subject: The Story Of Stern Pinball [print this page] How many manufacturers of coin-operated pinball machines are there in the world? Only one, Stern Pinball. Once an industry that had a number of manufacturers, Stern Pinball has been the world's only manufacturer of the coin-operated pinball machine since 1986, the same year Gary Stern founded the company.
Stern History
The first Stern company to manufacture pinball machines was Stern Electronics, Inc., founded by Sam Stern, a legend in the amusement machine industry. Before starting Stern Electronics, Inc. Stern was the president of Williams Electronics for many years, after having purchased half of the company's stock.
The company didn't have the greatest of beginnings, but by 1977, sales were beginning to increase, and in 1980, with the beginning of the video game craze, Stern Electronics, Inc. released the popular video game Berzerk. Over time, the industry began to fail, and Stern strayed from the amusement machine industry in 1985. But, then president Gary Stern, who was also the president of Pinstar Inc. and Data East, was still interested in arcade games, and in 1999, Stern Pinball was born.
Since Stern Pinball came alive, there have been many memorable pinball machines created by the company that employs some of the greatest designers and artists in pinball history. Some of the more popular games from Stern Pinball include:
Playboy
Spider-Man
Family Guy
The Lord of The Rings
The Simpsons Pinball Party
Batman
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Indiana Jones
Ripley's Believe It Or Not
Monopoly
These are just a few of the many popular games created by the design team at Stern Pinball. For more information about the many games that the company has designed over the past decade, you can visit them online at www.sternpinball.com. Here you will find not only information about the Stern Pinball machines, but also information about the company, some pinball history, links to pinball sites and much more.
Stern Trivia
Here are some fun and interesting facts about Stern Pinball:
Design time for games is usually one year.
Stern makes about three new models annually.
Stern uses 3-D modeling for much of their game parts.
The Stern factory is located in Melrose Park, IL, and is just one building that is 40,000 square feet in space.
The Future of Stern Pinball
Pinball is once again growing in popularity, with more and more machines being installed in hotels/motels, bars, taverns and pubs, restaurants, shopping malls, arcades, corporate break rooms and more. Many people think that pinball is losing its popularity, but if this were true, would Stern still be here, making new pinball machines every year?
Hopefully, pinball is a game that is going to be popular for many, many more years to come. It has entertained young and old alike for decades, and with the amount of people seen playing machines in busy establishments, it doesn't look like it's going anywhere any time soon. So, if we're lucky, we'll still have Stern Pinball around to keep breaking pinball machine design barriers, and bring us the best the company's designers can create for pinball enthusiasts everywhere!
