[Music]
we're here in the pinball capital of the
u.s. Chicago Illinois to see how stern
pinball makes their machines and who is
playing them when I say pinball you
probably think 80's and arcades but what
if I told you that in the year 2018
I saw brand-new pinball machines being
made Stern pinball still hand makes them
sells thousands of pinball machines
every year even though it was nearly
game over for the industry after video
games took over in the 90s the factory
turned the tables by using new
technologies that phased out competitors
to stay in business while on the outside
the machines are still perfectly
nostalgic it's a completely different
ball game under the hood all mechanical
devices have become more interesting and
more complex so has pinball you know
there's a computer inside we know more
of what's going on we know what's
working what's not working what
different kind of players get to do and
we are soon going to be in the cloud
where we can you know communicate but
with players and players can play with
each other and communicate with each
other they've even created virtual
reality versions of their games for
oculus and PlayStation VR I play VR
better than regular pinball but somebody
did one of our guys said yeah that's
that we slowed it down we can do that
for you so the ball was much slower than
the real world in 2006 there were around
500 pinball players registered with the
International flipper pinball
Association by 2017 that number jumped
to 55,000 and some of those players have
even made a career out of the game I
like to consider myself a professional
because I do nothing but pinball I get
paid to play I travel to play
it's like eating and pinball and danger
brings pinball online in another way my
show that I do daily essentially on
Twitch it's called dead flip danger
streams gameplay tips machine reveals
and pinball ex-post was 15,000 followers
and he makes money from ad revenue paid
subscribers and donations
pinball wasn't even a category on twitch
when I started we had to like fight
tooth and nail to make that thing happen
it's picking up steam pretty quick I'd
say there's a new pinball streamer every
week can you believe it Business Insider
Wow we pinball pinball we've seen a
resurgence in the last decade thanks
tube arcades collectors and competition
between players not really manufacturers
until a handful of boutique companies
started popping up around 2016 sterna is
one of the last pinball manufacturers in
the world be even with next to no rival
pinball manufacturers to deal with
string still has plenty of competition
competitors we have a lot of competition
for the entertainment dollar now you're
actually referring to other people who
are trying to make pinball machines and
I'm telling you the market is much
broader than just pinball other
coin-operated games movies in home
entertainment systems board games
embarrassing karaoke songs basically any
fun thing you can think of is going
head-to-head with pinball but even with
endless shows to binge on Netflix people
are still playing 17 was roughly plus or
minus 40% more than 2016 and Gary has a
very simple explanation for that growth
an other than ad revenue that's exactly
why Jack danger does what he does please
go play pinball I'm not begging but I'm
just saying I want to see you out there
so I can battle you I can't can I look
played some freakin pinball what are you
doing
did I do I get more
Oh nope it's just over
well
I'm bad at pinball
[Music]