# The Great British Pinball Podcast Ep 30 Part 1 - Scott is Back and Its an Expo Special! **Source:** The Great British Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2025-10-12 **Duration:** 102m 23s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** Buzzsprout-17997135 --- ## Analysis Scott returns to the podcast after paternity leave following the birth of his son Max, with an 11-day hospital stay due to birth complications. The hosts discuss the recent UK Pinball Expo layout changes (tournament segregation), praise for Evil Dead's durability and secondary market performance, quality concerns with Spooky and Stern games (playfield chipping, missing cliffies), critical analysis of Harry Potter's disappointing code and theme integration compared to Jaws, and upcoming visits to Spooky's factory and Pinball Expo. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Evil Dead is Spooky's best game by a considerable margin and is the only game in Spooky's lineup that reliably holds its value — _Scott, direct statement about Evil Dead's quality and market performance_ - [HIGH] Evil Dead took from November 22nd to end of March to sell out, which is slow for such a high-demand title — _Scott, citing specific launch and sellout dates_ - [HIGH] Evil Dead experienced a main board transistor failure and shotgun shell protector design flaw during play — _Scott, detailed description of two specific failures he encountered_ - [MEDIUM] Harry Potter's code is significantly weaker than comparable games like Jaws in theme integration and rule design — _Neil, opinion based on gameplay experience at Papa 22_ - [HIGH] D&D (Dungeons & Dragons) by Stern is missing cliffies in two critical playfield areas and has improper Mylar placement — _Neil, direct personal experience with his LE unit_ - [HIGH] Harry Potter's lower playfields are poorly designed and reduce overall game quality despite good staircase mech — _Neil, opinion based on gameplay and design observation_ - [MEDIUM] Spooky has redesigned a protector for Evil Dead's shotgun shell issue in newer production runs — _Scott, noting Spooky's response but indicating uncertainty about implementation_ - [MEDIUM] A separate tournament area downstairs at the UK Expo improved tournament player experience but reduced cross-traffic — _Scott and Neil discussing layout preferences from the recent UK Pinball Expo_ ### Notable Quotes > "Evil Dead is Spooky's best game by like a million percent, right? There's nothing, absolutely nothing close to it." > — **Scott**, ~42:30 > _Strong endorsement of Evil Dead as Spooky's flagship title_ > "It feels like there was like a whitewood pinball machine with no theme on it. And along comes a wizard and just dumps the Harry Potter paint on it." > — **Neil**, ~95:00 > _Critique of Harry Potter's theme-gameplay disconnect; memorable metaphor for poor integration_ > "There's nothing devalues a game for me more than a chipped playfield. I'm a chipped playfield will put me off buying a game a hundred percent." > — **Neil**, ~80:00 > _Personal collecting criterion highlighting industry playfield quality issues_ > "Cliffies, Mylar, these are things that have been around for donkey's years and they cost nothing. Yeah they don't cost any money and they will avoid massive dissatisfaction and potentially cost." > — **Neil**, ~78:00 > _Commentary on preventable manufacturing oversights and cost-benefit analysis_ > "The fact that it got hammered and there not been a problem with like the playfield or anything... I'm like the hell, that is the games only had like 300 plays or something on it and it's got chipping on the playfield." > — **Scott**, ~65:00 > _Evidence of premature playfield degradation in Evil Dead units_ > "You really like it. This what proves a point to me... having titles that you can't normally access or play, that's what the event should be about for me." > — **Neil**, ~35:00 > _Articulation of event value proposition: exclusive playable experiences_ > "The glass of this game was like something out of a McDonald's Happy Meal area. It was... Smeary." > — **Neil**, ~88:00 > _Commentary on location maintenance standards for Harry Potter at Papa 22_ > "Jaws literally feels like you're in the movie... the design of the game and the rules and the play is attached to the theme so well, probably the best ever, I would say." > — **Neil**, ~92:00 > _Benchmark comparison for theme-gameplay integration excellence_ > "It's 2060 and Harry Potter is still on the line at Jersey Jack Pinball." > — **Neil**, ~105:00 > _Joke about production timeline; implies JJP will produce indefinitely to recoup licensing costs_ > "Big shout out to Spooky. They shipped me a replacement part within two days. To the UK." > — **Scott**, ~60:00 > _Positive acknowledgment of Spooky's post-sale customer support responsiveness_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Scott | person | Co-host of Great British Pinball Podcast, recently returned from 11-day hospital stay after birth of son Max, Evil Dead owner with detailed gameplay experience | | Neil | person | Co-host of Great British Pinball Podcast, critical analyst of Harry Potter and game design, D&D LE owner, attended Papa 22 | | Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer; discussed for Evil Dead success, reliability improvements, and upcoming Beetlejuice game | | Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Harry Potter pinball; criticized for code quality, lower playfield design, and extended production timeline | | Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of D&D and Jaws; criticized for missing cliffies and mylar issues, praised for Jaws theme integration | | Evil Dead | game | Spooky game featuring collector appeal, strong secondary market value, reliability issues (transistor failure, shotgun protector), highlighted at UK Expo | | Harry Potter (Jersey Jack Pinball) | game | JJP's recent release; criticized for weak code, poor theme-gameplay integration, inferior callout direction, lower playfield design flaws, and expensive license burden | | Jaws (Stern Pinball) | game | Keith Elwin design; used as benchmark for excellent theme-gameplay integration; strong market performance and value retention | | Dungeons & Dragons (Stern Pinball) | game | Recent Stern release with manufacturing defects: missing cliffies in two playfield areas, improper mylar placement | | Pulp Fiction | game | Previous year's exclusive game at UK Expo; mentioned alongside Evil Dead as draw for event | | Texas Pinball Festival (TPF) | event | Major US pinball event where Scott played Evil Dead extensively; discussed as benchmark for exclusive game showcases | | UK Pinball Expo | event | Recent European pinball expo featuring new tournament layout with segregated downstairs section; featured Evil Dead as exclusive playable | | Pinball Expo | event | Upcoming major trade show/tournament where hosts plan to visit, featuring Harry Potter re-evaluation opportunity and Spooky factory visit | | Spooky Factory | venue | Located in Benton, Wisconsin; hosts will visit following Pinball Expo | | Papa 22 | event | Major pinball event where Neil played Harry Potter Arcade edition and observed maintenance issues | | David Van Ness | person | Associated with Barrels of Fun; mentioned as discussing Evil Dead production and tour, made sales at UK Expo | | Mark Silk | person | Voice actor/callout designer for Harry Potter; criticized for overly instructional, PowerPoint-like delivery despite good voice quality | | Keith Elwin | person | Designer of Jaws; benchmark reference for theme-gameplay integration excellence | | Beetlejuice (Spooky Pinball) | game | Rumored upcoming Spooky game; mentioned as potential next exclusive event title; not favored by Neil thematically | | UK Open | event | Competitive pinball tournament where Evil Dead was played and shotgun protector damage was discovered | | Pinside | organization | Online pinball forum where Neil discussed Evil Dead manufacturing comparisons and where industry debate occurs | | Holly | person | Scott's partner; gave birth to Max; supported Scott through hospital stay and recovery | | Max | person | Scott's newborn son; born after 30-hour labor and 11-day hospital stay due to infection complications | | Fran Lab | person | Content creator; had an Evil Dead unit with playfield chipping observed by Neil | ### Topics - **Primary:** Newborn experience and hospital stay, Playfield durability and manufacturing defects (cliffies, mylar, chipping), Evil Dead game quality, value retention, and market performance, Harry Potter design flaws and code quality criticism - **Secondary:** UK Pinball Expo layout and tournament segregation, Theme-gameplay integration as design benchmark, Exclusive game showcases at events as value proposition, Location maintenance and glass cleanliness standards ### Sentiment **Mixed** (0.35) — Positive sentiment around Scott's return, family well-being, and Evil Dead's excellence; strong negative sentiment regarding manufacturing quality lapses across multiple manufacturers, Harry Potter's disappointing design, and industry-wide preventable oversights. Constructive criticism dominates technical discussion. ### Signals - **[product_concern]** Multiple manufacturers (Stern D&D, Spooky Evil Dead, Jersey Jack Harry Potter) releasing games with missing cliffies, improper mylar, and premature playfield chipping after minimal plays (confidence: high) — Neil: 'There's nothing devalues a game for me more than a chipped playfield'; Scott: Evil Dead showing chipping after ~300 plays; Neil: D&D missing cliffies in two areas - **[product_concern]** Evil Dead experiencing main board transistor failures and shotgun shell protector design failures despite otherwise strong execution (confidence: high) — Scott: 'The main board blew a transistor' and 'shotgun shell thing... cracked the case, which makes the whole mech fall apart'; Spooky shipped replacement within 2 days - **[design_philosophy]** Debate over theme-gameplay integration quality: Jaws cited as gold standard for connecting design/rules/play to theme; Harry Potter criticized as whitewood with theme painted on (confidence: high) — Neil: 'Jaws literally feels like you're in the movie... probably the best ever' vs. Harry Potter as 'whitewood with Harry Potter paint dumped on it' - **[code_update]** Harry Potter received a code update approximately one month prior to discussion that addressed unspecified issues; hosts plan to re-evaluate at Pinball Expo (confidence: medium) — Neil: 'So actually to be fair, so that was about a month ago I played it. As I understand it, there's a code update where some of these things are fixed or not fixed' - **[event_signal]** UK Pinball Expo introduced segregated tournament area downstairs, improving tournament player experience but reducing casual-competitive cross-traffic (confidence: high) — Scott: 'tournament area downstairs... genuinely quite nice' and 'definitely worked for sure'; Neil: layout prevents natural casual foot traffic to tournament area - **[collector_signal]** Evil Dead commanding significant secondary market premiums ($3-4K above retail) due to limited availability, strong gameplay, and reliability improvements; holding value better than other Spooky titles (confidence: high) — Scott: 'I've had two people offer me' premium prices; 'people are expecting to take three to four grand off of it... You'll be going three to four grand in the other direction' - **[product_strategy]** Evil Dead slow launch (5 months to sellout Nov 22 - Mar 31) despite strong FOMO dynamics, suggesting previous reliability concerns suppressed initial demand (confidence: high) — Scott: 'They launched it on November 22nd last year... they hadn't sold out until the end of March' and attribution to 'previous reliability and build quality challenges' - **[sentiment_shift]** Spooky's reputation recovering with Evil Dead after reliability issues on earlier games; strong customer service response (2-day UK replacement) improving brand perception (confidence: high) — Scott: 'Big shout out to Spooky. They shipped me a replacement part within two days. To the UK'; improved protector now standard on new units - **[venue_signal]** Poor maintenance standards observed at Papa 22 venue: Harry Potter glass extremely dirty ('McDonald's Happy Meal area... smeary'), indicating operator neglect (confidence: medium) — Neil: 'The glass of this game was like something out of a McDonald's