# SDTM & TWIP - Pinball Expo 2018 - Pinball News

**Source:** Pinball News (Pinball Expo 2018)  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2018-10-21  
**Duration:** 48m 28s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A04gFCYMxo4

---

## Analysis

Straight Down the Middle (SDTM) and This Week in Pinball (TWIP) hosts present their YouTube/podcast operations at Pinball Expo 2018, discussing their content formats (reviews, top tens, interviews, face-offs), community engagement strategies, and the inaugural Twippy Awards. The seminar showcases how two independent media outlets grew from grassroots passion into significant industry platforms through audience support and collaborative community building.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Straight Down the Middle spent approximately 2 years developing their YouTube show with initial episodes being technically rough due to equipment and acoustics challenges — _Greg and Zach describing their production timeline and gradual equipment upgrades funded by t-shirt sales and donations_
- [HIGH] This Week in Pinball's Monday/Tuesday posts require 30+ hours of work per week to compile — _Jeff directly states the time investment during the seminar_
- [HIGH] Dialed In won Game of the Year at the inaugural Twippy Awards, narrowly defeating TNA — _Jeff listing 2017 Twippy results; Dialed In won multiple categories including Best Toys/Gimmicks, Best Playfield Layout, Best Display/Animations_
- [HIGH] The Twippy Awards evolved from initial skepticism to becoming a competitive, industry-respected event within a single year — _Zach describing how manufacturers and podcasters began actively campaigning for votes by voting time_
- [HIGH] Star Wars Pinball won Best Theme at the Twippy Awards and was nominated in multiple categories including Dialed In for Game of the Year — _Jeff listing 2017 award winners_

### Notable Quotes

> "He's like, I'm kind of new to pinball. If you ever want to talk about some pins and stuff, give me a call sometime. And so I was just like, well, this guy is kind of weird. I'm not just going to call him and talk about pinball."
> — **Greg**, early in seminar
> _Origin story of how SDTM co-hosts met and began collaborating_

> "The stuff that we're talking about, it's kind of funny and it's kind of good. There's no reason that we shouldn't be getting this content together and putting it out there, exposing the world to our opinions for better or worse."
> — **Zach**, early in seminar
> _Zach pitching the original concept for SDTM show to Greg_

> "I work on it every day, and then one day basically on the weekends usually is just cut out for getting everything ready for Monday. It's probably 30-plus hours in a week."
> — **Jeff**, mid-seminar
> _Jeff revealing the massive time commitment required for TWIP's weekly compilation_

> "We didn't really know Jeff, but Jeff probably lived about an hour and a half apart, and Jeff lives about an hour and a half in the other direction from each of us...and he was one of the first people to write us about our show when it started."
> — **Zach**, mid-seminar
> _How TWIP creator Jeff initially connected with SDTM hosts despite geographic distance_

> "You could have skewed the votes. Oh, you could have skewed the votes. There's pinsiders in here. You guys are lying."
> — **Jeff**, discussing Twippy Awards
> _Jeff humorously addressing skepticism about award integrity from Pinside community members_

> "It started off as a joke to a lot of people and a lot of manufacturers. Like nobody really wanted to take it serious...Then as time went on, it seemed like people started kind of pushing themselves and their games on people."
> — **Zach**, discussing Twippy Awards evolution
> _Tracking how the Twippies transformed from perceived novelty to competitive industry event_

> "Jack Danger of Deadflip messaged me and said that he was going over to Scott Denise's house, and they were going to have a Twippy party...like an Oscar party."
> — **Zach**, discussing Twippy Awards reception
> _Evidence of Twippy Awards gaining cultural significance within pinball community_

> "We've got to pick. We've got to pick. Actually, you know what? Hold up."
> — **Greg**, This or That segment
> _Referencing audience backlash from previous 'both' answer on Hobbit vs. Houdini, showing community engagement and feedback_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Zach Sharpe | person | Co-host of Straight Down the Middle; handles video editing and production; passionate about pinball games and community engagement |
| Greg | person | Co-host of Straight Down the Middle; described as thrifty/budget-conscious; discusses machine reviews and gameplay; provides skeptical perspective on purchases |
| Jeff | person | Creator and host of This Week in Pinball (TWIP); compiles 30+ hours weekly of pinball news; launched TWIP podcast and the Twippy Awards; passionate about growing the hobby |
| Steve Bowden | person | Twippy Awards committee member; well-respected industry figure |
| Lloyd Olson | person | Twippy Awards committee member; known as LTG on Pinside; well-respected in community |
| Colin McAlpine | person | Twippy Awards committee member; industry figure |
| Will Oetting | person | Assists with TWIP website development; helping oversee Twippy Awards voting infrastructure |
| Jack Danger | person | Deadflip representative; won Twippy Award last year; hosted Twippy Awards viewing party with Scott Denise |
| Scott Denise | person | Industry figure who hosted Twippy Awards viewing party with Jack Danger |
| Josh Kugler | person | Met with SDTM before Oktoberfest reveal to participate in exclusive deep-dive video content |
| Straight Down the Middle | organization | YouTube show and podcast covering pinball reviews, top-tens, interviews, face-offs, and 'This or That' segments; hosts Zach and Greg; grown through community support and merchandise sales |
| This Week in Pinball | organization | Pinball news compilation website (thisweekinpinball.com) and podcast; founded by Jeff; curates highlights from multiple pinball media sources; hosts Twippy Awards |
| Twippy Awards | event | End-of-year pinball awards show initiated by TWIP in 2017; categories include Best Theme, Best Sound & Call-outs, Best Artwork, Best Code & Rules, Best Light Show, Best Toys & Gimmicks, Best Playfield Layout, Best Display/Animations, Game of the Year; voting December, live awards show January; committee includes Bowden, Olson, McAlpine, and Oetting |
| Pinball Expo 2018 | event | Industry trade show where this seminar took place; features game reveals and community gathering |
| Dialed In | game | Won 2017 Twippy Game of the Year; won Best Toys & Gimmicks, Best Playfield Layout, Best Display/Animations; narrowly defeated TNA for GOTY; highly acclaimed in awards |
| Star Wars Pinball | game | Won Best Theme at 2017 Twippy Awards; nominated in multiple categories; game discussed positively throughout community |
| Total Nuclear Annihilation (TNA) | game | Won Best Sound & Call-outs at 2017 Twippy Awards; narrowly lost Game of the Year to Dialed In; highly regarded |
| Aerosmith Pinball | game | Won Best Artwork at 2017 Twippy Awards |
| Monster Bash Remake | game | Classic remake discussed in 'This or That' segment; features expanded display and new lighting; priced similarly to LE tier games (~$7,000) |
| Oktoberfest | game | American Pinball title; features corkscrew ramp and other innovative mechanics; just being revealed at Expo; featured in 'This or That' segment as new vs. classic choice |
| Houdini | game | Praised for speed, tight mechanics, stadium lights; featured in 'This or That' segment; has passionate fan base despite mixed reputation in community |
| Hobbit Pinball | game | Jersey Jack Pinball machine; praised for theme integration and visual beauty; features new code; jam-packed with content; featured in 'This or That' segment |
| Deadpool Pinball | game | Recently announced game used as example for 'First Impressions' segment approach by SDTM |
| American Pinball | company | Manufacturer producing Oktoberfest; one of several modern manufacturers alongside Stern and Jersey Jack |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer; produces Hobbit and Pirates of the Caribbean; discussed as making high-quality theme-integrated games |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Content creation and media production in pinball community, Community engagement and audience growth strategies, Twippy Awards establishment and evolution, Pinball machine reviews and evaluation criteria
- **Secondary:** Grassroots vs. institutional media in niche hobby, Game design preferences and 'this or that' comparison format, Pinball industry news aggregation and curation
- **Mentioned:** Show/podcast production challenges and evolution

