112 episodes tracked since 2018 about →
Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast November 2025 recap
PodcastAnalysis updated 8d ago2 hr 20 min listenBy Martin Ayub, Jonathan Joosten
November was quite a month in the pinball world with new game reveals, multiple special offers and lots of news from the industry. So, Jonathan from Pinball Magazine and Martin from Pinball News...
Highlights
- Beetlejuice from Spooky Pinball was limited to 999 units and sold out in minutes despite pre-orders at $9,999 MSRP
- The Walking Dead Remastered runs on Spike 3 and features redesigned bright blue and orange artwork to match AMC's contemporary promotional strategy, departing from the original muted brown color palette
- Walking Dead Remastered uses a hybrid display approach with animations in a centre strip (dot matrix area) plus panels for score/ball info, rather than full-screen animations
- Jack Danger announced a real-time documented game design project from scratch showing the entire process, with a licensed theme to be revealed from the start
- The Walking Dead Remastered is available in Premium ($9,699) and Limited Edition (500 units, $12,999) models only, not Pro tier
- Star Wars Fall of the Empire is not available in Europe, Middle East, or Africa due to licensing restrictions
- Stern Pinball is releasing cornerstone games at an accelerated pace, with Walking Dead Remastered launching November 4 and another cornerstone expected within a month (early December 2025 or January 2026)
- Beetlejuice features a motorized sandworm toy that swallows the ball, lifts up to reveal shots, and incorporates a separated 'waiting room' mini-playfield with a sofa ball lock
- Beetlejuice includes a Spooky Speak voice recognition feature with built-in microphones in the animatronic topper by Gary Tunnicliffe; saying 'Betelgeuse' three times can trigger effects
- Tony Ramunni, a legendary pinball artist from Williams/Bally/Mr. Game (1980s-early 1990s), was persuaded over two years to attend Dutch Pinball Open Expo after 35 years away from the industry
Notable quotes
“I was able to locate him and it took me a couple of years to convince him like why don't you come over to the Dutch Pinball Show and do a seminar and well that turned out to be very entertaining”
“The basic game is priced at US$9,999... And the enhanced topper is made by Gary Tunnicliffe... this animatronic topper which is the Beetle Snake topper... incorporates a thing called Spooky Speak, which is a voice recognition thing”
“Those 70 games were gone in minutes too. I think people couldn't even get through on the phones. Or couldn't get through on the websites”
“The original game had very muted brown colours... But now AMC... they want to do it as like a night-time, day-time version, so they have bright blues for the night time and bright orange and red and fire and explosive effects for the daytime version”
“He will be going through the whole process of designing and building a brand new game design of his from scratch, starting with the initial development, going through all the mechanical engineering, software design, the testing, the artwork creation... and he's going to document this and basically take everybody through the process with him”
“Well, it would be nice to think they are selling that many games and there is that bigger market for them, as well as everybody else”
“I kind of feel a bit sorry for the back-end team, you know, doing the software and doing the graphics for all these games, because there's so many of them coming out now they must be so busy”
“Back then, there wasn't really the same kind of fandom in pinball that there is now... people didn't really know or particularly care who was creating the games. It was the designer, it was the artist. And of course, all that's now changed”
“I think there would be a slight delay so that when they have an idea for a mechanical design, let's say that takes three weeks to develop the next week is already available because they delayed it up front”
“I did check in the meantime, the 14% discount is on Venom Pro, I should say, not on John Wick. So John Wick premium 24% And Venom Pro 14%”
Entities
- Spooky Pinball· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- Dutch Pinball Open Expo· event
- Beetlejuice· game
- Dungeons & Dragons Tyrant's Eye· game
- John Wick· game
- Metallica Remastered· game
- Star Wars Fall of the Empire· game
- The Walking Dead Remastered· game
- X-Men· game
- Bug Emery· person
- Christopher Franchi· person
- Gary Stern· person
- Gary Tunnicliffe· person
- Jack Danger· person
- Jonathan Houston· person
- Lyman Sheets· person
- Martin Abel· person
- Spooky Luke· person
- Tony Ramuni· person
More from Pinball News and Pinball Magazine Podcast
→ All content from Pinball News and Pinball Magazine Podcast
Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast May 2026 recap
1 hr 37 min listenBy Martin Ayub, Jonathan Joosten
There’s a strong sense of déjà vu this month as three familiar pinball titles return in new forms, as Jonathan and Martin reveal in the latest May 2026 edition of the Pinball Industry News...
Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast April 2026 recap
1 hr 9 min listenBy Martin Ayub, Jonathan Joosten
After all the excitement of new game launches last month, things were a little more sedate in April. So, join Jonathan and Martin as they take a gentle stroll through the events from the pinball...
Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast March 2026 recap
2 hr 30 min listenBy Martin Ayub, Jonathan Joosten
March is often the time for new game announcements, and this year certainly didn't disappoint with of two new reveals, one updated classic and one upcoming reimagined game, all discussed by...
