# Saturday Morning Spectacular, May 18 **Source:** Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed) **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2024-05-19 **Duration:** 90m 12s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.patreon.com/posts/saturday-morning-104524296 --- ## Analysis Kaneda delivers an unfiltered rant criticizing Stern Pinball's John Wick release as a market failure, attributing it to destroyed FOMO, overpricing, poor theme fit, and arrogant volume decisions (1,000 LEs vs. historical 500). He argues Stern has lost touch with consumer demand by doubling production while nearly doubling prices, and speculates that Metallica Vault Edition is next. The episode highlights his Patreon growth (707 subscribers) and positions his unsponsored commentary as the only honest voice in pinball media. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Stern made 1,000 John Wick LEs when they only made 800 Star Wars LEs, signaling arrogance and misread demand — _Kaneda, Saturday Morning Spectacular, May 18 — directly compares production numbers_ - [HIGH] John Wick is boring to watch and lacks personality because the IP doesn't translate to pinball (it's a numb, screen-heavy experience) — _Kaneda's extended critique of theme fit and gameplay experience_ - [HIGH] Stern destroyed their own FOMO by killing limited edition exclusivity and doubling production volumes while raising prices — _Kaneda's central thesis throughout episode; compares to Hunt for Red October submarine firing on itself_ - [MEDIUM] John Wick LEs will be available for ~$9,000 in October (down from $13,000 MAP), indicating current oversupply — _Kaneda's prediction based on historical dealer inventory patterns_ - [MEDIUM] Stern's next release will be Metallica Vault Edition with Raymond Davidson porting original Lyman Sheets code to an LCD screen — _Kaneda citing 'a friend of the show, Ken Trox' and unspecified source ('from what I'm hearing')_ - [MEDIUM] Stern premium pricing has risen to ~$9,500 (from $7,500 baseline mentioned as historical pricing) — _Kaneda's conversation with Ken Trox about Metallica Premium resale value_ - [MEDIUM] Seth Davis brought in expansion/new audience strategy that prioritized volume and price increases over traditional FOMO model — _Kaneda attributing strategy shift to specific Stern leadership decision_ - [MEDIUM] John Wick Pro's underside is mechanically simple and cheaply built compared to Pirates of the Caribbean, Hobbit, AC/DC, Metallica — _Kaneda citing Fliptronics photo and personal inspection; subjective assessment of build quality_ - [HIGH] Kaneda's Patreon has 707 paying subscribers and is more monetized than 'all them combined' (other pinball content creators) — _Kaneda directly stating subscriber count multiple times; monetization claim is assertion_ - [LOW] Dealers and distributors may close doors in 2024 if heavily invested in Venom and John Wick inventory — _Kaneda speculation framed as hypothetical risk scenario_ ### Notable Quotes > "This is the most humbling moment I've ever seen, maybe in the history of Stern, because back in the day when like WWE came out and nobody bought it, Stern did not scramble like this." > — **Kaneda**, early segment > _Sets up core argument that John Wick represents unprecedented market failure and panic from Stern_ > "You are arrogant. For the longest time Stern, for like ten years, you had it perfect, right? You have the FOMO, you made 500 LEs, they sold out in one day." > — **Kaneda**, mid-episode > _Articulates the FOMO-destruction thesis and contrasts past success with current failure_ > "FOMO is the fuel that has driven Stern Pinball for the longest time. And what an idiotic move it was to destroy their own FOMO." > — **Kaneda**, early-mid segment > _Core diagnosis of Stern's strategic error_ > "And now Stern Pinball's new thing, it's a world on the screen. And that is why John Wick is not selling, because we're not stupid, and we're looking at the game, and we're not seeing a world under glass." > — **Kaneda**, mid-episode > _Connects design philosophy shift to market failure; invokes classic Stern messaging_ > "I have one question for Stern Pinball. How do you wake up and have balls big enough to charge $2,000 for a Foo Fighters topper?" > — **Kaneda**, late-episode > _Explains why he refuses to interview Stern; encapsulates pricing criticism_ > "If you buy a John Wick LE, you're an idiot. And you know why I would say that you're an idiot? It's the same way I would tell my friend, if you stick your hand in the fire, you're an idiot." > — **Kaneda**, late-episode > _Directly dismisses purchasing at MAP; positions market loss as inevitable_ > "Every once in a while they'll pop in here, but they got nothing to say. They got nothing to say. They got nothing to say. They're afraid to talk to me." > — **Kaneda**, late-episode > _Reflects on his competitive advantage as only unsponsored voice; indicates isolation of other creators_ > "I love that consumers have drawn a line. I love that we've put our foot down. And I love that this is the only place that's not going to make videos that are like, OK, Here's how great John Wick is and here's how the Bo Peep loops work and then a week from now I'm gonna sell my game." > — **Kaneda**, late-episode > _Frames community sentiment shift as consumer pushback; indicts other creators for hype-and-dump_ > "I don't want to look at a pinball machine. I mean it when I say this. I don't want to look at the underside of a pinball machine and feel like Cengiz and I could have built that game in a few hours with a screwdriver." > — **Kaneda**, mid-late segment > _Critiques mechanical depth/build quality as inadequate for price point_ > "Stern has managed, they've managed to lose even those guys. Like when you listen to Iceman, the dude's got like 30,000 posts on PinSide, right? 30,000 posts... They've lost him." > — **Kaneda**, late-episode > _Indicates even the most hardcore PinSide community members are disengaging from Stern_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Kaneda | person | Host of Saturday Morning Spectacular and Kaneda's Pinball Podcast; 707 Patreon subscribers; Connecticut-based independent content creator and industry analyst; unsponsored voice criticizing Stern pricing and strategy | | Stern Pinball | company | Subject of episode's primary critique; accused of destroying FOMO, overpricing, poor product strategy, and arrogant volume decisions on John Wick LE (1,000 units) | | John Wick | game | Stern Pinball's latest release; described as dead-on-arrival, theme mismatch, boring to watch, oversupplied (1,000 LEs), poor mechanical design, failing at $13,000 MAP for LE | | George Gomez | person | Stern Pinball designer; criticized by Kaneda for lack of market research, FOMO destruction strategy, and arrogant demand assumptions | | Seth Davis | person | Stern Pinball leadership; credited by Kaneda with initiating expansion/volume strategy that destroyed FOMO model | | Metallica | game | Stern's rumored next release; speculated to be Vault Edition with Raymond Davidson porting Lyman Sheets code to LCD; ~6,000 units in circulation; re-release may frustrate existing owners | | Ken Trox | person | Friend of show; Metallica Premium owner (purchased $6,000); consulted Kaneda about resale amid rumors of Metallica re-release | | Raymond Davidson | person | Developer reportedly working on Metallica Vault Edition LCD port | | Lyman Sheets | person | Original Metallica code designer; code being ported to LCD for Vault Edition | | Keith Elwin | person | Professional pinball player; Kaneda criticizes community for not pushing back on exclusive James Bond topper deal he signed (Sharpie signature) | | Joel | person | Streamer; cited as example of unable to generate excitement playing John Wick despite effort | | Javier | person | Community member who ordered John Wick LE for Spain market (~5 units available); Kaneda pressured him to cancel; reported cost ~$19,000 | | John Popadiuk | person | Operator/industry figure; cited as falling back on 'it's fun to shoot' excuses for John Wick without addressing deeper design issues | | Christopher Marquette | person | Cointaker representative; joined Kaneda's Patreon (~707 member cohort) | | Cengiz | person | Community member in Kaneda's Patreon chat; Kaneda notes low activity despite membership | | James Bond 60th | game | Prior Stern release; example of false exclusivity (topper promised exclusive, then reproduced with Keith Elwin signature variant) | | Iceman | person | Hyperactive PinSide user (~30,000 posts); cited as example of even core enthusiasts abandoning Stern products | | Fliptronics | person | Pinball community member who photographed John Wick Pro underside, supporting Kaneda's critique of cheap mechanical construction | | Loser Kid Pinball Podcast | organization | Competing pinball podcast; Kaneda implies they will interview Stern (implicitly endorsing) unlike his own approach | | PinSide | organization | Pinball forum; Kaneda dismisses as market research source due to demographic bias (bored middle-aged men with excessive free time) | ### Topics - **Primary:** Stern Pinball market failure and John Wick reception, FOMO destruction strategy and pricing escalation, John Wick theme fit and design philosophy critique, Metallica Vault Edition rumor and re-release strategy, Kaneda's Patreon growth and competitive advantage in unsponsored commentary - **Secondary:** Content creator credibility and hype-and-dump behavior, Dealer/distributor financial health and inventory risk, Historical Stern FOMO model (500 LEs, sell-out in one day) ### Sentiment **Negative** (-0.92) — Episode is a scathing critique of Stern Pinball's strategic decisions, pricing, and product quality. Kaneda expresses frustration, anger, and contempt for John Wick and the company's leadership. However, sentiment toward community engagement and his own content success is highly positive (+0.85 on that subset). Mixed sentiment toward other content creators (critical but also sympathetic to their struggle). Overall negative on the industry state, but optimistic about consumer pushback and his own platform growth. ### Signals - **[product_concern]** John Wick LE extensively critiqued as unsellable at MAP ($13,000), with prediction of rapid price collapse to ~$9,000 within months. Kaneda characterizes as unprecedented market failure for Stern. (confidence: high) — Extended rant on boring theme, lack of playfield magic, oversupply (1,000 LEs), and streaming evidence of poor audience reception - **[product_strategy]** Stern's shift from 500-LE model (sell-out in 1 day) to 1,000+ LE production combined with price increases ($13,000 vs historical $10,000) represents deliberate destruction of scarcity-driven demand. (confidence: high) — Kaneda's core thesis; comparison to historical Star Wars (800 LEs) and other titles; explicit connection to Seth Davis