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cover story
Industry Veteran Mark Robbins Heads Up Quality-Focused Factory
G
old Standard Games/Shelti builds
table games and electronic dartboards under the watchful eye of
Mark Robbins, a household name among
coin-op veterans both for his family connections to the trade, as well as his own
legacy as an air hockey champion and pioneer in the design, sales and promotion of
coin-op air hockey tables.
Robbins acquired game maker Shelti
Inc. in 2010 and created Gold Standard
Games with an eye to doing just that, setting the gold standard for quality when it
comes to coin-op staples like pool, air
hockey and darts.
Building air hockey excitement
at every opportunity is the mission at
Gold Standard Games/Shelti. Pictured,
the company’s exhibits at trade shows
such as IAAPA, BCA and Amusement
Expo (the firm’s Paul Jacobs and topper Mark Robbins are pictured at left),
plus cultivating the next wave of players (top) as Boy Scouts take a factory
tour and learn how to play. At right,
air hockey competitors are seen
battling it out at the world championships. The company is also
passionate about their pool and
dart lines.
August 2015 • RePlay Magazine • Page 65
Cover Story
still helps Mark a
bit on the home
side of Gold
Standard/Shelti.
“I never
intended to follow my dad into
the coin-op business, but was
brought into it by
my love of air
hockey, first as a
player, then as a
promoter and
ultimately, as
someone
involved in the
design, manufacture and sale of
tables,” explained
Mark.
By the early
Gold Standard Games/Shelti owner Mark Robbins (at right) with the
‘80s,
Mark becompany’s VP of Sales and Marketing (and industry veteran) Paul Jacobs
at the AAMA Gala last year.
came very concerned about the
In addition to coin-op games, the factofuture of air hockey. Tables and manufacry also makes a non-coin home version of
turers were disappearing, and he felt air
all its products – air hockey, pool, foosball
hockey was considered a “dead duck” by
and darts – along with two models of dome
95% of the industry. But Mark continued
hockey. This side of the business has been
to believe in air hockey, not only as a
on a steady upswing over the last few
sport, but as a fun game that millions of
years. The company’s home products are
casual players loved to play.
known for their superior quality of con“From 1982-1985, I marketed a table
struction and competitive price points and
made for me by U.S. Billiards, which was
are sold through a network of both brickthe sole manufacturer of air hockey tables
and-mortar stores and online retailers.
remaining in the country and the world,”
Mark Robbins’ father, Joe Robbins,
he recalled. “In 1985, I signed a deal with
was a pioneer in the industry, working at
Dynamo Corp. to design, sell, and proEmpire Distributing, Bally, and Atari,
mote a new air hockey table for them. The
among others. He helped found the
rest, as they say, is history. We managed
AAMA in the early 1980s and was able to
to completely turn around industry sentibring the manufacturers together for a
ment, and by the time I left the company
common cause. Mark’s brother Richard
in 1994, air hockey was considered a
worked with Joe in coin-op for a number
must-have staple in the coin-op games
of years, at companies which included
business,” he declared.
Kitkorp, Sunsoft, and Sega Midwest.
Mark said he wanted to issue a “shoutRichard is in the gaming industry now but
out” to three great sales people who were
The company’s pool, dart and foosball
products fly under the Shelti brand name.
Here is the Shelti Bayside pool table with
DBA in the Sovereign Cherry finish.
Page 66 • RePlay Magazine • August 2015
at Dynamo at that time and were instrumental in the turnaround. All three remain
in the industry: Mark Struhs (now at Raw
Thrills), Damon Paramore (now with
Betson) and Chris Brady (with LAI
Games.)
Mark said he has remained in coin-op
because of his 40-year love affair with air
hockey that goes well beyond just playing
the game. “Over the past 15-20 years,
there has been an explosion in the number
of manufacturers of air hockey tables, both
home and coin,” he said. “But paradoxically, while air hockey continues to be a
staple in the coin industry, fewer and
fewer tables can be found on location that
offer a quality playing experience, the kind
of play experience that causes players to
fall in love with the game and play game
after game. This is reflected in the stats
from industry surveys. While the price of
tables and the average price per play keep
going up, the weekly earnings have been
stagnant,” he stated.
“By 2009, there were no new coin-op
tables on the market that were sanctioned
for play by the U.S. Air Hockey Association. That means there were no tables
available that offered the kind of superior
play experience that created avid players
who want to come back for more and
more. This was a distressing situation, so
when the existing Shelti Inc. became available for sale, I took the plunge,” he
explained.
“It was a company with an infrastructure in place, dedicated employees, and a
reputation for quality,” he explained.
“Some of the employees even went back
to the original Valley days in the very
same building, before the various mergers
and buyouts with other companies.”
