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GameRoom T h e W o r l d ’s # 1 M a g a z i n e f o r C o i n - O p C o l l e c t i b l e s May 20 06 Volume 18, Number 5 w w w.gameroommagazine.com WOW! EDS “Mods” a Pinball for Charity! EDS’ Mega Golf Ball Frenzy EDS and a Trio of Mischievous Squirrels Team Up to Create a Pinball for Charity Mike Minchew’s mission was clear: He needed to create three custom pinball machines in time for the 2006 EDS Byron Nelson Championship, which kicked off in less than 10 weeks. The challenges were enormous: could he find enough pinball machines, locate suitable replacement parts, get custom art designed, and even create custom plastics and promotional items in time?  GameRoom May, 2006 Part 1: A Tradition Begins Following a tradition that can only be likened to the legend of the dancing gopher from the movie Caddyshack, EDS has created three custom Mega Golf Ball Frenzy pinball machines that feature the return of three now famous squirrels to promote the 2006 EDS Byron Nelson Championship. This labor of charity began 4 years ago when EDS signed up to be the title sponsor for the EDS Byron Nelson Championship (www.eds.com/byron) and took on the responsibility of promoting one of the PGA TOUR’s most famous golf tournaments. “While previous sponsors had done a good job of promoting the Championship, we envisioned more,” said Gail Rigler, EDS VP Global Marketing. “EDS wanted to catapult the event to the next level by linking golf, business and creative promotion which would achieve much deserved recognition for both the man and the charity behind the scenes—golf legend Byron Nelson and The Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers.” So, along with several new web site pieces detailing Byron Nelson’s Greatest Year in Golf and the Salesmanship Club’s dedication to making the EDS Byron Nelson Championship the highest fundraising tournament on the PGA tour, Mike Minchew and the eds.com team began developing a series of online golf games. The Hard Work Pays Off A promotion that is unprecedented in the sporting world, these unique Mega Golf Ball Frenzy pinball games will be featured throughout the 2006 Byron Nelson Championship and also used to raise additional money to support the benefiting charity, The Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers (www.eds.com/news/events/byronnelson/charity). The first of the MGBF pinball machines will have its translite autographed by Byron Nelson and then be displayed in the players’ locker room during the Championship, giving the pros a chance to test their pinball skills, as well as leave behind their autographs on the cabinet sides—that machine will later be auctioned off to a very lucky winner on eBay. The second machine, which will also be auctioned off during the tournament, will be housed in the EDS Hopsitality Suite. This game will be sold in a private auction to EDS’ invited guests. The third machine will be available in the Media Center for members of the press to play and enjoy while on break from tournament coverage. This game will then find its way back to EDS’ Plano, TX headquarters building and be located in the Campus Cafeteria for employees to enjoy during their lunch breaks. High scoring employees will receive prizes and all proceeds from game play will go to the Salesmanship Club of Dallas Youth and Family Centers. “Everyone involved with the tournament is getting pretty excited to see how the new pinball machines will turn out,” says Minchew. “It’s a new twist to add to a golf tournament, and with Byron Nelson and the players autographing a machine it’s creating a new piece of history.” “It’s been a massive amount of work in only a few weeks but something that no true pinball enthusiast could turn down. Besides, once you get to know the people that run this tournament and the charity—they have done a lot of work for many years in the community that’s changed a lot of lives for the better. We are simply doing our part, while also promoting pinball to a huge new audience. My PR people tell me this story should be picked up by media all over the place.” For more information on the 2006 EDS Byron Nelson Championship or to learn how you can participate in the eBay pinball machine auction or purchase, contact Mike Minchew at mike.minchew@eds.com or through www.eds.com. A Trio of Squirrels The first online game developed introduced three mischievous squirrels, Mearle, Pearl and Earl, as the stars of a classic arcade-style game. This trio of squirrels quickly achieved stardom with their faces featured on magnets and t-shirts—one brave EDS employee even dons a Pearl the Squirrel costume to entertain employees and fans at special events. In 2005, the squirrel friends were back and better than ever as the updated online game found them searching for acorns lost in a golf ball factory. For the 2006 game, Mike Minchew, director of eds.com and official EDS pinball enthusiast, decided to add a new twist to the two previous games—an online pinball game. So while the squirrels were still performing their hi-jinx in classic arcade-game style, they were playing a totally new type of game—Mega Golf Ball Frenzy, based on an icon of Americana, the pinball machine (www.eds.com/frenzy). “Pinball is a game that everyone understands and has probably played at least once in their life, so it just made sense to incorporate this popular theme into the 2006 game,” says Minchew. “And once we released the online version and discovered just how popular it was among EDS employees and Byron Nelson fans, people started asking the inevitable questions—can we take things one step further and create the real thing ?” GameRoom May, 2006  We used the “spare” area on the plastics sheets to produce a very cool standup, 3 layers deep, that I’m especially proud of and suspect will be a highly coveted collectible.  