expansion strategy - **[pricing_signal]** John Wick LE projected to sell below MAP by October (~$9,000 vs $13,000 current), indicating market rejection and oversupply. (confidence: medium) — Kaneda's prediction based on dealer inventory and historical secondary market patterns; anecdote of distributors sitting on inventory - **[design_philosophy]** John Wick epitomizes Stern's shift from 'world under glass' (mechanical playfield focus) to 'world on the screen' (video/code-heavy), which Kaneda argues fails to engage players or collectors. (confidence: high) — Extended critique of 50 minutes of movie clips vs minimal playfield action; comparison to Funhouse, Pirates of Caribbean, AC/DC, Metallica as superior playfield experiences - **[rumor_hype]** Metallica Vault Edition rumored as next Stern release, with Raymond Davidson porting Lyman Sheets original code to LCD screen. Uncertain timeline and spec details. (confidence: medium) — Kaneda cites 'from what I'm hearing' and conversation with Ken Trox; no official confirmation mentioned - **[sentiment_shift]** Kaneda frames John Wick failure as evidence of consumer revolt against inflated pricing; even hardcore PinSide users (Iceman example) abandoning Stern. (confidence: high) — Repeated references to 'consumers drawing a line,' distros unable to move inventory, secondary market predictions, and Iceman disengagement - **[content_signal]** Kaneda claims unique market position as only unsponsored, unfiltered voice; other creators engage in hype-and-dump (promote game, stream, then resell). Patreon growth (707) attributed to this differentiation. (confidence: high) — Kaneda's refusal to interview Stern, critique of 'buy buy buy' creators, claim of superior monetization/subscriber count vs peers - **[product_concern]** John Wick Pro underside criticized as cheap and simplistic compared to Pirates of Caribbean, Hobbit, AC/DC, Metallica; described as achievable 'in a few hours with a screwdriver.' (confidence: medium) — Kaneda's photo-based critique (citing Fliptronics) and personal inspection comparison; subjective but detailed assessment - **[business_signal]** Speculation that dealers/distributors heavily invested in Venom and John Wick inventory may face closures in 2024 as Jaws sales decline and John Wick inventory stalls. (confidence: low) — Hypothetical scenario raised by Kaneda; no specific distributor names or hard data provided - **[industry_signal]** Seth Davis credited with initiating volume-over-scarcity strategy at Stern; George Gomez executing without adequate market research. Represents departure from 10-year FOMO-based model. (confidence: medium) — Kaneda's attribution of strategy to Davis; inference from pricing/volume changes; no direct quotes from Stern leadership - **[product_launch]** 1,000 John Wick LEs in market vs historical 500-800 LE production, combined with secondary market rumors of stuck inventory at distributors and rapid price depreciation. (confidence: high) — Kaneda's production number comparison, anecdotes of distros sitting on stock, prediction of $9K price by October - **[community_signal]** Kaneda's Patreon growth to 707 subscribers attributed to unsponsored, unfiltered commentary; positions himself as only honest voice in pinball media landscape. (confidence: high) — Repeated subscriber count claims, comparison to other creators' smaller bases, emphasis on lack of giveaways/sponsorships --- ## Transcript What can I say except you're welcome for the tides, the sun, the sky. Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome. I'm just an ordinary daily guy. Alright, welcome everybody to Kaneda's Saturday Morning Spectacular. What Saturday is it? I think it's the 18th of May and I'm here. Welcome to the Pinball World. I'm here. It is Saturday. Baby Cassian is next door. Killian is playing with his good friend. And we're going to talk all about what's going on in the pinball world. I've got my sunglasses on. I've got my bandana on. I've got people coming through the door. And I'm doing something I haven't done in a while. I haven't really done this ever before, people. I can't believe it's taken me this long to figure this out. I am going to record the audio with my mic through Audacity so that when I upload the audio for the Saturday Morning Spectacular for all my club members out there, it's going to sound amazing. It is not going to sound like I'm downloading the video from Facebook and then trying to upload it again. So welcome, everybody. Happy Saturday. We got Godino in the house. We've got Charles. We've got Adam. We've got everybody coming through the door. And what I normally do, I like to edit out the pauses before I upload the audio as I read some of your commentary. But unlike other pinball content creators, Kaneda doesn't need to stop and read. I keep going. You know, it's like Jack Danger when he streams pinball. He knows how to do it where he doesn't skip a beat. Javier, man, I gotta tell you right now, I hope you canceled your John Wick LE order. What are you thinking, brother? Why would you order a John Wick LE? And Javier was like, well, there's only five coming to Spain. Newsflash Javier, there's gonna be five available for sale in Spain forever. How much did that game cost you? Come clean Javier, like $19,000. We're gonna talk all about John Wick. We're gonna talk all about what's going on. He canceled it, yes, yes. Tell Stern to F off with this game. You know, look, I'm just going to tell you right now, and we're going to talk a lot about Stern Pinball and this latest game and why the game is not selling. And I've never seen Stern Pinball so desperate to drum up sales for a game like they are right now with John Wick. This is the most humbling moment I've ever seen, maybe in the history of Stern, because back in the day when like WWE came out and nobody bought it, Stern So, um, starting off with the video, we're coming at you with our very first stream, and I commit to you now, co-hosting I'm Daryl Larson, making videos on all sorts of chickens If we're supposed to cheerlead that, wow, congratulations Stern. You made a bunch of games. Not many people want it. You can put it on location all you want and that's exactly where we're all going to play John Wick. We're not going to go into our wallets and spend this kind of money to own this game and it's a glorious moment in pinball as most of us wake up and say, hey, I can enjoy a game. I can have fun on it, but I don't have to play it. Hold on. We're going to start using the nice mic to record the audio for Saturday Morning Spectacular. I love it. Thank you guys so much for all the support this week. And I mean it when I say it. This week was incredible. We had about like 20 new people join Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. And our numbers are phenomenal. We've now got, Deon, what's up brother? We've now got 707 paying subscribers to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. People are starting to do the math. They're starting to realize that this is where all the support is at. Christopher Marquette over at Cointaker, welcome to the party, pal. We're going to talk about Metallica. We're going to talk about Wick. We're going to talk about Funhaus. We're going to talk about everything going on in pinball right now. There's a lot going on. And I love doing this show. I love this content and I love that each and every one of you is showing everybody else this is where the party's at. Like we're having the most fun and we have the most engaging conversation on a weekly basis. Albert, what's up brother? Will you break last week's record of 17 F-bombs? Good question, man. And I'm thinking about like maybe, just maybe my rant show is the reason why so many people joined. I don't know, maybe. Maybe I think people liked Kaneda unhinged a little bit, right? The chains were off. The chains were off. And to summarize last week's show, if you didn't hear it, you should go hear it first and foremost. But to summarize it, it's really simple. F off Stern Pinball. F off pinball companies and your greedy prices. F off George Gomez when you say you made Black Knight Topper three times as expensive because And that's it. F off. F off charging $2,000 for a Foo Fighters topper because of the demand. And what George Gomez doesn't get and Crazy Levy doesn't get and all the Stern apologists do not get, the only reason why Black Knight topper, Ghostbusters topper, was selling for more money than it should because Stern decided to stop making them. That's it. Ask any question in the question box. If you want to know how much you can buy言ised pinball which has talked with a market expert before and when you bid the order on our website, topgear.comяжons.com. I bet you can get your SIM card for free from our site. All you have to do is to make 1650 bucks to give you the 10% دэнαιنъا دنیا Caribbean corporатив adventure and visit coppercaritche.com we'll You know, they killed their own FOMO. It is like, I'm trying to think of that scene in the movie. What movie is it from where it's like, you idiot, you killed us. It's Hunt for Red October. That's what Stern did. They're the other submarine and they just fired a missile at Red October and they thought they had it, right? They thought they had the victory in hand. They thought they were going to win this naval battle. And the stupid marketing team led by like Jody and Seth and all those people over there, they blew themselves up. They blew up their own FOMO. And FOMO is the fuel that has driven Stern Pinball for the longest time. And what an idiotic move it was to destroy their own FOMO. And now there's no FOMO. And the reason why they destroyed it is a series of stupid marketing moves. Overpriced games, lying to people. Did you remember when James Bond 60th came out and they're like, here's the James Bond topper. It is exclusive to James Bond 60th. And that was a reason why people had FOMO. Oh, if I get the 60th, I'm going to have one of the games with only this topper because nobody else gets it. And then what happens after that happens? They're like, oh, we're actually going to make more of these toppers. But your topper is exclusively signed by Keith Elwin with the cheap Sharpie on the back of I'm a fan of the Topper and you're never going to see it. And they made moves like this, right? And the apologist and the pinball content creators, they didn't get mad. There was no uproar because it's Keith Elwin. We can't say anything bad about a Keith Elwin release. Did Keith Elwin stop them? No. And that's the other thing. It's like when Kaneda gets unshackled, nobody's safe because I don't care. Like I don't care. I don't think these people are precious. I love it when they make great games. I love it when they make a world under glass. So when you make these stupid moves and you blow up your own FOMO, you land where you are right now Stern. Look how pathetic this John