Quoted from Kneissl:I tip my hat to Gary, they all probably have a hand in it.. but keeping stern alive through the 2000s is pretty huge.
Gary, no question. There's about a 10 year period where pinball could have easily died, for good, had Stern shut its doors. Stern saved the pinball industry.
The pinball hobby? I always said I was a fan of pinball, not the industry. The hobby, as I entered it in 2001, would have easily continued without the pinball industry being around. Clay, everyone on RGP, Steve Young, Tim Arnold...all these folks played a part in that. The hobby - on a smaller scale - was thriving in the early 2000s, and really it was independent of any new pinball machines being produced.