Did you get the same impression from the Deep Root announcement that I did? "We're going to wreck everyone's shit and take everything we can get because we can afford to and don't give a shit"?

great interview.. and yes illinois does suck, not sure why i live here.

yeah, thanks for the interview! the stuff on Alice Cooper rules was cool to read as well

Interesting interview for sure. Didn’t realize Illinois was so bad. Wanted to visit someday. Lol. What do i know as I live in So Cal.

Haven’t had a chance to listen yet? Did his departure have anything to do with witnessing a Brinks truck backing up to the Danesi estate?

My son lives there and agrees.

I want a Ben Heck mini pinball machine.
Sign me up!

Lol, because nothing makes you richer then designing pinball machines.

Ain't no one getting rich on TNA - they drew blood doing the BOM.

great interview Jeff and Ben

would be cool if you made your idea of cheap and updated boardsets available for homebrews...

Deeproot would just steal those too.

Yeah. At Spooky volume TnA should have been a $6999 game. $6500 at least, with the switch from the pinheck. Making a profit is not a sin. You use that profit to invest in future projects. $500 x 300 games = $150,000 left on the table. That would go a long way towards picking up a license on a future title.

Aaron
FAST Pinball

I would be willing to bet they are. I believe they are not gouging but having an honest healthy business profit. Another reason I love this Company!

Awesome interview as usual.

We just interviewed Charlie for Head2Head episode 31 coming out tomorrow.
He talks about Alice Cooper, future titles, TNA, Ben leaving etc.

Can’t be Teddy, not enough drama.

Well, if they'd gone with FAST controllers, maybe. Fortunately they picked the cheaper P3-ROC.

Yep, there's a topic we need to retread...a few hundred posts of guys with opposing views on homebrew-supporting boards that have been made quite crystal clear over the last several years on multiple other threads (some where they didn't belong..)

Or just keep talking a big game and act like that theme was already in their library of games they will be producing. Until they start shipping a quality fun game they need to go choke on something.

Deeproot has yet to make anything accept hot air.

Ben, get together with a good designer and make a freaking awesome pinball machine! Btw, not saying your designs are bad, but too much work will burn you out. Your talent in electronics and programming is a f-ing big deal brother, reach out to Nordman or someone like him and put together a game changer pin.

I certainly wouldn't mind a chance to work with Ben - there's a great deal of specialist knowledge and practical skills that few heads in the industry hold.

Nordman's with Deeproot ...

https://vocaroo.com/i/s1NNDKhbKGkA

What's the source? Sounds like a good listen.

As a programmer who has had the pleasure of interviewing many "programmers", had a good chuckle over this line: "No, no no no...GOOD programmers are hard to find and in demand. There are a ton of programmers out there."

How much does being a pinball programmer pay?

Super high end programmers start at 150k/yr + bonus.

Ben is still doing a regular podcast, that was a snippet from ep 111 that seemed relevant here:
https://www.benheck.com/podcast

As you can see by the description, the topics are typically all over the place. They went on a 10 minute laughing fit about the term MEGAMETER.

Less than that, I'd have to think. I'm not a super high end programmer by any means, I've got 15 years experience though, and I'm making around what you quote.

I am thinking Stern's programmers are making $80-> $100K if I had to guess. Working at Stern probably requires taking a small pay cut just like working at a video game company would.

My own business is having a hard time recruiting "good" programmers. And by "good" I mean "creative". You can get a monkey at a keyboard, but those have no value. I know of "monkey coders" who can't find work.

My oldest son (13 years old) is very much into coding, so I've been trying to guide him along the path to more creative outlets with a goal towards software architecture, not monkey coding.

When Stern posted jobs in the past (mainly for entry level), they appeared to be at or below the market for that kind of job. It was always my dream job but with the extra hours and pay such as it was there was no way it was going to work.

Ben is right about the programmers, good programmers are hard to find. I see a lot of companies hire the wrong people or not take care of their best programmers (causing them to leave).