Wick launch has been. They look like a foolish company scrambling, scrambling to try to get any excitement for this game. They've turned to all their psychofence and they've made their content and it's not working. They show us pictures of all of these pros about to go on location. Great, we don't care. We're going to go play it at the local brewery and then we're going to go home. You think we're going to buy this thing for $7,000? You think we're going to buy this LE for $13,000? The fact that Stern Pinball is making a thousand John Wick LEs when they only made 800 Star Wars. I mean, think about how stupid that is. Yeah, it's stupid. Like, F off Stern. Like, you don't understand what demand is. And I'm just going to say this right now. When George Gomez gets up there and says, hey, we're going to make games to fulfill demand. What market research did you do, George Gomez, to say to us that you think there's demand for 1,000 John Wick L.E.s? What market research did you do? I'll tell you what you did, George. You didn't do any market research. All you're looking at is that if we put anything in a box, these idiots will buy it. That is what a thousand John Wick L.E.s signifies to me. That we're arrogant, that we think these idiots will buy anything we put in a box, and as long as we push the designer out and Timmy Sexton and they talk about the code and all of our psycho content creators just keep shoving it down your throats and all the dealers just keep spamming you, we've got John Wick for sale. No crap you've got it for sale. I'm so sick of seeing ads for John Wick. And it's not working Stern. And you're arrogant. And the fact that you think a thousand people want a John Wick LE is stupid. It's bad marketing. More John Wick fans than Ghostbusters? More John Wick fans than Star Wars? More John Wick fans than James Bond? More John- not James Bond because he also made a thousand. More John Wick fans than Metallica and Tron? You are arrogant. For the longest time Stern, for like ten years, you had it perfect, right? You have the FOMO, you made 500 LEs, they sold out in one day. You made all the distributors money, you made money. The consumers who like bought your products, they made money on the games when they were good and if the games weren't good, they didn't lose much money. You had it. You had the golden goose. You had the golden goose for all these years and then you bring in Seth Davis and he's like we're going to expand pinball. We're going to bring pinball to new people, to new audiences and you think you're going We're going to bring pinball to new audiences by raising the price, by taking stuff out of the game, and by making themes that people don't really care about. Yeah, that's a winning formula. And then you kill your FOMO by doubling the volume of the games that created the FOMO. And then you almost double the price at the same time. And we're supposed to sit here and take it on the chin and talk about how much you put into the code. Here's the thing Stern, and everybody sees it. You used to be a company, and George Gomez knows this, you used to say that pinball is a game where it's a world under glass, right? That was the thing. And now Stern Pinball's new thing, it's a world on the screen. And that is why John Wick is not selling, because we're not stupid, and we're looking at the game, and we're not seeing a world under glass. We are seeing a world on the screen, and I don't want to see a world on the screen. I want to see a world under glass. And you made a theme that's not working. It's not resonating because you didn't do any market research. And the reason why John Wick is boring to look at, and I've watched this stream, gang, for like an hour or more. It is the most boring games to witness being played. And the reason why is this, is John Wick as a movie is fun to watch, right? It's fun to just sit back in your chair, get some popcorn and watch this hit man just take out all these bad guys. And if you think about it, John Wick is like, his soul's been destroyed. He's a man on a mission. He's kind of numb to the world. He's like, I don't care. I'm just going to kill everybody and I'm just going to go on this mission. And it works in a theatrical sense. And then if you think about trying to translate that to pinball, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. This game just lacks personality. It lacks like a soul. Like it's just this numb experience. And you can see it in the code and you can see it in the gameplay. You can see it. And then and even the streamers, right? You can see it when Joel plays it and other people are playing it. They want to so badly. They want to jump on this game and feel something. And nobody's feeling anything. And there's no way to change that. Like it wasn't a good theme for pinball. It doesn't work. There's no magic under the glass. Everybody knows that. And at these prices, it's dead on arrival. So it is absolutely hysterical watching Stern realize what happens when they screwed over all of us after all of these like last three to four years. They've screwed over everybody who used to keep them in business and kept FOMO strong and now they've got a dud, right? They've got a dud. They've got a dud on their hands and they don't know what to do. It doesn't matter how many times, right? How many... Oh, it's fun to shoot. Oh, wait, guys. Hey, everybody. News flash, news break. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, said it's fun to shoot. I'm so sick of this being the fallback. What, John, did you think it wasn't gonna be fun to shoot? Like fan layout, Stern flippers, so what? So what? Every pinball machine is basically fun to shoot that's a fan layout. Name me a fan layout game that's not fun to shoot. I'm so tired of the excuses. You know, John, you're an operator, I get it. It's gonna work for you on location, but it's not gonna earn great on location. It's not, it's not gonna earn as well as Toy Story. It's not going to earn as well as some of the new modern games. And so here we are. All right, here we are. All new pins are fun to shoot. So then what? Are you going to buy one? Are you going to buy one? Right? And that's where we're at. And Stern pinball can't survive if the home buyers are not on board for each game. They can't survive if they have to shove a thousand L.E.s of a game nobody wants down the throats of its dealers. Are you ready, ladies and gentlemen, for dealers and distros to close their doors in 2024 if they've invested heavily on Venom and John Wick, right? Because Jaws sales are going to be over soon. And look, here's what's going to happen. Stern's just going to make Jaws premiums to the cows come home, and then all of those are going to start to tank in value, and they're going to oversaturate. And then they're going to go back to the well of Metallica. So let's think about this. So you got to flop with John Wick. We've got 6,000 people that probably own Metallica and are happy with it, and then you're going to go make another Metallica and you're going to screw those people over. And you're going to... why? Why George Gomez? When George Gomez says, well, we're going to make games because there's demand. Is there really demand for more Metallica, George? Right? There's 6,000 of them in the world. And I get there's a few newbies out there like Don who has like 11 pinball machines in like one year, right? Right? I get it. There's not enough Don's in the world to keep Stern's new business model going. For every one Don, you're losing five of us who supported you all these years and it's not going to work. And you can see it. They don't even know how to make the content anymore. Like even like this, even like the content creators that are in Stern's back pocket, they don't, they don't even know what to say, right? The whole buy, buy, buy people, they look so stupid right now. They look so stupid. And you are getting on the airwaves and saying, buy this game. And we look, are you ready for it? We know you like, are you ready for the distro content creators to say, John Wick is great. You know, and then here's what's going to happen next. They're going to be unboxing all their L.E.s be like, oh, you know, I'm going to sell below map. The only way to sell below map pricing is if they unbox it, do a stream, and then they're going to give it to you for like 11.2 or 11.5. That's what's going to happen. It's just not going to work. It's just not going to work. You know, and here's the problem with all of it. It's like you got to be an idiot to buy a John Wick LE, right? You're going to lose $3,000 to $4,000. Idiot move, right? There's no demand for this game. It's never coming back. Then you got to be even more of an idiot to buy a John Wick premium. And the reason why you got to be more of an idiot to buy a John Wick premium is that you could get a John Wick LE for the same price as a premium if you just wait a few months. And then it just leaves the John Wick pros, which are going to be on location, which is where we're all going to go play the game. And here's the thing, ladies and gentlemen, you're waiting for it. Playing John Wick Pro, a game in which they've got 50 minutes of movie clips and everything's happening on the screen, right? Nothing fun is happening on the playfield. There is nothing exciting happening on the playfield of this game. And so everything's on the screen and you gotta hear it and you gotta get deep into the code. Guess what that's gonna be like when you play on location? It's gonna suck. It's gonna suck. Because when you go on location, you wanna play a game that has more mechanical magic. You wanna play a game like Totem or Funhouse Fabian Overall, Larry Kat cartoonist, When a John exists, when Guns N' Roses exist, when games with real good light shows, Rick & Morty, much better light show, all the spooky games, much better light show, you're really giving Stern an excuse. And I just want to say this too. I saw that, I think, Flinibus took a picture of the underside of a John Wick Pro, and ladies and gentlemen, if you don't think the Stern bomb is like three grand or thirty-five hundred, go look at that photo. I don't want to look at a pinball machine. I mean it when I say this. I don't want to look at the underside of a pinball machine and feel like Cengiz and I could have built that game in a few hours with a screwdriver. And that's what it feels like when I see the underside of John Wick Pro. When I look at the underside of a Pirates of the Caribbean or a, you know, a Hobbit, the underside of like an ACDC, the underside of a Metallica, I don't feel that way. But when I lift the hood on a freakin' John Wick, these games are cheap. They're cheap. And here we are, ladies and gentlemen. You know, John Wick is good for Kaneda business because nobody else is saying this stuff. They're all trying to shove this game down your throat. They're all trying to shove this game down your throat and they can't get it done. They can't get it done. And so now, now what's happening, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast is gaining momentum. We've got the most subscribers out of everybody combined. Combined. Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi, Monique Hurston, Robert Lee today, Tim Tim Kitzrow onेory, Chander T Matthum, John Pilto, DIYTHE sexual phrasing, And it's like more money monetized than all them can... they all hated on Kaneda and now look at Kaneda. I'm the only one speaking on behalf of the pinball buying community. Who amongst you, who amongst you, wants pinball prices to be this high? Who amongst you wants to spend $13,000 on a pinball machine so your distro can pocket $2,000 and Stern can make three, like two times as much as they were a few years ago. David David Van Es, The Money That's on the Table And when you try to take all the money that's on the table and you go all in, the problem with Stern Pinball going all in, imagine if this is a game of poker, right? And we're playing with them, right? They go all in with their product. They think they got pocket aces on every game. That's the arrogance. The problem is they don't. And we all love Stern Pinball. We think Stern Pinball makes the greatest $5,500 pro. We think Stern Pinball makes the greatest $7,500 premium. And we think Stern Pinball makes the best $10,000 LE machine money can buy. That is your ceiling. That is where demand remains strong. And we think Stern should make 500 LEs of every game unless they've got a triple A banger like Star Wars. But when you shove a thousand John Wick LEs into the marketplace Stern, you look stupid. And now you have to do this panic tour. It's so funny to watch. Like George Gomez, Tim Sexton, they're all everywhere. They're everywhere. We swing a dead cat on social media without hitting a Stern employee trying to tell you how great John Wick is. And we're not buying it. Like they could do like a Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. They're going to do all the podcasters, right? All the podcasters will interview Stern and guess who won't? I won because I don want to interview them because I only have one question for Stern Pinball I have one question How do you wake up and have balls big enough to charge $2,000 for a Foo Fighters topper? That's the only question I have. And if they can give me an answer that is satisfactory to that one question, sure, then I'll bring you on my show. Sure, then I'll interview you. Sure, then I'll send my 3,000 fans to go buy your games. Sure, but I'm not going to do it. And you know what's happening? It's happening in the Patreon community chat. And by the way, guys, if you're not a Patreon member, you are missing the greatest chat in all of pinball. We've got Bond on there making epic memes. We've got, you know, Dave over in the UK. We've got Eric Caden. We've got everybody over there. Todd Tucky's on there. Everyone's over there having the greatest ongoing conversation about pinball. It is beautiful. It is so much fun. And if you are a Patreon member and you're not in the chat, what are you doing? You know, what are you doing? Kerry Hardy, get in there, brother. Cengiz is in there. But Cengiz, come on, bro. I want to see more activity. But this is where we're at. This is where we're at. And in a world in which everything is getting really expensive, I love it. I love that consumers have drawn a line. I love that we've put our foot down. And I love that this is the only place that's not going to make videos that are like, OK, Here's how great John Wick is and here's how the Bo Peep Loops work and then a week from now I'm gonna sell my game, right? I'm gonna hype it and then I'm gonna pump it and then I'm gonna dump it, right? And then those people man, like they don't even know what to do anymore. They don't even know how to approach me. Every once in a while they'll pop in here, but they got nothing to say. They got nothing to say. They got nothing to say. They're afraid to talk to me. They're afraid to interview me. I'll go on any show and I'll explain why John Wick, if you buy an LE, you're an idiot. I mean, that's it. If you buy a John Wick LE, you're an idiot at $13,000. And you know why I would say that you're an idiot? It's the same way I would tell my friend, if you stick your hand in the fire, you're an idiot. If you didn't expect to get burned and you want to cry, you're going to get burned. Because this is it. If you want a John Wick LE and you love John Wick and you can't wait, you know, to get a pinball machine, fine. Buy a John Wick LE when it is $9,000 in October, which is what it will be. Right? And all of these distros and dealers are sitting on this game. And I love it. You know, there's always that like rogue story of a distributor somewhere in the middle of nowhere who got 12 John Wick LEs and sold 10 to collectors. Right? I love those stories. People hit me up with those bulls. I'm not going to curse. They hit me up with those stories all the time. Oh, my distro can't keep them in stock. My distro can't keep... Sure. Sure. And so then you go over to the John Wick owners thread and it's like just www.sternpinball.com Very simple question for everyone at Stern Pinball. Who greenlit John Wick? Did you do any market research that showed you if you made John Wick, you could sell a thousand limited edition machines at 13,000? What did you do? Market research wise, you didn't do anything. What you did do was you saw people buy a game like Godzilla for 10 and flip it for 16. You saw that, right? You saw people buy Tron for $5,500 and flip it for $10. You saw people buy Batman SLE for $15 and flip it for $30. You've seen and you've witnessed that some of your games over the years, you saw people during COVID buy a Stranger Things LE for $8,500 and then get $18,000 during COVID. You saw all that behavior. And you said to yourselves, wait a minute, if these people are selling our product that Marchegiani cotton, David David Van Es, Bit of a Pony, The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. David David Van Es, Bit of a Pony, David David Van Es, Bit of a Pony, Let's be honest, grown men with decent incomes got really bored, had no vacations going on, weren't eating out at all, and they decided to do what grown, bored, mostly white middle-aged men will do. They will spend their money like idiots. All you gotta do in the history of humanity to see stupid spending is take a middle-aged White guy with some money and watch how he spends it. He will spend it chasing the inner child in himself thinking he's going to make his life better and happier and he will end up unsatisfied, unfulfilled and his wife will look at him and be like, what did you just do? And Stern has built their modern marketing strategy on the premise that we will attract Enough of those grown middle-aged white men who are bored, who have nothing better to do. And that's the thing is like your market research can't be pin side. It can't be guys living in, you know, their extended game room who have like a 2000 square foot garage full of pins and they're on pin side all day long. Because if you're on pin side all day long, You're a bored, middle-aged, white male who's got more money than they know what to do with, and they have nothing but free time. And you see it. These dudes are arguing. At like 2.17 in the afternoon, there's like heated debates happening on pin side. Shouldn't they be at work? Shouldn't they be doing other things? They're on a pinball website, like nonstop talking about pinball all throughout the day. That's your market research. And sure, and here's the crazy part, is Stern has managed, they've managed to lose those guys. Like when you listen to Iceman, the dude's got like 30,000 posts on Pinside, right? 30,000 posts. Just imagine. And that's just, those are posts. Imagine how many words are in each of those posts. He loves pinball, right? He's got like all these games. They've lost him. Even he is like, what are the roosters are coming home, right? The project was based on measuring data from two bodies. Digger toons toot dat cat obsways, GWhyterat, I'm here with my good Mike, who is a member of the club, and I'm recording this show using Audacity with my good Mike. So when I upload the audio to the Saturday morning, I don't have to do any other stuff. It's going to sound better. And I just want to say thank you to the 707 club members out there. Out there! I wish I could just lend some of my subscribers to the other content creators. Like, hey man, I see you struggling with just 57 paid subscribers making $300 a month. All you're doing is giving giveaways like, like, hey guys, join my Patreon for a chance to win a Translite. You can pick any Translite you like. What do you like guys? Stop. Stop. I don't give away SHIT. There's no Translites. There's no polo shirts. There's nothing. Just do a damn good show and stop giving away everything for free. Like the Joker said, if you're good at something in life, Don't do it for free. Nobody wants stupid trans lights. This is why I quit league night. I used to go to league night in New York City and it's like, you're gonna play for four hours and either win a trans light or 40 bucks. And I remember being at Sunshine one day and I'm there. It's like from like 8 to almost midnight and then these dudes are holding up like trans lights and 40 bucks being like, look how I just spent four hours. I'm like, there's four dudes who are not getting laid tonight. Right? Those four. Those four right there, not getting laid. Hey honey, I just won a Looney Tunes Translite. You're, if there's any way to get your wife to close her legs, it's to come home with a pinball Translite. I mean, am I the only one who has to say this stuff? Like seriously dudes, like don't spend four hours in one of the most amazing cities ever, Like throwing around a pinball machine to win a damn translate. And no one else talks like this. And why do he has, how does he have 770 subscribers? And dammit if he's not right, he's just got, he's entertaining. But man, I wanna, let's go listen over here for 90 minutes while we talk about, you know, if whether or not how to get to the wizard mode, nobody cares. Nobody cares, guys, you can't touch this. You can't touch this. No notes, no nothing, no agenda. Just hit go and we're going and we're capturing what's in people's minds. And that's what's fun about Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. And once you get it, right, once you get Kaneda's Pinball Podcast into your head, you know this, you can't really go anywhere else. And the numbers don't lie. So here's, let's talk about Funhaus, right? So John Wick, dead on arrival. It's gonna be so comical watching what Stern does over the next few weeks because Stern is not used to this. Well, let's, before we go to Funhaus, Let's