Spooky Pinball

"this split wasn't as amicable as people would love to believe that there is a story behind this split... The reason why Ben left is basically because the game Ben was working on could have come out and he needed more support and a little bit more investment. And you know I don't think he got it"

Ben Heck leaving Spooky Pinball was not amicable despite public appearances

"Those are the titles that should carry the spooky moniker. If you want to make other titles, why don't you simply just make a different brand or within your company? There's Honda and then there's Acura. There is infinity and Nissan."

Spooky Pinball should create separate brands for non-horror themes

"The player with the real upside here is spooky. They have the right overhead structure and are growing slowly"

Spooky Pinball is doing things right with proper structure and growth

"spooky games are not as good as Stern Pro because if you look at them, if you look at like America's most haunted for example, I mean, I just it just feels like a level below a storm pro and just feels more home brew."

Spooky Pinball games are not at the quality level of Stern Pro games

"So my prediction, my prediction for spooky and I do think like they will get better because I think they know they have to get better because I think they've seen the writing on the wall that Rob Zombie and America's most haunted have had lukewarm responses."

Prediction: Spooky will improve with each game release because they recognize they need to get better after lukewarm responses to their recent titles.

"there is a roadmap for how to succeed as a boutique Pinball company. That roadmap was created by Spooky Pinball and hardly any of the new boutiques have followed that roadmap to the tee and I don't get it."

Spooky Pinball created the roadmap for boutique success that others ignore

"It was a smart move on Spooky's part. It was great PR, great marketing. I talk all the time about how bad so many of these companies are. When it comes to doing things that excite the community and getting people pumped and sort of just super hyped to get the game."

Spooky Pinball's delivery of first Total Nuclear Annihilation to Ed Robertson showcases what the hobby should be about

"people consider a lot of them to be boring monotonous games with no magic or creativity... games do not have any resale value on spooky right now their bad investments"

Spooky Pinball games considered boring with no resale value

"I think that total annihilation, total nuclear annihilation... I do not doubt that it stole some Star Wars sales and stuff like that. I really don't doubt that."

Total Nuclear Annihilation stole Star Wars sales

"I like what Charlie is doing here"

Spooky Pinball has the right approach with non-refundable deposits and reasonable pricing

"If you had to take a job with one pinball company who would it be if you said you want to really enjoy going in every day... how could you not pick spooky?"

Spooky would be the best pinball company to work for - most fun environment

"I think the one pinball company that showed all of the new guys how to do it, spooky pinball has been ignored by all the other new startups."

Spooky Pinball shows other manufacturers how to succeed

"You've got a bunch of BS companies who can't get their shit together, who have a hard time getting games and boxes. And then you got companies who actually can put games and boxes."

Spooky Pinball is reliable at delivering games unlike other manufacturers

"I still think that spooky and a lot of these companies out there, they just don't quite know how to properly market pinball yet."

Companies like Spooky don't understand proper pinball marketing

"I think what spooky is doing is they're moving in the wrong direction when it comes to their approach to limit addition and boutique approach to pinball."

Spooky Pinball is making a mistake abandoning their limited edition model for 500-unit runs

"I do commend Charlie and company for implementing basically a model that is trying to prevent people from flipping the games"

Spooky's non-refundable deposit model is good for preventing flipping

"my take on spooky is you guys did it right. You built credibility. You sort of, you have to slowly grow a company. These companies that come out and try to compete with Stern overnight, they fail."

Spooky Pinball does pinball manufacturing correctly by building credibility slowly

"at the top of the list is spooky. I mean, these guys continue to impress me with just being the only company out there that doesn't seem like they're trying to rip people off, that doesn't make a bunch of false promises that never takes people's money early on without delivering something"

Spooky Pinball is the most trustworthy, transparent, and honest manufacturer - doesn't try to rip people off or make false promises

"they ship machines which in today's day to day just seems to be the hardest thing for people to do they never lie to people they never take people's money and leave them hanging"

Spooky Pinball runs their business the right way despite game quality issues

"if I were them I would not be increasing volume of game... make you know 150 to 300 of a title get a really good license But really up the quality of the product and guess what up the price charge people more"

Spooky should focus on limited runs with higher quality rather than increasing volume to 500 units

"I think spooky is at a crossroad... they make a very basic and simple machine... Spooky games have to equal at least a Stern Pro In terms of quality, in terms of mechanisms In terms of gameplay"

Spooky Pinball needs to raise their game quality to compete with rising standards

"I've seen only a couple companies do that successfully and that is spooky and stern. They're the only two that really show you a game when it's ready to go into production"

Only Spooky and Stern successfully reveal games when they're actually ready for production

"But here's the thing I'll say, if you buy an America's most haunted for $8,200, I think that's a joke. I think this, I think spooky games aren't worth it... The fact that when I look at my Tales of the Arabian Nights, I paid $8,000 for it. Are you really kidding me? That machine is gorgeous compared to an America's most haunted or Rob Zombie."