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.85) — Hosts express genuine enthusiasm for pinball community, appreciation for audience support, and pride in award initiative. Lighthearted tone with self-deprecating humor about production challenges. Some mild criticism of community skepticism about awards integrity, but framed humorously. No negative sentiment toward manufacturers or games themselves.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** SDTM's 'This or That' segment generating high audience participation and establishing community discussion about game preferences across multiple platforms (Facebook, Pinside, YouTube) (confidence: high) — Greg describing segment as generating 'nice little subforum' discussions; audience members volunteering to explain reasoning in exchange for t-shirts; previous segments spawning heated debates
- **[event_signal]** Twippy Awards established as annual end-of-year pinball awards show with live streaming, committee oversight, and competitive voting; grown from perceived joke to industry-respected event within one year (confidence: high) — Jeff describing Twippy Awards creation, evolution of manufacturer participation, live Twitch streaming, and plans for 2018 expansion with committee oversight
- **[community_signal]** Significant backlash from Pinside community when SDTM selected 'both' as answer in Houdini vs. Hobbit 'This or That' segment, received private emails criticizing decision as compromising segment integrity (confidence: high) — Greg describing heated response: 'Boy, oh, boy, did we get some kickback for that. That was a little rough. We got some heat for it. People said, all right, bullshit, guys, come on. Stop this nonsense.'
- **[market_signal]** Independent, community-funded media (SDTM, TWIP) becoming major pinball industry players alongside established manufacturers, earning respect and influencing opinion through grassroots growth (confidence: high) — Jeff and Zach describing how SDTM/TWIP emerged from personal passion without institutional backing; audience donations funding equipment upgrades; Twippy Awards now industry-recognized
- **[market_signal]** Monster Bash LE pricing approaching $7,000; new games like Oktoberfest pricing in similar range, indicating price tier stabilization for premium/LE tier machines (confidence: medium) — Greg discussing Oktoberfest comparison: 'We don't know what the pricing is on that, but we'll say it's around $7,000...you're close to a Monster Bash LE, likely'
- **[community_signal]** SDTM hosts emphasize genuine personalities and informal discussion style as differentiator from more serious pinball media; deliberately chose not to compete with established formal analysis outlets (confidence: high) — Greg: 'we knew we wouldn't be able to be as serious as the good guys like Papa or Buffalo Pinball...So we gave up quickly...we literally had evolved into how we were on the phone, and our true personalities took over'
- **[announcement]** Oktoberfest by American Pinball being premiered/demoed at Pinball Expo 2018; features corkscrew ramp and positioned as innovative new title vs. classic remakes (confidence: high) — Josh Kugler met with SDTM before Oktoberfest reveal; Oktoberfest playable at Expo all weekend; featured in 'This or That' segment as new game option
- **[sentiment_shift]** Twippy Awards transformed from initial skepticism/joke status to competitive, prestigious event where manufacturers and podcasters actively campaign for votes and community members host viewing parties (confidence: high) — Zach: 'It started off as a joke to a lot of people and a lot of manufacturers...Then as time went on, it seemed like people started kind of pushing themselves and their games on people...it slowly grew and it kind of became competitive by the time voting took place'

