This industry is full of legends, visionaries, characters and unsung heroes, each with great stories to tell from their years in the business. To help preserve those tales, is the “RePlay Podcast,” a joint effort between this magazine and veteran operator Randy Chilton, who serves as the host.
Episode 1 features George McAuliffe, founder of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. “With decades of experience in coin-op, McAuliffe’s career has touched just about every part of the industry at one time or another, from working with his brother Tom at Time Out in the earliest days of the mall arcade to running a route and then his own consultancy,” Chilton said. “On top of that, he’s one of the nicest guys around. We couldn’t have picked a better person to help us get our feet wet with the project.
“Our business is rich with people whose stories need to be told and shared, and that’s what I hope to do. We won’t be talking about the latest technology or game trends,” he said. “We’ll be talking about the earlier days in each person’s career, what made this industry so appealing, how things were compared to how they are today and more.”
“Years ago,” said RePlay’s Key Snodgress, “we set out to get publisher Eddie Adlum on video telling his tales from his early days covering the industry for Cash Box magazine to founding RePlay and beyond. But in the business of putting out a monthly magazine, we just never got to it. When Randy called one day to talk about his own vision for preserving industry history, it all clicked.”
Chilton added that time is of the essence. “I’ve been lucky enough to be in this industry in one form or another for over three decades and have met so many wonderful people along the way, but unfortunately, we’ve lost some great leaders. How I wish we could go back in time and interview Don Hesch, Dick Hawkins, Chuck Milhem, Steve Blattspieler, Bill Cravens and, gosh, so many others no longer with us. Now with podcast technology, and RePlay, we’ve a great platform for preserving and sharing the stories.”
Knowing a lot of people in the business, neither Snodgress nor Chilton had a clue about producing a podcast. Thankfully, a recommendation from a co-worker led Chilton to producer Chad Jamison of Truth Talks. “We couldn’t have found a better person to walk with us through this project. We still have much to learn, but Chad’s got us going in the right direction and has already been a tremendous help,” said Snodgress.
With the first episode under his belt, Chilton is already planning the next conversation. “We have some very colorful people in our industry and great storytellers. I’m glad to provide a platform to hear and share those stories. It’s been a very fulfilling process working on this project with RePlay, the only place that makes sense for this project to live. I’m very appreciative of the support Key and the team at RePlay have given this project.”
Tune into the RePlay Podcast’s chat with George McAuliffe here: youtu.be/UnBJyEUabDo?si=qZJuyEKZq38nqwsW