Okay, wow, I have no idea how I stumbled upon this thread a few hours ago as I don't spend as much time on here or posting about pinball lately, but man, what a trip down memory lane. I have a number of stories about Gene that may or may not contribute anything, but I feel compelled to share at least some of them after reading these.

There are a number of people who have stated that they don't want to speak ill of the dead, so they won't share their stories of Gene. A few others have shared their thoughts of why Gene was in it, and what his end goal truly was. I am not discounting their opinions at all, but I got a different sense for him - that everything he did was for the story - and he would love nothing more than to see a thread like this where he was remembered years later.

I first met Gene in 2003 hosting the Midwest Gaming Classic. As noted on the second page, pinwhoo suggested that he should come to our show as we were trying to grow pinball, and without much of a sales pitch, Gene was in. I spoke with him on the phone a couple times before the show to confirm details and things like that, but didn't really get to know him until after that 2003 show.

To explain what Gene was like, I would suggest he is a cross between the main character in Big Fish and the real life PT Barnum. He found things he enjoyed, then found ways to weave narratives around them so he could be the person that everyone needed to talk about. At the same time, he would exploit relationships to feed the narrative he was creating and I know he burnt people because of that. But, he always had a way to present the story in a way that he both fully believed, and would make him out to be the 'good guy' to whomever he was talking to.

Did he lose a million dollars on BBB? I believe *he believed* he did, but it was due to the sorts of funny math that people have alluded to in this thread. Even if we assume a total of 200 games were made and sold, the total revenue on them would have been $900,000. That would mean each game Gene made would have lost him at least $5,000. Considering the amount of free labor he used, as well as incredible deals that he did to receive the parts, I can't find any reasonable way that he lost that much. But if you talked with him, he was extremely sincere that he did it for the love of the game, and because he wanted to be a hero in the pinball story above all else. The best way to do that was to lose money.

But, if you got him talking about business, he would talk about how he did such a great job with the reproduction of BBB, and he was able to pull off the project for a price where he made money, and produced a product that the new buyers were so excited to get, they were worth double what they paid for them the first day, which he then was able to make more of them with the spare parts afterward to sell for that inflated margin. In this story, Gene needed to be the hero of the business story, and *he believed* that not just did he make a great game like no one else could do, it was a smashing success in the way of business and for the customers. Everyone won! When Gene presented it this way, he was now the hero in the business story.

I've heard Gene lay out both stories to people, even both to me at different times. The key I found with him was to ask a question every once in a while to direct him, and he would frame the story in that direction. I was also perhaps a unique case because I don't think Gene figured out that I was a pinball guy. I think he saw me as a young guy trying to start businesses, so he would often come at me in his conversations from the "oh man, I'm a super successful businessman!" standpoint. It was much more likely I would hear him telling someone at a show the more common story that I read on here, and then he would sort of pull me to the side to make a quip about how he was working a strategy to 'increase sales' or 'drive demand' or whatever. He *loved* giving me ideas about how I could better run the Midwest Gaming Classic, or the video game business, or how the real money is in real estate, or whatever. Sometimes, he would say really insightful things. Sometimes, he was full of it.

Because of this relationship, I feel like I've probably been told stuff in a different lens than many others on here. I'll try sharing some of how Gene presented Gene to me moving forward if there is interest in this thread. I'll just add one more thing for tonight though:

Gene actually officially announced he was producing Big Bang Bar twice. In the pinball version of the story, he announced the game at Pinball Expo in October of 2004 and it sold out immediately. In the 'let's teach this guy business' version, he also announced it in May at the 2004 Midwest Gaming Classic. The MGC announcement is basically lost to time.

But, he stood up our tiny speaking hall and told everyone he was taking orders for Big Bang Bar starting right now. I remember this presentation as it was one of the only ones at *any* show I've run that I got to attend. He kept telling me before the show that he was going to show me how to get people really talking about your business by making a huge announcement at the Midwest Gaming Classic, but he would only do it if I was at the presentation. He made it clear when he opted to come back in 2004 - a story I'll tell another time - he wanted to do this. And for whatever reason, me being in the room was critical.

