Celebrating 50 Years in Coin-Op
by Jack Guarnieri, Jersey Jack Pinball & PinballSales.com
Next month, RePlay Magazine will celebrate a milestone: 50 years of producing exceptional content for the industry. This month, I am marking a 50-year milestone of my own in this industry us old-timers know as “the coin-operated machine business,” and I thought I’d share the highlights.
My journey began as a pinball mechanic, repairing electromechanical pinball machines in college game rooms throughout the New York metropolitan area. I was fortunate to become an operator, securing some locations and buying games, and after moving to New Jersey, I opened my first arcade, followed by a larger amusement center. Later, I worked as a consultant and then a general manager for Mondial Distributing.
I started attending trade shows in 1976, but my first significant experience was the 1990 IAAPA Expo held in Washington, D.C. At that time, amusement park and carnival operators dominated the show, and at that 1990 event, there were virtually no attendees from our industry nor game booths in the exhibit hall. That show certainly has evolved as have many other parts of the business. For example, I witnessed the boom-and-bust cycles of both video games and pinballs firsthand.
In late 1999, I launched pinballsales.com, the first full-time home sales business dedicated to selling commercial pinball machines and arcade games to the consumer market. Previously, this was only done by operators or distributors around the holidays, with very limited support.
Thanks to the team at Mondial, which traveled to Europe to purchase used pinball machines and bring them back to the U.S., we were able to recondition games and sell them on eBay, a practice that was quite rare at the time.
In 2001, we created unique games and modified 40 units of Monopoly Pinball, selling the most expensive version, Boardwalk, for $6,000. That was an unheard-of amount at the time. The sale went through eBay, and we donated the proceeds to Boundless Playgrounds Charity, a practice we continue to do with games today.
In 2002, Pinballsales.com partnered with Betson to form a home games division. We worked with a fantastic team, which was a fun learning experience for us all. I also revived the game of shuffle alley with a new Pro Bowler game.
In 2008, I partnered with Elaut, becoming the CEO and minority owner of Elaut USA. I recognized the potential of a pusher game they had called Mistral and licensed the Wizard of Oz theme, incorporating my idea of card set collecting as a feature. Initially, the game was met with skepticism, but once it started generating thousands of dollars a week, the cost became irrelevant. Today, the game remains a top seller, having sold hundreds of units, and card collecting has become a standard feature in many redemption games. Recently, Eugene Jarvis, through his company Raw Thrills, licensed the iconic Wizard of Oz IP from Warner Brothers and created a game that dispenses cards players collect (and earn bonus points for sets).
On Jan. 1, 2011, I founded Jersey Jack Pinball to create full-featured, mechanical-action pinball machines with cutting-edge technology. Among the features were RGB LEDs capable of displaying billions of colors and a 27-inch HD LCD monitor in the back box for animation and movie clips. I’m proud to say our first game, The Wizard of Oz, even won a Brass Ring Award at IAAPA 2012.
My vision was that the games we’d build would be “playable artwork,” starting with that first game and through the creation of The Hobbit, our second piece. We built an original game called Dialed In, developed by famed pinball designer Pat Lawlor. We also produced Pirates of the Caribbean, Willy Wonka, Guns N’ Roses and Toy Story. Legendary pinball designer Steve Ritchie joined us to create Elton John. Then, we made Avatar and are now building Harry Potter pinball games, having secured that blockbuster license. Our games are innovative, strong earners on location and cherished in home game rooms and collections.
In short, this industry has been very good to me, and I’ve tried to be equally good to it. People often thank me for the changes I’ve helped make, and the jobs created because of them. I take great pride in that, and it’s very humbling to hear it. We can’t build anything for the future without new ideas and good games.
I’ve made lifelong friends in the industry, many who’ve become my extended family – distributors, operators, manufacturers and customers who have turned into friends.
Through the years, we’ve lost many of our industry’s greats, but luckily, there are still many people in this business older than I am. This gives me hope that I can continue this journey for many more years! After all, why would I want to retire? I’m doing what I enjoy – traveling for business, seeing our customers all over the world, helping develop new products and helping people operate more pinball machines.
The last 50 years have flown by, but I can honestly say I still have the same passion for the industry and its games that I always have. This is especially true when I see people enjoying games I contributed to. So, as I continue my “coin-op” journey, I look forward to seeing you around and consider every day in this industry a blessing.
Jack Guarnieri started servicing electromechanical pinball machines in 1975 and has been involved in every phase of the amusement game business since then. He was an operator in NYC, then began a distributorship in 1999, PinballSales.com, selling coin-op to the consumer market. In January of 2011, he founded Jersey Jack Pinball (named after his RePlay Magazine pen name), which builds award-winning, full-featured, coin-op pinball machines. Email Jack at jack@jerseyjackpinball.com.