What I like most about Steve is..........You can really tell he loves this hobby and his fans. I love that he is passionate about his themes and seems like he goes the extra mile to get them right.

Thank you Steve Ritchie! It's because of you my two nephews (Ages 10 & 12) are listening to ACDC and not Justin Bieber!

He turned them straight?

Not only straight, but they have both lost their virginity already .

I think we all understand SR has a budget for each pin he designs. I am sure there were many directions he would of liked to of gone with ST but couldn't.
That said ST looks like a fun game, I can't wait to play it!

You know you can email him directly instead of here on pinside? I send him pics of AC/DC all the time with stuff he should have done.

LOL I'm sure that's what he wants. Have you seen some of the absurd suggestions we throw out on this forum?

I used to think letters like this were fake, but at the Texas Pinball Festival I found myself alone with Steve Richie....

Get a room you two.

Steve is a great guy, and not one to shy away from "telling it like it is". Remember when he was originally let go from Stern, and then that epic RGP smackdown. He's a man I'm positive can handle a little bit of the same (if done respectfully) with grace, especially when at least a few of the points are warranted.

Always loved his work. Just fast and fun is his goal. I grew up at the candy store around the corner from my grandparents on games like Black Knight, Black Knight 2K and my favorite because of the cannon, T2. While I started on games like KISS and Gorgar, Mr. Steve cemented pinball over video games for me.

Steve is a legend, no questions asked.

KwiKi said it best! A LEGEND!

+1

I"ve got several of the LEGENDs games and I love them all. Someday I would like to have them all. Thank you Steve for making life more interesting.

That's good material.

Steve is the King, I would love to spend an evening with him.

HS2 and STTNG 2 of the greatest games ever made... Bring those days back Steve!!!

He could have quit at Black Knight 2000 and his career would have been amazing. Glad he is still working making games for people to enjoy!

That said, he is the only designer I have written to and never gotten a response

Oh well. His games are great.

Chris

Everyone's getting worked up over some playfield pics. I'm sure SR is chuckling right now knowing we haven't seen the game in action.

Bow chicka wow wow

Pinball nerd feeding-frenzy. Just throw a pic or two onto the net.

Ummmm....didn't he just basically do that with the new ST?

Love many of Steve's games. One of the Giants.

Errrr..... Unlikely... Yeah forgot the mention BK2K... Another brilliant game. I think things might be different if the market was bigger and Stern were not so tight. Given that ST II is SM 2.0 I am not sure that STII goes down as one of the best games ever made. Given the consistent history of mundane game play (ACDC is an exception) of Stern games I do not believe that we are going to see anything different with STII. Not saying the game is bad, just saying that its not going to be anything refreshing like that of STTNG when it came out.

Have to say though it was always going to be hard to beat one of the best games ever made.

I have had quite a bit of correspondence with Steve and always have gotten a response.
When we BS at shows it is usually about motorcycles, we are close to the same age and have owned a couple of the same bikes.
Similar experiences with LEO's with our need for speed.

I almost Tilted this!

Why? The prince should spend some time with the king.

Can you really blame him for not wanting to respond to people on here? I seriously can't believe the tons of negative comments coming from members on this site.. You haven't even played the game yet for god sake! Geeze at least reserve some judgement until you see the machine in action..

I find myself wanting to write stronger words to describe what I think of those people but I'm holding back.. I will say one thing though, it's enough to make me not want to login to Pinside...

You forgot to add "no homo".

Not at all....Jesus I don;t even want to respond to most of this crap

I never said ANYTHING about Star Trek. And I tried to contact Steve more than once over the past 4 years. I had specific questions that I had e-mailed and messaged to him, all with no reply.

I was interested in his answers as a pinball enthusiast, not someone trying to ridicule him for his work.

We're not all shitheads you know. My attempts to contact him started way before his work at Stern. Thanks for knowing your facts and just lumping everyone into the same category.

Chris

Homo use only?

Well seeing he will probably read this at some point...

Yo Steve, Getaway freaking rocks. It's the second longest owned title in my collection, and I still love it. Just wanted to let you know Bud.

Maybe it went in the junk mail. My brother emailed him once and he got back pretty quick.

If memory serves Steve's Bro also designed a couple of pretty cool games... Pretty impressive duo.

Brown chicken brown cow

Regardless of what anyone says. We are glad to have SR designing games. All titles are not for everyone but he always makes fun games. I still do not care for the art or the look of a twin game to previous design. Will have to play to truly judge.

I thought he has come on pinside before, or was it on KLOV? I just remember someone talking smack about his pins and he came on and set them straight

Steve was at least moderately active on RGP (that's where the smackdown happened), usually in-between games. I've had a dozen or so emails back and forth over the years, but not since he was re-hired at Stern.

He posted a followup location report in a reply on RGP recently. If you blinked, you missed it. Stern now has a policy discouraging employees from posting on internet bulletin boards. Can't say I blame them.

Steve held his own just fine online before the new rules. And he's been through all the highs and lows that have gone on here recently. He's way past getting his feeling hurt by anything posted online. Especially when the negative talk is based only on pictures. I bet he's totally stoked about his new game right about now. Maybe a little nervous, but in a good way. Dude wants every game to be the best ever. Knowing his track record, I like his chances.

Well said I agree 100%. I may not enjoy all of them but that is to be expected if a designer is changing things up and trying new things. Just think how many fun pins he has put out for us...Pretty impressive so glad to have Mr. Ritchie still putting out hits!! Looking forward to this one for sure the layout looks pretty darn fun. Very hopeful that the software and sound teams can bring it home to make an epic pin. Thanks for all you have done for the community SR!!

Steve Rocks!!!

Steve,
Thank you for all you do to make pinball what it is today!

I bet you ST is screaming fast!

Rob

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/AC%2FDC

My all time favorite other than T2, Indiana Jones is one of them.

Just imagne what might come from a SR pin designed at JJP...

On RGP, he once misunderstood something I said about his personally-owned STTNG. I made the comment that I'd rather own the STTNG that Gates McFadden sold to a collector because I'm sure Steve actually played his and it probably wasn't in as good condition as hers. He somehow thought I was bashing him, but the reality was that I was just saying that Steve is a pinball person and Gates wasn't. I think hers had never even been unboxed (if it had, it had almost no plays on it). He came back on the thread and got me pretty good. It was ok in the end. It was just a misunderstanding, and I got to interact with one of the pinball gods during the whole thing. Just explained to him what I meant and pointed out how many of his (and his brother's) games I owned and loved. It's all good. My words get farted out of my mouth in an unclear way sometimes.

Can I join the love fest?

It was one of Steve's 1st - '79 FLASH - that got me hooked on pinball. Flash was one of the first solid state games I played, and was COMPLETELY blown away by the lights and sounds (I know, hard to imagine today, but this was almost 35 years ago).

Another milestone in my pinball career was Firepower. To this day, I can clearly remember my first multi-ball EVER. It was Firepower - and again I was completely blown away. The 'lane change' feature 1st found on Firepower became standard on all pinball machines.

And let's not forget how High Speed kept pinball alive in the mid 80's. Fast forward to today, and he's still cranking out great pins. I love my AC/DC. When they say Steve Ritchie is THE KING, it's a title well earned.

I wouldn't mind seeing Steve and Mark Ritchie do a Widebody Superpin together. Only thing they would need is a decent budget to work with..Maybe one day

These threads go from mere cruisin' to stalky weirdo pretty quick

Thanks Steve, It's time fire up these bad boys.

DSCN1834.JPG

Dream combo right there...