Stern Factory Visit!

On August 8th I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Stern Pinball and tour the factory. I was headed to Illinois to see family and had the opportunity to stop for a bit in Chicago and thought "Why Not?". 

Me at Stern

So I messaged the great Jody Dankberg (Stern's head of Marketing, really awesome guy btw) and got everything set up.

What an experience! As soon as I got out of the car and walked up to the building I see this group coming toward me:

(L to R): Greg Freres, Steve Ritchie, Mark Weyna, Chuck Bleich, and Steven Martin

I went nuts!!! I ran up to them, shook their hand, chatted them up and took their photo LOL. Greg is responsible for some of the most recognizable pinball art of the last 30 years. Steve R is known as "The King of Flow" for his distinctive pinball designs, Mark is a program manager and is known by fans to have helped create the great game "Scared Stiff" during his time at Williams Pinball. Chuck is the senior electronics project engineer, who used to be the electronic engineering manager at Williams for decades. Finally, Steven M is production art manager at the company, and worked on Star Trek with Steve Ritchie, Greg, and others.

After meeting that group, I went inside (some of my family was with me) and got ready for the tour. 

We were herded into the company showroom/arcade where we saw the latest games they had produced. 

ACDC Luci Premium with Metallica Pro

My nephew (and Pinball Aficionado in training) on the new ACDC LED Pro!

A Stern Rawhide (the first game old school Stern produced) with Melony beside it...a hint of the future???

The Room also had Mustang BOSS Prem, Mustang Pro, and ST Pro

ACDC LED Pro was real flashy, speaker panel is cool looking in person.

Here's the new Swinging Bell toy for this version of ACDC Pro

It's a simple pendulum that attaches at the base and uses the target (no optos or code revisions needed)

Shot from the top (I want one for my game now heh!)...

Metallica Pro, looking nice and BRIGHT....

Gary's Stand-In watching us play...hehe

After we played for a few mins, our tour guide came in....

The amazingly knowledgeable and friendly Jack Benson!

Heeeeere's Jack!

Jack was awesome! He is one of Stern's newer programmers (his first project was coding Mustang...wait what?!) and now he's busy working on the ST Code update, holy cow! He knows a TON about pinball and was the best tour guide as we proceeded to go through the factory.

Star Trek cab waiting for its playfield...

I only got a few pics in during the actual tour, as Jack was telling us everything and I kept asking him questions and we were moving fast. The two principal games that I saw being made was a ton of ST Pros and several Iron Man Vault Editions, (there were a few ACDC Pro's and a Mustang Pro getting completed, but ST and IM just dominated the line it seems).

Iron Man getting ready to kick ass...

Miles and Miles of wire....................... ;)

A Mustang Pro nearly ready...

ST Pro playfields getting ready for insertion...

ST Pro being worked on...

A ST Pro Playfield...

After the tour, I thanked Jack and gave him a Pinball Aficionado T-Shirt...

He's DEFINITELY an Aficionado! Are you? ;)

After the tour Jack took us back to the arcade room and then told us to wait a minute, and next thing I knew, my jaw hit the floor! George Gomez, John Trudeau, John Borg, Mark Weyna, all legends of modern pinball design stopped in and we chatted, it was surreal, like a dream!

George Gomez!!! (Vice President of Game Design)

John Trudeau!!! (Senior Game Designer)

John Borg!!! (Senior Game Designer)

We started talking to all of em, and it was great, talked about game routes, operating, collecting, arcades, bars, design philosophy, their time in the industry, it was great, really really great!

These guys, and their teams, and everyone they work with are responsible for some of the greatest and most respected pinball machines of the last 30 years, and it was so gratifying to meet them, the minds behind these great games!

After that, they all had to get back to work (bummer.......) and we were escorted out to get back to the rest of our trip.