GameRoom May, 2006 Part 2: From No Good Gophers to Mearle, Pearl, and Earl: Creating Mega Golf Ball Frenzy by Mike Minchew This all started as a result of my job as director of www.eds.com and our sponsorship of the Byron Nelson golf tournament through 2010. We developed an online game 3 years ago for the site that featured 3 squirrels: Earl, Mearle and Pearle, and it went over well. The game evolved into a new edition last year, and for this year I decided to do an online Pinball game in support of the hobby. The online pinball game that we created can be found at www.eds.com/frenzy. Well, one thing led to another and some execs said, wow could we have real pinball machines at the tournament to raise money for the charity? I’ve been in the hobby for almost 15 years and knew this was trouble but couldn’t turn down the opportunity to feature pinball at a world class event like the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. Some history on the event and Byron Nelson can be found at www.eds.com/byron. We’ve done a lot for this event because it raises funds for the Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers in Dallas. Ok, so being a 15-year veteran of the pinball hobby I thought that I knew how much work this would be. (Famous last words!) I was “given” about 10 weeks to accomplish this task before the 2006 tournament begins this year on May 7th. Oh, and did I mention that I still have my day job managing and running the external web sites for a $20 billion global IT company? I explained to the EDS leaders involved that this was like General Motors setting up an entire assembly line to crank out exactly three Corvettes and then shutting down production. We had to design and produce new decals, translites, and playfield plastics and completely restore and convert the games—all while nothing less than perfection would be accepted (did mention I also had to come in on budget?) M i k e M i n c h e w a n d t h e M e g a G o l f B a l l Fre n z y A r t wo r k ( Ph o to by C i n d y K au) Just deciding what route to take took time—we contacted Gary Stern at Stern Pinball and discussed options for working with his team. We finally agreed that trying to work from one of their current releases, such as NASCAR/Grand Prix or World Poker Tour, would not be feasible due to the need to change the playfield in addition to all the cosmetic changes. Gary’s advice was invaluable in getting started in the right direction. So began a crash course of researching other options. Being a flyer collector, I consulted my binders of flyers and quickly latched onto the idea of starting with the 1997 Williams No Good Gofers pinball machine. This was a relatively recent WPC-95 game, and I knew that we could still find excellent condition games to start with (I’ll discuss parts later). The game is already based on a golf theme and the gofers in the game do About The Salesmanship Club The Salesmanship Club of Dallas (www.scdallas.org ) is a service organization of more than 600 Dallas business leaders that is dedicated to supporting the activities of Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers. The Club was founded in 1920 and has been serving children and their families since its inception. The Club supports the work of SCYFC principally through sponsorship of the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. This PGA TOUR event leads the fund raising for the Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers. All of the proceeds from the Championship go to SCYFC. The 2005 Championship raised more than $6.05 million in net proceeds. This brings total proceeds to more than $88 million since 1973 (more than any other tournament on the PGA TOUR) and keeps the Championship at the top of all PGA TOUR events. Proceeds from the Championship represent nearly 10% of the PGA TOUR’s total charity donations. GameRoom May, 2006  Treasure Cove’s Assignment: Makeovers For Some No Good Gophers SV: Can you describe the restoration process you’re doing? AS: I told John which screen printer to use in Louisville, Kentucky that I’ve used before for making the graphics. I gave him the dimensions and the criteria for the graphics, and then he sent the artwork off and we picked it up. Basically what we do is strip the games down and completely disassemble everything and clean everything. The old decals have to be taken off and then the cabinets are prepped. Then we put on the new decals and begin the reassembly process to put the game back together. We have a set procedure that we use for restoring games as far as polishing the playfield, polishing all of the metal parts, repainting all of the inside of the cabinet and cleaning the inside, outside and the bottom. All of the playfields get completely disassembled and all of the plastic pieces, if they aren’t serviceable, get replaced with new ones. SV: How long does it usually take to do everything you just described? AS: It usually takes three weeks to do a game from scratch like this if you’re working 10 to 12 hour days. We’re doing three games, and there’s four of us here. Actually, we have a little assembly line and we’re doing all of the games at once. TreasureCove: from lef t A l l e n S h o p e ( M a r k e t i n g, E l e c t ro n i c s ) , R ay S h o p e ( Pu rc h a s i n g, Air brush ar tist), and Br i a n S h o p e ( Pl ay f i e l d re s to rat i o n s ) If you were looking for a company to do a picture-perfect “makeover” of a pinball machine, Treasure Cove would be your first choice. GameRoom writer Scott Voisin talks with Allen Shope about the conversion process. - Ed. name out there further and show people our products and what we can do. Plus, it’s always nice to do something for charity, and it was good to be involved with it. I