Spooky Pinball games are overpriced and not worth secondary market prices

"I think that with the amount of Rob zombies that are on the market right now. And they're not moving, they're not moving at these prices. I think the luster and the sort of the love affair with these limited machines. They're starting to wear thin... I think if they were to make any of these pinball machines mass produced without a limited number, would they sell? I don't know, I really don't know, I don't think so."

The limited production model for Spooky games will fail once novelty wears off

"I think Spooky Pinball is the pinball company out of all them that the fans of pinball just love the most. And they just did it right. And they made it work and they're making it work again."

Spooky Pinball is the boutique pinball company that fans love most and did everything right

"I think you said once that you expect spooky to do nothing but licenses going forward and, yeah, I think they should. I, I think you, you were correct in that assumption"

Spooky Pinball should focus only on licensed games going forward

"This just feels like a shoe-string license that they have it on and explain why how did you secure a license where you don't have the exclusive rights to Pinball you can let someone else make a digital Pinball of the same theme you're making and get it out before your your game"

Spooky Pinball got a bad licensing deal for Alien - no exclusivity vs digital versions

"There's only one company that has shown they have any ability to manufacture and that's spooky... these guys are the only ones who did it right they built a pin they made it ready to go... then they took orders"

Spooky Pinball is the only boutique manufacturer doing it right

"I bet you guys could have charged another grand for each one and still sold out knowing that the weight list was twice as long"

Rob Zombie pinball could have been priced $1000 higher and still sold out

"I would say that's the number one thing you should do. Like, that way, here's what happens. That way, people are paying you in order to build the game rather than them paying you to develop the game."

Spooky Pinball's approach of finishing games before pricing is superior to pre-order models

"how can you not consider spooky to be the best new pinball company all things considered... They're consistency and their ability to deliver I think so"

Spooky Pinball is the best new pinball company due to consistency and ability to deliver

"these guys are engineers they know it build Pinball machines I don't think there's like a creative director that is working on this stuff that can direct the artist to do what needs to be done to populate a playfield in the best possible way... I think Charlie wants to make the pin that he wants to make and that's great but I think there are times where he doesn't understand his limitations in a certain aspect of the game itself and I think playfield design is one of them and I think art is just one of them I don't think him or Ben are artists and I think it shows"

Spooky Pinball lacks creative direction and artistic vision despite engineering excellence

"They're a small family run business you fucking assholes like cut them some slack. You're gonna get your fucking game"

Spooky Pinball handled the Rick and Morty launch reasonably well for a small family business

"do you really think like you type this do you really believe that Stern felt a hit from spooky pinball from 150 America's most honnets that struggle to sell from 300 rob zombies that spooky will make over a two-year period"

Spooky Pinball is not a threat to Stern despite quality games

"I'm very thankful that spooky pinball is still the most transparent pinball company on the planet. Let me repeat that. This company is the most transparent company on the planet."

Spooky Pinball is the most transparent pinball company and did boutique pinball right

"but my prediction is they're gonna have a hard time selling 500 Alice Cooper's I don't think you're ever gonna see spooky pinball get anywhere close to 1,000 games for a single title"

Prediction: Spooky will have a hard time selling 500 Alice Cooper games and will never get close to 1,000 games for a single title.

"Spooky's next game with all the accessories around 13 grand. It's going to be an $18,000 game instantly."

Spooky's next game will instantly be worth $18,000

"I think the reason why these fucking Kakarotches called it fucking spooky Is it fucking scary? How bad these designs are. Can Charlie design a fucking stick figure?"

Spooky Pinball has terrible art and Charlie Emery can't design properly

"We're gonna make this many and that's it and we always just want to make sure that we bite off as much as we can chew because we Never want to turn into a situation where we have to fire people we're a family business"

Spooky Pinball operates better than Stern with family business mentality