---

## Transcript

 Okay, ready? All right, so it's Jeff, Zach, Greg, and the This Week in Straight Down the Middle Pinball podcast and online news site. What? No. The order's pulled. Hello, everybody, and welcome. Hey. How's everybody doing? Why do I get the weird mic? Because you're weird. Well, it's supposed to say, this week in pinball, straight down the middle, the seminar, but I don't know the formatting issues, I suppose, on this computer. Now we're at the seminar. Welcome. How's everybody doing? Some of my favorite people. I see Ryan. Hey, Ryan. Cliff. All right, let's do this. Give them the introductory to our... How do we start every video? Give them one of those. Let's kick this shit. That's right. Okay, so we'll talk a little bit about what straight down the middle is without boring you to death. All right, Greg, when did we start this thing off? This is a YouTube video show for pinball. We do a lot of different things. We'll get to that in a minute. But tell the people how we met. Do you remember? My wife makes fun of me a little bit and says that Zach is my Internet boyfriend because I met him on Craigslist. I was going to say, where's that going? That's not how we met. Because I was kicking the tires on a Dracula that I found on there. And I'd just gotten into pinball, so I was still really, I'm still leery. I can't say that I was leery then because I'm still leery of anything I buy. So I was kicking the tires on the game, called him probably two or three times, and he knew I wasn't going to buy the game. And he ended up coming out and he said, hey, man, you know what? He's like, I'm kind of new to pinball. If you ever want to talk about some pins and stuff, give me a call sometime. And so I was just like, well, this guy is kind of weird. I'm not just going to call him and talk about pinball. So a month or so later, he had a demo man, and I saw that on Craigslist, and I was like, that's the same guy. And so we ended up talking, and we started talking about a couple other games, and then one of us would go on a pin run, and we'd talk about how shitty a pin was that we went to see or how great it was. Do we have any kids in the audience here? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, a cursor. And see if we have anything. You know, anything, and we slowly evolved and started talking about pinball on a weekly basis. Then it sort of turned into like a daily basis. And Zach was like, hey, man, you know what? He's like, the stuff that we're talking about, it's kind of funny and it's kind of good. He's like, there's no reason that we shouldn't be getting this content together and putting it out there, kind of exposing the world to our opinions for better or worse. At the time, everything was kind of serious. It was. We started the show with more of a serious note. And then our personalities kind of took over. Well, we knew we wouldn't be able to be as serious as the good guys like Papa or Buffalo Pinball, right? Yeah, no, no, yeah. So we gave up quickly. Yeah, we weren't those kind of players. So we literally had evolved into how we were on the phone, and our true personalities took over, and it was kind of the birth of straight down the middle, and we'd gotten together. Yes, sir. Oh, can we steal that? I like that. Thank you. This is another T-shirt. Yeah. So that's basically the birth of Straight Down the Middle. I mean, that's how we got started. And then we've become really good friends. We got started based on our true personalities. You kicking the tires on every damn pinball machine on Craigslist. And then me loving to talk to any and everybody that loves pinball. And giving my opinion on everything pinball. Sometimes when it wasn't wanted. That's how we started. So then we started the show. The first one, if you guys aren't familiar, it's a YouTube show. You can type in SDT and pinball. You'll find all of our videos. The first ones were a little rough. So excuse us on what, one through 20, 30? Yeah. It took us a while. A little rough. Our age really showed, which we're still young guys, but we felt finally out of the loop because most of our difficulties were technology, getting the sound right, lighting and everything else. Acoustics. We're in the garage. Yeah, it echoed. So here, literally in the last month out of two years, we've probably started to solidify the sound and lighting and camera work and stuff a little better. But most of that's thanks to, you know, all of our fans that have bought shirts and have supported us with donations and stuff. That's given us the ability to do things like come here and to finally buy better equipment to bring a lot better show. Well, because one of the things about Greg that many of you know, some of you might not, is that he is a thrifty little guy, and he does not like spending money if he doesn't have to. So when we started this, he said, because I was like, okay, I'm going to buy this. I'm going to buy this studio thing. I'm going to buy this. And he was like, no, absolutely not. If we're going to do this, we're doing it on a low budget because you're going to spend too much money. I'm going to feel bad for not spending any money because I won't. So we had to do it on a shoestring budget, and then we started getting T-shirts. You guys have been wonderful. I see a beautiful STTM T-shirt right there. Thank you, Cliff. Thank you, Cliff. So that kind of stuff helped us upgrade equipment, and we continue to try to grow and improve that, don't we? Yeah, and even with editing everything. I mean, we've grown a lot as a show just with Zach's editing and everything else, just, again, to try to bring the best pinball content that we can within reviews, top tens, interviews. You know, we try to bring a plethora of stuff to the pinball world. You guys, my formatting was so good on this PowerPoint, I promise you. It didn't look like this. I saw it beforehand. I can vouch for that. That's okay. All right, so what does Straight Down the Middle do? The videos themselves are composed of different types of discussion points. So some of our videos will be machine reviews, where we try to review the newest machines that come out from Stern, Jersey Jack, Spooky, et cetera. So we'll do those. We even dive down into the 90s, right, that I pick up. It's usually whatever I pick up. We'll review those. We review them based on a number of different categories, you know, art, toys and mechs, animation, sound, all different types of things. We give them a letter grade. So a rubric, if you will, from A plus all the way down to an F. We haven't given an F for anything, right? No, I don't think so. So we'll do that and then we compose a cumulative score at the very end and then that score is taken and it's compared with all the other pinball machines for reference point. So that's our machine reviews. What is your top machine to date? Mine is Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure. That was a 4.0 for me. I think Indy's mine too. I don't know