Happy Meal area. It was... Smeary' - **[personnel_signal]** Jersey Jack Pinball employs 'someone from MIT Maths Department' to write Harry Potter code; identity not confirmed by hosts but implies high-credential hire for complex rule set (confidence: low) — Neil joking reference to JJP hiring 'some ninja from MIT Maths Department' to write codes; unconfirmed speculation - **[business_signal]** Harry Potter's expensive license creates long production timeline necessity; hosts joke JJP will produce indefinitely to recoup costs (confidence: medium) — Neil: 'It's 2060 and Harry Potter is still on the line at Jersey Jack Pinball... they probably have to to make their money back. Yeah, yeah. An expensive license, right?' - **[machine_intel]** Spooky's rumored next title (Beetlejuice) expected to be potential next exclusive event game following Evil Dead/Pulp Fiction precedent (confidence: medium) — Neil: 'if I got a TPF and Spooky's rumored title is any good, I'd say the next title... Beetlejuice' as potential exclusive showcase --- ## Transcript Well, look who's here. It's Mr Trouble himself. And you know what? You know what frustrates me is the number of letters that we got demanding that Scott came back. Letters. Letters, emails, fax, ARF sent us a fax. A few piece of badges. ARF sent us a fax. And someone did smoke signals over in Newcastle. And but they all said, Scott, come back, we can't stand Neil Waffling on like a balloon. I did have a few people message me directly about that, but yeah. So Scott, I'm gonna dive in where no man has gone before. Tell us about the mystical birth experience. If you're on YouTube, you can see that Scott actually is almost as bald as me now. To be fair, right, there is some logic behind it. It was like getting to a point where I was like, I'm getting really tired and my hair was a mess all the time. So I just said to Holly, shave the lot off. Just shave it off. I cannot be bothered. Yeah, it was literally like a buzz cut. I was just like, just shave it off. Because long story short, we were in the hospital for 11 days. That was that was a long, long time. Like, we had, I couldn't get a shower for a couple of days. It did some real damage to my scalp. So I have like, Like basically, I suffer from a form of eczema. And without medication, it was, it was starting to bleed and I was like, this is fun. So yeah, basically long story short. Yeah. I just ended up shaving the head cause it's easier, but there that with the, with the pregnancy, it wasn't ideal. We hit 30 hours of labor. Went through three different types of, of, of, which one would I call it? Clark I'm a puppet fear and then I had to just make sure I just focused on on his head because I cannot stand blood But yeah, like long story short. He was fine. Like we had some issues in in like post birth Like that's why I had to stay but In the ward, they wouldn't let us leave there was those complications around him having infections because the labor went on too long Yeah, yeah, there was complications Same thing happened to my grandson. It was the birth. So So, Amelia was really simple birth. Right. You see, the second one's easier than the first. For Jade, that wasn't the case. And she got kept in for a little bit, but not as long as you. Yeah. 11 minutes in a hospital was long enough for me, let alone... Like, especially when we were in a shared ward, because originally we had a, like, we didn't want to call it a private room, but the rooms were so maxed out by the time we got back out, they were like, no, you can't have a private room. So then we ended up going into the shared ward and I think the difficulty with a shared ward is that whilst the people they can't help what's going on in their world right everyone's got you because you can't tell a baby well these ones are sleeping now so you need to sleep it's like no that one's settled down now the other one's crying and then that one's down then the other one's crying and it was just I'd never felt what what a lack of sleep was until I went through that 11 day slog like I mean, at one point, I think the baby was crying and I was so out, I couldn't even hear him. Like I was just, I was, my body was just like, no, you have shut down now. You've, you've passed 40 hours being awake. You, you just need to sleep. Um, I think like, yeah, it kind of put me off having every other kids, if I'm honest. Um, I just feel like it could have gone better the way things were. I just, I'm glad that we're all through it now. And that, you know, Max is his name. Um, that Max is, is basically healthy and he's happy and exactly. That's the main thing. And Holly as well. So congratulations. And, um, it gets, you know, it gets, it gets, it gets easier in some ways, harder than other, but at least, at least the more you go on, the more sleep you get, which, which, um, yeah, I mean, like you've said it to me before, right. But we spoke about this offline, but like, you know, okay. I'm tired and even here I can see it I keep scratching my blee eczema's flaring up again um I I get like tired I and work uh work have been surprisingly good like I must admit they've been really supportive like That's a bad comment if ever I saw one mate, hopefully you're watching this I think like to be fair I just I wasn't expecting Those bastards at work have been surprisingly fucking supportive That's not how I meant it at all. But no, it's really like, it's thrown me back like, just how, I tell you what really, what really is, threw me off a little bit. It was genuinely how many people sent me gifts and presents. And it made me realize how many friends I'd built around pinball.roid Well, that's been really refreshing to see just how well supported you are when you go through these life changing events, really. Yeah, I mean, so it is, it is, these sort of events do, do, they do, they make your brain rethink or reevaluate, you know, where your life is, for sure. I had a friend of mine, a guy called Fergus, who I've known, I want to say, well, I've known him since 1990, right? Right. And I found out beginning end of last week, he died. Oh, sorry to hear that. I'm, you know, it's kind of the other end of, of, but it's one of those things that people come together on, right? Yeah. Yeah. We're all pretty shocked about it. Well, he hadn't, he'd been struggling with his health for a while, which, which I kind of knew. But, you know, you go, these, these are the sort of things that, you know, you step back from it and you think, holy shit, you know, marriage, birth, I'm a bit older than you, I'm an age where it's grandkids and it's my mum having a stroke. It's just a weird thing how you know you're at the you're at the new beginnings part if that makes sense. Yeah it's weird right. It's just bizarre I always you know this will sound weird but when I when I have when I start to think about those things I used to always think about my cat and I was like where was God when he thought let's have cats? You know what I mean? It's kind of... Do you know what we were nuts for as well? Just prior to Holly's birth, we, our old cat we had for 18 years passed away. Yeah. And then we had the bright idea to go, let's get another one. On top of the 54 that you've already got. Well, yeah, on top of those two others. But it was like, we were lucky that that cat acclimated so quickly because we weren't there. You know, at one point we got her two weeks prior to Holly giving birth and then we were away effectively for two weeks in hospitals. We were really I'm really worried that the cat wouldn't be receptive to us, but she's, we call her Nurse Navi, which is quite funny because her name's, we've called her Navi, but she ends up like, she watches the baby. It's so weird. She sits around it and like makes sure whenever it's crying, she'd be like, oh, you've got to go look after it. It's so weird. There's a great YouTube video, I must dig it out, where there's folks who've had new kids and you get the cats almost protective of the baby. I'm a fan of the baby. Yeah, yeah. Also, there's one where, in that same video, where their cats sort of had kittens where they try and kind of have the kittens and baby together. It's kind of cute. Yeah. But, look, happy that everything went well eventually. I mean, I, you know, I was getting messages from you and I'm like, holy shit. I know, I wasn't really giving you great news, was I, at one point? Well, I was saying, at one point... I was like, tell you what, I was losing my mind at one point because you sat in the ward in the same four walls and it's just nothing but that baby's crying and I was just like, is this my life now? I think I was having a crisis at one point but eventually it was, I think it just got stressful because it was stressful. You and everyone else has been through this, you know, so Luke, good news and now I feel great shame that I haven't sent you anything. To be fair, Neil, you've done even like loads of stuff for us in the past, right? You've taken us out for meals and stuff, so I don't really see that as something that you had to obligate yourself for. It just made me, I'll be honest, I'm one of those people that just doesn't even think about shit like that. It's... Mate, I don't either, but it has changed my perception of things. I'm thinking, if someone says they've got something like that going on, I best try and do something about it. I changed jobs a couple of years ago, and I posted that I'd moved. And like, I don't know, about 1000 people on LinkedIn wished me well. And I was like, holy fuck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's just it's little things like that that kind of, you know, as you get older, you start to appreciate that. I don't know if you're if anyone if you're familiar with Myers Briggs, but on the Myers Briggs, it's a kind of psychometric test. It's not perfect by any means, but it kind of helps you with blind spots. And I've taken the test maybe three, three times, maybe two. But it's got this thing called F, which is feeling. And on the feeling scale, I'm one out of 20. Wow. So, so, so, and it translates. I was, I'll quickly do this quick story because it's kind of funny. One of the companies I work for were doing a kind of team building kind of leadership training thing as you do. And we were, we had to give each other feedback, which no one likes to do, right? Everyone hates doing it. So, a guy I work with, John, awesome guy, I wish he'd retire, I wish he was still around because he was such a good guy. But he says, he says, well, he says to me, hey, Neil, when I'm, you know, when I'm talking to everybody, I have in my head, enter human, exit human, right? So, I'll come up and speak to you, I'll say hello, how are the kids, blah, blah, blah, you know, talk about car, you know, whatever. And then he gets to what he wants, walk-wise, and then I respond to it. And then Neil, you respond to it. And then I say, well, I hope your kid's all right. He does this human bit. And he said to me, Neil, when I'm talking to you, it feels like you're kind of frustrated. And I was like, John, 100% I'm frustrated, mate. Because every time I speak to you, I've got 20 minutes of you waffling on about shit I don't really care about. Then you get to the point and then you bore me for another 10 minutes with other stuff that I don't care about and then you go on your way. Other than that, I love you mate. Um, it was, it was, um, he's like a guy I work with. We did a lot of great stuff together and he's a great guy. And I actually, I learned a lot from him, um, on the, on the F side, but, um, there's people watching this that are suddenly going fucking hell. I finally get McCrae. Um, no, you don't. Um, but anyway, uh, look, glad that everything's okay. I hope the lack of sleep gets better. If anything, what this will teach you is how to be a professional sleeper. How to grab that 20 minutes. That's what you really capitalize on is the sleeps. Like, it's funny when it gets to the end of work, I'm just like, I can go to sleep. And then I realize I've got to cook. I mean the one thing I is like you know I did like uh house chores already but I've had to do obviously all of it now um but what I try and do now is I power through it I go like I gotta get the cats fed vacuum do the laundry and then I go get an hour's sleep yes that's what I'm really looking forward to in the old days it'd be like I'm gonna play games now it's more like I