It's just over eight years since RetroBlast! website owner Kevin Steele expanded his publishing business by purchasing GameRoom magazine from former owners Tim and Jacqueline Ferrante.

Kevin continued to publish the monthly coin-op magazine from February 2006 until the economics of print publication forced the closure of the magazine in October 2010. He currently maintains his personal retro gaming blog under the RetroBlast! name.

Interview by John Greatwich

Name: Kevin Steele Owner of Steele Publishing, based in Cleveland, Ohio. Age: 48

When did you first play pinball?
I was a coin-op nut growing up. My family travelled constantly, so I’d always be on the lookout for a pin, shooting game, or video game at every rest area.

Where are your favorite places to play pinball?
Growing up, my favorite place was The Machine Shop, an arcade stashed away in a back corner of the South Hills Village mall in the suburbs of South Pittsburgh. They had a mix of about 70% pins and 30% video games, although that mix switched the other way around as the '80s video craze came around. They always had a great collection of pins, and they were always in perfect working order.

Today, I don’t get much of a chance to play pins outside of my home, with the noted exception of gameroom shows like the Ohio Pinball Show.

How many and what types of pinball machines do you own (EM, solid-state, DMD)?
I own three DMD pins right now – Attack from Mars, Cirqus Voltaire, and Doctor Who. I didn’t get much of a chance to play the '90s era pins when they first came out – the arcades were into fighting games at that time, and it was rare to find a pin around.

As far as a favorite pin, all three are keepers. I had a Twilight Zone previously which was a blast to restore, but it didn’t hold my interest after I got it working perfectly.

Doctor Who has a special place in my heart, though – I bought it originally as a 'test' machine to see if I’d enjoy owning a pinball machine. I was concerned about maintenance and repairs, as I’d never owned a coin-op game of any sort, pinball or otherwise. Turned out I enjoyed fixing it up as much as playing it.

Do you still have any local commercial locations to play pinball?
There are a few bars around with one or two, but no place with any decent number of pins.

Are there any restrictions on operating or playing pinball in your area?
None that I’m aware of.

Which shows do you attend?
The Ohio Pinball Show is relatively close to where I live, and when I was still publishing GameRoom I tried to get to every show within an eight hour drive. Pinball Expo is still the 'Mecca' for collectors, so I’ll probably make the effort to get out to that show again.

We are seeing more pinball machines being developed by small companies other than Stern Pinball. What is your opinion on this new interest in the game?
Any new pinball is great, and the innovations that are being introduced by the new companies are fantastic. It’s exciting to see new ideas being introduced and tried out.

Where would you like to see the pinball machine technology go in the future?
I definitely think there are a lot of ways pinball can reinvent itself. Pinball is the only 'retro' game that is still coming out with new machines, and incorporating new technology will definitely keep things fresh. I love the new larger LCD backbox displays, multi-color LED lighting, and more advanced electronics.

What would I like to see? A user development kit for custom software, so users can tweak rule sets and gameplay options to a greater extent.

I’d also love to see 'standardized' pins with off-the-shelf PC hardware, so you could swap out defective parts without requiring expensive custom PCBs.

Swappable playfields is an idea that I hope comes around again. I’d love to see 'plug and play' playfield objects – the idea of replacing a faulty pop-bumper by just unplugging it from the playfield and popping in a new one is a personal dream of mine.

Do you like mods for pinball machines?
I absolutely love tinkering on my pins, so yes – I love mods. I’m always thinking of ways to improve the lighting or make the pin look more 'themed'. I went crazy on my Twilight Zone pin when I owned it – I had far more fun modding it than I did actually playing it.

Of course, that was when I discovered that you can go overboard on mods, as well. I ended up trying to only include mods that improved gameplay or were so closely matched to the pin that they looked like factory-standard parts.

How do you like new lighting technology?
LEDs are a mixed bag – not having to replace bulbs constantly is a blessing, but the 60Hz 'flicker' is extremely annoying to those of us sensitive to it (it drives me nuts). Also, vintage games were designed with the slower on/off cycle of incandescent bulbs in mind.

I remember running into Eugene Jarvis (who, in addition to creating video games such as Robotron, was also once a pinball programmer) at Pinball Expo one year when he was playing a Star Trek: The Next Generation pin that had been outfitted with LED lighting. I asked him what he thought. “It’s too fast,” he said, “it messes with the lighting effects.”

I have hopes that LEDs can be 'tweaked' for slower on/off cycles and more 'natural' color so that they can become a worry-free drop-in replacement for incandescent bulbs.

We’re getting close.

What do you think the cost per play of new pins should be?
My gut feeling is $0.50, but I suspect a dollar is more fair if we want to encourage operators to put them on site. It’s a tough balance – make it too expensive and people won’t play, but make it too cheap and it’s not worth the extra maintenance and attention that pinball machines require.

What annoys you the most about pinball on location?
The condition of the pins. There’s no worse feeling than putting in your money and discovering one of the flippers doesn’t work. With a video game, if it’s broken, it’s usually obvious immediately. Pins, on the other hand, can be sneaky.

