Preview of No 1

P I N B A L LM A G A Z I N E

Special:ROGER SHARPE

Plus: IFPA - Pinside.comPacific Pinball Museum

and more...

40pageinterviewhis history

his bookhis pinball designs

licensingpinball leagues

how to make money as a pinball o p e r a t o r

www.pinball-magazine.com

Welcome to the preview of the very first issue of Pinball Magazine, the new in-depth glossy publication dedicated to

pinball. I am Jonathan Joosten and I have been fascinated

by pinball ever since I was a young boy. Apart from enjoying

playing pinball, I also found myself interested in what was

going on behind the scenes. This resulted in my interviewing

several pinball industry veterans, the results of which were

published in the Dutch Spinner magazine. I even became

chief editor of the publication for three years, so producing

a magazine is something I am familiar with. Now I have set up

this new adventure: Pinball Magazine.

Each issue of the magazine will put one pinball topic, person

or brand under the spotlight, and Issue One gets the ball

rolling with industry legend Roger Sharpe. Pinball runs in

Roger’s veins, and he has been deeply involved in the game

as a player, author, game designer and marketer and in many

other ways too. Roger’s passion for pinball shines out of the

feature through his insights and anecdotes, plus he also has

some practical suggestions about how (future) operators

might put pinball back on the map.

Speaking personally, I am fascinated by what Roger has to

say; I am sure pinball enthusiasts and operators all over the

world will be equally captivated.

However, there’s much more to Pinball Magazine than just the

main feature. In issue one’s ‘Others about…’ feature, people

close to Roger share their experiences working in the industry

with him. Other regular features will include visits to the best

pinball collections around the world - in Issue One we’ll be

taking a look around the Pacific Pinball Museum - and profiles

of the people behind the best pinball websites - starting with

the huge online community that is Pinside.com. And there is

much more, as you’ll discover in the following pages.

This issue offers a sneak preview of some of the many articles

available in the full magazine. If you’re interested in reading

more, there’s a simple solution: order the magazine at www.

pinball-magazine.com!

At the time of the publication of this preview, some of

the content for the first edition was still being edited. For

that reason, the ‘Table of Contents’ section below is only

provisional, and some of the example pages shown in this

preview magazine may differ slightly from how they appear

in Issue One.

Each issue of Pinball Magazine will have a minimum of sixty-

eight pages, but the first issue is likely to have more: the

interview with Roger Sharpe alone may run to more than

forty pages. That may sound a little on the long side, but when

you read it I’m sure you’ll agree that Roger’s life in pinball

easily merits an article of this length.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the many people who have

helped me get Pinball Magazine off the ground and make it

what it is. My very special thanks go out to Roger Sharpe,

Ellen Sharpe, Josh and Zach Sharpe, Erik J. Kos, Paul Rubens,

Susanne Arnoldussen, Martin Ayub, Jeremy Fleitz and all the

other people who have contributed their words, photographs

or time to the launch of Pinball Magazine.

Thank you all!

Jonathan Joosten

Editorial

Interview with Roger SharpeRoger talks about how he got into pinball, his book, his pinball

designs, setting up pinball leagues, licensing in pinball, the

IFPA, the late Steve Kordek, how to make money as a pinball

operator, and much more.

Others about RogerIncluding contributions by Steve Epstein, Larry DeMar, Greg

Freres, Dennis Nordman.

NUM83R5 1N P1N84LL

Table of Contents

IFPA 2.0Josh and Zach Sharpe talk about the success of the new

International Flipper Pinball Association.

A look inside Pinside.comAn interview with the founding brothers of what has become

the largest online pinball community in the world.

Exploring the Pacific Pinball MuseumTour the museum with founder Michael Schiess.

and more

W hen you get the chance to interview a living legend like Roger Sharpe, it can be difficult to focus on a specific topic: Roger has been

involved in the pinball industry for over 30 years, on many different levels and in many different roles.

As a writer Roger wrote the heavily illustrated book ‘Pinball!’, as well as numerous articles for industry magazines and newspapers including The New York Times. He is also well known for testifying before the New York City Council in 1976 and successfully demonstrating that pinball is a game of skill, not chance.

Roger designed several pinball machines for manufacturers including Game Plan, Stern, and Williams, and he founded the Professional Amateur Pinball Association (PAPA) together with Steve Epstein, owner of the legendary Broadway Arcade at that time.

He became head of marketing at Williams, where he licensed many themes that subsequently featured on pinball machines (or slot machines.)

This list of his pinball-related achievements just goes on and on.

Today Roger is in good health and still active in the coin-up industry. Josh and Zach, his two sons, run WPPR and IFPA, and Roger still follows new developments in the pinball industry.

PM: From the point of view of someone who is interested in pinball, do you feel you have had a pretty good life given all that you have achieved so far?

RS: I have no complaints. What is so remarkable to me is that, compared to other people who are in hobby or work in the industry, is that I grew up pinball deprived. I didn’t really discover pinball until I was in college.