can sleep yes uh yeah I don't have any good news for you on that front um Anyway, let's move on to all things pinball. Sure. So it's been, so the last time, I mean, I was saying this just before we started, the last time we did this, it was pre-pinfest. I know, I can't believe it's been that long, but yeah. It's nuts. I mean, I, and I, I mean, I, just so the audience knows, I did kind of give Scott an end of paternity break time. He did, he was gracious. That was his gift. I was like, paternity's over, the podcast, we do a podcast next week. And I say for those, for those of you not from Europe, we have this thing called paternity break where you actually get paid to take time off. This is this is something that was fought by men who were mad. Because before we never used to have this, so you go back to work and get peace from the madness of a newborn. S . B Dad Should be at least a month. I mean I took two weeks off as what they provide you plus I took a book two weeks on your leave So I originally booked one week's on your leave, but because we were in what I call our internment for 11 days I asked for another week and they gave it I mean, you know that that extra time in the hospital really You know derails a lot of things that you need to get Jeremy Packerphants, I liked it. I think it was a genuine improvement on what they've done over the previous years. I like the fact that this tournament was segregated and moved downstairs. I mean, for me, that's just how it should be. Like, there should be a separate section for the tournament players, the serious players and a casual section for the normal players, just how everyone else does it. So I don't see why it doesn't work. Yeah, I thought, I think everyone, there was a thing there was a lot of people worried about. I think there's one or two people that aren't happy because it feels like they're locked in a dungeon downstairs, which I kind of get. It's not bad though, it looked genuinely quite nice. Nah, it's okay, but if you want to see people, you know, it's not natural for the non-tournament folks to come down. I know I spoke to a couple of people. I mean, the simple fact is, is tough luck because, because that's how it had to be. But yeah, I mean, the layout definitely worked for sure. And I think it was nice to see, like, you know, obviously I appreciated you taking Evil Dead. That was although I hate you for it because now it's like I really would want it. I think a lot of people felt that way. You really like it. This what proves a point to me. And I was talking to you about this offline before, like having titles that you can't normally access or play, that's what the event should be about for me. Yeah, 100%. and having that game there at the show it really showed it's it's true like uh you can play a game watch a game i mean on like stream or you can listen to a your favorite like uh pinball enthusiast talking about the game it's not the same as just physically being in front of it and experiencing it for yourself and i think once i played it i was like yeah Yeah, it lives up to the hype. Yeah. Excuse me. I think a lot of people were impressed by it. Yeah. For sure. I think, I mean, that's two years in a row. Pulp Fiction was the game like previous year. Sure. And both games were rammed. June was pretty busy as well, obviously. And it was packed. Like, I mean, we had people running to it when the doors opened. That was a... And it's done well. I mean, even David said he secured some sales from the event. So it goes to show that it's worth doing it. I just, I get the fact there's some realities that we can't do a big event like we can't like the Americans can but I'd like to see more titles like that. Yeah, look, I mean, if, you know, if I got a TPF and Spooky's rumored title is any good, I'd say the next title, which is, God, it's just going to be... Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, sorry, of course. I have to say Beetlejuice does zero for me, but kind of theme wise, it's not a theme I'm into. My wife loves it, but I never, I never, for me, it was just silly. The sequel's terrible, if you've watched it. What would you expect? Yeah, the first film though, it was alright, but just, I don't know, it's not something that was on my bucket list to say, I'll need a game that's based on speed. Actually, I'm gonna tell you, I probably only watched half the movie and thought, this is shit. And turned it off, so, which has probably got people writing letters of complaint. Is it Tim Byrne that directs that one? Oh, no idea mate. Oh, I know it. Michael Keaton was in it. And I normally like Michael Keaton. Yeah. I think he's a great actor, but nah, it didn't do very much for me. But, you know, it seems to have a lot of noise. Actually, one of the things, so Pinball Expo's coming up, and a bunch of us are going up to Spooky's Factory on the next week sometime i think tuesday or wednesday i can't remember but we're driving to um benton wisconsin um do you think they'll ever do another run of evil dead oh so if they do i think they piss off a lot of customers yeah that's the one thing right it's the sort of move that stern have done with them yeah um To the point where you still bought another Stern LE, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, so let me explain, let me come back to that. We'll come back to that. I think there are mitigating circumstances for that one, right? Okay. But nonetheless, I think, so Luke, here's, I was posting this earlier on Pinside, debating something as you do on Pinside, I'm not sure if you've heard of the game, but Evil Dead is Spooky's best game by like a million percent, right? There's nothing, absolutely nothing close to it. Nothing. And not just in game and art and sound and everything, but also fairly confident. It might be the only game in Spooky's lineup that holds its value. Yeah, absolutely. And, and well, right now you can sell it for more. In fact, I've had two people offer me. Yeah. I made me laugh on the forum. I think people are expecting to take three to four grand off of it. Good luck. You'll be going three to four grand in the other direction, mate, because that's what they'll go for. 100% and it's happening. You see it in the US, right? Yeah. Anyway, the thing that I think may have woken Spooky up a little bit was this game should have sold out on day one. Yeah, weird, right? And it took, so they launched it on November 22nd last year. Yeah. And they hadn't sold out until the end of March. And I picked mine up in Texas in March, the one that I've got is in the club right now. Sure. And shipped it back. And that's because of previous reliability and, let's say, build quality challenges i believe and they've absolutely nailed them on this game now is it is it is everything perfect on it no i've had two issues with the game one the main board blew a transistor which i think is i don't think the code is robust is as robust as it should be in detecting things that are stuck or not working right oh right so So he keeps firing a coil or something to that effect. Yeah, and actually Pulp Fiction had a similar issue. I'm not sure that's what happened, but to me it would make sense. And then the second thing is the shotgun shell thing. It's not well protected. It's a couple of points and it's just plastic. So you have this ball, you know, getting whacked at it. It actually cracked the case, which makes the whole mech fall apart. Actually, and when did us discover it? The week before UK Open. And this game was in the UK Open. And actually a big shout out to Spooky. They shipped me a replacement part within two days. Wow. To the UK. So... Any improvements to it? Like any revision to the sturdiness? So, no, but in the email, Spooky said that it comes with a new protector because of this issue. And I was like, okay, cool. But it wasn't there. So I don't know. I don't know what happened. But anyway, I'm we're going to see now if they've got this protector, I'm going to grab a couple. But this is a good news for the UK games that are coming hopefully next month. I'm surprised they don't just make the casing out of TPU or something. You know, make it into like a flexible mold so that it can take a hit. A bit like the Fiat trunk. Yeah, no, um... And by that I mean the aftermarket Fiat trunk. I'm thinking probably just a couple of tight rubbers around the thing would be enough. Yeah? um yeah i i mean i mean the fact is this must the fact that they've redesigned a protect there is a protector there it just doesn't go as far as it should right they've redesigned that which makes me think i'm not the first to have this problem um i mean my my games had a lot of play though it's like tpf for a whole weekend it was at pin fest for a whole weekend it's been in a club i was at uk open so it's it's you know it's had a lot of play and it's been i mean apart from you know that This is a really interesting thing you brought up about that the fact that it got hammered and there not been a problem with like the playfield or anything because I looked at like Fran lab roof that she had which I think might have been mine I not sure but I noticed when she had it it was like there chipping on the playfield I was like that didn happen when I had it I spoke to like you know David he said oh yeah it happened after you know she'd been playing it for like 50 or 100 plays and then it started chipping I was like the hell like that is the games only had like you know 300 plays or something on it and and and it's got chipping on the play field it's like i don't chips they are over like so you know the um wise man area i think there's one there which is where the the basically the drop target is um and then there's another one by the um left fuck i want to call it like i call it the mystery shop or whatever you want to call that left fuck on the left side so that's i have seen that issue before come up where it seems to be as the ball comes out it's really digging into the wood I just feel like, okay, it's their first game and I get it that there's going to be problems, but I would have thought the first thing you would do is put cliffies there or something like that. And I just want to refit those. There should always be cliffies. Yeah. I mean, I just, when, when you ask me games before that, I'm thinking, what the fuck are they thinking? Yeah. Yeah. Two dollar a park. Yeah, exactly. You know, and a play field, even if you get the play field, which is a thousand bucks, It's another 2000 to have it swapped if you're ever going to do that, which most people don't, right? No, it's just so much effort, man. To me, that's mental. I mean, and actually, you know, I'll have a dig at Stern because everyone thinks I'm like Mr. Stern and I can't possibly say anything evil against them. So D&D, there's two areas of that playfield where there should have been cliffies. They didn't put them on. In fact, they didn't even mile it properly. There's one bit where they put the scoop thing on. They put it, they should have put it higher. And I think when in the build process, it got missed. Because in the manual, it's in a different place. And basically the ball bounces off of it into the playfield. Luckily, I mylered up my LE and it's fine. It's kind of weird though isn't it things like you know as you say Cliffy's, Mylar, these are things that have been around for donkey's years and they cost nothing. Yeah they don't cost any money and they they will avoid massive dissatisfaction and potentially cost because if something you know if if if you screw it up you got the chance where you might have to replace playfields. Yeah there's nothing devalues a game for me more than a chip playfield. I'm a chip playfield will put me off buying a game a hundred percent. Yeah Yeah, if it's round the VU came maybe yeah If it's not the edge of the the VUK area where you can cover it with a cliffy Sure, but most the time the damage will proceed past where the cliffy would be covering anyway because it's taking the chunk out so to speak the kind of frustration I've got around that is It's just unnecessary I mean, the other issue is, sorry, I don't know what the fuck's going on with my camera. It's focusing in because it's getting intense for you. Yeah, I've just turned the AI off on it. So yeah, I mean, look, I've got this thing called a tall AI camera. It's actually quite cool because it follows me around, but it just randomly zooms in and