How can we get more new people interested in playing pinball?
This one’s easy – the new generation of pinball emulator games, such as The Pinball Arcade, are excellent introductions to the game. They allow kids from 'the video generation' to learn about pinball, develop an understanding of how to play, and even master the ruleset on a particular game.

Of course, playing with a game controller and a screen is never going to be the same as playing on a real, physical pinball machine. They’re going to want the “real thing” eventually.

I’ve talked to the guys who programmed The Pinball Arcade, and they’ve said it’s generated a lot of interest in real pins. So much so, in fact, that Gary Stern has told them that prices for used Ripley’s Believe or Not pins had skyrocketed since that machine was included in The Pinball Arcade.

Do you think we need to return to simpler and easier to understand pinballs?
No. There’s obviously a fine balance between making a game intuitive enough for someone to walk up and play, while also making it challenging enough to keep people coming back for more tries.

Recent games have done a fairly good job of providing a deep ruleset for veteran players to work through, while still allowing novice users to bang on the main playfield toy and achieve some sense of accomplishment.

Pinball games are, more and more, becoming home gameroom toys more than coin-op machines. A deep ruleset helps keep the game interesting for home users.

How do you think pinball manufacturers can make a more playable and friendly game?
Like I mentioned, having an interesting playfield toy that novice users can shoot for and accomplish something with (sinking the ship in Pirates of the Caribbean, for example), is a great way to hook new users. Once that’s done, though, you need to have a wide variety of modes and shots for the more advanced users.

There’s a design philosophy from video games that I think should apply here – games don’t have to be easy to play, but they do have to be easy to understand. Even if you get your butt whipped by a game the first time you play, if you know why you failed and know what you should have done, that can lead to improvements 'the next time'.

You want users to say, “I was so close, if I had only…” right before they put another dollar into the machine.

How annoyed do you get with missing balls or hang-ups on games?
Playing on-site, it annoys me to no end, especially since I’ve begun collecting. Not being able to pop off the playfield glass and retrieve a stuck ball when at an arcade has become infinitely more annoying since I bought my first pinball machine.

That’s the pinball machine’s Achilles’ heel – it’s a mechanical machine, with a ton of moving parts. Things can (and will) go wrong, and unless you have an operator nearby who can help fix things right away, you’re going to have angry customers when something breaks.

Do you think pinball manufacturers should get smart and kick out another ball quickly if there is a ball missing or not scoring?
It would be nice if pinball machines were designed to be more forgiving of lost or stuck balls, but I can also see it being a programming nightmare. You need to make sure the machine can understand what’s happening if that stuck ball suddenly comes loose after another ball has been put into play.

How do you rank yourself as a player, and do you play in tournaments?
I am an 'advanced novice', in my opinion. I’ve mastered my home games, been able to achieve whatever wizard modes are available…but I’d also lose badly in any sort of tournament.

I know a lot of pinball owners are very competitive when it comes to scores, but I’m just not that sort of player. I enjoy the experience, the lights, sounds, and personal challenge of besting my own high score. I have no competitive streak at all.

The cost of new pinball ownership has increased greatly over the last few years. Does this stop you from buying new machines?
Yes. I haven’t bought a pin in several years due to the cost, especially since the pins I’m most interested in are the newer pins, which are naturally the more expensive ones.

My taste in pinball machines also tends to run towards the high end of the scale. I’ve played a wide variety of pins, and every time I play one I really like, it turns out to be one of the more collectible (read: expensive) pins.

With the introduction of new technology, do you think pinball machines have become easier to service and more reliable?
Yes, overall. There are still going to be times where you need to grab the wire cutters and soldering iron, but I do feel that modern electronics have improved things. Of course, custom ASIC chips and such also make it impossible for the average hobbyist to do component-level repairs on a pin, but the booming number of third-party replacement boards now available helps mitigate that problem.

Pinballs machines are heavy objects to move around. Do you think they need to be lighter?
Weight is irrelevant except for delivery, for the most part. A good set of pinball skates or even Teflon pads and the heaviest pin can be slid around fairly easily. Weight usually means more features in a pin, and I’m all for that.

How do you like the warranty offered for new pinball machines and parts?
Having not bought a new-in-box pin, ever, I can’t say I’m the person to ask. I took a look at the Stern site, and could find no warranty information at all, so I’m not sure how best to compare their warranty.

Does traditional mechanical pinball need more radical changes?
I’m certainly all for more radical changes, but in today’s marketplace I doubt any of the small companies now making pins can afford to invest a lot of money into development of new technology – if a pin with a lot of expensive new tech flops, I doubt a small company could survive financially.

Any other thoughts?
I’m very excited about the current boom in pinball manufacturing and the revival of mainstream interest – it’s something I didn’t expect to see, and it can only mean good things for the community as a whole.

Thanks for your time Kevin.

© Pinball News 2014