Stern Pinball

It was a great time at Stern, and I want to publicly thank everyone that I met and made this visit possible: Jody Dankberg for making it happen, Steve Ritchie, Greg Freres, Steven Martin, Mark Weyna, Chuck Bleich, Jack Benson, George Gomez, John Borg, John Trudeau, and though I didn't get a chance to talk to him as he was busy, I'd like to thank Gary Stern. Finally, I'd like to thank all of Stern's very hard working employees on the shop floor for keeping pinball manufacturing alive and well in Chicago, to all of you, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU!

What Makes a Pinball Shot Feel Good: The Answers!!!

Some of the Shots available in Stern's Star Trek

Wow! Well after throwing that question out there (What Makes a Pinball Shot Feel Good), I was blown away by the response. Answers poured in from aficionados all over the pinball community. Tournament players, novices, collectors, operators, techs, designers, even the VP of Design at Stern Pinball chimed in!!!

Here are some of their responses:

"The best shots are the ones that can be dialed in by the player to be made with regularity and therefore be satisfying."

-- Marcel Gonzalez (Showrunner - Florida Arcade Pinball Expo)


"Feedback- its all and only about feedback- the choreography of the event , the things you see, hear, the emotion evoked by the realization that you have: advanced, achieved a goal, completed something, incremented score, heard or discovered a piece of the story, evoked an emotion from an opponent whether real (your buddy) or virtual( the animated 3d Hulk toy you just hit). The smooth transition of the ball is a visually and aurally perceived event. Feedback- like all games is the magic."

-- George Gomez (Designer, Stern Pinball VP of Game Design)


"It's about satisfaction. It's such a relief when you achieve it, like a weight is lifted off your shoulders and you're on top of the world. (Especially those difficult, timed shots worth a ton of points)."

"It feels similar to scoring that winning goal/basket/TD/Home run/KO punch and getting a rise from the audience.

Same with golf, pool or bowling. When that ball rolls a strike, or falls in the intended hole/pocket, it evokes the same visceral reaction as scoring a super jackpot."

-- Joel Cohen (Tournament Player)


"Pinball does an amazing job of letting you know that YOU are the one in control...but it also does a great job of letting you know that YOU screwed it up...love a great shot, but I also like the feeling of great ball control. To me there's greater satisfaction from a solid live catch/drop catch/cradle separation followed by a tough shot."

-- Carlos Porta (Tournament Player)


"The best shots are not too easy, not too hard, and have good feedback so you know you did something cool, or that you pushed forward in the rules of the game."

-- FLECOM (Operator/Tech/Collector)


"Not an easy question, I think a pinball design is not about one shot... its how all the shots, flow (up & down), rebounds, bounce, rest, jumps, timing, and many more factors. I guess ultimately for me a "shot" is part of a larger composition...and it is all related in some fashion."

-- John Popadiuk (Pinbal Designer)


"What makes a good shot for me is that it puts me into a Peak Experience. A peak experience is that sweet spot my mind gets into when it faces a desirable challenge, a challenge that is difficult enough to not be boring but not too difficult where it puts me off. It’s at a specific level where I have to focus at the peak of my ability. When I get into a good flow of making shots and keeping the ball alive who I am and what I think about diminish and only the pinball and the field exist. Sometimes I get so lost in that flow that the boundaries between my fingertips and the flippers disappear. When I keep shooting the shots I need to hit faster and smoother than I can think normally is what makes pinball extremely enjoyable for me."

-- Joshua Fay (Pinball Enthusiast)



Wow, so from most of these responses, it would appear that the key is not so much in a particular shot, but the many things that the player experiences in tandem during a good game. Factors like challenge, rebounds, flow, feedback, sound, choreography, all play a part in making pinball feel good.

So going back to the original question, I guess that the reason why a shot might feel good even if the ball leaves your direct control lies not in a single shot alone, but in the overall design and its impact on the player and how it makes him or her feel. The beauty lies not in the single tree, but in the forest it calls home.


To sum it up, here's an amazing video that I feel encapsulates all of the factors mentioned. It's called "The Last Empire" by Adrian Seifert. Check it out!