This allowed Mark to design new
home and coin air hockey tables, which
are marketed under the Gold Standard
Games brand. All of the factory’s coin
tables are USAA-sanctioned.
The Shelti Dual Pool table
with DBA has a Charcoal Matrix finish.
It features ball dispensing from both sides
of the table (players have the choice of
two different games).
Gold Standard Games’
Classic Plus air hockey table
sports a charcoal finish classic look
with a compact overhead score unit.
A
Quality
Line-Up
All of Gold
Standard’s coin
products are built
in Michigan by a
team of experienced employees
who have a strong
focus on quality.
“We listen to customer feedback
and our company
is small enough
so that service
issues get
addressed and
don’t get
ignored,” said
Mark. “Our air
hockey tables
are the bestbuilt on the
market, and I
The Shelti Eye2
speak as someelectronic dart game.
one who has
designed some of the best-selling coin
tables of all time. Don’t take my word for
it; talk to anyone who operates our air
hockey tables and you’ll see how satisfied they are.”
Gold Standard pool tables feature
superior construction and great play
action, building on the legacy started by
Dick Shelton, who ran Valley for many
years and founded the original Shelti.
The factory’s Shelti Eye2 dart game
fills a niche in the market, being a basic,
non-Internet-connected dart game that
offers league and handicapping software
Gold Standard Games’
Gold Flair Elite air hockey table
features FEC graphics, LED chase lighting
on the sides, and full overhead score unit
with white light/black light option.
to run in-house leagues, as well
as an affordable opportunity
for casual play. Gold Standard
also sells a high-quality, coinop foosball table, the Pro Foos
III.
When asked to assess the
demand for its games, Mark
responded by delineating
between coin-op and consumer. “We sell both coin and
home products, and I can tell
you that it’s much easier to
gauge the response to our
products from the home buyers
than it is from the players who
actually put the money into our coin
games,” he elaborated.
“On the home side, we can make our
case direct to the player via Internet presence and marketing. On the coin side, the
player walking into a bar or FEC doesn’t
have a direct hand in choosing which
pool or air hockey table goes into the
place. It is filtered through the operator
and further through the distributor.
“Having said that, we know the public
loves our coin air hockey and pool tables,
because the proof is in the cash box,” he
continued. “Our Gold Standard air hockey tables have consistently been the highest-earning two-player tables on the market. And the location employees love
them too because of the construction
quality and minimum of service issues.”
Mark said the company has experienced increased demand for coin-op and
home air hockey tables and for the Shelti
Eye2 dart game. “Players really like the
superior target on our game.The Eye2
provides more target area and less spider
than our competitors,” he declared.
Also in the company’s
product lineup is the
Shelti Pro Foos III
foosball table.
Sales and Marketing
Industry veteran Paul Jacobs, a respected factory executive, heads up sales and
marketing at Gold Standard Games. He
works primarily through the traditional
amusement machine distributor network,
as well as some large national accounts
that have been particularly supportive of
the firm’s products, specifically its new
line-up of air hockey tables.
Gold Standard works with both route
operators and FEC locations. “It really
depends on the product,” said Paul. “For
pool tables and darts, we concentrate on
the street operator as most go into bars and
restaurants. For air hockey the emphasis is
on FECs, theaters, bowling centers, roller
rinks, trampoline parks, etc.”
Leagues continue to be crucial for
pool table income and darts as well, noted
Paul. “Even though we no longer sell a
communicating dart, our traditional Shelti
Eye2 dart continues as a steady seller for
those operators wanting a basic dart
August 2015 • RePlay Magazine • Page 67
Cover Story
The Gold Standard Games/Shelti team at their Bay City, Michigan, headquarters.
Randy Eigner,
President/CFO
Lucy Keipinger,
Office Manager &
Sales Support
Bruce Allen, VP of
Engineering
Paul Jacobs, VP of
Sales & Marketing
Tammy Clarke,
Sales & Marketing
Assistant
dust off and recover a table they already
have in stock.
“On the other hand, our air hockey
sales continue to increase,” he added. “Our
signature Gold Flare Elite model has been
out-earning the competition wherever it
has been placed and has become the table
of choice for a number of national
accounts. Individual operators too, after
buying one through distribution, invariably
re-order our table when the need arises,”
declared Jacobs.
machine for their locations,” he added.
“Since the majority of our air hockey
tables go into FECs and other large entertainment venues, the league factor generally does not apply.”
Pool table sales represent the toughest
part of Paul’s job. “When it comes to pool
tables, there are so many of them in warehouses due to the near total death of gin
mills that a need does not exist for most
operators,” he explained. “If, and when,
they do get a new bar location they simply
Page 68 • RePlay Magazine • August 2015
Mike Pettis, Plant
Manager
Managing
The Day-To-Day
Running a manufacturing business
comes with no small amount of challenges
that must be managed or overcome.
