Jersey Jack’s Wizard of Oz Made Pinball Better—And, Yes, More Expensive

A Very Good Pin #2: Wizard of Oz

By Garrett Martin | August 6, 2025 | 5:12pm

Pinball Features a very good pin

Jersey Jack’s Wizard of Oz Made Pinball Better—And, Yes, More Expensive

When The Wizard of Oz pinball machine arrived in 2013, it was a revelation—a technicolor dream, much like the movie itself. The first American pin made by a company other than Stern in over a decade, Jersey Jack’s first machine was also the first to have an LCD screen on its backbox, and the first modern pin to have a color monitor. It integrated clips from the movie in full color, creating the template for every movie-based pin since, and made brilliant use of color all throughout the playfield. And in an inventive nod to the movie’s Kansas-set sections, in certain situations all that color would bleach out into black and white when your ball drained, giving you a small window of time to hit a shot and revive your ball. Oz is simply one of the most gorgeous pinball machines ever made, with visuals and game design that go hand-in-hand to deepen its theme.

It’s no secret that the first decade-plus of the 21st century was not a great time for pinball. By the end of the ‘90s the major manufacturers had all fallen apart or gotten out of the game, leaving the newly-rechristened Stern (which had stints in the ‘90s as the pinball wing of Japanese video game companies Data East and Sega) as the only player standing. Stern released a number of good games throughout the ‘00s, but their machines felt a little stagnant, with similar shots, layouts, and technology. It was a far cry from the pinball in the 20th century, which up until the late ‘90s saw numerous companies trying to outdo one another. I don’t want to say that Stern had grown complacent, but they didn’t have any competition, and other than a few notable highlights their machines suffered as a result.

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That started to change in 2011, which also happened to be the same year Jack Guarnieri announced a new manufacturer called Jersey Jack. Tron: Legacy, probably the best Stern machine made during the decade’s first 15 or so years, was released a few months after that announcement, probably too soon to be seen as a reaction to the first new pinball company since the last century. 2012’s AC/DC was also a home run for Stern, revolutionizing the music pin. Both of those machines came out before Jersey Jack officially debuted with Wizard of Oz, so it’s possible Stern was on the way up, creatively, even without the competition.

Wizard of Oz pinball

It’s undeniable, though, that what Guarnieri’s team did with Oz directly impacted Stern’s subsequent machines—and thus influenced pinball as a whole in the 12 years since. Wizard of Oz might be an unusually old license for an IP-driven pinball machine—it’s a late ‘30s movie based on a series of books that started in straight-up 1900—but the game itself was on the bleeding edge of pinball design.

Of course you had to pay for that tech. Oz cost $9,000 at launch in April 2013—over $1400 more than the most expensive of three Metallica models Stern also released that month, and almost twice as much as the cheapest of them. (Yes, you could’ve bought a brand new Stern machine for $4800 in 2013; its entry level Pro models launch at $6999 today.) The hobby was still in the doldrums, with pinball arcades rare and prices for older machines significantly lower than they are today, and for the price of one Wizard of Oz machine in 2013 you could’ve easily picked up four System 11 machines in solid shape. The biggest knock against Oz is that it contributed greatly to the heavy price increases that came to pinball over the next decade—both because Stern and newer companies wanted to match (or even one-up) the expensive tech innovations Oz brought to market, but also simply because it proved the market would tolerate spending several thousand dollars more than usual for a top-notch product.

People who like Oz tend to love it; it’s at the top of my wish list for our home collection, and it’s my wife’s favorite pinball machine of all time. It isn’t beloved by everybody, though. Some of its design decisions run counter to pinball trends, which understandably ruffles some feathers. It’s an intentionally low-scoring game, with good scores measured in the hundreds of thousands instead of hundreds of millions. The flippers seem smaller than what’s typically seen in machines made since the ‘70s, which contributes to the game’s relatively high difficulty. And although the movie has been loved by generations for over 80 years, it’s not a property especially popular with middle-aged men—the audience pinball most doggedly pursues. If you prowl pinball forums or subreddits, any positive mention of Wizard of Oz will likely prompt at least one vitriolic response.

That’s also true, to an extent, of Jersey Jack as a company. Since Oz they’ve released a number of increasingly complex machines, often based on all-ages properties—Willy Wonka, Toy Story 4, Harry Potter. The company has some very vocal critics, but also passionate fans who can be just as outspoken online. At its worst it almost feels like a pinball variation on video game console wars, with Stern and Jersey Jack’s hardest partisans refusing to acknowledge anything positive about the other company. As with every fanboy flame war, it’s all incredibly silly and annoying.

Jersey Jack’s machines have come a long way since Wizard of Oz, but they’ve struggled to make one as beautiful and timeless as that game. Their first—and, so far, only—original concept Dialed In was a step in the right direction, and their recent Elton John machine is the closest they’ve come to Oz’s heights. The brand new Potter game has received a ton of very high praise, but it’s also Harry Potter, which means it’s inherently divisive at this point. Stern and newer manufacturers like Spooky Pinball have made machines that are more impressive and more fun to play than many of Jack’s post-Oz releases. Pinball’s seen a fairly level playing field over the last decade or so—a level that was unquestionably raised by the greatness of Oz.

There have been new pinball games that I like more than Oz since 2013, but I don’t think any have been as beautiful as Jersey Jack’s fist machine—or, to pull out a word that I’m a little embarrassed to use, as magical. It recreates the distinctive look and style of one of the greatest movies ever made, one that will never be forgotten and will continue to amaze every new generation (all you have to do is look at that monstrosity debuting at the Vegas Sphere this month to see how powerful MGM’s The Wizard of Oz remains)—and, just as importantly, and perhaps more, it captures how that movie makes you feel, the mix of glee, fear, and childlike wonder that has made it an endless influence on our culture. If I ever win the lottery (or somehow sell a book deal or one of the screenplays I’ll never finish) I know the first thing I’m buying: one of Dutch Pinball’s Big Lebowski machines, which, c’mon, are amazing. Next up would be Jersey Jack’s Wizard of Oz, though—not just a beautiful pinball machine, but maybe the most important one of the 21st century.

Editor-in-chief Garrett Martin writes about videogames, theme parks, pinball, travel, and more. You can also find him on Blue Sky.