if it's a 4.0, but yeah, it's close. I don't think it's 4.0, but I think it's my top. So that was... There we go. Hope you guys agree with us. So it's not a perfect system, but it's fun. Top 10 list, we do those as well, where we come up with maybe something like top 10 ramps, and then we list out what our favorite top 10 ramps are. We'll do things like top 10 code, top 10 back glass. You guys can think of the number of things that you can rank top tens for in pinball. The good thing about that is nothing is objective. It's just our subjective response and ideas about what makes pinball what it is and put it in the top ten list. But the nice thing is that everybody collaborates. All of you viewers, we talk on Facebook, we talk on Pinside, we talk on YouTube, so it starts a nice discussion as to what other people's favorite top tens are. And it's a nice little subform that we have in YouTube and on Pinside, so that's fun. Exclusives, we try to do as much exclusive stuff as we can and as much as manufacturers will allow us to do. We just did the Oktoberfest, a nice deep dive into the mechanics. And Josh Kugler was nice enough to meet with us before that reveal so we could edit a video for you guys. So if you haven't checked that out, check out Oktoberfest, pinball on tap, the inside and out of that. We also do first impressions. These are, you know, Deadpool comes out. out. And then Greg and I hop in front of the camera and we give you our first impressions on what we think about things like the art. Everything that we can't play yet because whenever they announce things we can't play it. We do interviews. Interviews with local coin-op people, collectors. A lot of you guys, or if you're like me, I like to hear what other collectors like and what their machines are and what their collections look like and why they like Lethal Weapon 3 better than Medieval Madness. Different things like that. So when's the last one you've done? You went to Rec Bar, didn't you? Yeah, a local bar. In Louisville, yeah. They've got 60, 63, more than that now, maybe 67, 68 machines on route there. Pretty nice place. So we like interviewing people like you. That's our favorite. We do a face-off. That's our newest segment where everybody kept saying, we want to see you guys actually play pinball. You talk about it way too much. So are these guys any good at playing pinball? So our first segment of Face Off was on Houdini a couple weeks ago, wasn't it? Yeah. So the premise of it, best of three series. We play, and then the loser gets a nasty little consequence. Greg, tell them what that consequence was. It was a nice smack to the face. Oh, it was. And who received that one, Greg? It was me. It was. I thought I had it in the bag. I pulled out a six million point score on Houdini. That was good. And out of nowhere, Zach comes in with ten million. That's ten million, ladies and gentlemen, on Houdini. I don't think there's anybody in this room that wouldn't think that it's $6 million or 6 million points that you're set, that you don't have anything to worry about. You're the one doing the smack and not receiving the smack. But I was wrong. How did the smack feel? Pretty good. You would think a friend would take it easy on you. Pretty hardy, huh? He didn't. I like that you guys put it in super, super slow motion. No, Zach put that in super slow motion. People had to feel the slap, right? You can't just slap your friend. Does anybody else slap their friend? A hand of applause around. Who has slapped a friend before? See? There we go. Honesty in the room. There we go. Right? So you don't get to do that too often. We don't. Straight down the middle does not condone in domestic violence. But smacking a friend was really, really, we do condone in that. So that was a lot of fun. You guys can see that in slow motion as well as repetitive replay where we do it over and over again. Is the penalty always going to be a smack to the face? It's called face off. Come on, Jeff. the face gets, but we might get a little creative, I don't know. And then we do a segment that fan favorites called this or that, where we throw up two pins, usually submitted from you guys, the audience on, would you, I'm thinking about getting rid of my medieval madness and I'm thinking about getting a monster bash. This or that, what would you guys take? Medieval madness or monster bash? So we'll decide that. They've become really unique and clever the way that people present some of those. So they'll say, well, I've got four data East, would you do that? Or would you take the brand new Jersey Jack pirates of the Caribbean? Because they're, you know, similar money wise. So we'll pick things like that. Then it's got even more creative where people ask us boxers or briefs, you guys, what would you do there? We started getting really weird questions And we were like it kind of odd But then we were like well let go with it We might roll with this Ketchup or mustard That right And we going to see that segment later on and you guys will be able to win some prizes if you participate in that one So that is basically what Straight Down the Middle is. And now this wonderful man gets to talk about his pinball media. Hi, I'm Jeff from This Week in Pinball. Hi, Jeff. Likely be something about Harry Potter. Yes. Yeah. So this week in pinball started, I was getting on an airplane to go down to Orlando, actually, for my real job for a work trip. And while I was there, I did go to Harry Potter World by myself. As I was in the airport, I started catching up on pinball stuff and had 15, you know, podcasts, a bunch of posts on Pinside, YouTube videos, Twitch streams, Facebook, Twitter. Yeah, I was watching your stuff there. And I thought it'd be really nice if somebody compiled all the highlights into just something easy to read. There we go. Something easy read, and that is kind of how This Week in Pinball was born. Show of hands, does anybody read This Week in Pinball? Look at Jeff. That's got to make you feel great. If your hand's not up, it's thisweekinpinball.com. There you go. And it was always great when Jeff got started because we didn't really know Jeff, but Jeff probably lived about an hour and a half apart, and Jeff lives about an hour and a half in the other direction from each of us. and I think Zach and Jeff had traded some machines at one point once or twice so we knew of him but we didn't know him and he was one of the first people to write us about our show when it started and then out of nowhere Jeff comes up with This Week in Pinball which became another major player in pinball news and content. I mean you guys know it's one of those you get into it and it just gets addictive and it's really fun to do the news stuff and Yeah. What is a TWIP? It's This Week in Pinball. I actually, when I first launched it, I got some private messages, people saying, you know, you ripped this off from This Week in Baseball. Oh, I didn't know that. I was like, yeah, that's exactly what I