Reflecting on the Jersey Jack Pinball Journey

by Jack Guarnieri, Jersey Jack Pinball & PinballSales.com

Millions of people have an idea to start a business, but not everyone follows through and does it. In late 2010, with the shadow of Recession still looming, I thought about starting a new kind of pinball company. I envisioned one that would design and build great games using new technology and would also grow the player base to attract more women and young people.

Throughout our industry’s history, there have been many pinball makers that have come and gone. Even some public companies folded up, unable to survive. That might have caused someone with a dream like mine to slam on the brakes. But I didn’t think of the past or the temperature of the water, I just jumped in headfirst. Thankfully, a whole group of people – employees, distributors, vendors and customers – jumped in with me. I thank them all.

Jersey Jack Pinball’s first RePlay cover, the January 2013 Annual Directory.

Today, pinball is a thriving part of our industry with more than 10 real companies around the world designing and building arcade-sized pinball games. I’m proud to be a part of that because I truly believe that a rising tide lifts all boats.

All of us at Jersey Jack Pinball are honored and humbled to be featured on the cover of RePlay Magazine, the information beacon for our industry. We hope that through this issue’s feature story, we can share our passion for pinball. We are fortunate and thankful to have an amazing team of people who design, build and support our games.

Thanks for walking down memory lane with me in this month’s column and for checking out how far we’ve come in the Cover Story. I also encourage everyone to visit our factory later this month during Rob Berk’s Pinball Expo (details can be found on the show website: pinballexpo.com/events-schedule). I’ll hope to see you there.

It’s been a wild ride and we have so much planned for the future.

Jack Guarnieri started servicing electro-mechanical pinball machines in 1975 and has been involved in every phase of the amusement game business since then. He was an operator in NYC, then began a distributorship in 1999, PinballSales.com, selling coin-op to the consumer market. In January of 2011, he founded Jersey Jack Pinball (named after his RePlay Magazine pen name), which builds award-winning, full-featured, coin-op pinball machines. Email Jack at jack@ jerseyjackpinball.com.