According to Mark, the biggest challenge on the consumer side is negotiating
the evolving landscape brought on by the
Internet. Much of the market for home
foosball, air hockey, and dome hockey has
migrated to Internet retailers, and the number of brick and mortar stores keeps
shrinking. It’s the same situation facing all kinds of
brick and mortar retailers:
everyone can shop for the
lowest price online, and
the online retailers have
evolved a business model
which provides free shipping and low to sometimes
non-existent profit margins.
“We strictly enforce
MAP (minimum advertised pricing), but we can’t
set the MAP too high or
we won’t be competitive,”
he noted. “So we try to
protect the retailers as best
we can but at the same
time nobody is getting
margins like they did in the
pre-Internet days.
Still, the home
side of our business is growing
more than the
coin side.”
On that coinop side, the challenges are different. The market
for new pool
tables has been in
Kevin Malenfant,
decline
for severWeb/I.T. Manager
al years now.
“There are fewer
distributors and fewer operators than there
were 10 years ago. And some operators/
distributors simply default to a brand name
they know without taking a fresh look at
what’s available,” Jacobs advised.
“We have countered these challenges
by trying to open up new markets for our
products, air hockey in particular, and by
pitching our products to operators at various shows and venues,” said Robbins.
“We also support operators, players and
organizers who want to build the player
base through leagues, tournaments and
other promotions. We have extensive
resources online at www.goldstandardair
hockey.com.
“What has surprised me the most is
how the market for coin air hockey has
changed so radically since I was last in the
manufacturing sector 15 or 20 years earlier,” he continued. “In the old days, operators evaluated air hockey tables on a similar basis to any other industry staple. They
looked at earnings, durability and quality
of construction. Today, for a lot of the
industry, this has turned 180 degrees, and
either can’t afford or
don’t have space for
a commercial quality home table,” he
said. “They could be
playing multiple
games at a coin-op
location, just as dart
and pool players do,
but I feel they are
largely being
ignored. I want to
expand that part of
the coin market.
A Gold Flair Elite hockey table in production at the factory. The
We’re ready to help
table features eye-catching graphics, part of the “bling, flash and cosmetics” that Mark Robbins says FEC buyers in particular are looking for.
operators make this
happen.
leagues, clubs, and other competition at
“What I can say with great confidence
the college level,” said Mark. “Tim
is that we have the best-earning, most
Weissman, 10-time world champion, has
durable two-player air hockey table on the
written a Breath of Fresh Air-Hockey
market, with the least service problems of
League Program that we give to colleges,
any other,” Mark stressed. “That’s our
youth groups, etc. Outside of air hockey,
niche in the air hockey market. It may not
pool, darts, and foosball, we are also lookbe for everyone, but we feel that there are
ing at a couple of redemption games we
still a lot of FECs and operators in our
might build in an effort to diversify the
business who value the qualities we offer.”
product line. And on the home side, we
Looking ahead, Gold Standard will
will continue to devote resources to that
continue to focus on quality and pursue
growing part of the business.”
efforts to expand the market for its games,
To learn more about these products and
particularly air hockey.
programs, log on to the factory website at
“We are working right now with the
www.gold-standard-games.com.
colleges on a program to encourage
◆
Quality production is what leads to a quality playing experience.
Gold Standard Games/Shelti employees hard at work at the factory.
August 2015 • RePlay Magazine • Page 69
Cover Story
I’ve heard this from operators, as well as
distributors who sell to FECs. Bling, flash,
and cosmetics has trumped everything ––
even earnings! We want to give customers
what they want, while still building a quality product, so we developed the colorful
Gold Flare series featuring beautiful
graphics and eye-catching LED lighting.
“I’m also surprised at how the coin
and home markets for air hockey have
diverged,” Robbins continued. “While the
FEC market is ‘all about that bling,’ the
home market is quite the opposite. Home
buyers are spending thousands of dollars
on a high-end table like ours and are overwhelmingly concerned with quality of
play above all else. They’ll be playing
many games on that table over the years
so it has to play well and hold up.”
Robbins said he believes that the root
cause of increased home sales is that greatplaying air hockey tables just aren’t as
prevalent in locations across the country as
they should be. He asserted: “The home
buyers often can’t find that play experience at the coin-op locations so it’s almost
as if the coin industry has ceded the
repeat-play air hockey business to the
home side, focusing instead on the ‘one
and done’ novelty air hockey experience.
I think that’s a mistake.
“There are millions of people who
Subject