Moving Units: Why JJP Needs Harry Potter to be a Guns n' Roses Level Hit

Something is in the air over at Jersey Jack Pinball, and it may not be floo powder.

The Harry Potter hype cycle has been a long one for the Elk Grove, Illinois-based manufacturer of high-end pinball machines. Speculation that JJP had acquired the license started in earnest in early 2023 when founder Jack Guarnieri posted a photo on Facebook of himself standing outside a wall of Warner Bros IP, including assets from Wizard of Oz, Willy Wonka, and prominently, Harry Potter.

Not long after, Joe Kaminkow would confirm (also on Facebook) that JJP had in fact acquired the rights to the franchise for the production of a new pinball machine.

Since then, it’s been on-again-off-again speculation and rumors about the title, the production team, and when we’d see the game.

The fires of discourse went into overdrive at Texas Pinball Festival this year, when Jack Guarnieri confirmed in a panel discussion that Harry Potter would be their next title, due sometime in the spring of 2025.

As we sit on the eve of the first official reveal of the game, and as I look back at the full release timeline alongside our own compiled numbers of JJP market traction, I have to wonder if some of the oddities of this particular release cycle amount to a subtle tell that the Jersey Jack team needs Harry Potter to be a hit, and are pulling out all the stops to make that happen, including a slow drip of confirmations and reveals serving to keep Harry Potter top of mind in the market and a focus of speculative conversations among fans and media alike.

After the jump, I’ll show you the data we’ve been compiling on all of Jersey Jack’s released games to date and their traction in the market. The trendlines post Guns n’ Roses are revealing and paint a picture of what the team might have riding on this release.

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