From that point on pinball has truly become the journey of my life in many respects. That is probably much more astounding to me than many of the accomplishments I’ve achieved. What I have been so fortunate to accomplish were just ‘stops’ along the road and not specific goals that I set out to do, if that makes sense at all.

Photo credit: www.SpecialWhenLitmovie.com

Cover story: the Roger Sharpe interview

Interview: Jonathan Joosten, special guest-editor: Roger C. Sharpe, copy editor: Paul Rubens

PM: It does, and again it indicates your journey must have been fun.RS: It was! There was one surprise after another, after each door that was opened and each corner that was turned.

PM: Don’t you think that it’s ironic that you grew up in Chicago - where most manufacturers were based - but since pinball was illegal in those days you didn’t play it until you went to college?RS: It would be comparable to growing up in Detroit, Michigan and not knowing automobiles are being built there. When I was very young I had played pinball, (very much as I wrote in my book) standing on a crate, during a vacation in California. I was overwhelmed by it, but then I went back to my day-to-day life and forgot about it.

Until, as was the case in my life, I have an older sister and my parents and I would travel to visit her at the University and there were pinball machines around. So I would play a game while the family was having lunch. Then go back to the real world and there’s no pinball.

So it didn’t stay on the radar until I went to college. I went to the University of Wisconsin and there were pinball machines in the local bars, the bowling alley and other places and I found myself mesmerized.

Crazy flippingI was a terrible player at that time and had no clue what I was doing. I would just pull back the plunger, shoot the ball up the playfield and start flipping like crazy. Little by little I started to realize I did not have to flip if the ball was not close to the flippers. And then there was another epiphany: if the ball is only on the right side, I only have to flip the right flipper. There were these points of discovery. I was just learning on the job so to speak.

The true turning point for me was watching a fraternity brother of mine at a local burger place on campus. I watched him play pinball while he ate his lunch. I had never ever seen anybody cradle a ball on a flipper, did not know that was possible, then aim and do things that obviously had a skill component to it. At that time in Wisconsin, games were set on add-a-ball. It was a five ball game and he got it up to ten balls. When he was down to eight or seven, he did what he needed to do and got the game back up to ten balls while finishing his hamburger, French fries, soft drink and a cigarette.

Defining momentAt a certain point he turned to me and asked if I wanted to play, as he had to go back to class. I think I drained

all 10 balls before he even left the restaurant. Maybe he got like a block away. But that was a defining moment for me when it comes to pinball. I saw that there was skill definitely involved in playing. I remember I went back to a bowling alley where there was this game, Gottlieb’s Hurdy Gurdy, I used to play all the time and started trying to apply some measure of control and skill.

So, again, it was self-teaching and it was something I found remarkable. Eventually I experienced that incredible rush of turning the machine, seeing where my high score was, and then trying to better that and getting to the point where I mastered the game using the techniques I had acquired on other games. Instead of being able to play one game well, it became a situation of being able to play multiple games exceptionally well.

PM: So at that point were you constantly on the lookout for new games to play?RS: Well, it’s interesting. In Madison, Wisconsin there were a number of places to play pinball, including the student union, but the turnover of games wasn’t as frequent back then compared to what everyone is used to now. I think there were some machines that were actually in operation for all four years I was in college. I know that there was a new game or two added at the start of a new semester. But I was never on a quest to find new games. I suppose I assumed that whatever was available was it.

Pinball famineWhen I graduated and moved to New York, I was on the lookout for any pinball machines anywhere in the city and I couldn’t find any in arcades that were in midtown Manhattan.

So, there I was, having discovered and enjoyed pinball for four years and feasting on the games, to a state of pinball famine.

But then one day everything was to change for me and for pinball. I was walking past this store and heard a very distinctive sound—

the ringing and chiming of pinball machines. I immediately turned back and entered this adult bookstore where they had pinball

machines and I started playing every day after work on my way home. And then one day the games were on their sides and confiscated by

the local police. The odd thing was: behind the curtain there were peepshows, but it

was the pinball machines that were the object of the police enforcement.

I was able to find a store in Greenwich Village that had a few machines and

that became a place I visited fairly regularly. But I found myself

thinking that .........Continued in Pinball Magazine

Some more page examples from the Roger Sharpe interview

www.pinball-magazine.com

We all have a much richer hobby thanks to Roger’s devotion.

Larry DeMarDirector of Engineering, Pinball Programmer

While attending college in the late ‘70s I was as big a

pinball enthusiast as the die-hard collectors I enjoy

meeting today. At that time the Internet was not

being used to compile reference information and there was little

other material available about my favorite passion. That is until

I discovered a beautiful, colorful book at the Student Center

bookstore in 1977. I read every page of ‘Pinball!’ and looked at

every picture. Many times. What an amazing thing, that someone

was able to interact with all of the industry design groups along

with bringing us the history; someone who helped to overturn

laws banning pinball (pinball was still illegal in my hometown of

Chicago at that time).