think it’s a very forward-thinking thing for EDS to do. SV: Did you have to find the No Good Gofers machines or were they supplied to you? AS: No, we purchased them for the company from operators and auctions and all the usual places people buy pinballs from. SV: Was it difficult tracking these games down? AS: Well, it’s easy to find one game, but when you have to find three or more, it’s a lot harder. It was somewhat of a task to find three games that were in good enough condition to be suitable for the project. We ended up using your typical route games—you know, dirty, in need of some TLC, that kind of thing. Scott Voisin: How did you become involved with Mega Golfball Frenzy? Allen Shope: John Lenker called me from Invioni and asked me about our games. He asked how we restored games and if we do special projects. We have one of the best reputations for doing quality pinball restorations. Since 2001, we have restored probably 400 games, at least. We’ve gotten a pretty good name for ourselves, and one thing led to another and here we are. SV: What was your initial reaction when you heard about this project? AS: I thought it was a very good project for them to do. John said they were doing a charity event for the Byron Nelson Championship, so I thought that would be a good opportunity for us to get our  GameRoom May, 2006 SV: Do you think people in the pinball community might get upset knowing three perfectly good Gofer games were being turned into something else? AS: No, I don’t think so. The games are still the games, and the games still play like the games. I’m sure there are purists out there who might pooh-pooh the thought of taking a game and changing it and modifying it. It’s the same as guys who modify their cars and add chrome wheels and bigger engines and all of that other stuff to make a custom car. There’s probably people out there who like to keep the cars original, so there’s both sides of the coin there. In general, though, I don’t think it’s an issue. SV: When the games are finished and available for auction, what do you think the response will be? AS: I don’t know, to be honest. Considering that this is for charity and the audience that they’re targeting—which is golfers—there might very well be a big market for it. I don’t think anybody’s ever really done this before in this way, so I really don’t know, but I hope it does very well. SV: Any guess on what they might go for? AS: Well, we just restored an Attack from Mars, and when I sold it on eBay, it sold for $8,000. A typical game that’s restored—depending on the game’s popularity and how fun it is—could bring anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000. Of course, that’s not a special custom game like this is, which is completely different altogether. SV: If these games are successful, do you think other companies might take a look at doing something similar? AS: Yeah, I think that would be a shooin. It’s something that companies can use to promote their products or their charity events. You never know if anything is going to work or not, but I hope it does. I think there’s big potential out there for other companies to do the same type of thing. I’m hoping it will catch on, and we’ll just have to see what happens. ϗ look an awful lot like our EDS squirrels. Besides, it’s a Pat Lawlor designed game— what could be better? I have Twilight Zone and Addams Family in my personal collection, so I’m familiar with his style. Pat also answered several questions for us during the start-up that proved to be helpful as the project progressed When it came time for work on the pins to begin, I turned to branding and marketing experts Duffy & Partners for suggestions. They recommended Invioni Design for the artwork and programming , and even designed the game’s logo themselves. John Lenker and Henning Koczy of Invioni Design (www.invioni.com) worked with us on the online pinball game, so they were the natural choice to use to help with all the graphics and such for the Mega Golf Ball Frenzy machines If you think that creating just a pinball “facelift” like this is easy, think again. Custom art for the cabinet, translite and some playfield plastics is a lot of work and a lot of vendors to get involved. Screen printing is not the ideal thing for small runs, but I wanted to be as true to original machines as possible. So the new cabinet decals were screen printed just like the originals. We are also using Williams’ original vendor, American Graphics, for the plastics and translite work—just like on the original Williams No Good Gofers machines. Although I’d never done business with Treasure Cove before, they restore games almost to the same level of detail that I do with the machines in my own collection. They have been willing to let me have lot of say on the details, like specifying the grey post rubbers for the slam ramp—just like the original. They have done custom labels with our logos and all kinds of extras. Really, they have gone to extreme limits to meet my expectations for these games. I believe that the final product will be incredible and no corners were cut in the process. I’m a purist and everything was a discussion—like should we keep the factory original security bar and hasps on the game. I finally agreed with the more artistic point of view and agreed to leave them off. Allen has done a great job of offering his opinion and experience, yet leaving the final decisions to the client. Other than the sling plastics, we aren’t changing the playfields. This was necessary to make the delivery deadline of the first week of May, just before the tournament starts up. Speaking of plastics—as a long time flyers and plastics collector, I could not pass up the opportunity to produce those items for the new machines. We designed a full-color 2-sided flyer with