out, which is irritating as hell. Anyway, Okay, so yeah, I mean, just for God's sake manufacturers, Cliffy Up or Mylar Up or both. It's peanuts in the big scheme of things. How's Harry Potter been holding out? Have you heard anything on that? I haven't. Honestly, I haven't heard much. I mean, I am. So I was in the US for Papa 22, which was it 23? Papa 22. I think. Yeah, Papa 22 is one of the major events, really good gig, Andy and the team run an amazing event. They had a Harry Potter there, it was the, I think it was the arcade edition. Yeah. And the arcade edition has got the same black kind of armor that Stern Pro's got. So it kind of feels very Stern Pro. The artwork on the side of it was the movie artwork actually looked pretty good. Although, well, I'll say it pretty good. It looked like Harry Potter, right? Right. I couldn't see much. I was looking for, was there any damage around the game? Couldn't really see any, but it was in the game. This is what I'm so glad that I don't have to rely upon location pinball. The glass of this game was like something out of a McDonald's Happy Meal area. It was... Smeary. I got these You've got all these I mean we've got the No JS We've got Councill We've got Horizon Totally Yeah So We've got One on the Soy Stream Gap On お O Memes I know you mean his name's got my head is it Richard I'm not sure I can't remember but yeah he was he was doing my game and yeah he was he's taking pride in it good on him he was uh he was a bit obsessed he likes no fingerprints I'm with him on that though Dickie I can't remember he's gonna I'm gonna get kneed in the balls for forgetting probably yeah anyway um so yeah look um I played it I must stick 100 bucks in it so I really wanted to get a good I played it at I'm not tempted to get one then, it doesn't do anything for you? No, I'm not really, it kind of reinforced that. I think the game shoots nice. The playfield layer, I think is okay. There's a couple of things that I'll be like, eh, but they're not, you wouldn't lose any sleep out of them. But the code for me is just awful. It's just really bad. I don't know. It feels like. And it feels like literally. So if I compare it to Jaws, right? Yeah, I think it's a great comparison. Jaws literally feels like you're in the movie. I mean, it's it's the whole play is attached. The design of the game and the rules and the play is attached to the theme so well, probably the best ever, I would say. Okay. And You know, and right now Jaws is selling like hotcakes. Harry Potter, and I'm, so it probably helps that I'm more of a Jaws fan than a Harry Potter fan. So yes, I'm biased. But my take on Harry Potter is it's literally like there was like a, like a whitewood pinball machine with no theme on it. And along comes a wizard and just dumps the Harry Potter paint on it. And it just, it doesn't, the play field and the gameplay and the theme and the call outs just, they don't seem connected to me. In fact, the call outs is one of my biggest area of criticism. Not the voice, Mark, don't worry, not the voice. Don't worry Mark. You sound awesome. But the voice unfortunately has been given a set of PowerPoint slides to bore everyone to death with. So yeah, it needs some energy, doesn't it? No, there's energy there. But Mark, the Mark, sorry. I forget, forget his surname. But basically, the guy doing the call outs is Marc Silk. Marc Silk, that's it. Really nice guy. I love him. I'm not sure if you've heard of Mark's call out, but he's trying to read the Bible non-stop. It's like, just tell me where the hell to shoot. But it just feels like it's... I don't know, for me, right, it feels more like there's two ways to do it. And I think even Mark's call, I've spoke to Mark before and he said there's different ways of delivering call outs. and call outs and he's like going you know you need to do world building when you do a call out to say hey he's getting up the right ramp you need to shoot that or he's escaping he's up the right ramp would be better than shoot the right ramp and yet weirdly I think Harry Potter is shoot the right ramp it is very much feels like an instructional video at least the way I heard it at least to me it feels like I'm being told how to build Ikea furniture yeah that's what I mean that instructional video no but but not by I don't know, it just doesn't... So actually to be fair, so that was about a month ago I played it. As I understand it, there's a code update where some of these things are fixed or not fixed but they've done some things to change it. So hopefully it's better. I'll play it, it'll be at Pinball Expo so I got a chance to play again. I think if I was a Harry Potter fan would I be happy with the game? Probably. Oh yeah, I mean I still think that staircase mech is incredible. Yeah, although it does get a bit confused. I've seen it a couple of times where it got confused but I think, and look, I made a joke on the, there's a really cool group on Facebook called Pinball Memes. Oh yeah, I've been on that, yeah. And I made a joke where basically the meme I posted is it's 2060 and Harry Potter is still on the line at JGP. I mean I think they're going to be making that game for a hundred years. But they probably have to to make their money back. Yeah, yeah. An expensive license, right? So yeah, if Harry Potter was there would I go and have a game of it? Yeah. I just don't see that game ever ever being popular but there we go mate so forget the so the lower playfields what the absolute fuck were they thinking I mean honestly it is they are awful right lower playfields though to be fair rarely work out for me Yeah, I agree. But even in this scenario, they're like the gold medal winners of not working out, right? But if you filled them over, right? Imagine you took them over and you filled them over, which if I was JGP, I would send out parts to allow people to do this and just remove that madness. Or remove the mech, wow. Yeah, just remove it, right? Because actually, if you do that, I actually think the rest of the playfield is actually pretty good. And it's just that bit just doesn't add up. But then, then again, they've hired some ninja from MIT Maths Department to write the codes. And they've also hired someone from the University of Oxford's Linguistics Department to create this own bizarre language that no one fucking understands a word of it. Right. And they've made, they've made even just starting a mode, it's easier to do... I remember seeing that bloody giant flow chart that they threw out for the rule set and they're like, look how complex our game is. I'm like, you've just developed a game where nine tenths of the player base will never touch it. Yeah. And I am, so I wanted to, you know, the thing, a lot of people put a lot of hard work into this and they don't, you know, they don't wake up and say, we're going to make a shit game today. Right? No, of course not. They think complexity equals like I don't know ingenuity it's like it's not it's like I think the beauty of pinball for me is that sometimes like keep it simple kiss right is is the best method or mantra that you can ever have like I don't want to see a game where I walk up to it and everything is lit up and I don't know what to shoot yeah that is Harry Mark's playing it in interior and you know I wanted to enjoy it but honestly that game I mean it looks beautiful but the play on it is just with the code and those stupid mechs the rest of it Mark Ciro who designed it I actually think take away the as I say take away the lower play field. I think they'd never do like what they've done with like John Wick or like with um what's the other game they had to X-Men where they might just say you know what we're gonna just ground zero the code and start again yeah well I wish that they would because I think in both of those games there there is a better game there if they did it yeah and actually they kind of did this with bond and walking dead to some extent I was gonna say let's face it you know legendary what um what happened with walking dead because that year was terrible to start with it was awful and you know Lyman just just and i don't know do we have another Lyman though i don't think we do right not not now no um and i i should something i'd um someone said to me about Lyman that made me feel actually a little bit bad um um if you imagine right um so the short answer to that question is no there is not another line but if you just imagine for a minute the pressure that lyman must have felt because you know all over pin side it'd be like you know oh starting to launch a new game and all that anyone interested in who's on the code yeah the minute they say lyman everyone's like yes it's going to be awesome pressure then it's a bit like keith elwin though right he's he built himself a reputation for being the guy that could I think we need to, and I can't help but feel, I don't know, but I think that's something we just need to moderate a little bit. I think it's fair to say that Keith and Lyman and others, you know, they'll put their best in. Of course. And they might not always get it right. But it's not because, again, not because they woke up and said we're going to do a bad job. But however, I do think the one thing I, and it's just my own experience of running teams, Great teams can basically call each other out and say, guys, we're listening to our own bullshit. And I kind of think, you know, in some games and then some things I've built, some things I've done and some of other friends that phoned me up wanting an opinion. You kind of think, why did no one say what the fuck were we thinking doing this? You know, and, and from my perspective, I won, you know, you kind of wonder what sort of environment you're in. Is that an environment where you can have this kind of two words that I use at work, which is I call it a fair challenge, right? Sure. Or an acceptable challenge where you can challenge something, but it's 50% sorry, 40% what the challenge is and 60% what you would consider doing to resolve it, right? Acceptable challenge. So you can make an acceptable challenge, right? And say, this is not great because of this, this and this. And actually here's what I think we should do to fix it, right? And you know, I've worked in teams where the remotest bit of challenge was like looked at as if you were from another planet. Don't fucking do that again. I'm sure you've worked in them. Oh yeah, yeah. There's other teams, and I'll tell you what, all the best teams were those. And then I've worked in teams where everybody hated each other. What everyone else did was shit and you were always better and everyone else got the attention. It wasn't me, blah, blah, blah. I've worked in both sets of those teams. I've also worked in teams and I've tried to run teams where you've got this acceptable challenge method and you've got your grease of norms around how you work as a team. And in every scenario, that team's work best. And I can't help but think that Keith's success, and I know Keith a little bit, is definitely down to that fact that I think in his team, they can have a conversation about something like, you know, the obvious one is Matt I think the biggest challenge right of anything in pinball at least I think is trying to create something innovative and it's mainly because there's only so many different ways you can design a playfield that is speaking from experiences building my own it's it's so hard I just think sometimes it's like oh there's such a limited bit of wood here to play with and you want to do something be like well that's not going to I'm a fit or if I do this that's gonna sacrifice that shot and make it really tight and I feel like you know there's a balance between creating complexity and creating something that's fun to play yeah 100% I just get the feeling like Keith does a good job of obviously creating unique shots and and flow and I feel like each time he does a game he's trying to improve upon that and I saw that in Kong I mean I played it I I'll be honest with you, I still think I didn't like it. I just, there's some games for me that just, it doesn't, it doesn't speak to me as a player. I think it's more for people that are like, better players. Like he's always built, I think games, if I'm honest with you, that have a layer of like, if you're good at playing pinball, you'll get the most out of this game. Like for me because I consider myself a beginner to