Trivia / James Bond 007 (Stern)

• Content Leak:
  • The pinball podcast host Kaneda revealed details about the game prior to its release, including the existence of a fourth version that featured an entirely separate playfield design by Keith Elwin.
  • Before its official reveal on September 22nd, 2022, images of the cornerstone game were prematurely shown off on two separate occasions.
    • On the 12th,^note one day before the game was originally supposed to be revealed; it was subsequently delayed out of respect for Queen Elizabeth II's passing an attendee of the IAAPA Expo Europe took photos of the models on the show floor and posted them online.
    • The official 007 Store posted a listing for the Pro and Premium models on the 16th. While it was taken down within a day, the pictures on the site had already been circulated elsewhere on the Internet by that point.
  • Even after the cornerstone models were fully revealed, images of the 60th Anniversary Limited Edition were not disclosed until January 2023. However, an early mockup of the cabinet was uploaded to the official James Bond site on the day the former game was unveiled, and it was subsequently discovered on Google Images afterward.
• Distanced from Current Events: The game was originally intended to be fully revealed on September 13th, 2022. However, after Queen Elizabeth II passed away a few days prior and the United Kingdom entered a lengthy period of mourning, Stern pushed it to the 20th (and subsequently the 22nd).
• Milestone Celebration: The cornerstone models were released in 2022, 60 years after Dr. No (the first James Bond movie). The 60th Anniversary Limited Edition, released a few months later in early 2023, commemorates the occasion by featuring elements from every film in the series.
• Promoted Fanboy: As highlighted by pre-release promotional material, George Gomez was a longtime fan of the early James Bond films prior to designing the cornerstone models.
  George Gomez: [Sean Connery] is my James Bond. My aunt took me and a buddy to see Goldfinger in 1965 when I was 10: big theatre, marquee lights, red velvet seats. She dropped us off with popcorn and candy money and told us that she had seen it and we would love it. We called her from a pay phone in the lobby after the first showing and told her we’d like to stay to see it again. We did. Cool aunt — I’ve dedicated the game to her in the credit roll.
• What Could Have Been: Steve Ritchie was the game's original designer. After he left Stern for Jersey Jack Pinball, George Gomez binned his work on the game and started anew.

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