Bay Tek Entertainment has passion for games

Rich Palzewic

Staff

October 20, 2023

PULASKI – If you’ve been to a Dave and Buster’s or a Chuck E. Cheese establishment, you’re familiar with the multitude of ticket redemption games on hand.

What you might not know about these arcade-style games is that they were most likely produced right here in Northeast Wisconsin at Bay Tek Entertainment.

Bay Tek, which is located at 1077 E. Glenbrook Drive in Pulaski, was established in 1977.

The manufacturer recently showcased the work it does to members of the community as part of the Greater Green Bay Chamber’s “Celebrating Manufacturing Month” tours.

From conception to reality
From an idea to completed game, Eric Schadrie, concept development manager at Bay Tek, said it could take a year to 18 months for a new game to be developed and launched.

“There’s a lot that goes into it,” he said. “We start with a concept and then move to the business stage. My role is to bring our games from an idea to a prototype, where we then field-test that prototype. If it does well, we move forward to the funding stage and then production.”

Schadrie, who has been with Bay Tek for 13 years, said most of the company’s games are field-tested at Dave and Buster’s in Green Bay and Badger Sports Park in Appleton.

“We’re trying to drastically condense the timeframe it takes for us to get a game from an idea to reality,” he said.

Schadrie said the company’s approximately 130 employees work “extremely hard” to try and accomplish this.

“We’ve gotten better at production over the years and improved our processes,” he said. “Most of our employees work four, 10-hour days. We used to have one assembly line where all the machines went through.”

Bay Tek expanded its facility in 2018 and now has multiple stations for game assembly.

Bay Tek Entertainment, located at 1077 E. Glenbrook Drive in Pulaski, first began operations in 1977. Bay Tek is a manufacturer of ticket redemption games. Rich Palzewic Photo

“Because of the fun culture we have here, we keep a lot of people for a long time,” he said. “You’ll see our employees go up through the ranks.”

Most of the manufacturing of the games, Schadrie said, is done in-house at Bay Tek.

“I’d say it’s about 90% or more (of products are made here),” he said. “Some of the plastics are outsourced, but we take pride in doing as much as we can here. We sell all over the world. I’m not sure how many countries we’re in, but I can tell you about 30% of our sales are international.”

Schadrie said while a game is being tested, it’s “interesting to see how the people playing the games act.”

“When players walk up, are they having fun?” he said. “It’s not a black-or-white answer – it’s something we have to observe. In a lot of our games, you’ll know when people are having fun or not.”

Schadrie said another criterion is monetary input or card swipes into the game.

“From a game room perspective, we want to be in the top one-third of that game to consider moving that product along,” he said. “It’s a tall feat, but that’s how we generally decide whether to move the game along or not. We’ve had some games on the market for 10 years – that’s ideal. Others have only lasted a year, and then we see sales drop off. Skee-Ball and Big Bass Wheel are more than a decade old at this point.”

That’s a lot of games
Schadrie said during peak operations, Bay Tek can put out 25 completed game units per day.

“I don’t quite know the breakdown of each unit, but most of the time it’s about 100 per week,” he said. “That adds up to more than 5,000 per year. Typically, it takes less than two days for us to put a game unit together.”

Schadrie said Bay Tek follows the philosophy of “just in time” when it comes to inventory.

Bay Tek’s games have evolved to include more graphics and features. Shown here are two of the company’s earliest manufactured games. Rich Palzewic Photo

“We don’t like to keep a high inventory of our games,” he said. “We pretty much put the games together when they are ordered.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, places like Dave and Buster’s and other game rooms saw a dramatic decrease in sales and in-person attendance – which Schadrie said, forced Bay Tek to adapt.

“We also launched a home market for people to buy games,” he said. “Skee-Ball and basketball are popular choices. We still target ‘man caves,’ but there are a lot of different avenues we can get in.”

According to the Bay Tek website (baytekent.com), Axe Master, Big Bass Wheel, Big Ticket Drop, Connect 4 Hoops, Piano Keys, Pop the Lock, Skee-Ball, Toilet Bowl Toss and Willy Crash are just some of the games the company manufactures.

“Big Bass Wheel – along with Skee-Ball – have been the company’s driving products, to this day,” Schadrie said. “When things go well, we try to duplicate that success and create different models for it.”