amusement trade continues to prove uneconomic for pinball manufacturers to support commercial operation – could the industry be missing out on yet another lucrative aspect of our heritage, some 50-years since pinball was saved? And who may save it for the amusement trade?

About the Author – Occasional Arcade Heroes feature writer, Kevin Williams is an immersive location-based entertainment (LBE) industry specialist and consultant, as well as podcaster and publisher of the industry news service the Stinger Report. He is a fellow columnist in RePlay Magazine alongside Arcade Heroes owner and editor Adam Pratt, who supplied for this feature valuable structure and observations on the changing amusement industries pinball adoption.