History Creator / SteveRitchie

Ritchie has also helped in the development of many video games for [[Creator/MidwayGames Bally and Midway]], and provided the voice of Shao Kahn in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatII'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3''. During the TurnOfTheMillennium, he returned to the pinball industry to work for Creator/{{Stern}} Pinball, beginning with 2003's ''Pinball/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines''. He was initially a contractor with his own company ([[https://web.archive.org/web/20170901000000/http://steveritchiepinball.com Steve Ritchie Pinball]], or "SRP") before becoming a full-time employee of Stern. On August 2nd, 2021, Creator/JerseyJackPinball [[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jersey-jack-pinball-announces-iconic-160700739.html announced]] that he had joined the company.

* GutturalGrowler: As noted above in CreatorCameo, Steve often uses his naturally deep voice for callouts in his games.

* CreatorCameo: Ritchie provides his own speech in many of his games, like the Black Knight in ''Pinball/BlackKnight'', ''Black Knight 2000''and ''Black Knight: Sword of Rage'', Car 504 in ''Pinball/HighSpeed'' and ''The Getaway: High Speed II'', General Yagov in ''[[Pinball/F14Tomcat F-14 Tomcat]]'', the male announcer in ''Pinball/{{Rollergames}}'', and Skull the Bone Head in ''Pinball/NoFear''.

* CreatorCameo: Ritchie provides his own speech in many of his games, like the Black Knight in ''Pinball/BlackKnight'' and ''Black Knight 2000'', Car 504 in ''Pinball/HighSpeed'' and ''The Getaway: High Speed II'', General Yagov in ''[[Pinball/F14Tomcat F-14 Tomcat]]'', the male announcer in ''Pinball/{{Rollergames}}'', and Skull the Bone Head in ''Pinball/NoFear''.

->"''My games are never subdued. They're always intense as intense we can make them. I'm not sure why that is, [[RatedMForManly but I don't do cute.]]''"
--> -- '''Steve Ritchie''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIJi0G_2VYA The Getaway: High Speed II promo video]], 1992

* RatedMForManly: As pointed out in the above quote.

Ritchie has also helped in the development of many video games for [[Creator/MidwayGames Bally and Midway]], and provided the voice of Shao Kahn in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatII'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3''. During the TurnOfTheMillennium, he returned to the pinball industry to work for Creator/{{Stern}} Pinball, beginning with 2003's ''Pinball/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines''. He was initially a contractor with his own design team ([[https://web.archive.org/web/20170901000000/http://steveritchiepinball.com Steve Ritchie Pinball]], or "SRP") before being hired full-time (after briefly being laid off in 2011). On August 2nd, 2021, Creator/JerseyJackPinball [[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jersey-jack-pinball-announces-iconic-160700739.html announced]] that he had joined the company.

Ritchie has also helped in the development of many video games for [[Creator/MidwayGames Bally and Midway]], and provided the voice of Shao Kahn in ''VideoGame/MortalKombatII'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3''. Today, Ritchie is the lead of [[http://www.steveritchiepinball.com/ Steve Ritchie Productions (SRP)]], where he develops pinball machines for Creator/SternPinball, such as ''Pinball/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'' and ''[[Pinball/{{ACDC}} AC/DC]]''.

* ''[[Pinball/{{ACDC}} AC/DC]]'' (Stern, 2012)

* ''Led Zeppelin'' (Stern, 2021)

* ''[[Pinball/F14Tomcat F-14 Tomcat]]'' (Williams, 1987)
* ''Pinball/BlackKnight2000'' (Williams, 1989)

* ''[[Pinball/Terminator2JudgmentDay Terminator 2: Judgment Day]]'' (Williams, 1991)
* ''[[Pinball/TheGetawayHighSpeed2 The Getaway: High Speed II]]'' (Williams, 1992)
* ''[[Pinball/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' (Williams, 1993)
* ''[[Pinball/NoFearDangerousSports No Fear: Dangerous Sports]]'' (Williams, 1995)

* ''[[Pinball/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines]]'' (Stern, 2003)
* ''Pinball/{{Elvis}}'' (Stern, 2004)
* ''Pinball/WorldPokerTour'' (Stern, 2006)

* ''[[Pinball/TwentyFour 24]]'' (Stern, 2009)

* ''[[Pinball/StarTrekStern Star Trek]]'' (Stern, 2013)

* ''[[Pinball/StarWarsStern Star Wars]]'' (Stern, 2017)
* ''[[Pinball/BlackKnight Black Knight: Sword of Rage]]'' (Stern, 2019)

* {{Combo}}s

* WhyFandomCantHaveNiceThings: Ritchie used to discuss both current and upcoming projects exclusively on the Pinside Forums, but has now since dropped his presence there completely due to Pinside's notorious vitriol.

''Alternative:'' [[Franchise/MortalKombat "Test your might!"]][[/note]]]]

* ''World Poker Tour'' (Stern, 2006)

* ''24'' (Stern, 2009)

* ''Star Wars'' (Stern, 2017)

* Star Wars (Stern, 2017)

* TropeMaker: First rollover lane change? ''Pinball/{{Firepower}}''. First progressive jackpot? ''Pinball/HighSpeed''. First autosave? ''[[Pinball/F14Tomcat F-14 Tomcat]]''. First WizardMode? ''Pinball/BlackKnight2000''. First VideoMode? ''Pinball/Terminator2JudgmentDay''. And that's just the gameplay tropes.

Steve Ritchie (born February 13, 1950) is an American arcade game designer, an industry veteran who is most reknown for his {{Pinball}} games.

Steve Ritchie is an American arcade game designer, an industry veteran who is most reknown for his {{Pinball}} games.

* CreatorCameo: Ritchie provides his own speech in many of his games, like the Black Knight in ''Pinball/BlackKnight'' and ''Black Knight 2000'', Car 504 in ''Pinball/HighSpeed'' and ''The Getaway: High Speed II'', General Yagov in ''[[Pinball/F14Tomcat F-14 Tomcat]]'', the male announcer in ''Pinball/{{Rollergames}}'',and Skull the Bone Head in ''Pinball/NoFear''.

* BreakthroughHit: ''Pinball/{{Flash}}'' is widely regarded as this for Steve.

* CreatorBacklash
** Ritchie is not pleased with his work on ''Pinball/StellarWars,'' feeling it was rushed to production.
** He also admits in hindsight that spelling A-I-R-B-O-R-N-E-A-V-E-N-G-E-R in ''Pinball/AirborneAvenger'' was not a great idea.

* OneOfUs: Ritchie is a huge ''Star Trek'' and ''Terminator'' fan, and is an avid PC gamer.
* PromotedFanboy: Steve Ritchie became a pinball designer after creating ''Pinball/AirborneAvenger'' in his off-hours for a year, then showing his design to Atari president Nolan Bushnell.

* ''Game of Thrones'' (Stern, 2015)