talk about what's next. So then I think what's next is Metallica. I think Stern is going to realize real quickly that John Wick sales are done and they're never gonna get them back. And it doesn't matter how many streams they do because every time they do another stream, it bores us. Like the John Wick stream is as boring as it gets. Like when I watched that stream, I literally wanna fall back and play dead. I am so bored by it. I'm bored by everything happening in the game. I'm bored by their descriptions. I'm bored by it all. All right, I'm bored by it all. All right, and I'm just like, just it's next. It's just like, okay, cool. This is what we got next, next. And so I think what is next is going to be Metallica. And from what I'm hearing, it is not gonna be an all new Metallica game. It is going to be a vault edition of Metallica. Raymond Davidson is working on porting over the original Lyman Sheets code and like animations To an LCD screen. Okay, and so that is gonna happen. Now look, this is gonna be interesting because if Stern comes out, I was talking to a friend of the show, Ken Trox. I think Ken, I gotta learn how to say your last name, but Ken was telling me that he has a Metallica Premium. And he said, Chris, you know, should I sell my game? And I said, Ken, how much did you buy your Metallica Premium for? And he said, $6,000. And I said to him, all right, so here's the deal. Do you really want to sell your Metallica for six grand when a new premium is going to be $9,500? Okay. And you know, it's just like, he's just like, man, I just have the game for six years. I'm bored of it. I want to get rid of it. I'm like, cool, get rid of it. But you know, if Stern goes back to the Metallica, well, I don't know, man. I don't think there's there's just too many Metallicas out there. I think the remake they should be doing is a remake of Tron with better artwork and, you know, All that Daft Punk, LE, multiball madness. I think they remake Tron, make some enhancements to the light cycles and the fiber optic lighting. Imagine Tron, just think about this for a minute. Imagine Tron, close your eyes everybody. Close your eyes and imagine a few things. Do me a favor, everybody right now, let's do this together, right? Let's all close our eyes and imagine a world in which Kaneda actually plays pinball. You can't do it, right? Imagine a world in which Kaneda, my eyes are closed by the way, imagine a world in which Kaneda goes to a pinball tournament and doesn't finish last place. I mean you can imagine that, right? Imagine a world, right, in which Tron Pinball has the lighting of Elton John. Imagine a world in which Stern actually had modern lighting that could actually make you feel like you're going into the grid, not the crappy lighting in Tron. Imagine that world. And that's the thing, people. That's the thing. It's like we've seen what's possible in pinball. Stern is going back to the well, and I think they're going to continue to misread where the market is at. I've heard nobody from Stern reach out to me. You know, George Gomez sent me a message. I'm going to tell you this. He sent me a message, and then all I saw was unsent. Now at this particular point, during my time at SSA's, the schools are starting tovision for alltidity and then have to JAIC. Something is wrong here. The school was leader 훠 KY understand dit? Because I respect George Gomez. I do. I think his company is being led astray by Seth Davis. I do. Every time I see Seth with that big grin, cool. You've made yourself money and you've destroyed the golden goose. I just want to say this to George Gomez. George, you got to lower your prices. You got to stop. A thousand John Wick LEs is arrogant and it's just not going to work. And you need to start listening to what I'm saying and what my fans are saying and stop living in this tunnel vision. I know you think you're going to expand pinball in places like Asia and you're going to get enough new millionaires into the mix. But George, for every one new sucker you're going to attract with these prices, you're going to lose five of your loyal customers that have been supporting your company all these years. And the writing is on the wall. And I don't think you have the right marketing team in place to figure that out. I really don't. Because I think, you know, the problem with marketing is sometimes you only go to the The people you want to hear from. And where real marketing happens is when you figure out how to convert people who are cynical and on the fence. And I don't think Stern is doing that. I think they're absolutely abandoning everybody who's now become a little bit cynical and skeptical of their moves. And I don't think Seth Davis is one of us. I don't. I don't think Seth Davis could ever do a Facebook live with Kaneda. I don't think Seth Davis could ever be interviewed by me and come out looking good. I don't. I don't. Because it's just they can't answer one simple question. How is a Foo Fighters topper $2,000? How? How is it the price of four Xbox machines? How? How? How is it the price of four PlayStation 5s? You just can't answer the question. You just can't. You can't say, well, because the demand is there. Wouldn't there be more demand for Foo Fighters Topper if it was $1,000? Wouldn't you sell five times as many? I'm going to have some coffee breaks, people, because I've been going straight for 44 minutes. All right. All right. So, dead on arrival. You know, Cengiz, they didn't sell out. Like, Foo Fighters Toppers, they make a few of them, and they sell out, and then this is what they do. and then they don't make them for a while and then they they justify that as like see look i can't do i can't go glasses for 45 minutes and take them off i got too much glare i'm like i'm like squinting i got i either got to start with my eyes can't adjust all right i'll come back another show without glasses um let's talk about fun house here's the thing like amongst all this john wick like dead on arrival game you know dead on arrival game There's other companies out there trying to make moves. So let's start with barrels of fun. All right, let's start there. Let's go around the horn for a little bit and talk about everybody. Barrels of fun. They did apparently a great factory tour of their facility, right? They get a pizza party. Now what they didn't do was give people like a heads up it was going to happen. I wish they would have because I would have loved to have joined live and talked to them and promoted this whole thing. They didn't for some reason give any heads up. They were doing it which is what it is. But I'm still happy they did it. I'm very happy that – no, don't podcast by the window. That's funny. I'm very happy that they were very transparent about how many games they've made so far, how many games they're making on a good day, on a good week. The total number of labyrinth machines they've sold. Now here's the thing. I'm going to just say this right now. I love all of that. I still think they picked a bad theme. I still think labyrinth, not a good theme. Now, not a terrible theme by any means. It's absolutely not. Like they sold 700, but it goes to show you, they probably should have said we're only making 750 labyrinths. If they said that, they're spot on, right? They would have been dead bullseye. In the world of marketing, you wanna make one less of your product than there is demand. That's the sweet spot, one less. If we make one less than there is demand, guess what there will be? There will always be demand. Now, the more than one less, even better, right? Because then there's even more demand. When you announce you're making $1,100 and you sell $770 or $750, you now have $400 more supply than there is demand. That's a marketing mistake. And you know, they probably had to set that number of $1,100 because of like, you know, just cheaper, but I don't know, right? I don't think they're going to make $1,100. I don't know how they're going to get 400 more people to bite the bullet because what's going to happen by the end of the year is people who went in early will sell their games for cheaper and they'll become available. Right? So I just think there is that reality. Now that being said, it's game number one, right? And it's really good that they are showing people transparency. It's good that they're executing right on a manufacturing level. And that is most the most important thing, right? When you can showcase that you are manufacturing on a on a like efficient level, no one's getting ripped off. Nobody's losing their deposits. They're not lying to everybody like Damian and Marty. They're actually executing. That is how you start to build trust. It's how you start to build confidence. And, you know, it's not surprising these guys are most of them are ex spooky guys like they know how it works. Like they've seen the boutique success story, which is spooky. And they've obviously left spooky for personal reasons. And they're doing their thing. And as I've said recently, the future of pinball is boutique. If you think the future of pinball is mass produced expensive games, think again. The future of pinball will be boutique companies that can make between one and 2000 a year, We have Kaitlin Gid Patchish here, Tom kali. K All of these are ready. I'm super excited to show you those trousers, people. And that's it, right? The future is boutique. So I think the future is looking good for barrels, for spooky, for Dutch. I think it's looking good for CGC. You know, because CGC, I don't know, they just operate. It's looking terrible for American. We'll talk about American in a little bit. It's looking terrible for Haggis. It's looking terrible for pinball adventures. You know, there's, I don't know, Turner Pinball. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with Chris Turner's company. I don't know how to like even talk about it. Like he's not doing anything wrong, but he's really not doing anything right. He's just kind of there. You know, it's kind of like for the guy that wants something that nobody else has. I mean, that's really the only angle with Ninja Eclipse. You know, if we talk about them for a second, it's like, I don't know why Chris Turner didn't just make Raza. Like I get all the history of Raza, But man, at least you spent all that money getting the IP and so much money was spent coding Raza. And at least it had some like prominence or I don't know, like infamous nature or identity in the pinball world. And it doesn't make any sense to start all over with an original IP charged and expect people to buy it Like it just too difficult to do that You know and that where we at with Ninja Eclipse He's a nice guy, Kris. Like I, you know, if I could give him any advice, theme matters. Theme matters. There's no market anymore for $7,000 pins because this is the mistake they all make. They all think if I make a game $7,000, I'm making an attractive entry-level game that people will buy. The mistake in that is that Ninja Eclipse is now competing with a used Addams Family, like Twilight Zone, like every single great game from the 90s. