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Spike 3 and Home Pin with George Gomez | Stern Pinball's Chief Creative Officer
PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago1 hr 20 min listen
The legendary George Gomez joins us to talk about what is right around the corner for Stern with Spike 3, Home Pin, and the job changes.
Highlights
- Spike 3 components are already in production games; full system launch expected in next game
- Star Wars Home Edition at Costco is using the same TIE Fighter toy from commercial games to leverage effort efficiency
- Stern has 500 employees at factory currently and same number as six months ago; business volume consistent with pre-COVID levels
- New home edition themes coming next fall after Star Wars
- Spike 3 processor substantially more powerful than Spike 2; enables improved graphics, wireless headphone connectivity, better sound
- Spike 2 has been in production for more than a decade; Spike 1 only lasted 2-3 years before upgrade
- Metallica Remaster is now considered a product line due to strong demand; remastering involves 75% of cornerstone game effort
- White Star remastering presents bigger challenges than Spike 2 games due to technology translation effort
Notable quotes
“The real design challenge is how do you make something cool with nothing? Right? To me, that's pretty interesting.”
“The processor in Spike 3 is substantially more powerful than the processor in Spike 2. And with it graphics and everything else.”
“You don't realize it, but you've been seeing bits and pieces of it for a little while. You got the quiet power supply. You're getting the improved menu system. There's little things that have been sort of rolled into the line.”
“The beauty of the home editions, for me, when I've done most of them...the playfield is an evolution of those just for economy's sake. The challenge...is how do I do something cool with very little?”
“Metallica Remaster has been a hit, right? Metallica Remaster is for all intents and purposes now it's become a product line because, you know, yes, we can remaster our old stuff.”
“What I want you to consider is the breadth of games that we've done on it. And for example, just think of all the different video display things that we've done on Spike 2 games.”
“So this is an audience that is potentially new and these games are intended to essentially be a gateway meaning they're more affordable. We want people to get to know and love pinball perhaps put them in places where it's more difficult to put a full commercial game.”
“The Electrical Engineering Group during COVID, what they call the AVL, the approved vendor list for components on a board, the AVL was changing monthly. I mean, it was crazy.”
Entities
- Costco· company
- Flippin' Out Pinball· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- Loser Kid Pinball Podcast· organization
- George Gomez· person
- Josh Roop· person
- Mark Silk· person
- Scott Larson· person
- Zach Minney· person
- Batman 66· product
- Battleship· product
- Dungeons & Dragons· product
- Expression Lights· product
- Funhouse 2.0· product
- Godzilla· product
- John Wick· product
- Jurassic Park Home Edition· product
- Metallica· product
- Metallica Remaster· product
- Spider-Man· product
- Spike 2· product
- Spike 3· product
- Star Wars Home Edition· product
- Supreme· product
- Tron· product
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