the front focused on the Mega Golf Ball Frenzy pinball machines and the back detailing a playfield shot map for the online version of the game. The flyer was designed and printed to be exactly like the nice heavyweight ones produced by Williams/Bally. I also designed a series of 4 keychains featuring Pearl, Earl, Mearle and the MGBF game logo. Finally, we used the “spare” area on the plastics sheets to produce a very cool standup, 3 layers deep, that I’m especially proud of and suspect will be a highly coveted collectible. GameRoom May, 2006  M ike M inc h e w a n d s o n s Wi l l a n d To m p o se w i t h Pe a r l t h e S q u i r re l at t h e E D S B y ro n N e l s o n Fe s t i va l ( 4 / 7 /06) The World’s New Publisher! New Content! A New Era for GameRoom Magazine! Only Magazine Devoted to ____Check enclosed (US Bank Accounts Only)e r y ____ Visa ____ Mastercard ____ Discover the Home Card Number:__________________________________________________ Game Room Expiration (mm/yy) ___________ 3 digit CVV code* ___________ Signature:_____________________________________________________ GameRoom Magazine has changed! With a new publisher and a new direction, GameRoom has more of what you always loved in GameRoom Magazine, but with a fresh new look and attitude, now in full-color! Discover why GameRoom is the world’s #1 magazine devoted to the most entertaining room in the house! 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Fast and Easy! www.gameroommagazine.com  GameRoom May, 2006 Invi o n i D e s i g n : Pre s i d e nt J o h n Le n ke r ( l e f t ) and programmer Henning Kocz y ( r i g ht ) m a n a g e d t h e p ro j e c t, p rov i d ed ar t design, and programmed the o n l i n e ve r s i o n o f M e ga G o l f B a l l Fr e n z y. Since we chose to start with an existing game from a manufacturer that is no longer in business, the concept of acquiring parts for the tasks at hand and to have spare parts on hand in case of problems proved to be an additional challenge. I have ordered parts from over 15 different businesses from around the world. Parts from Norway, Belgium, UK, Australia, Canada and the US were used in this project. While some might see it as overkill, the idea of one of these pinball machines with a big EDS logo on it being broken in one of our clients’ offices or homes is just not an option. Let’s just say that I’ve volunteered to be flown on the corpo- rate jet anywhere needed! Not that we expect problems, but we are prepared, just in case. We produced enough decals and translites to do another 10 machines—I expect that some of our executives and clients are going to want one, so we will be working with Treasure Cove to produce up to 10 more over the coming months. Final pricing is still to be determined, but I’d expect $10k to be about right, with everything over the exact cost of production going to the charity. Byron has offered to sign the translite for any buyers that request this. Keep an eye out a few signed translites, flyers or plastics that might also turn up on eBay in the weeks leading up to the tournament, once again with all proceeds going to the Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers. I would have never believed that these pinball machines would have generated so much interest (and chest pains for our corporate branding people!). When you have company VPs stopping by to discuss the project (in a company of 117,000 people!) it shows just how universal pinball is. We may be short on pinball manufacturers right now, but there’s still strong interest in pinball and its history. It’s been great to be able to educate so many people about what goes into making a pinball machine and how much drive it takes on the part of so many people to bring something like this to life. In the end, we successfully wove together several great traditions: Golf, Byron Nelson, and Pinball into something that also helped people through the charity. ϗ GameRoom May, 2006  Play The Online Version Of Mega Golf Ball Frenzy....ANYTIME at www.eds.com/frenzy Hit the Squirrel Spinner for points Enter the Generichine to activate Stand-Up targets (see below) Nab the Squirrel Jackpot here Use Lane Change to spell EDS and Advance the Bonus Multiplier Shoot up the ramp and use the gates to spell B-Y-R-O-N Hit the Prize Nut 4 times for an Extra Ball Use Lane Change to spell EDS and Advance the Bonus Multiplier Hit all 8 Stand-Up Targets to wake Security Guard for big points Use the [z] and [/] keyboard keys to work the flippers Hold and release your [Space Bar] to launch the ball Your favorite squirrels are back and sporting a totally new flair to celebrate this year’s EDS Byron Nelson Championship. Mearle, Pearl and Earl haven’t left the video arcade, but they have adopted a new style of game. Test your prowess at flippers, bumpers and pinballs with an all new Mega Golf Ball Frenzy game based on the ever-popular pinball machine. Start by going to www.eds.com/frenzy, look for the MEGA Golf Ball Frenzy graphic, and click on it. Simply launch the pinball and watch your score climb as you maneuver through squirrel territory, the Generichine and the “BNC” bonus area. You’ll experience the most realistic game play yet via lively sounds and flashing lights – don’t be surprised if your monitor even shimmies a bit! But don't worry, our Flash game is not as noisy as the real deal and if anyone sneaks up on you, simply click that boss button and they’ll be none the wiser. www.eds.com/frenzy • Requires Flash 8 Player • No Squirrels Allowed! www.eds.com/frenzy • Requires Flash 8 Player • No Squirrels Allowed! EDS is the title sponsor of the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. The Mega Golf Ball Frenzy pinball machines are a limited production run. All proceeds benefit the Salesmanship Club Youth and Family Centers.