American Pinball Announces New Team Members, Partnership with The Electric Playground
By knapparcade
Finally an article. I hate going tor a couple of days without writing anything, but it's been pretty quiet out there. We're in the calm before the storm. There always seems to be a lull in pinball news prior to a big show and the next major show is rapidly approaching, the Texas Pinball Festival - March 20 - 22. Having said that, here's something interesting to talk about. American Pinball (AP) just announced the addition of two new team members...Robin Rath and Nick Neitzel from The Electric Playground (TEP). Rob has been designing and selling pinball toppers and mods through his company TEP for four years. He is joining the AP team as Product Director, where he will "oversee the planning, budgeting, marketing and go-to-market strategy for many of their upcoming titles. He will also assist with game story and rules design." Nick Neitzel is well-known in the pinball and homebrew community for his creation of the awesome "Tony Hawk's Pro Pinball" homebrew game. Nick officially joined The Electric Playground as a full-time Product Engineer last February. He is joining the AP team as a Product Designer. He is already working on an upcoming game and will be involved in the development of future machines. Even though Rob and Nick are doing work for American Pinball, The Electric Playground will continue to develop toppers for new and classic pinball machines. It will also become an official vendor for AP. In fact, The Electric Playground is actually expanding its facility in St. Louis, Missouri, promoting several team members and hiring new ones. Its new space is 4,000 square feet, nearly triple its current size. It will have two production lines, up from one. I can't wait to see what the folks at the new American Pinball are working on. We know for a fact that AP's first game under new management will be a Bally / Williams remake under license from Planetary Pinball. There has been some talk that the first game will be the 1997 Bally game Cirqus Voltaire. I don't know that is the case for a fact, but it does make a lot of sense. Pedretti gaming reportedly already has the rights to remake Tales of the Arabian Nights and Theatre of Magic. Cirqus Voltaire is another machine that has strong resale values. Congratulations to Rob, Nick and the folks at American Pinball. In other American Pinball News, the company recently announced the last call for its Hot Wheels pinball machine: "This is your last chance to get a NEW IN BOX HOT WHEELS…..👇👇👇 The last Hot Wheels are shipping to dealers!!!" They also announced that they are holding a contest to give away a pinball machine to Texas Pinball Festival attendees who visit their booth and enter: "American Pinball is coming to Texas Pinball Festival Come to our booth & play one of our games to Enter our sweepstakes to win a Pinball Machine!!! 👇👇👇 -FREE to enter -One entry per day -Must be present to win"
Rob and Nick
From Left: Nick Neitzel, Bryan Vincent, Sean Palmer, Ron Lindeman, Nate Steen, Rob Rath
Nick talking with Nate & Bryan @ AP about a secret game
A pic of the new Electric Playground team members: From the left: Michael, John, Keith, Troy, and Dustin.
Pre-build out of our new space in St. Louis, Missouri
