Pinball Magazine & Pinball News bonus PINcast: the Steve Ritchie interview
In this special bonus PINcast, Jonathan Joosten from Pinball Magazine and Martin Ayub from Pinball News are joined by their special guest, pinball design legend Steve Ritchie. Having settled into his new position at Jersey Jack Pinball, Steve talks about the reasons behind his decision to leave Stern Pinball, his role and objectives at JJP, how his new game is progressing, the game he left behind at Stern, how working at Williams, Stern, and JJP compares, licensed vs unlicensed themes, dealing with difficult licenses, how the pinball business has changed over his forty-five years of designing games, and much, much more.
Kineticist’s take
Steve Ritchie details his legendary design career and recent move to Jersey Jack Pinball.
Synopsis
Steve Ritchie, legendary pinball designer, discusses his transition from Stern Pinball to Jersey Jack Pinball after eight months. He reflects on his 40+ year career spanning Atari, Williams, and Stern; his collaboration with Lyman Sheets on Spider-Man and AC/DC; the challenges of licensing (particularly Led Zeppelin and Star Wars); and his optimism about design freedom at Jersey Jack. He is currently working on his first JJP design with a dedicated team and reports directly to Leonard Abbas.
Entities
- Jersey Jack Pinball· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- AC/DC· game
- Black Knight: Sword of Rage· game
- Led Zeppelin· game
- Spider-Man· game
- Star Wars· game
- World Poker Tour· game
- Bill Grupp· person
- Brett Abbas· person
- Dan Lejcik· person
- Dave Peterson· person
- Duncan Brown· person
- Eric Seiden· person
- Gary Stern· person
- John Borg· person
- Jonathan Houston· person
- Leonard Abbas· person
- Lyman Sheets· person
- Mark Seiden· person
- Martin Ayub· person
- Pat Lawlor· person
- Steve Ritchie· person