Five Minutes to Tilt #7 – John Borg on Leaving a Safe Job to Design Star Wars Pinball
John Borg shares how he left a secure job to design pinball, starting with Star Wars in 1991.
Five Minutes to Tilt #7 – John Borg on Leaving a Safe Job to Design Star Wars Pinball
Untold Pinball Stories – Episode: John Borg At the Dutch Pinball Museum, we believe pinball is more than machines. It’s about people. Stories. Legacy. In this episode of Five Minutes to Tilt, we...
Synopsis
John Borg, legendary Stern Pinball designer with a 37+ year career, recounts how he left a safer engineering job at an injection molding company to join Premier Technology (later Stern) after seeing a tiny classified ad in the Tribune. He describes the decision as transformative, noting he has worked on approximately 75 games since 1991, with Star Wars being his first major title. He reflects on the diversity of disciplines required in pinball design and expresses enthusiasm about the industry's growth and influx of young talent.
Highlights
- John Borg has worked on approximately 75 pinball games, with about 50 since 1991 when Star Wars came out
- Borg was offered a job at Premier Technology for less money than a hydraulics engineer position, but chose pinball because it would be more fun
- Star Wars (1991) was John Borg's first major pinball game
- Borg currently has an original Star Wars machine at the Stern factory showroom, having brought it there for a livestream with Jack and not yet brought it home
- Borg is currently building one pinball machine and starting another in a couple of weeks
- Stern Pinball has grown significantly with many new young designers joining the company
Notable quotes
“I was offered a job at Premier Technology for less money than the hydraulics engineer position. I took the one in pinball because I knew it was going to be a lot more fun.”
“And I'm sitting in the front lobby and there are pinball backglasses around the whole perimeter of the room. And I'm like pinball. How cool is this?”
“I think I've made I I did a seminar and I wrote down the names of all the games that I've made or worked on and I think the list came out to like 75, but I think most 50 of them probably since 1991 or I believe when Star Wars came out.”
“It was a 10-hour day. um it was standing on your feet all the time and it was very very extremely hard work and a lot of math.”
“I looked in the Tribune and I found this ad on the table and it said mechanical engineer needed and a phone number. It was the size of a postage stamp.”
“I studied plastics engineering and manufacturing engineering and mechanic drafting and and CAD in in college. I was like, this is perfect. I'm going to be working with wood, sheet metal, injection molded parts, which I knew a lot about.”
Entities
- Premier Technology· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- Dutch Pinball Museum· organization
- Jack Danger· person
- John Borg· person
- Star Wars (pinball)· product
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