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. So, that's the problem. And they all get this tunnel vision, because they see all the new companies charging all this money, and they're like, well, I'm going to make a game that's half the price of Elton John. Cool. But you can go get a Guns and Roses for $7,000. And that's the problem, is you don't have to, like, you don't need to get a new Ninja Eclipse. We use GNR. And I don't understand how nobody even thinks this way. Like to me, this is just common sense. Like if I walked in and like, what are we going to make? We're going to make this. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. Like, you know, team pinball, when they made that mafia game, they came to me. They're like, how would you sell this? This won't sell. And there's nothing I can do. You know, I think there's a lot of decisions that were made during COVID and Cengiz, you know, I agree, man. I think what we're seeing right now, everything that's happening in pinball right now was What was the decision made during COVID like Funhaus? Let's talk about it. 750 Funhaus games. And I'll tell you why you haven't seen a video, a real video yet from Pedretti of the game being played. Because when you watch Funhaus being played on 2.0 code, it's not that exciting of a game to watch being played. You know, Funhouse was made in the 90s, you know, to be on location, to give you a little bit of pinball fun for a few minutes, you know, that's what it was made for. And the 2.0 code is not, you know, not that great. And so it's beautiful looking like, don't get me wrong, like Funhouse is really beautiful looking. But as a home ownership game and $750 at $10,000, I just think it's really going to struggle to sell. And the reason why I'm like, this launch is weird to me, is the one thing they're not doing is showing you gameplay. And that's the one thing that, I don't know, it's weird, right? So, like, as most people's minds have already been made up on Funhaus gameplay and Funhaus code, so then the whole thing now is art package, modern lighting, and the 2.0 code. And in a world in which most Funhouses can be had for $5,000 to $6,000, it's like, you know, it's not going to be, you know, a quick sellout. It's not going to be a game that's going to fly off the shelves, right? I just think like it's tough, like it's tough. And that is why more now than ever, there's going to be a lot of pressure on these companies to get it right and to do market research and to really start to pull the community on what they want to see. And I don't really know if any of these companies even know how to do that. I think they just think if you build it, they will come. And I think they are dreaming and I think they're living in a field of dreams if they think they can sell $7,000 Ninja Eclipses and $10,000 Fun Houses and $13,000 John Wicks and $15,000 Elton Johns. It's like it's field of dreams. It's field of dreams, people. Like you might as well walk into the outfield and watch your money disappear into the corn stalks because it's just not going to work. It's just not going to work. And you know, I, what I, what I love about what's happening right now is I love it. I love that we're at this crossroads. We're at this inflection point where our love of pinball is, is amazing, right? Like none of us are falling out of love with pinball. Watching what these pinball companies do to try to get our money is to me the most fun and entertaining thing because their assembly lines need to keep going. There's like 15 pinball companies that need to make new games every year. As a consumer, I love this. Now there's 15 movie studios? I love movies, and now there's 15 movie studios that want me to go see a movie. The problem now in pinball is every movie ticket is 50 bucks. And so it's like, oh man. So to get me to spend 50 bucks on a movie, you're going to need to bring out Total Recall In IMAX with special guest star Jean-Claude Van Damme, who's going to like, you know, do a flip kick and blow up the A-Team van as he jumps out of like a GI Joe like carrier jet. Like to get me to spend this money on the thing I love, you need a banger. You need a banger. Everyone's crying next door. I think they're listening to this show. And that's the thing. It's so much fun to watch this. And when you join Kaneda Club and you're hanging out with the Kaneda Club fan members, I call them Kanadians. I mean that's all we're doing is we're just making fun of all these efforts. Because when these efforts come up short, you just grab your popcorn, you start chomping away, and you watch all like the shill content creators like fire blanks at us like, oh, I love pinball, something, but yeah, but like, you know what I love more than pinball? All of these are pinball games. I'm not going to go into too much detail. I'm going to go into a little bit of detail. I'm going to go into a little bit of detail about pinball, money, family vacations, right? I love driving cars. Like once pinball, once a few pinball machines cost as much as a fun automobile, like it's like we've lost the narrative, right? We've lost the narrative. And when you pop the hood on these modern Sterns and these modern JJPs, they don't want you to do it. They don't want you to do it. They don't want you to pop the hood, right? Can you imagine? It's a great analogy. I know John Erlich's always like, the game's above the wood, and it's fun Chris, and you're not allowed to pop the hood on these games. Can you imagine... let's use a cargument, let's use a cargument. So imagine like all these years, like, right, like, like Ford's putting a V8, right, supercharged V8s in its Shelbys, right, and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You love it, like the feel, the sound, the engineering, it's beautiful, and you, you know, and what do car guys always say? Pop the hood. Let me see what's under the hood. Let me see what's driving this experience. And so the same is true for pinball. Great game. Pop the hood. Look at all that stuff. Look at all those mechs. Look at all those coils. Look at all those subways. Look at that bowling alley in Big Lebowski. Pop the hood. What's causing all this fun? Oh, there it is. Look at all that engineering. Look at all that work. Look at all that innovation. And then you get to modern pinball. And you're like, yeah, it's fun to shoot. Pop the hood. Chantarelle Global hoist. They might be fun. I don't think there's as much fun. They do what needs to be done, but then you pop the hood and there's nothing. There's nothing. And that's what's happening with modern pinball. They've actually become like EVs, right? They've taken all the mechanics out and now it's all just lights. What's up, Eric Peterson brother? How you doing? How you guys feeling, man? We've got only 10 stars. How can we only have 10 stars? Don't make me give away translates. Don't make me do it. Don't make me give away translates. I'm not going to do it. You guys can keep your stars today. I'm just too happy being a new father. Let me talk a little bit about that because it's been a crazy week. I'll give you guys the story. We had a scheduled induction on Tuesday and Brenda was really nervous about that. Discover all the you and I together. Quendz metillcknn PC次 It was really painful. Epidurals and all the drugs they pump you with make your pregnancy and your labor really terrible and for like two weeks it takes for all those drugs to get out of your system. And so a miracle happened. It was Monday night, no it was Monday morning, right? It was 4 a.m., 4 a.m. And I was up, I was up. I was making like trollish pinball content, talking to dudes in Australia, right, about pinball, making some stupid cover photo, making fun of these companies. It's 4 a.m. and Brenda comes in and says, I think my water just broke, right? And it did, like, you know, it's, and luckily, like, right near the bathroom, so like, water breaks, 4 a.m., right? Kylian is sleeping next door and Brenda is just like, if you've, you know, I don't know if you've ever witnessed this, but like the pain when those contractions start, it's painful. Right. Um, and so I'm like Brenda, like I couldn't go with her to the hospital right away because I had to stay here with Kylian. Now we had a whole system in place. We have a group of friends that were ready on a moment's notice to come by and watch Kylian so daddy could go to the hospital. So Brenda was like, well, this could last like an hour or two. We've got time. And I was watching her in excruciating pain. And I'm like, I'm getting your Uber right now. I ordered her Uber. I put a Street Fighter blanket underneath her in the Uber and said, take her to the hospital. Good news is the hospital is two blocks away. And the Uber driver like helped get her into the hospital. Our friend got here in like 10, 15 minutes. It's like 4.45 in the morning, right? I get to the hospital like 5 a.m. ish.C valid teilchen.com Over your fine my back.view and referring . What is one of the biggest prison... We're going to take eight right now and then four later on. What that means for all of you out there, as you can tell, not only is there not an interruption of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, there's actually been an increase in content because as baby Cassian sleeps and I'm on duty, duty, right, hero's duty, I can do a show. I can do a Facebook Live. I could read up on what's going on in the hobby. So I'm actually going to have more time than less time because Killian's at daycare and I've got the most amazing wife ever and I feel so blessed. And I want to say this, you know, like I talk a lot about this hobby and these companies and these games and I think what I love about my show and my community is it's a mixture of pinball and life and what we're all going through on this journey of life. I've met some amazing people through pinball and I've had fist to cuffs with other people. And as much as we like will come to blows and throw jabs at each other, I think you got to have some thick skin if you're in the pinball content space. It just is the way it is. I think the people who are in it, who've been in it for a long time, all have thick skin and you got to roll with the punches. I don't like to ban people. I don't normally ban or block anybody. None of the people that I talk smack about, they're not blocked. They can come here and say whatever they want or jump on the show whenever they want. I did have to ban or block Neil McCrae from my Facebook page this week and I'll tell you why I blocked Neil McCrae. And I like Neil. Neil's a good guy. Neil's a really good guy. He's a pinball aficionado. But the reason why I blocked