On a licensed pinball machine, how much influence does the license holder have over the design? Are they able to insist on certain elements or do you share the progress as you go and hope they like it?
Early in the discussions with the licensor, after it's clear that both parties are interested, we show them a playfield drawing and explain to them what we want to do. This is when they will typically make suggestions about design aspects. After that, the licensor only sees our art and speech progress as we develop the game. We show them our dot-matrix animations, playfield art, speech scripts, then the recorded speech, backglass art, plastics art, and cabinet art. All as soon as we can. They always get to see the final package before production but I don’t remember them stopping the production. That would be devastating to us so we make sure that isn’t going to happen.
Meeting which person would you say has been the highlight of your time in pinball?
I have met quite a few people; celebrities both inside the industry and out. But the question is easy to answer; Steve Kordek is the man I am most glad to have met.
In five years time some say there'll be no pinball, others say it'll still be here, just different (we hope so!). But what about in 30 years when all the current collectors are old and grey, and there's not a huge generation of new players to collect the things?
Wow thirty years? Who could answer that?
Do you have any machines at home and do your family play?
I have several machines at home: Revenge from Mars, High Speed, Road Show, Terminator 2, WHO dunnit, Star Trek: The next Generation. My kids and their friends play them often.
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