Good on you for doing that. I started learning to code when I was about 11 or so. Over time, I've taken the opportunity to learn all sorts of different languages and applications. Then I figured I would combine the passion for pinball with my software engineering knowledge, and I really found something that I love to do.
After slogging on code for 8 hours a day became mind numbing, I moved over to the architecture side of things just as you state. It was one of the best transitions of my career, and the logical "next step".

You are correct. Stern's salaries are well below market. They retain talent because of the passion that those individuals have for the product. I almost took a 50% pay cut just to go work for a pinball company years ago. However, the gig I have now with the companies I do work for is great, and I wouldn't change it for the world. I've met some great people along the way.

Get him involved in some cloud architecture as well. Both Azure and AWS have free levels of accounts that he can get and play with some of the technologies.

The "good programmer" line wasn't me, think that was Parker.

And yes, AMH doesn't have great rules because I'm a great programmer (I'm not, the source is a mess) but because I'm creative and logical. Pin programming is 10% coding, 90% testing and troubleshooting.

Spooky has to convince people to move to Benton (1 school, 1 gas station, 1 bank, 3 bars) and Stern has to convince them to move to a state everyone is trying to escape from.

And in Spooky's case, why work there when you can drive 50 miles east and join Epic "silicon valley in a cornfield".

Yea, finding people to build pinball is easy even in a small town. Finding real talent (programmers, mechanical engineers) to live in a VERY small town is going to be tough.

You aint lying. People are leaving this state in droves. The taxes are ridiculous, especially if you live in cook county (which I do not). The only positive thing about that is my area (50 miles west of chicago) is it's still fairly low tax and reasonably priced housing (though that's been spiking in the past year or two). Time to sell.

Is Illinois really losing population? If so is it mostly from rural areas? Chicago must still be growing, right?

My family always stops at the Goodwill in Huntley on our way to Chicago. I teach tennis as a part of my job and someone there donated 4-5 high end rackets that they were selling for a few bucks each. I resold one for $100 and kept the others.

It dropped a spot in the top 10

Chicago area leads U.S. in population loss, sees drop for 2nd year in a row -
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-census-population-loss-met-20170322-story.html

Money makes a lot of problems go away. Not saying they have it, just that it fixes things like a shitty location.

The problem is political. People are getting fed up with the waste of the city, state and it’s cost us in taxes.

That's their core problem. It doesn't matter how cheap land is (5K for a house lot!) if there's nothing to do once you move there.

Granted I spend like 80% of my free time playing video games or browsing the web. But if I want to go do or buy something, Madison has infinite options (except no Ikea)

In May you will be able to skip down to Milwaukee and get your Ikea horse flavored meatballs!

Madison no longer has a Prime Quarter. For that reason, I'm out.

Good news is that if you’re willing to be flexible, you don’t need the programmer to move. Assuming an established hardware platform is in place, I guess this would come at the cost/engineering overhead of needing to ship around a white wood and/or do majority of initial dev against a virtual table.

...Or Maybe it’s harder than that? Not sure how tight the cross-functional-area dependencies are...

Pay is still an issue, of course.

dont worry, we voted you out years ago

after you burnt the place down...

Yeah but it was turned into a Kwik Trip so I'm fine with that.

"Chicago" is cook county, so high taxes. They try to ticket you to death both from confusing parking signs and red light cameras (not something I know from personal experience, but I know people who live in the city), plus high cost of parking anywhere downtown. Top that with high crime:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-homicides-data-tracker-htmlstory.html#nt=storygallery

Then you have a broke state because of all the pensions being handed out.
Like Ben said on a podcast, Illinois has the worst of all worlds. High taxes, crappy weather, flat land. At least Wisconsin is cheap.

That said, if you live in the west burbs, it's relatively low crime, low taxes, and there are some decent arcades here and there.

I'm a remote software engineer working from home, so I am all for remote work. Having said that mechs and other things are gonna change daily and the idea that you can ship pieces back and forth and not have the developer in the office wouldn't work for such a physical platform like pinball. Just my .02c

But it worked so well for JPOP and applejuice

Or Ella's

LTG : (