AAMA’s new Amusement Industry Hall of Fame inducted its inaugural class on March 29 at Amusement Expo’s Beers & Cheers event. There were 31 individuals and six products or games that were given the honor.
“As we began interacting with the other trade associations, we spent some time touring their websites hoping to gain a better understanding of how they operated,” said Pete Gustafson, AAMA’s executive VP. “In almost every case, we found a section dedicated to a Hall of Fame which got us wondering, ‘Why don’t we have a Hall of Fame?’”
Below is the full list of the new Hall of Famers, including the products or games as well as people (both legacy and living inductees):
Entities (Products or Games)
- The Wurlitzer 1015 Jukebox
- Donkey Kong by Nintendo
- Space Invaders by Taito
- Pac-Man by Namco
- Skee-Ball, originally manufactured by Skee Ball, Inc. and today by Bay Tek Entertainment
- The TouchTunes Jukebox
Legacy Inductees
- David Rockola – Founder of Rockola Jukeboxes
- Harry Williams – Founder of Williams Mfg.
- Bill O’Donnell, Sr. – President of Bally Manufacturing
- Hank Ross – Co-Founder of Midway Manufacturing
- Marcine “Iggy” Wolverton – Co-Founder of Midway Manufacturing
- JP Seeburg – Founder of Seeburg Juke Boxes
- Lynn Durant – Founder of United Manufacturing
- Michael Kogan – Founder of Taito
- Ray Maloney – Founder of Lion Manufacturing, which became Bally Manufacturing
- George Miller – Founder of the AMOA
- Marty Bromley – Co-Founder of Sega
- Ralph Coppola – Founder of Innovative Concepts in Entertainment
- Dave Corriveau, Co-Founder of Dave and Buster’s
- Buster Corley, Co-Founder of Dave and Buster’s
- Joe Robbins – Executive with Empire Distributing, Atari, and a Co-Founder of the AAMA
- David Gottlieb – Founder of Gottlieb Pinball
- Chuck Milhem – President of Valley Mfg. Co. and Founder of the VNEA
- Earl Feddick – Founder of Valley Pool Tables
- Masaya Nakamura – Founder of NAMCO and the leader of the company when PAC-MAN was introduced
- Sam Stern – Co-owner of Williams Electronics and Founder of Stern Electronics
- Humbert “Bert” Betti – Founder of H. Betti Industries
HOF Inductees
- David Rosen – Co-Founder of Sega
- Jules Millman – Creator of the Mall Arcade with Aladdin’s Castle
- Eddie Adlum – Founder of RePlay Magazine
- Gary Stern – Co-Founder of Data East Pinball and Stern Pinball and Co-Founder of the AAMA
- Nolan Bushnell – Founder of Atari, Chuck-e-Cheese and Sente
- Elaine Hodgson – Co-Founder of Incredible Technologies
- Richard Ditton – Co-Founder of Incredible Technologies
- Eugene Jarvis – Creator of some of the best video games ever made while a game designer with Williams Electronics, and founder of Raw Thrills.
- Joe Kaminkow – Game Design Engineer with Williams Electronics and Co-Founder of Data East Pinball, which became Sega Pinball, and the man singularly responsible for the permanent return of licensing pop-culture movies, plays, and musical acts for amusement games.
- Malcolm Steinberg – Founder of LAI Games, Embed, and Time Zone Family Amusement Centers
