Stern

Stern Pinball is the sole surviving major manufacturer from the era that defined American pinball, and today it is the dominant force in the global industry. The company was effectively founded when Gary Stern acquired Sega’s pinball manufacturing assets in 1999 and relaunched operations as Stern Pinball, Inc. — though Gary’s family legacy in the industry stretches back to his father Sam Stern’s tenure running Williams in an earlier era.

Stern’s longevity through the industry’s darkest period — the early 2000s, when pinball’s commercial viability was in serious doubt — came through ruthless focus on what operators and collectors would actually pay for: well-licensed properties, reliable hardware, and progressive rule sets updated through software. Titles like The Sopranos (2005), Iron Man (2010), Game of Thrones (2015), and Stranger Things (2019) have kept Stern at the center of the new machine market. The company’s Premium and Limited Edition tiers introduced a deliberate collector-market strategy that has since been widely imitated.

Stern’s continued operation is not merely a business story but a cultural one: the company has served as the connective tissue between pinball’s storied industrial past and whatever the game’s future holds.