So I'm there. But, didn't say much else so all we had to tell people was it was going to be "Gene Cunningham talks about Pinball Parts" or something incredibly generic and dull sounding. Gene was known amongst the pinball fans to tell the same stories, so the majority of the pinball people at our show that year didn't show up. I would be surprised if there were 20 people in the room including Gene.

The presentation was darn near the exact same thing that he did for Pinball Expo, in what is widely considered to be the real launch of the game and for practical purposes, really probably was. I wasn't in the room for that one, but Gene was elated to see me at Expo in 2004, believing that I came down just to see him - partially due to that more or less happening in 2003 - where he told me he did basically the same presentation. He told me there that he had about 25 sign ups after the Midwest Gaming Classic announcement, and after he announced it at Expo he was above the 55 preorders that he needed to move forward. (I remember the 55 number as it stood out to me as an odd number when he said it at MGC. Gene told me when you included the gold plated one, it was the point he would have $250,000 in revenue, presenting that at the point that, duh, it made sense to build a machine, right?)

Again, and this was the sort of mystery of Gene - I don't think he was lying about any of it. He absolutely didn't have 25 people sign up at MGC that year. I would be floored if he had more than 5 people sign up at the show. But, he always said to me "After my presentation at your show, I got a ton of great interest with more than 25 people signing up!" Technically, those people could have signed up at Expo, and it was still after the presentation at "my show." I also heard him directly tell people at Expo 04 that he had already reached the 55 number 'all from people who signed up after hearing my presentation!', so again, who knows where the real truth lies. But the fact he never said to anyone other than me that he announced it at MGC I think is a perfect example of how he would fit the truth into whatever suited him best for the story that he wanted to tell, where he was the hero of the moment to the segment he thought he was playing too. Again, Gene didn't think I was a pinball guy, so how would I be able to put a read on how much interest there was?

I'll close by saying this - my mother's father was *extremely* similar to Gene, except without all the shiesty stuff and he was an engineer, not someone who owned his own businesses. Grandpa had all of these insane stories, and as a family we would often find ourselves rolling our eyes as he would describe something impossible sounding. He passed away in 2003, essentially at nearly the same time that I ended up meeting Gene, and after his death as I helped my family sort through his belongings, we found out that many of his insane stories held at least a significant slice of truth to them. I think getting this perspective at the same time I started interacting with Gene really got me to see Gene in a different light, and again, his lack of understanding that I was also into pinball made him change his stories to present himself in what he thought would be a better light to me.

Okay, yeesh, I wanted this to be quick and just spent a long time doing it. Hope someone cared to read Again, if people are interested in more, I've probably got 10ish more stories about Gene that I can share in the future, some that paint him in a better light, and some that don't. But all, I think, would make Gene really happy to know his stories were being shared after his death.

Thanks I ended up editing slightly and went slightly down the rabbit hole of old school RGP. Found this thread from 2006 about it and I'll copy and paste what I said... holy crap, 16 years ago:

"I'll say that quite frankly, I'm really kicking myself for not going for this when it was first announced by Gene. I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with him about it for a while at both the Midwest Gaming Classic in 2004 and Pinball Expo, and I knew right then and there that somehow, someway it would be completed. It was the way that Gene talked about the project and pretty much pinball in general that gave me the feeling that even if it ended up costing him $10,000 per machine, he really wanted to do this. I'm not surprised at all that they are rolling off the line right now, and if six are completed and sent out, I fully expect that another six are nearly there... and another, and another, and another.

I think BBB may be the best looking pin of all time, and the playfield toys and humor are top notch. I think that this game would still do really well on route, as it definitely has that "cool" factor like MM and similar games do.

I doubt that Gene will make any more pins after this, but it's awesome to see this project get finished. Now, I just need to find someone who did purchase one so I can stop by and play it like mad!"

Thread that this was in was here if it works: https://groups.google.com/g/rec.games.pinball/c/iz3y7eOn6F8/m/xZ6C_NmhvUEJ

I never did find one that had purchased one, although I've made the trek to Lloyd's a few times and played his over the past years And, to be clear, my opinions haven't changed. There were a TON of rumors about how much Gene was losing on this project in 2006, and I *do* think Gene would have spent $10k per machine to pull off the BBB story. Let's be honest - without it as the crowning achievement of his parts purchases, he'd be remembered mainly as the eccentric guy who bought some of the pinball parts when stuff closed down, not the first new business to release a new pinball machine after Williams declared the industry dead.

