Stern Electronics

Stern Electronics at a Glance

Stern Electronics operated as a significant force in the arcade market from 1980 until its closure in 1984. Founded by Sam and Gary Stern in 1977 after they bought assets from Chicago Coin, the company initially focused on pinball tables before entering the video game scene. The pinball division stopped production in 1982 due to a market downturn, leaving the video game output as their primary focus during these final years. Today PlayPile lists twenty titles for Stern, with eighteen released under their name and twelve developed by them directly. All games appeared in the 1980s, reflecting their short but intense period of activity. The catalog shows a heavy reliance on arcade hardware, which accounts for all twenty entries. They also released ports to home systems like the Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Intellivision, and Vectrex. The genre breakdown reveals a clear strategy centered on shooters, with twelve titles in that category, followed by seventeen arcade games overall. Other genres such as racing, platformers, puzzles, sports, simulators, and indie entries appear only once each. Berzerk served as their first internally developed game and remains their highest-rated title at 72.3 out of 100. Scramble and Super Cobra followed in 1981 with ratings of 60.2 and 59.2 respectively. By 1982, Tutankham dropped to 58.5, and later releases like Minefield and Goal to Go from late 1983 and 1984 show no ratings in the current database. The average rating across four rated titles stands at 62.6 out of 100. This score places them in a mixed zone with two good games, two mixed games, and no titles reaching great status or falling into poor territory. The data suggests their quality was inconsistent as the decade progressed. Internal problems and the broader video game market crash led to the company shutting down in 1984. Gary Stern and other employees later formed a pinball division for Data East, which eventually became Stern Pinball under his ownership. Their output remains a snapshot of early arcade history, defined by a narrow genre focus and a brief operational window that ended abruptly.

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