did. This Week in Baseball. Well, TWIP is on, if you Google TWIP, just T-W-I-P, it's like This Week in Photography, This Week in. I'm assuming there's a This Week in everything hobby that you can think of. Goals of This Week in Pinball, for me, like I said, to have fun. I want to help grow the hobby. A lot of people have helped me out in this hobby, and it's my way to kind of small way to give back in that way. I've made some mistakes with the site that's going to happen, but hopefully it's having an overall positive impact on the hobby. Absolutely. All right, let's see what else we've got for you. Did you say I look like a dentist? No, don't worry about that. It's just for the people. Oh, this is what I'm excited about. Yeah, This Week in Pinball podcast. So when I started This Week in Pinball, I always wanted to do a podcast. But at that point, I thought I'd be spending about two or three hours on This Week in Pinball a week. And it spiraled from there. Can you give the people just an estimation? You guys are familiar with his Monday posts, right? They're so big that now he splits them Monday and Tuesday. About how long does it take you to compile all the news, write it up, and put it in a website for Monday and Tuesday TWIP? Just so that they can understand a little bit. It's kind of embarrassing. It is embarrassing. That's why I want to tell them. No, it's probably 30-plus hours in a week. So I work on it every day, and then one day basically on the weekends usually is just cut out for getting everything ready for Monday. Sorry, now tell them about the beautiful podcast. Yeah, this is the part Zach's excited about. That's right. So we started a podcast. I'd been talking to Zach about it for quite a while, that I wanted to start a podcast. and we started it. We did, I think, two episodes and I said I don't have enough time to do this. What's that? It's his podcast. So then I finally, because I wanted it to be a weekly podcast. It's literally called This Week in Pinball, so I wanted it to be weekly. This bi-weekly in pinball. Would it work? Anyway. So he told me to find some hosts. talked Zach into taking over and being the main host. Reluctantly. That's right. Very reluctantly. But he's done an awesome job with it. We got some of our different segments here. Pinball Market Trends. Fan favorite, right? You should probably announce that the way that you. Okay. Everybody, Pinball Market Trends. The seminar. The seminar. Is anybody listening to this week in Pinball Podcast? Yeah, okay, yeah. Very nice. Does anybody like Pinball Market Trends? That's about how it goes, yeah. That's a running joke, yeah. I actually had a guy try to sell a game, and a guy actually threw that up in my face last week. What's that? Well, Star Wars, according to Pinball Market Trends, is down. Trending up this week. It's trending down, so I really can't give you that asking. Trending down this week. Thank you, Zach. We also do confessions right at the end of the episode where the guest host and myself tell everybody about a confession that they have. It could be a dirty, dark little secret personally or about pinball, pinball-related kind of stuff. Do you have any good confessions right now for the people? I'm running out of confessions, man. I have nothing. I have nothing. That's a lie. Oh, well. What else do we do? I have a pinball dance that I do at weddings. Well, we're not going to do that. Okay. Tapping into the pinball subconscious. That's another one of yours. That's another one, yeah, as well as show me yours, and I'll show you mine, Jeffrey. That's a very new segment, and obviously one that Zach named. That one is, so basically we hear a lot of things, right? And on that segment, I give like a little tidbit of upcoming pinball stuff that I know that the public does not know. And the co-host tries to come up with the same, but a bigger boom, if you will, or a bigger reveal. I talked about something on Monster Bash LE that was coming out. We saw that. So we just kind of did that. I like that one because it gives content for Twit, too. Oh, I love this. The Twippy Awards. How many of you have heard of the Twippy Awards? Oh, that makes me feel good there. Yeah, so these started last year, and they're end-of-the-year pinball awards, and we'll start them up while we've been working on them already. But the voting will start in December, and then what we'll do is we'll do a live Twippy Awards show in January. and that was one of my, it might have been my favorite part of doing the website last year was the Twippy Awards show because it was a blast. And let me, I'll just, some of the results from last year, best theme went to Star Wars. Yeah. Theme integration dialed in. Sound and call outs, total nuclear annihilation. Absolutely. What is it, nuclear? No. nuclear and we're next year we're going to separate out the best sound and call outs best artwork went to Aerosmith I voted for Guardians of the Galaxy I think I did too best code and rules went to Dial In Light Show went to TNA Star Wars was so good Star Wars is great yeah that was up there Mm-hmm. Dialed in, too. Toys and Gimmicks, dialed in. Yeah. Playfield Layout and Gameplay, also dialed in. Display and Animations, dialed in. Dialed in took it home last year. Game of the Year. Game of the Year. Dialed in, and it was close with TNA. Mm-hmm. And have you settled through the time window, like, testing and shipping? Kind of down the line? So let me go back to this here. That's a great question. So this year we've got a Twippy committee. Exclusive. It's got a nice ring to it. I don't think I've said that out loud. It's a Twippy committee, yeah. And we've got some of the well-respected people in the industry, and we're going to talk to them about that, about which games should be included and shouldn't be included, and just get their advice on a lot of things they're going to go through and verify the votes at the end. Yeah, because people are saying, oh, you could have skewed the votes. That was a pinsider, by the way. Does that sound like the pinsider? Oh, you could have skewed the votes. There's pinsiders in here. You guys are lying. But you know what was great about the Twippies? When Jeff had first announced it, Zach had called me, and he was like, you know what, we should stream these live. We should make this an event. It was going to be a website thing. Yeah. Yeah, and Zach pitched it hard and continued to pitch it to Jeff, and again, Jeff was very reluctant to work with us. He's very reluctant with me in general. Mainly Zach, not me, yeah. And it was kind of funny because, you know, I think it started off as a joke to a lot of people and a lot of manufacturers. Like nobody really wanted to take it serious, and I don't know how serious that me and Zach took it. I don't know about Jeff. It was his baby, so I'm sure he was taking it very serious. Yeah, he took it serious. Then as time went on, it seemed like that people started kind of pushing themselves and their games