In three short years I was working at Williams and my first

assignment was to work on a game with Roger and Steve Epstein.

The game was called Las Vegas and would be re-themed twice as

Jet Orbit and Barracora before it was released. I remember being

in awe of working with these pinball legends to such an extent

that when we went out to play at Chicago Game Company on

Western Avenue I couldn’t make a shot or run up any kind of a

score even though I was normally an excellent player.

I worked with Roger for over a decade which included Williams/

Bally’s great run in the ‘90s. I regained the ability to play

competently in his presence and over the years we have played

competitively as well as collaboratively as partners on an IFPA

team aptly named “Hittin’ Rubber”. Roger has been a major

force in the advancement of competitive pinball including the

formation of PAPA and IFPA and of leagues of various styles and

flavors.

I got to work closely with Roger in his capacity of Director of

Licensing on The Addams Family, Twilight Zone and World Cup Soccer. It was a new concept for me to have Roger working on

our design team and to be honest, it took some getting used to,

having limitations from the brand, voiced through Roger. But I

learned from Roger how the brand interaction is about people

and relationships and always marveled at how he would resolve

our issues and difficulties through his work with the licensors.

And now that Roger was participating in the design process in

the licensing arena he was able to contribute more directly in

other areas of the design. I remember toward the end of The Addams Family development we took a prototype game to LA for

the movie premiere and party. Pat and I were really frustrated

by Thing’s role in the game which at the time was too frequent

and too disconnected from achievement. I vividly remember

Roger working with us to ease some tension and help us to work

through these issues. The results speak for themselves.

Over the years it has become clear what a faithful and untiring

ambassador Roger has been for our profession and hobby. As

a historian, writer, designer, critic, licensor, regulator, promoter

and competition advocate, Roger has always found a place to

make pinball a major part of his life and has certainly done it all. Insert photo credit: PinGameJournal.com

This page shows a preview of the ‘Others about Roger’ feature in Pinball Magazine Nr. 1.Want to read the other contributions? Order your copy at www.pinball-magazine.com.

Some more page examples, taken from other articles

<---Interview with Josh and Zach Sharpe, sons of Roger Sharpe, on the International Flipper Pinball Association and how it became so suc-cessful.

<---Founder Michael Schiess takes us on a guided tour through the various rooms of the Pacific Pin-ball Museum and talks about Pacific Pinball Expo.

--->An interview with Robin and Martijn van Mourik,

the two Dutch brothers who have been building Pinside.com for the past ten years and have seen

their hobby project grow into the largest online

community for pinball enthusiasts.

www.pinball-magazine.com

Jonathan Joosten is a man with a mission. As the former Editor of the Dutch Spinner pinball maga-zine, his mission is to take pinball publications to a hitherto unexplored level and create a true high-quality pinball magazine unlike anything seen in the business before.

His mission is to create Pinball Magazine.

Pinball Magazine will differ from previous publications in two important ways.

The first is the content, which will concentrate on a single topic and explore it in depth. Be it an interview with some-one notable in the pinball business, the examination of a pinball company or the development of a single machine, Pinball Magazine will give the subject as many pages as are needed to fully cover it.

The second difference is in the production values which will result in a Vogue-like quality, with stylish layouts and large, high quality photographs printed on quality glossy paper stock.

In addition to each edition’s main subject, there will be regu-lar features such as an editorial column, an update on who is working on what, and a diary of upcoming pinball events.

Pinball News spoke exclusively to Editor and Publisher, Jonathan Joosten, and asked him why he chose to enter the pinball magazine business at this time. “I just see an opportunity and I think I have the right amount of energy, enthusiasm and creativity to produce something that peo-ple will actually like: a glossy magazine on pinball like not seen before. I came up with a format in which I can combine some of the things I truly like to do: interview the creative minds from the pinball industry and make a magazine. Plus, also important, I think the format will be so different that it won’t be competing with what a magazine like Pingame Journal currently is doing, which I wouldn’t want.”

Pinball Magazine will also break the mould by not requiring readers to sign up to a subscription. Instead, each edition will be published as and when it is ready, and will be sold individually through the publication’s website, or possibly through distributors where that makes commercial and practical sense.

Jonathan told us, “I’ve set up a newsletter on the magazine’s website: www.pinball-magazine.com. The online shop will follow soon. The newsletter will inform people when a new issue is due and what it will cover. Then they can decide wether they want to order it or not. The same goes for ad-vertisers. Potential advertisers will receive an e-mail up-front with what the next issue is about. Then they can decide wether they want to advertise in it or not. So, basically it is up to me to find the right topics people want to read about, and the advertisers want to advertise around. I’m pretty confident I can do that, so everybody wins :)”

You can keep up-to-date on the latest developements on the magazine’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, and Pinball News will have a full interview with Jonathan in the coming weeks as publication of the first edition of Pinball Magazine draws near.

NEW PINBALL MAGAZINE ANNOUNCEDMartin Ayub

www.pinball-magazine.com