Without BBB, how many people would remember the ILLinois Pin Ball Co. today? (And seriously, why did the Pin Ball community have such odd CAPitalizatIONS back in the Day?)

Thanks for the kind words! We absolutely may have met - contrary to Gene's belief, I was / am a big pinball guy - but I realized in writing the longer story that I sort of fed into the narrative that I think Gene built himself that I wasn't. It wasn't until I was writing that I realized the reason I think he told me stories from a totally different angle, and that's probably part of why we had such a good relationship - he was under the impression that I was showing up at pinball things specifically to see him, so he could show me how he was able to make so much money in a hobby he also truly enjoyed.

Anyway, I never made it to one of Gene's stand alone shows. I was also never invited to see the collection or anything like that, and never got to tag along the times that I had friends who were. I did get to go down right after the first sale was made and the parts were being liquidated. That's a longer story for another day, but I may have met you there?

Okay, so one truly shorter one that I can't believe hasn't been brought up more... and I don't know how to properly introduce this, as I don't know if it was a strategy or what but...

Gene thought naked women were the greatest thing ever. I don't know if he thought it was the greatest thing ever because of an attraction to them, or because he loved the controversy that it created. A lot of what I am about to share, I did not see first hand - again, I think because he looked at me as a 'business' relationship, so it wouldn't have been appropriate in how he presented himself to me, but I know so many people who did see it. Gene carried around nude photos of his wife that he loved to show to people. I know at least 25 people who he showed at the Midwest Gaming Classic, and these were years that we had like 2000 people total coming to the show. They'd get to talking, and out the photo (or maybe photos?) would come.

Again, in at least how I see Gene doing things, this was specifically to ensure people talked about him after he wasn't around. I have never, ever had 25 people talk to me about a vendor at the MGC after the show was over with relatively the same story, so it worked. When Gene wasn't around, people were talking about Gene. I think he saw it as a thing that he could do that would make other men jealous that they didn't have the same ability or whatever to just produce photos of significant others the same way. I have never met anyone else who did that sort of thing, however.

It was also known if you were visiting him, there was at least one and perhaps more - again, I wasn't there, just heard the stories - paintings up of a similar nature.

But that wasn't it, it was referenced before that Gene made a nude version of the CFTBL playfield. And he did. 20 or 25 if I remember. Not just was the woman swimming naked on it, but it changed the car scene at the bottom from two people kissing innocently to something much less innocent.

Gene thought the playfield was high art, and would make the machine worth incredible amounts of money. No one that I remember seeing it thought it was high art. The majority of people thought that this version of it destroyed the innocent charm of the game and instead made it something that wasn't as funny ha ha about it. Those playfields are apparently worth thousands today.

Gene wouldn't show those playfields much. There was a lot of conversation about if he made them under the Williams license, or if he just made them for the attention. I fully think the latter. He didn't keep them out much, but he was always ready to show them to people. I overheard him telling others about how hilarious they were and then showing them. For me, he showed me one by saying if you want people too know you're remaking parts, you do something to get their attention, and here's how to do it. He was more proud of the car scene than the woman because he liked the fact it was more 'subtle' and harder to notice. I'm not sure he was actively trying to sell them, as I think they served as more of an ad for the rest of what he was doing. Again, it got people talking.

As someone mentioned earlier though, he was only interested in the sexiest parts to make. Things like screws or metal brackets or whatever actually needed to make things work he didn't care about. Things like nude CFTBL playfields though, that got attention.

It's where his business sense fell apart. Had he started finding people to do production on the parts we all actually needed, it would have been incredible lucrative - and as people mentioned, it was like the wild wild west for parts back then. People were buying games to put two together to make one because of a lack of part availability. In the early days, certain games known for being problematic were truly sold cheap - I was offered working TAF and TZs in my early days less than $1000 due to the lack of parts and how when things got blown out, there was no real fixes for them. Gene didn't change that.

But, he did change the CFTBL playfield art.