on people. You know, people started taking it serious. You started seeing other podcasters and everybody kind of, hey, vote for me. And it slowly grew, and it kind of became competitive by the time voting took place. And we had a great turnout on Twitch. A lot of votes. Yeah, lots of votes. and I think that it snowballed very quickly into something that people actually became proud of to get an award last year, and I think this year is going to be ten times that. I think it was also cool. Jack Danger of Deadflip messaged me and said that he was going over to Scott Danesi's house, and they were going to have a Twippy party. Yeah, like an Oscar party. And then he was going to stream after that. Uh-huh. That was, yeah. Mr. Danger took home an award. He did? Yes, he did. As Mr. Denise, he did. We're going to have some more categories next year. Like I said, we're going to separate out the sound and call-outs. Best Pinball Show is going to be one that's up for discussion. Oh, whoa. It's already started. Make sure you guys vote. What else? Best Homebrew Pinball Machine. I like that. I didn't know about that one. I think we're going to try to put that in there. And then, like I said, we'll talk to the committee. I'm sure they have some better ideas. Well, we've solidified the committee, but I'll wait to announce that until. What? Should I announce it now? Yeah. Are these people willing to sit here and listen to this? Yeah. Okay, we're going to have Steven Bowden on. Woo-hoo, Stevie B. And then Lloyd Olson. Everybody loves Lloyd. LTG on Pinside. and Colin MacAlpine is the other one. Right. And then we got a guy that his name is Will Oetting and he helps me with some website stuff and he going to help us with kind of getting the votes set up on the website in the best way That way there's other people that are overseeing. We want to make this as objective as possible. We want to be able to give you the pinball awards show each and every year. So to do that, we needed a little bit more help, objectivity there. Yeah. And sponsors, right? Hopefully we can get some sponsors this year. Had to add the hopefully there. So if anybody's interested, talk to us after the show. So I think at this point, does anybody have any suggestions or what they would like to see on the Twippies, whether it's this year or subsequent years? Anything that, as you guys watched the Twippies last year, or think about pinball awards in general, anything you'd like to see? Go ahead. So best on location pinball? So best on location pinball? That's interesting. That's a good idea. That is interesting. Anything else? We did that damn good? Really? If you guys have any suggestions, you can always e-mail Jeff here at thisweekinpinball at gmail.com. Is that it? Yes. Yeah. Terrific. Thank you. Thank you for that suggestion. All right. Let's get through these. Anything else you wanted to add to that? No. Are we ready to do this or that? This or that? Come on. That's all you. There's that. No, it's not. It's a computer. I promise. No, it's not. It was an old PowerPoint or something. I got here and these guys had all this equipment and a banner. I brought a water bottle. And in great SDTM fashion, Zach forgot our memory card so we couldn't record it for YouTube. This happens every time we record. We forget something. Something messes up. So let's play some this or that. Is anybody up for some this or that? Okay. That's a good one. Fair return there. All right. So. Oh, man. Oh. okay so here's here's how it goes greg this or that you're gonna go for the new monster bash remake or american pinball's october fest oh tricky one there so we've got the tried and true the classic and monster bash remake we'll call it let's see what's we don't know what october is going to run money-wise, do we? Let's say it's similar to... Is that right? Thank you. Okay. So if it's around $7,000, you're close to a Monster Bash LE, likely. I don't know what the pricing is on that, but we'll say it's an LE. I like the topper on Monster Bash. I love the expanded display. I love what they did with the lighting, but I think that I would have... Are you about to go Oktoberfest? I think I'd have to go Oktoberfest just because I've played a lot of Monster Bash. I think I'd try something new, and I'm super intrigued by the corkscrew ramp and everything on Oktoberfest. Show of hands, has anybody played Oktoberfest yet? Okay. I think it's going to be out there all weekend, right? I think so. I'm going to go, oh, man. Now, we're live. This is not like where you can just sit there and stall. I'm going to go Oktoberfest because, and here's why. It may not be the better game here, guys. Monster Bash is a classic for a reason. Maybe even, I think it's hard to say that Oktoberfest is going to be a better objective game. It's the new hotness. Right? But I want to play something new. Yeah. And right now new is Oktoberfest. So as a show of hands, this or that, everybody, who's going to pick Monster Bash Remake Ellie? Okay. Okay. Okay. And who's going with Oktoberfest by American Pinball? I think Monster Bash wins What's that? You can get both We can't go both We tried to go both one time and we got in trouble We're about to fix it We got too much backlash Day Fix says go both everybody It looks like I'm thinking visually Monster Bash won that one I think so too Where's our t-shirt For a t-shirt would anybody be willing to stand up and explain their reasoning of why they would go one or the other Free t-shirt. Go ahead. What's your name? Hey, nice to meet you. So which one? Which one are you going? You said Monster Bash. It's supposed to work. It's supposed to work on this one. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. What size shirt are you, buddy? Okay. Any arguments there? What size shirt are you? Okay. And if you guys, you can come afterwards if you want to. If you don't want to say your size. Try to be fair here. This or that, everybody. So here's the deal on this one. Last this or that that we had, we had Houdini or Hobbit. Greg and I are fans of both. Pretty big fans of both. And we couldn't pick. We said, we did the day fixing. We said both. First time we'd ever done that. Boy, oh, boy, did we get some kickback for that. That was a little rough. We got some heat for it. People said, all right, bullshit, guys, come on. Stop this nonsense. Very true. You were the one who said that in our comments. I bet you were one of those e-mails. That's right. We even got private e-mails on that one. You're compromising the segment by picking both. Okay. There's another pen cider, too. So we've got to pick. We've got to pick. Actually, you know what? Hold up. This or that? Or Jeff. Where are you going here, Jeff? I'm also, okay, the Monster Bash, all the remakes, the displays are my favorite part. But I'm also going to Oktoberfest because it's new, it's fresh, and I like exploring a new game. How about it? Okay. Nice. So, Greg, let's figure this out, bud. Which one are you going? I've