intermediate player I look at it and I play it and I go that bloody left drain is driving me up the effing wall I cannot I cannot play this game and it's like I feel like he obviously has so many things to factor in he has to factor in a game's difficulty from two perspectives the casual player that's going to show up and put a quid in or a dollar or whatever it happens to be and then the other person that has it at home and he's a professional player and then another player that plays at home and he's a professional player and then another player that plays at home and he's a professional player and then another I'm the casual player and just think God all those different kinds of like demographics of people and use cases and then having to think about I need to create something unique because everybody wants to see the next big thing and it's a lot of pressure I look at like it's probably good segway to talk about Star Wars because for me at least when I saw Star Wars I was disappointed I was like it's a fan layout it looks like if I'm honest with you just an iteration on the 10 year old Star Wars that they did previously and I was a bit like I just wanted something more I had expected something more if I'm honest with you like I get the fact though that there's so many challenges with with with the Star Wars IP uh one is I imagine they were mandated to say this is how the Playfield artwork needs to look and tough if you've got something that's more imaginative than that this is how we need it in this style I don't know. It's a hypothesis because to me at least the artwork on that was a bit of a letdown but more focusing back on the design element because that was my point. It was like I don't know if they were like looking at it from a point of view going this game needs to be accessible and then they were like okay this isn't but then again I've heard comments the shots are really tight so I don't know like I do wonder sometimes like what their thinking is at the moment when they did that game like what was their goal was their goal to make something accessible or was I think Kong is probably one of the hardest games to lose the ball of all time. You think? 100%, 100%. And actually, so when I was at Papa 22, or is it, I need to make sure I'm calling out the right one. I think it's 22, it might be 23. Anyway, the, what, what you, we were there, yes, Papa 22, I was right. So I was there and there was a three and a half hour game of Kong. Jesus. Yes. What, on one person? Practically one guy. So ZMAC, he's a very top player, but he couldn't lose the ball. Wow. And I imagine they widen the lanes and everything like that, like they normally do, right? Well, I don't think they do. I don't think I won't go into the detail of why but suffice to say that it's very difficult to lose the ball and actually for me because of a bit of panic because we're in the UK Open Bank yeah and there's no way I can have a game last three freaking hours it just killed the tournament yeah so I went so I went about figuring out okay how do I make this hard for anyone to play and it's quite difficult you've got to put a lot of effort into it so I took all the post rubbers out, put all the post settings to hard. That helps a little bit. But in that game, there's so many return to flipper paths. It's, it's, it's, you know, the ball is designed to come back to flipper. Yeah. And if and if you miss a shot, because of the narrowness of that middle part of the playfield, you're kind of unless you're really unlucky, you're kind of coming towards the flippers and the outlines are quite hard to get into. But the key thing, so and then basically what I did to make the game a bit harder was one, you know, polish it up, make sure the slings are very sensitive. And then I put three big yellow posts in that made, if you got a reject shot, made it a bit more painful to deal with. Right. Finally, I made the tight the tilt pretty tight so that So that basically if you screwed so this game If you miss a shot So you say it's a lot easier than say Jurassic Park or anything like that? Mate, it is a hundred times easier than Jurassic Park. See Jurassic Park I didn't even find that frustrating But I did find maybe it was just because the setting we're in right is it is difficult Even when you're like on location to play a game like when you play in your own house, it's way different. Oh, no, absolutely I mean anyway, look I mean, I think we're saying pretty much the same thing, which is quite hard to, you know, these, these games are hard to design. Um, yeah. Um, let's jump to Star Wars. Yes. As we kind of mentioned it. So it's 10 to 6 on Friday the 10th of October. My Star Wars was supposed to be delivered today. It's annoyingly going to be delivered tomorrow. I'm not supposed to be here tomorrow. I'm supposed to be opening the club. So I've now got the pleasure of telling my wife she needs to wait for this to be delivered, which will go down like a lead balloon. I like that. Anyway, passing that disaster over. So I went to, I mean, I did a quick podcast on this on my own just to cover the game. I hear so I hear what you saying about being unimpressed by Star Wars when I first saw it I was I wasn super impressed by I was thinking really um and except for the artwork I think the artwork is outstanding oh yeah don get me wrong I think the ignoring the playfield artworks I really don like that but the cabinet artwork in the back glass on the le oh that nice but yeah I mean I actually think I like the uh pro the best with the is that the return of the jedi Okay, I thought the LE's got the Hoff Battle now. Yeah, LE's the snow one. Yeah. I think Premium's the Ewoks. Oh, let's return the Jedi. Okay. Crow is Empire Strikes Back, I think. I mean, the... I mean, to be honest, the art in all of them is pretty good. Spike 3's awesome, the sound's awesome. I mean, the sound is a step up. Everyone's going to be... I think everyone will be really surprised how much better that is. The bigger screen, people say, that doesn't look that much bigger. Mate, it's hugely bigger when you compare it to the old screen. Right. And the game, so look, it's a fan layout. It's a new fan layout. It's not one we've seen before. It's a challenging layout. But it's quite accessible. Although the shots are, you know, people say, oh, it's fan layout, it's easy. The shots are quite tight in a couple of areas. Like The Death Star shot's pretty tight, the Jabba shot's pretty tight. Some of the stuff on the playfield, the heads and Jabba the Hut that lights up. The Glow Worm Jabba, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to argue that that looks shit. I can't argue it in fact. I think the biggest disappointment for me was when they removed the force feature from the pro. Yeah. So it's got the ball on the playfield where Yoda's gonna grab it, which again was an odd artistic choice, but whatever. and all the good подпис FARE AND Secondly thanks to Givewire circa 2023 Presents for watching Yeah, but maybe that should be like Stern's wake up call to just finally ditch the free tiers and... Oh, they're never going to do that. They should do that. They're never ever going to do that. Nah. I mean, the problem is, is it's all about price points. And they need a low end game and a high end game. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I like to Spike 3. I think it's feeling good. The game, and I mean, I haven't played it in what, a month now? So, um, and is that a month? Yeah, it's over a month. Um, Ray days on the code and from what I can see where the codes go and it's, it's very good. Now, the big question is, is will it even work here in the UK? Well, that goes back to the, how you've been a naughty boy and, and, and bought it despite Stern's best efforts to say this is not available. Let's face it. Neil finds a way. He's, he's done a Han Solo smuggling routine. I mean, I, you know, I am I suspect there are many people in Stern that think that's amusing. So what the plan is, is we're going to I'm going to get it working somehow. I will get it working. I'm actually genuinely surprised that I mean, they can't they can't reach out to you because it would be bad form. They're not allowed to do it right. But I'm genuinely surprised someone hasn't gone to you. Don't worry about it. We just flick this and it will work in your country. I'm not saying they would, but it would be quite funny if they did. I would be amazed if they did that because everyone would say, well, how did they get it to work? And I'd have to come clean on it, right? Anyway, my take is, well, we'll get it working however we do that. Would it block you? Would it just lock down if it realized it was in the wrong country? Well, so I had this problem before. I imported the original X-Men pin during COVID. Oh, the original one. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, so it was a Sam game. You plugged it in and basically it would turn on and all the light show would start and then and then basically as you thought the game was about to come to life it displays this message saying you cannot play this game in your region. Okay. I'm expecting it to do the same thing. I still find that it's such a weird concept that in this day and age we've got region locking. Well, but it's it's kind of it's kind of indicative of... Because Spooky don't region lock, JJP don't region lock. Yeah, but it's indicative of a market where historically, in the US market, they, you know, fuck the consumer, we're doing whatever we want. Yeah, yeah. Whereas in today's world, you can't get away with that even in the US. And, um, but they've kind of got a legacy of this and also the simple fact that, um, the difference here in the UK rips us all off basically. Yeah. Um, and let me tell you, I am considering posting the maths on how much it costs me to get this game in. No doubt it's cheaper than buying it is in the UK. It's substantially cheaper. Yeah, I figured it would be. I'm not saying that's because you're not paying the VAT, I have declared this at its full value. Yeah, because you would have been insured for the value that you're shipping it at. Exactly, 100%. I'm not spending 10 grand on a game that, you know, if it gets knocked over it's worth 50 quid, right? So I declared it at the full value, I shipped over via air freight, which is more expensive than the container shipping. I have still saved money against what I paid for Kong. That doesn't surprise me. And I think if people knew the scale of that, there would probably be more people doing what I've just done. And it's really easy these days, the internet makes everything easy. I think the difficulty you've got is if there was an issue What support is needed to develop descriptions andEMY city, which often doesn't deliver productions? Here's some telegramalamam?! Finally, our investor give your ό So, if you need it to get anything done, you've got a thousand quid, which is fine if it's like, you know, something that's a thousand quid, but if the gearbox goes and it's a five grand gearbox, you're kind of fucked, right? Yeah, yeah. But having gone through that on a couple of cars where I've spent, I don't know... I mean, the most expensive thing that you'd struggle to replace easily would be the board, right? The CPU board. Exactly. And how much is that? Probably 500 bucks tops. Yeah. And actually that's one of my methods to make the game work which is so by all accounts um Walking Dead remastered is coming out um and basically my my worst case scenario plan is I just order a board for the UK and just write it in the game that's my worst case scenario right oh so you feel like moving forward this might be just what you do from now on you just import um For the maybe for the club. Okay. So the thing about it, right? It's a bit it's a bit shit though, isn't it? You are like a good point there that if you're in the UK, it's, it's cheaper just to do it yourself than it is to work for a distributor. That's weird. But it shouldn't have like the buying power they have, versus an individual buying one game versus the whatever number they buy should be way different. But it's been true on almost every game I've imported. So I've imported... actually Evil Dead probably not. Evil Dead's probably exactly the same money. Sure. In fact it is. But that's different because it's not done through... Evil Dead is probably... That's direct distributor relationship