him, it's not because he insulted me and said I have no money. I know Neil's a very wealthy individual. It's not because of that. The reason I blocked Neil is one simple reason. Is that Neil adjusted his Facebook account so that when he comments on my page, I can't reply to his comments. So he's almost like he's put me on ignore on my own page. And I've asked him multiple times not to do that. I happily accept all of his feedback, all of his criticisms, but I don't want to have I can't have a conversation with Neil if he won't allow me to reply to him on my own page. And so that is instant block. If you want to come into my house and have a one-way conversation with me, I'm not going to let you. It's not because he hasn't donated even though he's got so much money. It's simply because of that. So we miss him around here. We miss him. I don't think there's any other page that's this much fun. I know all week long, you know, the Kaneda content is great. And if it gets turned off, I know you're going to miss it. So look, and just tell this to Neil, just tell this to Neil. If you change that, you're back. That's it. You're back. Okay. I don't know why he did it. But I want to say, I want to say this. I know that life is getting really expensive for everybody. I'm your host, David David Van Es, and I'll see you next time on Pinball Business. We're here to talk about the things that are not immune to what the market and the world is going through. And you also are not immune to what other people are going through, even if it's not you. And that's an important factor in life. Like you could go through life and just spendthrift your way on things that bring you joy. And I'm not asking you to donate your money to those in need. But I also think there's a little bit of like a pulling back, if you will, of unnecessary spending on unnecessary items, The Willy Wonka Podcast is a production of Willy Wonka Productions and is not intended to Larry shade متف迎 Sirloinош口كرة ribs.com I did not use this space code. gemeISS engagewith! I'm going to be talking about how many of those people do I actively engage with on a daily, weekly basis. It maybe is like the same 30 cast of characters. And I always find that so rewarding that somewhere out there, there's like 670 people that I don't even know about that are getting weekly joy and entertainment from my show. And I love that. I love that. At any point, those people could reach out and engage me further and spark up more conversation. And I would always be all ears. You know me, everyone who knows me knows me. The moment you reach out to me, I'm getting back to you. I'm not ignoring you. I'm not leaving you hanging. I love to talk about this with everybody. You don't need that many people though, but you need people you can trust. You need people that will be loyal with you and go through the journey of life with you a little bit. And that's why like having a good partner in life is everything. The other thing is, I think we're in a world and we're definitely in a country where there's just like overconsumption is really the name of the game, right? Everything we do in excess, especially in America, right? There's like this whole system here is set up for it. In other countries with taxes and they're more socialistic, which I don't agree with, right? I'd rather me have the ability to spend my hard-earned money on what I want to spend The Government Taking a Cut for Doing Nothing You know the government taking a huge cut for doing nothing is kind of like a distro making $2,000 for drop shipping an le game to your door and then explain to me what hard work you're doing on that drop ship What are you doing? What are you doing? I get it every once in a while a game gets damaged and you got a deal with an irate customer And now you have to give your haggis consumers like I know the run around All of these games are making money for nothing. Half of my pinball podcast revenue has gone to the United States government. Thank you Joe Biden, I don't know what you did, but you got half of my podcast earnings. Okay, so like, you know, I think a lot of us are starting to realize that the overconsumption and having too much of anything, whether it's pinball machines, automobiles, blazers, watches, like, it's not going to make you happier. There is a point of diminishing returns on all of this, right? Even having too many kids won't make you happier, right? It's just, it's just the way it goes. And I think what's really interesting about pinball is this item is an item that really does take up a lot of physical space. It's not an out of sight, out of mind product you own, right? You could buy a bunch of watches and stick them in a drawer and not feel like, why do I have all these? Because you won't see it every day. You're going to see the cars. You're going to see the children. You're going to see the pinball machines. So I think there's just a lot of people waking up and I think there's a lot of people re-appreciating the great machines you have. And this has been a really thing that's been on my mind a lot lately is I think there's just, you know, there's a weird thing happening where like Stern doesn't want you to only want to own what you own. They want you to look at the product like a drug where you need the next hit. The content creators that are driven by their love for the manufacturers or their loyalty to their distributor friends, think about what their goal is. Their goal is to get you to want to buy something new. Right. It's just like that's the goal. It's like, yeah, like they're reviewing the game, but like you got to see how thinly veiled all of it is And it fine Like I want to see content creators jump on a new machine have fun with it this and that you know but like ultimately if you see like the source of all of it a lot of it leads back to trying to like help these companies sell games help these distributors sell games And like I get it, but I don't think expanding pinball comes from any of this. I think expanding pinball comes from introducing people to how much of a great game you can get for a great cost. Like I got introduced to pinball with a Lord of the Rings Ellie for $7,000. That is what I spent on it. And it was amazing. That was probably one of the most amazing games ever I've ever owned. And it didn't cost me the price of a car. And I spent $7,000 on an LE. I did a lot of research. I asked the community, what's a great game if you're going to have one game in your home? And I love that game. I loved it. Nowadays, it's a $15,000 game, probably, if you can find one. And the ability to like discover this hobby at a good amount of money with a deal, it's over. Is baby Cassian coming in? Oh my god, can I show baby Cassian to the world, babe? All right, ladies and gentlemen, he's going down. This is it, the future of pinball podcasting. Hi buddy. Hey buddy, did you cancel your John Wick LE order? Yeah, okay, thank you. Sweet dreams Cassie. He's going into the snoo. That's it. That's it. You know, I think about like $13,000 on a John Wick or $13,000 in an S&P 500 fund for that kid. $13,000 of Nvidia stock for him. $13,000 of McDonald's stock, of Netflix, right? A no-brainer. A no-brainer. You know? And I want to tell him those stories. When you were born, your dad had the world's number one pinball podcast, right? And his main message was don't buy pinball. Can you just think about that for a moment? How do you become the world's favorite pinball podcaster? You don't really play pinball. You don't play in tournaments. You get on the airwaves and you tell people not to buy the product and you are the number one pinball podcast in the world. You know, you got to like gang, I mean it when I say that you got to understand what that means and why people value it. It's because people value honesty. People value that you're kind of looking out for them. They also just value what's important in life. And I've said this and I'll say it again. My show is therapy. Kaneda's Pinball Podcast is nothing more than a weekly therapy session with a lunatic guy in New York City. Some people might listen to me and make fun of me and think I'm an idiot and that makes them feel better about being who they are. And I'm happy to be the clown, the jester in the corner. That's some people. Other people... Where's mommy? Where's mommy? Hold on, Killian, say hi. Killian, say hi. Get in here. Can you say hi? No. Mommy's... Killian... Stop! I think Killian just captured what everyone's been feeling for the last 10 years. Stop. I don't like you. I love it. I love it. So I think it is a lot of it is therapy. A lot of it is just entertainment. And look, I look gang, it's entertaining. Like this is all meant to entertain. And I think more than ever, the show has been the most entertaining it's ever been. I think whenever a bad game comes out, my subscribers go up, right? Because think about it, when a dud like John Wick hits the market, who do you want to hear talk about it? I mean, it's real simple. You could listen to the shills, like jam it down your throat, like try to see the good in it, right? So you can make them money while they pass the loss on to you. Or you can listen to Kaneda. It's like, yeah, man, like I'm seeing what you see. That game is not worth the money. Stern's on a panic tour and this game is like dead on arrival and they know it. They know it. So go play one on location, have your fun and go home with $13,000 in your checking account. Well, I have recorded the stop. I don't like you. And you know, like I think this year is going to be so awesome to watch because we're going We're going to see the collapse of a broken business model. Stern is not panicking. I don't think Stern's panicking, Bill, overall. I think they are panicking on John Wick sales. Absolutely, Bill. Bill, you got to look at the circus, the three-ring circus they've turned on trying to get John Wick sales. See Bill, Stern's, overall, Stern's fear is that they're going to reach a point where the distros and dealers are going to say no. And when that happens, when that happens, because guys, you don't understand what Gary does. Like, and I've heard this from distros and dealers. He calls them up and basically is begging them to place orders. You know, no, Bill, when it was the last time, Bill, you saw Stern turn this much marketing on for a game. This is like, this is way more than it's ever been before. And it's also not helping them that the designer is not doing any interviews. It's also not helping them that George Gomez thinks a Foo Fighter topper is worth $2,000. The game's not selling. You know, I just talked to, I'm not going to name names. I'm not going to name names. I just talked to a distributor. They haven't sold any of these. They haven't sold any. It's not selling. So, I don't know. Maybe a few distributors have loyal customers who take every LE and I just