recently got a Houdini in-house. You do. And after Zach had always told me, we always loved the game from the start. And Zach, you know, just, but Zach was head over heels about it like he is anything. Got it on it. PinStadium Lights, you know, he goes all in. So I'm pretty solid on Houdini at this point. It's got some speed. Everything is tight. I know this is going to get hatred. But it's all Houdini. There are two machines that kind of get a bad rap, too. Would everybody agree on that? Yeah, both of them do. They kind of get a bad rap. A lot of people hate both these machines. A lot of people love both of these machines. So you're going Houdini? Definitely Houdini. I think I'm going to go Hobbit here. Hobbit because it's jam-packed. I can't say it's jam-packed. Houdini's jam-packed. It's beautiful. I can't say that. Houdini's beautiful. This is what we did last time. I'm going to go Hobbit because it's just a beast, and it's a monster, and it's the prettiest thing in the room whenever everything's lit. It's probably one of the prettiest machines ever. But like you said, they're both probably. And there's 31 Mo's. How about that? Two of the most beautiful pens you can have in your home, honestly. Okay, let's go with you first before show of hands here. Hobbit or Houdini? I'll do both. Oh, come on, Jeffrey. I'm kidding. See? I'm telling you. Imagine the messages we get. These are nice people in front of you. I would go with the Hobbit. You're going with the Hobbit. Any reason why? I think the, I love JJP machines. the theme integration with the Hobbit is nice. It's, I mean, there's no perfect pinball machine, but there's just so much to do in the Hobbit. And I love the journey of it. New code. New code. They're back again, right? So I love Houdini too, but I would go with the Hobbit. So by a show of hands, who would go with Houdini? Oh, it's going to be mixed again here. And those who are going Hobbit. Oh, some Zach fans out there. I saw some two handers out there Oh did you? The J-Darcy Oh nice The independent vote Okay so with a hand Who would like to tell us Oh yeah Let's go Your call We'll do both of them How about that? Yeah, I love it. Both of you guys. I love the theme. I love the album. Okay. I love the long shot. The big shot. How great is that? Yeah. Let's go. We'll go with you. Yeah. That's a good point. Very good point. But you can make them. Tied by Findable, right? Okay. We'll add one here. Okay. Oh, how dare you, sir. Sit down. Ridiculous. Okay. That's a really good point. JP for DeWin, right? Okay. I can agree with all those. Very nice. Very nice. All right. Moving on. Okay. Let's make this a quick one because I got a new little this or that segment I'm going to throw on you. You do get the money. So this one is Deadpool Pro. And because it is cheaper substantially than Houdini, you're going to get Deadpool Pro plus some cash. Let's see. What's Deadpool Pro? So you get about $1,000, $1,500 in cash plus Deadpool Pro or Houdini. Gregory? From the start, I was never a big fan of Deadpool. Even though I did play one that was set up a little better, I finally got to play a premium here. I guess it was the premium. Yeah, it was the premium, not the LE. And it actually did. It played and flowed a lot better than both the pros that I'd played. but I'm still just not a big fan of it. I know it's still some of the early code. I know that they are expanding that code and expanding some modes and stuff on it. But normally I am that tight one, and I'm normally the one that if I get a little cache on top or I can get two machines for one, I go that route. But I'm still going to have to go Houdini. Wow. Wowee. Okay. I'll make it short and sweet. I'm going to go Houdini. Dare I say that Houdini actually shoots better than Deadpool? Tomatoes. Yeah, right? Does anybody agree that Houdini shoots better than Deadpool? I'm going to get a couple. I've got one, but he didn't want to be seen. They're scared. They're going to have to be escorted out. Look at Mr. Fix, right? What's that? No. That's right. Now, I can hit the inside orbit of Houdini a heck of a lot easier than that katana ramp shot. I just can. I just can. I agree. All right. Go ahead. I am also going to go with Houdini. And here's the reason. Oh. I have a feeling the audience won't, so it'll be okay. Yeah. Here's my issue with Deadpool is I'm not a great. It is. It's beautiful. There's a lot of things that I like about it. I like the things, the animation is fantastic. Music's great. I, it's a pet peeve of mine when there are shots that if I nail them that they don register or don because I not good enough of a player to actually make the shot I was trying to make and not have it complete the shot Then both of these pins are kind of Yeah, that's what I was going to say, because you kind of get into... Yeah. Yeah, not the key lane. But I think that with Deadpool, there's a few more. The long ramp, katana ramp, and this was just on the one that I played. The right orbit sometimes gets caught up. And it comes back in the shooter lane. Yeah. And then the little loop shot, which I like the idea of that shot. The one, and I think that one may have been a setup issue, because I've heard a lot of people say that that works on the one that they're playing. But that one's been a... You're being kind, aren't you? Show of hands, everybody. Deadpool Pro plus $1,500 cash. Oh, surprisingly lower than I thought. Okay. Or Houdini. Look at this. Yeah. I would have never guessed it. Especially the groans when I said Houdini. I heard some groans out there. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Okay. Some good points. Yeah, we both own one. American pinball machines, especially the cabinet, really, really built well. . I told Joe Balcer, I'm not, yeah, I don't like that. Give me my five A's. . Everything he said is correct. I haven't had any problems as I have in terms of lighting and some games that I've had to come to my father. So I have to go with maintenance-wise. He needs to know better about what he's doing. Very good points there. Very good points. Okay. We're going to skip through a couple of these. We've got a new part, a new little segment. You've never heard of this one. Okay, so this was submitted. And then real quick, I wanted to thank Travis Lancaster. He's the one who submitted Deadpool Pro Plus Cash or Houdini on our YouTube. So thank you, Travis. All right. So this is from our boy. It goes by Yellowbird on Pinside. He goes by Sweet Super Sexy Dave from the Mod Couple. I think he's out there, right? Look, there he is. Did he give you this idea? He gave me this idea that his first word started with an F, but it didn't end in Ling. So I made it a little more PC, and we're going to call this Fling, Marry, or Kill. So out of these three machines, you get it? You've got to pick one just for a little, oh, I like playing this one overnight, right? You get to pick one that you're all bolted to the floor, and you get to pick one that you get to