Steve mentioned a year ago that he might be doing something with the virtual pinball guys. I'm not totally convinced its a project for Stern pinball (Steve has experience doing video games as well; produced California Speed), but with Jersey Jack throwing the gauntlet down, I'll be interested to hear Steve's annoucement.

It is looking more like it now, that Steve Ritchie is back at Stern. Stern put this on their FB page. The back of that head is most certainly that of Steve's (you would know if you met him). I am very anxious to hear the big announcement! It looks like Stern wasn't going to stand there with its arms crossed, with the hub-bub going on at Jersey Jack.

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I still think John Borg has been doing a good job. Say what you want of the guy...Iron Man is cool, and Avatar is kinda fun. Poor guy is only 1 man though. Stern used to have a small house of designers in their headquarters (Nordman, Keith, Borg, etc), working on games throught the year.

Now they got one of the biggest fishes in the pond (Steve Ritchie), with one of the cleanest track records as far as pinball machine gameplay goes; even games like Rollergames, Elvis, and World Poker Tour are fun.

I personally can't wait to see how much control Gary is going to give Steve, over the design of his games. I think mostly all pinheads know the muddy history that Gary and Steve had during the development of World Poker Tour.

Jersey Jack seems to be filling the needs of players wanting good asthetics, feature sets, and software. To what extent is Gary going to combat this, and if he is going to continue to cater to operators with cheaped-down products, with no signs of wanting to advance the technical design (when it seems Jersey Jack intends to do the opposite).

This is shaping to be one of the most exciting times in amusement devices, in a LONG time.

You can't count out Lyman. He's programmed some of the classics (DE Tommy, Guns N Roses, Monster Bash, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Avatar, only to name a few). Here is hoping they get him on Ritchie's team for Stern.