EP17 Brian Cosner My Journey Into Pinball
River City Arcade owner Brian Cosner shares his arcade journey and operator perspective on pinball market.
Episode 17 – Brian Cosner - River City Arcade On this week’s episode of The Pinball Studio Podcast, Sterling sits down with Brian Cosner, owner of River City Arcade. We dive into how a simple...
Synopsis
Brian Cosner, owner of River City Arcade in Virginia, discusses his journey from collecting arcade games to pinball, his current arcade business focused on families and kids, and his perspectives on pinball themes, licensing challenges, and operator concerns. The conversation covers pinball pricing, the Pokemon machine launch, routing machines, and his experiences meeting industry figures at expos and events.
Highlights
- Pokemon Pro and Premium versions look nearly identical, with Pokemon requiring sculpted toys to avoid looking stripped down
- Stern Pro games are reliable workhorses for operators, with only coil stops and flipper rubber replacements needed over years
- Halo is rumored as a pinball game in development by Play Mechanics and Chicago Gaming
- American Pinball's peak was during Houdini/Oktoberfest era; COVID and timing of Hot Wheels release hurt the company
- John Wick pinball depicts gun violence in video clips despite having no guns on playfield
Notable quotes
“You take thousands of dollars in an envelope, and you go meet a complete random stranger in the middle of nowhere with $10,000 in your wallet.”
“Stern Pro games out on location are rock solid. The only thing I ever had to replace on any of them were a couple coil stops and some flipper rubbers.”
“I don't know if they're going to have clips. Are they going to have the music? Are they going to have the actors? Or is it going to be like Pirates of the Caribbean by J.J.P. where you just see their feet running around?”
“Pros are for bros.”
“It's just – it's so hard to make everybody happy. It's just impossible.”
Entities
- American Pinball· company
- Chicago Gaming· company
- Jersey Jack Pinball· company
- Play Mechanics· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- Halo Pinball· game
- John Wick Pinball· game
- Pokemon Pinball· game
- Star Wars Episode I Pinball 2000· game
- Wizard of Oz Pinball· game
- River City Arcade· organization
- Special When Lit Podcast· organization
- Brian Cosner· person
- Ken Cromwell· person
- Sterling Martin· person
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