Todd Tucky off the building. Kill it! We got to kill one of these? I know it, though. The name implies, right? I know it. I know. So, Greg, fling, marry, or kill? Fling is Houdini. Okay. Because the pen, I don't know how to, I got to be very diplomatic. Be safe now. We can't edit this out. Don't go there, Greg. It's a beautiful woman. Houdini's fast and fun. Oh, I can see you. So this is my fling. Oh, you're really taking it literally. Yeah, I'm taking it literal. Yeah, right. Star Wars is, even though I actually just put mine up for sale, I haven't sold it yet, so I'm thinking about pulling that. But it would be my Mary pin, man. I really enjoyed a lot of aspects of that pin, even though I was hard on it. And Circus Voltaire is just not deep enough for me. So Circus Voltaire is my kill. See, Dave knows this very well because I am in love with all three of these machines. Totally in love. Oh, they're all in love. I'm going to go for time purposes. But they all found out about each other, and you've got to choose one. I can't kill Voltaire, but I guess I'm going to cop out. Killing Voltaire until they remake it. I'm going to marry Star Wars. Star Wars. Good Lord. And then Houdini. I'll fling around on Houdini. What's yours? Oh, my word. Mm-hmm. All right, I'm going to. This makes Jeff real uncomfortable. I'm going to fling Circus Voltaire. Oh. Marry Star Wars. Okay. And going against. You own a Star Wars as well, don't you? Yes. I like it a lot better than I thought I would. And going against, like, everything that I've been talking about. Absolutely. I'm going to apparently kill Houdini. Okay. All right, so there's that. There's that. Okay. All right. I know which one I'm going to kill. Which one? You want me to go? I'll go first. You can go first on this. I've got to think about it. All right. Oh, this one's tough. I'm killing Deadpool. Love you, Deadpool. Our homie Gomi. Love George Gomez. But we're going to kill Deadpool. Fling and marry. We are going to marry TNA. That's who we're going to marry. You know why? Because I'm never going to get to Reactor 9. It's never going to happen. And then we'll fling around on Creature. We're going to get tired of the rules, and then we're going to sell it. I agree with Kill Deadpool. That was the easiest out. Now, the next two were a little tougher for me. And I think I'd have to change it up on yours a little bit. I think I'd have a fling with Total because, again, I just, you know, it's fast. It's fun. I'm never going to get to Reactor 9. Again, I plateau on games. I'll get to Reactor 5 or something, and then that's probably where I'm going to be stuck at, get fed up with the game and not want anything to do with it. Creature's not super deep, but it's beautiful, and it's Creature. It's gorgeous. It's great. Yeah, it's your universal monster. It's fantastic. So that's probably what I'd be married to and love. Mr. Patterson. I feel like we need somebody up here to defend Deadpool. Go ahead. No, you've got to give your word. There are a lot of good things about Deadpool. We take feelings into account. I'm going to kill Deadpool. Poor Deadpool. Fling is going to be TNA. And then Mary is going to be Creature. My favorite music. TNA has worked more than that, thank you very much. She deserves more. She does. Yes, she does. Round of applause. Does TNA deserve to be married? Oh, no. No. She doesn't. Creature, though, has favorite. Yeah, it's favorite music and pinball, I think. Ooh, I just said that over TNA. All right. Okay. Now we're going to skip this one because this one is way too hard for me. Dave, that's not nice at all. We're not doing that. Right. We'll end it with this one. Coca-Cola or Pepsi? Somebody say RC. Hey, I'm an RC drinker. Who said RC? RC. Well, there we go. That's all we buy. Double cola. Greg, which one are you going there? You don't even drink so much, do you? No. Only when I'm at your house. Okay. Which one are you going? Pepsi. Thank you. Pepsi. I'm addicted to Pepsi. That's probably why they put that in there. I drink way too many. I don't drink either of those, but I'll pick Coke because of the marketing. Because of the market? No, marketing. Oh, marketing. Oh, okay. Marketing. Polar Bears do something for you? Their shares are up this week. What's that? Oh, that would be a nice answer. I go through about as many Pepsis as you do beer. I would say that's fair. You go through a lot of beer. Show of hands, let's go Coca-Cola here. I knew it. Polar bear. Let's go the people that actually know Cola, Pepsi. Okay, so we've got smart people. And just for the fun of it, RC. RC, okay. There's my brothers. El Cheapy over here. All right, everybody, that's it. Any quick questions? I know we're running close on time. We do appreciate you guys all coming up here. Also, if you guys want to buy a T-shirt, catch us in the vendor hall. We're going to be at Penn Stadium booth. We'll be at Flip N Out Pinball booth, a little bit of everywhere. Greg's the T-shirt guy, so get a hold of him. He will get you that T-shirt. Our shirts for sale are a little different than the ones we gave out. They're the ones we are currently wearing. With the favorite sayings on the back from the show. Terrific. Any questions? Any questions? You guys are kind. I've got one sitting in a... It'll be before the end of the year. I've got the design ready. Well, it's not really a design. It's the logo. But I just haven't had time to print them off. But soon. That's right. Two weeks. You'll see in two weeks, right? Any other questions? I appreciate that. Patreon. We've looked at it. We're just trying to figure out our tiers and what we want to be able to give our donation, or whoever donates to us so that we can, you know, what kind of gift. What kind of gift we can give them back? You don't have to. Sticker, button, something. Oh, okay. Okay. By request. This just in, another this or that. That's a tough one. Okay, this or that EM or solid state? Wow. Now, with solid state, are we talking solid state alphanumeric? Are we talking... Let's split it all up. EMs, solid state alphanumeric, or DMDs and above. Okay. Greg? I'm going solid state. Which one? Which solid state? Are we going alphanumeric or are we going DMD and up? I'd go DMD and up. Okay. Absolutely. Yes. Sorry, EM guys out there. They're fun. Rob, you brought this up. Yeah. What are you going, Rob? You have to give us your opinion on this. All right. Let's go. 50s or 60s? Ugh. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You working on them more or playing them, Rob? What are you going, Jeff? Oh. 50s or 60s? Yeah. No, just solid state or EM or? I'll go solid state. Okay. Show of hands. We're going EM. There's the lovely EM people. Let's go solid state. And then solid state alphanumeric. There's the system 11 fans out there, right? Lion man. Okay. And then DMDs. I don't even know how I picked that. All right. Game planner Alvin G. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 11325a8b-0851-48b8-abc7-84d7c652fb17*