with... well, direct reseller relationship, isn't it, that one? Because that doesn't go through ElectroCoin. No, but I think, I actually think in the end, it would have been cheaper had I just, it would have been cheaper if I had, if I hadn't air freighted it. So if I'd stuck it on a boat and waited a year for it to arrive, it would have been cheaper. But the fact that I air freighted it means it was roughly the exactly the same price. You're as bad as me when it comes to patience, really. Pulp Fiction was cheaper for two reasons. One, because it was a show game, I got a decent, they gave me a decent discount on it because it was being used in a show. And two, what was the other reason? I can't remember. There was two reasons why it was cheaper. Oh, I actually, I got a, I got an unbelievably good deal on it. I'm not sure if I can remember the title of the game, but it was about £1,000 cheaper. Wow. Not a small change. No. And actually the good thing about Pulp Fiction is CGC will support you. They don't care too much about it. I'd say it's like spooky in that they'll support it. Like it's, they're not, they're not one for region locking. They will have their allegiances to their distributors to say, if you want to buy a game, they'll promote that. But at the same time, if you bought the game, like Evil Dead, I suspect they would support you. And if you bought it, say, I mean, they've sent me out a board. They sent me out. Actually, the one thing on actually Evil Dead, one of the reasons Evil Dead was in a much better place because the pound was so strong against the dollar when I, when I got it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the same was true for Star Wars pounds very strong right now I'd say back in the Haiti of $2 to a pound miss those days yeah I know I mean that would be honestly it would you'd be mad to buy any other way in fact you could you could literally hire a jet plane and fly it back yourself you'd save so much money yeah no I mean I believe importantly that is it easy like for example actually Star Wars, they lost it for like a day. That's scary. Yeah, I had to get the paperwork for the guy who picked it up, the signature that they gave. Luckily, he kept it. How did you miss a pinball machine? I was fucking stunned by this. But I'm thinking, like, I'm imagining this, it got stuck, it got lost in the customs out. I'm imagining that like US Customs to be like that room in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Yeah. There's just fucking boxes for miles, right? Yeah. So they, they, they, I mean, the freight company said, no, I was like, oh, so I was like, oh, so they've lost it. Like, no, no, no, no, no, they're just, they're just verifying the paperwork. I was like, right. I gave them the paperwork. I said, oh yeah, I saw everyone's all good. I was like, ah, they found it, and like, the lady I deal with, Sonia, she's awesome. Oh, no, no, no, it was never lost, it was never lost. I'm like, yeah, right. Yeah, right. So, there are risks, right? And even if it's insured, okay. That's why you'd always insure it for the amount it's worth. Yeah, yeah. I mean, on, like, if I was to import a secondhand game, you know, suppose I was to John Wick Pro. I'd probably insure that for half what it's really worth. Yeah. I always mean to ask you this, and I don't know, right? I'm no legal expert when it comes to this. Back when it used to be the days when we were in the EU and people would buy games from Europe, there would never be any tax to pay on a machine being bought from Europe into the UK. No, you could pay the tax in Europe. Ah, okay. But even on a private sale? On a private sale, no. But that's what I mean. See, that's what feels different. The tax would already be, the tax would already be, have seemed to have been paid. So what you would, so let's, let's, let's use this example, right? Yeah, go on. Imagine it's like, let's rewind to 2016, right? Yeah. You're buying Ghostbusters in Europe, right? And you're buying it off Fred, who is a private, he's bought it and paid for it off the local dealer, Pinball Universe, everything's good. You're buying it off of him, he's selling it to you for a thousand pounds more than he paid for it, right? Sure. In theory, so if you're a VAT registered, which you're not, and you're an individual, which means you don't have to worry about this, But in theory, you're supposed to pay VAT on that thousand... Capital gains, right? No. Oh, it's not? VAT on both. Capital gains on the difference, for the thousand pounds, and VAT on the thousand pounds. Now, I don't know if you've seen this on eBay recently, but eBay are asking for NI numbers because if you're selling anything over two grand on eBay, they're telling the tax man about it. I had noticed that. Yeah. Yeah. So, what we're trying to get at is in now in this world, like if we want to buy something run now forward to 2025, same scenario, we now have to pay import tax at the border on that purchase. But you don't have to pay the local tax. So, for example, Ghostbusters, VAT in Germany was 19% when it came out. Sure. So, Fred, who you bought that off, already paid that 19%. If you were buying it from PU, you'd pay the 19%, which means when you took it over the border, you didn't get asked because you already paid the VAT on it, right? Now, PU don't have to charge you the 19% because you're exporting it. I'm talking about private sale though. Yeah, private sale, basically, in theory, now, if you bring a game over where you've So, if you've done a private sale on it, say it's five grand, you're required to declare its value, right? Now, the question is, is what does that mean? Does that mean that it's the values five grand what you paid for it? Or is it some other value that you think the game's worth? Right? So you could, you could, you know, if suppose it's suppose you've bought So it goes back to my concept of what you're saying about eBay where they're saying you sell something they want to know it so they can tax it but I'm like thinking if the product has already paid its tax yeah and you're selling it second hand right so how does that then qualify so here's the golden rule every pinball machine that you buy ask for a receipt for what you paid against it yeah because I get the feeling that HMRC may come knocking sooner or later they're coming mate they've got the so HMRC google it they've got We've got this AI platform where they're going to identify people that are selling tons of stuff. And actually, it's not just eBay. Certain or certain, if you if you run a in some respect, I haven't and I haven't read this recently, but I remember when I first looked at this legislation a couple of years ago, I was thinking, crikey, pinball info sells games. OK, they don't sell the games themselves, but they act as a conduit, which is the same as eBay. And I think there's a case to say that Pinball Info should be reporting, you know, should be reporting... The same thing as Facebook Marketplace, really, isn't it? Yeah, Facebook Marketplace, exactly. Yeah. And even your good old fashioned classified article in the local paper, there'll be a bunch of people going, Neil, you're talking rubbish, but go have a look at the legislation and you tell me, because it's pretty, it's not very clear. All these things are just a bunch of things that we're doing and we're not really doing a lot of work on. But this is the whole clamp down. I mean, this clamp down is aimed on the professional sellers that are selling, you know, Oh yeah, I think they're trying to tackle the Etsy sellers and stuff like that, right? All these like side hustles as they call them. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think if you were to get pulled over or I was to get pulled over, you know, it's not like we were buying and selling games to run our business. Well, no, we're losing money on pretty much every time we buy a game anyway. That's the other thing. But if you are, you know, if, if, I don't know, suppose you're, uh, suppose you've got ginger hair and a beard and you're selling 3d printed parts on eBay, um, for pinball machines, um, they're coming after you. That's the people who they want to get. Right. Are those that are selling parts as a professional business. What's scary is, is, and I've had the chat with a few folks in this. So Sean, thanks for the question. Sure. And it's not a question. It's a question. I think it's a very important question and I think it's a very important topic. And it's a question that I think people don't actually know what they're required to do. I think it's like 80 grand. If you're if you sell more than 80 grand worth of stuff and you're kind of a company. Yeah. A professional trader, you know, you're supposed to register for VAT. Sure. And VAT isn't something you pay at the end of the year, it's something you pay at the end of the quarter. That's the thing, right? It's not the same as like in the US, right, where they have to do their tax return in a year. It's like it's pretty frequent. Yeah. And, you know, you use software to cope with it. Actually, one of the things we were, I was worried at one point was that the club might hit the VAT threshold. Fortunately, we're nowhere near it. Right. Actually, the guy that does my gardens just hit the VAT threshold. So all these prices have gone up by 20%. Yeah, yeah. You know, so I would, you know, for those, for those listening to this, the professional sellers of the world, I would be getting ahead of this because it's, from what I can see, Two things, one the government's skin and two they're putting on HMRC much more pressure. They are pulling the pound coins out the sofas, they need the money. Exactly, they are and they're investing to come after you. But going back to the import business, or I mean, you know, I've got, there's a process that you go through to import goods and if you're So, if you're an individual, it's different as to if you're an organization. So, but ultimately, you know, and you see this with companies like Apple where, you know, you buy a MacBook and if you buy it without tax in the US, which you can in some states, it's going to be 20% cheaper. It's not Apple, it's the tax, right? Sure. In the pinball, like, so, you know, I'm exploring a, if you explore a game, you pay zero tax All theseolog List And Thanos vs Paul Ben eleven nine I didn't get to have that in a tournament. But this time is, you know, two of those two MVPs. And just got three stars as an option. Even more because it takes information from all over the world in terms of 10 times the context. Also, here in the US in the 1970s, they used spin water and steel to sell tin cans. Then you came the 90s and then it all happens on the GPS. It's weird. Because minerals are life savers. seiwe. That is why it takes so many years. Steve There's plenty of times where games sell for way less than the sticker price. 100% And it's all down to conversations that happen behind doors, basically. Yeah, but look, I mean, that's the thing, the US companies don't want you to sell below their price. Sure. Actually, in Europe and in the UK, that's illegal. I know, but it happens in America all the time. Yeah, but- It's so common that every game is basically like, yeah, bring up Zach at Flip N Out Pinball Flip N Out Pinball, you'll get a deal. It's even advertised like that. Yeah. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly you'll get a deal. Sorry, Zach. Before I get down for litigation here, but yeah, allegedly. And Zach isn't the guy that got me the game, by the way. If anyone thinks that, he's nothing to do with him, basically. We don't have that kind of relationship, sadly. So anyway, but flipping out a great bunch of guys, Zach, Nicole, Greg and Ken, and we're not even sponsored by them, unlike everyone else that tells you how good they are. They're good guys, as is Tilt Amusements, as is loads of other dealers in the US. They're all great guys. Go buy from them. Anyway, moving swiftly on. So Star Wars arrives tomorrow. Oh that whole thing, quickly. Yeah, I uh... I um... The good news is, well next week I'm in their country so I might get arrested on the spot. So, yeah, I mean, we had the UK Open, it went really well, we had almost 200 players. Alex won it, it was a phenomenal final. If you want to see three amazing games of pinball, watch the final on YouTube. Open the 해� el n I'll pivot back to Star Wars for a minute. So I have had it in the neck from this gentleman here. Where is he there? And a bunch of other bozos on pin side. Neil, you said you were never gonna buy an L.E. again. It's true. Which I did say. Guilty as charged, right? Here's the reason why I bought Star Wars L.E. And you put a big post about it. Yes, no I did. And I stand by the post, right? Here is the reason why I bought a Star Wars LE. Someone phoned me and said Neil I've got another LE do you want it? And it just meant I didn't have to find a Star Wars premium from someone, right? Yeah, yeah I get it. So it was literally handed to me on a plate and actually... We'll see what happens with the next title. If you get a Walking Dead LE your whole like statement here is just bullshit. Walking Dead is an exception though. Oh bollocks, absolute bollocks Neil. Just stop digging your hole and admit the fact that you're the biggest Stern shill. That Stern sign there, that should say Neil's biggest fanboy Stern right there. It's bollocks. I give Stern more shit than all the other manufacturers. No you don't. No you don't. I'm telling you now that if Evil Dead was made by Stern, If you had a question, it would be your best game ever. You would not shut up about it. You promote it enough, but I think if it was Stern's, you'd be like, oh my god, why isn't this selling 50 billion of them because it's the best game ever. I've seen you put a post up. I've seen it. I'm going to call you out on this. Someone asked you the question. They said, what's the best Stern premium to get? And your response, your response, all of them, such a load of fucking shit. I was like, come on, Neil. All of them? All of them? Really? John Wick? Really? John Wick is an epic game, mate. How many games have you played of John Wick? So fucking good that the code got completely rebuilt. Yeah, okay. Whatever. Look, how many companies? Let's compare it, right, to Avatar or, hold on, what's the other recent glory game that you bought? Labyrinth. Yeah, what else have you- This game is the Messiah, Neil, it's the Messiah! You did not say that. I did not say that. By the time your own fucking game arrived, you'd had enough of the one that you'd borrowed, so don't fucking call me out. I'm telling you now, you cannot hand on heart tell me every Stern premium is amazing. No, no, no, that's not what I meant. But what I meant was... Well, that's what I came across. No, okay, well, okay, what I meant was is, always buy the premium, is my take, right? If you're saying it from a perspective of, well, Black Knight, really? Yeah. Bollocks. Really? No. Yes. You're the only person in the world that I know that tells me a Black Knight Pro is not as better than a Black Knight Premium That upper playfield is just eh This is all based on one game that happened in Pinball Expo about 100 years ago which since then they adjusted the code so the same exploit couldn be done right I don't think it's to do with code, I just think it's there's nothing to do up there, and it's a Perspex top that gets like all chewed up by the ball, starts looking like some washed I don't disagree with that, which is why I've got two bits of the Perspex sitting under my bed. I'd be sat there with a Novus at replay going, I will get that smudge out. It's still not the best topper. Don't get me wrong, I love Black Knight, I just genuinely think the Pro is better. I do genuinely think it's better. You're entitled to be wrong. Wait, hold on, hold on, going back, what about Stranger Things as well? Really? You think that projector and the, what is it, the weird ball lock that never works, the telekinesis lock is worth having over the pro? The projector 100%. When you've got that game on, the lights off, it is awesome. And also, when that ball thing does work, it is pretty cool. Yeah, when it does work. It's very touch and go. Mine works 95% of the time. 95% of the time. Right, just like the X-Men shooter, never a problem. Well, actually, I'll tell you what, do two things, right? Have a look at all of my streams of it, right? I do remember calling you out on it and then you plunged it and then you pulled a grimace face and then you hard plunged it and it was fine. No, I don't remember this. There's one time where the plunge didn't work. You have to admit that game had problems. I want to play Pinball Republic and play X, Uncanny X-Men. I'll never convince you, Neil. I'll never. This is why people miss me because I'm the only person that's willing to fight you on this. No, no, there's no other people that are willing to fight me on it. Maybe you're the only one that maybe. There's no interview at it. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah. Look, we'll agree to disagree. I think personally, there are some good pros out there that, That I think, yeah, there are, I mean, if I looked at it from the perspective when you said all Stern premiums are great, which they're not, like there are some Stern games that are proper clunkers, like Munsters. Munsters, well, Munsters just don't fucking buy full stop, right? Yeah, but I'm just saying, the way you phrased it made it sound like all Sterns are amazing, they're not. No, no, no, okay, that's not, I definitely did not mean that because honestly, Munsters, I'd rather kill myself than own that game. I'm not a fan of the game. It is awful. I actually played it recently in the US and it reminded me how shit it actually is. Some people love it. I don't get it. Just if you want, if you see monster and you think, oh, this is a good game, go buy a monster. That's all you need to do. Right? Just go buy a monster bash. It's the same fucking game. If you want a monster theme, just get that. Yeah. Look, so look, are there pros that are less valuable than others? Yes, is the answer. What about Venom? Oh no, actually, no way. I take it back. Venom. I'm not a fan of them. No, because Venom, you lost the one thing that actually made the difference in the game. Jurassic Park is one of them, right? So, in the club, Jurassic Park is the only pro that we've got in the club. Oh, really? Because, one, because there's hardly any premiums in the UK, unknowingly, and because there's hardly any, it's a top end game to buy. I managed to pick up a Jurassic Park Pro for about, I think I paid six grand for it. Um, and it is virtually, you can't, it's hard. You know, the dinosaur head doesn't grab your ball. That's it. And there's like the thing that goes up and down on the, uh, the Raptor pet. Honestly, those two things are, they're not significant. Here is the one game that everybody gets wrong on pro versus premium. The Walking Dead. Right now I'd miss the crossbow but I think what else is missing on that uh the biggest thing that's missing on it uh is the button oh yeah because yeah yeah yeah you gotta do that for the horde on the on the pro yeah yeah yeah because what do you do then for the horde mode horde mode the walker bombs yeah yeah oh the walker bombs are worth the le price every day of the week every day of the week it's it's the get you you've lost Half of lyman's genius by not having that button do they not simulate the buttons through two buttons okay they don't have it it's just not in the code so you know that's one one example um deadpool you have to have the premium because one of the best shots in pinball is in the premium and it's not in the pro right which is that Which is the orbit shot that comes around. It is awesome. Foo Fighters. You can maybe get away with the... I mean, you're only missing the diverter, aren't you, at the top? Yeah, well, you got the mini playfield with a flipper. Wait, on Turtles? No, no. Foo Fighters. Oh, yeah, you're on Foo Fighters. Go on then, Foo Fighters. Foo Fighters. Turtles, I agree. You don't need the premium LE. Pro's the same game. There's not F transactions, Valeriya antsenSy removers, James Bond, Bond on a wand. Bond on a wand and you know and the lock it's cool. I made it and I would say you have to have it. Lots of people disagree with that but. Metallica I'd agree as well which is probably why they didn't do a pro remake because it was it was just missing too much from it for me. Yeah I mean yeah I think yeah Metallica actually I'm less I think Metallica I mean you know I like the toys though. I thought the grave didn't go up. It was stationary, wasn't it? What's that? The grave marker didn't go up on the pro. No, uh, oh good question. I don't know. That's part of, I should be honest with you. Do you lose the physical ball lock underneath the hammer? That's definitely going. And the hammer. Yeah, definitely. But the one thing about, um, Metallica, One thing about pro and premium. So we're very lucky here in the south where all of my games here are pretty, in fact, yeah, they're all premium LEs. And in the club, all the, pretty much all the Stern games are premiums because I like the premium and I put most of the games in the club are mine. Most of the, sorry, most of the modern Sterns in the club are mine. And I figure out ways of getting deals on premiums or buying them nearly new or whatever, or Network, Track 학imiento whit I'm not sure if you can fix that yourself. Yeah, you could. And also on the LE, the phasers firing up the side of the game. That's pretty cool. Yeah, but I mean, we're talking about premium though, not LE. Yeah, I mean, gameplay. You may be right. No, gameplay, I would actually, so the premium is easier than the pro. In what way? Well, the, the, the lock on that, the VUC on that side, instead of just kicking it out, Now it kicks it up onto the the um habit rail. Ah so the pro doesn't have the kind of like the VUC that goes into the rail I thought it was the same thing. The pro doesn't have the kickback so it's got a virtual kickback which is basically you lose the ball and it kicks a new ball out. Oh so the physical kickback's gone. I don't think that is shit. I hate virtual kickbacks to be honest. They're fucking awful. I still think it's a bit of a crime that Stern got rid of the physical knocker and that weird... I saw a post actually, it reminded me of that, on the forum, someone said, oh my game keeps making this weird squawk noise. And I was like, yeah, that's your knocker. Well, it's the other noise though, there's the duck noise. Duck noise? Do you know what the duck noise is? No. So when a Stern game automatically updates... Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a quack. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking hell, man. The first time it... That scares the crap out of you. Yeah, it does that to me. I was like, what the ffff was that? And everyone, I was on this Teams call and everyone's like, look at him, what was that? And I'm like, I'm like, it was something to do with my pinball machines, but I'm not reacting to it. Yeah. I nearly had a heart attack. I mean, pro versus premium is a hard one. I think, um, like if you've got, if you're short of three grand and you want to buy a You know, by the pro, I think the thing I would say is that even... I'll tell you one thing I do have noticed though, we've gone down this tangent before so I'll try and keep it short, but you lose a lot less money on a pro than you do on a premium. Oh, 100%. I don't know what it is with the second hand market at the moment, but my god, the more expensive the sticker price of the game was, the more you lose. Oh, absolutely. I've seen some jaws barely flinch money in the second hand market like 500 pounds for pro but then the premiums like yeah two three grand off it's like what yeah cranky that surprises me look at Foo Fighters Foo Fighters I think it's like there's one guy advertising in le I mean I get the fact it was on le's definitely I've taken a kick in no question about it yeah yeah I mean le I think it's fair to say that Stern have found the ceiling for the le price and crashed through it um So if I mean, lots of people say us, they're not good at business. I'm not selling the games. They're not selling any LEs. But let me tell you, they are selling truckloads of premiums and pros. Oh, yeah. So, you know, they're not good at business. They need to rediscover, I think, what makes the LE special. And I think that this is the this is the reason why I wrote that long post on Pinsight, which was, you know, you you you put you put out a Jaws. And what annoyed me about it was is Stern said that when they did a 25th, when they did like an anniversary edition like that, they wouldn't put the powder coat on it or they wouldn't do anything in it that couldn't easily be added to a LE, right? Sure. Fucking sparkly playfield. How the hell do I add that to my LE, right? Yeah, not easily, put it that way. Exactly. And I mean, I, especially with, actually for most times I wouldn't give too much. I actually know people that have sold LEs to get the 50th. Yeah, no, I've seen it as well. I mean, that to me just says they got it badly wrong. But yeah, it's, look, it's a challenging one for sure. I'm conscious of time and we've yacked on for, how long have we yacked on for? Hour and a half. So I'm off to Pinball Expo next week. I'm excited to play Predator. Get into the car, Paul! I genuinely want to see if it actually is an okay game afterwards. Well, there was a post someone got theirs delivered and the back, the lock bar had this big gap. And the guy basically realized that the weight of the playfield whilst it was in its box had bent the playfield hangers. Oh, the hooks have bent. And he says, how can this have happened? And then I replied, it's easy. It's made of cheesium. And it just shows like people complain about cost cutting. And look really where there's cost cutting going on. I'm looking forward to play it. I like Predator's a title I would buy on the spot. It was, yeah, Alien and Predator, two of my favorite action movies, like aliens I should say. I'm, you know, I'm very unoptimistic that this game's great. I'm trying to be optimistic about it, but... Do you think Prodetti will do their Big Bang Bar? So, um, they wanted to have Big Bang Bar at the event. Yeah. I heard a rumor that the reason they're not having it at the event is because their lead distributor doesn't have a booth at the event. I wouldn't that be coin taker was that someone else no idea who is absolutely no idea is but that's the rumor that I heard I also heard so a lot of people are saying walking dead it's gonna be there I am NOT a hundred percent sure is because from by all accounts Star Wars went out late and they were I think they're looking to give Star Wars a bit more time which is annoying I'm not buying Pokemon LE, in fact, I'm probably not buying Pokemon because I just don't get it at all. You heard it here first people, he's not buying Pokemon LE but he will buy Pokemon LE. No, no, no, I will not. I will, as, as, from, yeah, anyway. He'll be like, my granddaughter wants it so I had to buy it. It wasn't me, it was my granddaughter. My, my, my wife wants Alice in Wonderland and that... Wasn't there a cancelled one on, um, Pinball Heaven recently? Yeah, I feel like one. I wouldn't buy it though, I played the game, it's a clunker, it's a massive clunker. Oh really? Oh really? Beautiful game, don't get me wrong, but it flows badly and the upper playfields utter wank. That's a shame. I don't use that word often, but in this case it was appropriate. And yeah, so there's a bunch of us from the UK going over, the usual gang. We're going to see Spooky, we'll go and see Stern and then I'm going to make them all, they all think I'm like Mr. Stern, just like you do. All I do is make sure they get a fair hearing. Okay. Ambassador. Okay. I'm looking forward to them all going, oh, we were wrong, Neil, like you have. But yeah, I mean, there's not too many other new games that are going to be there. I'm looking forward to them. No, I'm kind of disappointed that you said that like, you know, spookies might not even be at the show. It won't be. I think the first chance you got to play Evil Dead was Pinball at the Beach, which is in February. And by the way, I'm going to Pinball on the Beach. Yeah, I heard it's very successful last year, right? It was. I heard it was an epic show. But the simple fact that there's a son and pinball there, my beloved's coming with me, she can relax all day by the pool. Yeah, I think it's great. I think it's great, right? I can relax all day by the pinball machines. It's a match made in heaven and it's a pretty nice venue that they're at. And look, what's not to like about St Pete's Beach? It's delicious. So yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Actually, I'm going to Miami in November. If there's any listening from that area, hit me up with where's the cool pinball places in Miami. I'll probably be wondering about wearing a kind of a lilac suit with soft shoes floating around in a white Ferrari, which is one of my, if you want a theme for Neil McCrea by Miami Vice, not the shit movie, but the amazing, the amazing TV show. I'd be all over that like a bad suit. So yeah, I'll be in Miami in November. If there's a pinball place to go, let me know and I will try and visit. What else is going on in the wild very quickly? I think that's probably it for today, given that we've yacked on a bit because... I'll get my June next week or week after that, I think. I mean, actually, shout out to Rob Cutler because he's been singing praises of June. I did play June in I mean I played it and it's kind of weird I played it in pin fest and I thought that's okay I played it in Pimberg and thought this game is awful I mean I really thought it was bad and then I played it at Papa and thought actually this game's got potential and so I'm looking forward to playing that game out at Expo yeah and getting more shots on it but Rob he bought the one that David I think that's correct for the show. Yeah. And, you know, he really rates it. Although I did see there was some issues with one of the mechs, like grinding its gears or something. All right. So keep an eye out for that. I don't know. There was a few reports of it. And I know the worms had its problems, but I think a lot of it was related. It was the worm basically grinding gears. There was all this dust everywhere. And but the the um because on the first day at Papua the game was working on this and then it was down for the rest of the... I'll tell you one thing I did find we didn't touch on this I'll do it really quick we do maybe five minutes on it. Did you see that Barrels announced the printed manual for Labyrinth? I did not but... Okay this is good then because I want to see what your value estimate would have been for a printed manual. So, you know, as you know, most people don't get printed manuals anymore. This is kind of a dead art. The only people that did it recently from memory is Pulp Fiction for CGC. So, yeah, I mean, all the Pulp Fiction games have got a printed manual, but CGC, so, so, sorry, all the, all the CGC games, but from, uh, I want to say Cactus Canyon, we got a proper manual as opposed to the 10 pages of bullshit that came in Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness. Okay, well imagine if you will this is a full schematic breakdown like literally layer by layer It's it's I don't know what size is but let's estimate. It's bigger than a force probably a free something to that instance and it's thick. Yeah Yeah, it's pitch fully printed Manual yeah, what do you think they should have charged? In dollars, I mean just the pure The pure, um, just the pure cost of printing that, you're looking at, I don't know, 50 to 70 bucks, I would have thought. Sure. So what do you think they should have marketed it at then? Oh, 50 to 70 bucks? They won $180. Okay. I was like, you've got to be absolutely nuts to be spent. I mean, they've supplied it like as a PDF as well. And I'm not like, well, I just go to a printing company that specializes in printing booklets and say, print that for me and I'll have that 80 quid or 80 or 90 dollars, because it just to me is like one hundred and eighty dollars. I think it's one hundred and fifty dollars, actually. Yeah, but so it's a lot of money. Yeah, but I think if you take that PDF to a printer, they'll look at it. I mean, so they might print it just like you print on a printer, right? Sure. What they're not going to do and this is so... They won't bind it in that. Yeah, or they might. It's in a nice binder and also it's got pages that fold out. Ah, yeah, yeah, sure. They're not going to do that for you, mate. Not for... No, they probably won't. But I just don't... I just didn't get the whole $150 thing. Like it's a manual. Like, surprisingly people have bought them. I'm just surprised at that price point, that's all. I mean, it's the top end. I mean, if you think about it, it's the same price as a, well, if you think about it, right, it's the same price as a set of art blades for a Stern game. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it doesn't, I look, it's, is it more than you would expect for sure? Is it ridiculous? I dunno, I just, I feel like for the price point that the game was at and the fact that it should have probably come with the game anyway, and I get the fact that they don't have to do it, But every company should in my book. It just feels like that should have been bundled and if it didn't it should have just been provided at cost to people that want it. I don't know. To me it just feels like if you're gonna do it, make it a point where it's acceptable to buy it. It's just I couldn't ever envisage telling Holly, oh yeah by the way I just spent 150 quid on a manual. Yeah, no I mean when you put it like that I couldn't agree more. I mean, this is the thing. In some ways, for the vast majority of times, the PDF, I never use the printing manual for Cactus or Pulp Fiction for two reasons. One, I don't want to get it covered in shit from the game. And two, I've got this big freaking screen here that I can put the PDF up on. Yeah, I can see it a lot better than the more I mean I often hunt down the manuals when I'm buying a game second hand because like you know like a Williams game and that because I like having it complete. I mean those manuals they want 50 quid for if you're buying them. Yeah they do want a lot and that to me is a lot but like I say... 50 quid for a manual for Theatre of Magic are you having a laugh? There's no way of getting that. Especially when you can I mean on that scenario you can download the pdf and print it and staple it together yourself and you've got one right? Which is what a lot of these manuals you're buying are. So yeah, I mean, it's a tough one. I mean, I think if you're, if you're really into the game, um, you know, I kind of get it on, on the flip side, I do, you know, the manuals that come with Stern games are freaking awful. Basically. There's like annoyingly bits missing off it. So, and I'll give an example of that. I remember you had this issue, didn't you? I think you had it with Jurassic Park. Exactly. That's what I was just going to say. Jurassic Park, the post broke and actually it's not in the manual. I actually thought because the manual was awful. So it's not in the manual because they added this part after they made the game because balls were getting stuck there. So, yeah, it's it's it's it's annoying. But I would probably if I was if June June was like kind of Pulp Fiction in me, I'd probably buy the manual, just stick it in the bag and stick it underneath. Stick it in a plastic bag and stick underneath the game, because because when you I mean, There'll be a time where you can't get it and then 150 bucks will seem cheap. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll wrap it there, I think. Indeed. Scott, great to have you back. I love to Holly and Max and the cats. I'm at Pinball Republic tomorrow. I'll try and get this out tomorrow at some point. And watch out for the unboxing of Star Wars, perhaps tomorrow night on Twitch. It's where you find it region locks and completely locks itself. Well, it'll be like, it'll either be region locked or it'll have been dropped like my Bond was. Oh, God, don't. And I'll have to feign that I don't care when I was infuriated to the core. I'm updating the code on Evil Dead. I did it before, but it seems to have lost the update somehow. It's bizarre. And they because they've added a video mode to Evil Dead. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. We better go. So I know my wife, I'd love to talk about that. But yeah, I have to call it. Okay, and on that bombshell, before we're both gunned down by our respective wives, I'll watch out on my YouTube, I'll post some videos from Expo of anything interesting, and if you're at Expo, come and say hello, and with that, all there is left to say is adios, my friends. Goodbye. Take it easy. Play pinball, visit locations, be positive. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 1169eb32-a8db-4621-a691-0fe52f0d023e*