really can't wait to the end of the year when we start to see new in box John Wick games for sale for like nine grand. I mean, it's just, it's like, you know, it's like John, you know, John Wick saw Venom selling for nothing and was like, hold my beer. I mean, that's what's happened with this game. It's going to locations. Yeah, guys, Stern bullies their distros. I, Kerry, thank you for saying it. I mean, people don't understand what Stern does to its distros. It is, they are a mafia. You know what the mafia does? They let you set up business, right? That's what the mafia does. Like literally, this is what the mafia does. They go into a town where business owners are making money and they say, if you want to continue making money, you got to pay us a cut. Doesn't this sound a lot like what Stern does? If you want to stay in business as a dealer in a distro, you got to buy this many games or we're going to put you out of business because what we're going to do is just stop giving you games. If you don't buy this many of every LE, you're going to lose your allotment. So if you don't buy 20 John Wickes, you're not going to get 20 Jaws LEs. And that is what happens. Every single launch, gang. And the other thing that Stern has done is this, gang. This is where they're really effing over people. They're signing up way more dealers than they've ever had before. Because think about it. So, if you can have 1,000 car dealers in the future and restrict owners by just buying one L.E. No, not you, not me, not Branda, not Kylian, or Cassian, that's what Stern does. And the more they introduce more dealers, think about it, that eats into the livelihood of the existing dealers and distros. But they don't care. Why would they care? Why would they care? Let's just say you're a Stern dealer and you make, I don't know, quarter million dollars a year doing this on the side, or maybe it's your full time thing. You make a quarter million dollars a year and then Stern opens up 25 new dealers, right? Lowers your allocation and you go from making quarter million to a buck 50. They don't care. All they care about. Why would they care about you? You know, you're not a dealership like a normal dealership, right? It's not like a, like Chevy sells its cars to Chevy dealerships, right? They don't sell their cars to Hyundai dealerships. And when you look at these pinball distros, think about it for a minute. They're all kind of like used car dealerships, right? No one's an exclusive, only Stern dealership. It's weird to me, right? It's like these dealers, it's strange. They're all selling everything for the most part. Selling everything. Can you imagine trying to stay in business if, you know, that's called a used car dealership. So Stern is like basically giving product to someone who's also advocating for its competitor product. Like, where does that happen? Right? I mean, it happens at like, you know, Trinno's and watch stores. And that's kind of like more like pinball than a car, right? I mean, it's kind of where the car dealership analogy doesn't work. And that's fine, right? It's like, you got a bunch of different watch manufacturers selling in one location. And that's how pinball is different than cars. But what's happened recently is dealers have a lot of money tied up with both Stern products, Jersey Jack Products. Those seem to be the two where dealers have a lot stockpiled. And the prices of those products has been obliterated on the secondhand market. So these guys, I know I'm popping on my mic. I know I'm mic popping, I get it. I know, you're gonna like, there's gonna be some mic popping, I'll get better at it, but it is what it is. налец, The Money Guy is coming, a new ad for these five names , aumento de TrelaWords, Modern Edison Webmedians, Buiff, FacePlace, Zhoy envie 90수ье, Le Pen OUSY, Chenda öyle government that I'm Rick Berez together with my villain. All of these are going to be a brutal year for a lot of people that made plans during COVID. I don't think 500 Alice in Wonderland are going to sell out. I don't think 750 Fun Houses are going to sell out. I think if Stern brings back Metallica at 9,500, I don't know. I just don't know. I don't know. The only surefire hit is going to be Back to the Future. If you were to ask me, I think Dutch Pinball is sitting on what I believe to be the only true guaranteed it is happening, take my money now game. I don't think Jersey Jack's next game is the Matrix. I think it's the Muppets. I think it's going to be interesting to see if it has enough. What is going in Jersey Jack's favor right now is their package and their presentation and now with good flipper feel and good game play, they make a stunning machine. They make an absolutely stunning machine. Jersey Jack machines look three times the price of a Stern machine. I say this without even hesitation. I say this without doubt. If there's any machine out there that can even closely justify the cost, at least the Jersey Jack machine just looks and feels and like just, you know. Now look, have they, did they get stupid with the pricing? Yes, they did. They did. Like, again, because if the bomb is $4,500 or $5,000, they just got stupid. You know, it's just, it's just, it's just, they went a little crazy with the pricing. And they also went stupid with the supply, right? If they only made Elton John 500 CEs, I think it's a much different, you know, response to it. But right now, I went on pin side, there's just dealer after dealer with them available. But Muppets, eh. Matrix, yeah. Harry Potter, yeah, for the most part, right? Unless it's like Wizarding World and it gets weird. But I think it's going to be really interesting, right? Because I think we all want to see just more for the money. I mean, it's not a lot to ask for. I'll tell you this right now and then I'll stop the show. I'm going to use a card. I have a hundred. My Dodge Demon, I bought it for $86,000. It's probably worth like $1.20 now. It's got 5,000 miles on it. My Demon crate got destroyed in a flood. I have to get another one one day, but I don't even care. I'm not selling it. I'm never selling the car. I'm giving it to Killian. It says on the sticker and on the vent that this car was personally made for me. It's kind of cool, right? It's like Adam West saying your name. So I'm going to keep it. But it's probably worth $130,000. It's fun. You're not really driving the demon. It drives you. It does a lot. It's a roller coaster ride. The new car I'm getting, I'll I'll share later what I'm getting. It's $34,000 plus $3,000 for all the fees and processing. It's about a $37,000, $39,000 car. You have to add on some tax and stuff like that. Not very powerful, but it's going to be more fun than the Demon. But it's cheap, right? It's going to be more fun than the Demon, but it's cheap. I think what is interesting about pinball is nothing is cheap. And so then like not only does the game have to be fun, it has to be so much better than what you currently own or you're not going to put it in your house. And this hobby can't survive on location play only. So really interesting time to be in pinball. Gang, we are at the 90-minute mark. I know I started a few minutes late. I do want to say thank you. I want to thank each and every one of you for being a member of the Kaneda Club. Over 20 new members in the past week alone. It means a lot to me. I don't say this because I'm pandering or trying. I mean this. Everyone who subscribes, your donation and your support, it means a lot. And now, you know, with all of the expenses, things going on in our world, it also is going to help us a lot. It doesn't hurt. It just doesn't hurt. And when I was, when I was like filling out my application for the car, I'm just going to finance it a little bit, but pay it all off in six months. That's how I roll. Just get a little bit of debt, get your credit score higher and just knock off the note quickly. I could buy it outright, but I just don't, you know, I don't want to want to get a little, A little credit for this. I had more pride in putting down what my ancillary income was with the podcast than I did even my main job. Because out of everything I've ever done, this I've earned more than anything. I feel like I've earned my other job too, but I've really taken a lot of arrows when I did this show the way I did it. And I made moves the way I did it. And for two years, people insulted me, made fun of me, you know, and they did. And like, like, they're not living rent free in my head. I don't think about these guys. I'll tell you why. Because every day I go and I look at the numbers. I look at the community that is part of Knaed's Pinball Podcast. And I look at nobody else's, nobody else's content or community or Patreon attempts with any envy. In fact, I actually am happy to see everybody follow suit. And I am. And I really am. They still don't have the courage to fully do what I did, is take it all behind. Because you know, when you go all behind... Bill, Bill, Bill, here's the deal, Bill. I love people who challenge me, Bill. I also love people who have dogs and cats as their profile photos. I'm sure if I went to your site, Bill, it'd be a bunch of pet photos. Bill, until you pick up the mic, do a show, try to entertain people for even just an hour. I always say this, whenever people, you don't understand what it's like to do the amount of hours, the amount of work. I know I make it seem easy, but it's a lot more work than you realize. So Bill, as I'm giving, you know, speeches of sentiment, it would be nice not to be interrupted with a heckler, but it is what it is. Bill, I'm not going to block you. Don't worry. No, but the moment you go fully behind, you absolutely, you absolutely will find out what you got. Who will follow? Will anybody follow? You know, and it's great. I'm very thankful for that. I think that what's happened with this Kaneda Club and with everybody here is everyone else is looking at it and they made every move they could to try to take away the legitimacy. They ruined the award shows forever. I mean those are done. I'm not going to do any more award shows by the way people. I made up my mind not going to TPF, not doing more award shows. As far as I'm concerned, the people who killed those awards, they can live with that, but they ruined what brought a lot of people joy and happiness in pinball. And it was a colluded effort to do that, just so I couldn't say I'm the world's favorite pinball podcaster. And guess what? I sit on the Iron Throne by myself. I won it six years in a row. Nobody else. Nobody else. Right? And that's it. Beata Ingres, Always deliver the most consistent, the most entertaining, the most timely, the most relevant pinball content. And you best believe it's not stopping. It's only going to keep getting better. So everybody have a great Saturday. From my family to yours, we love you guys. We love you for tuning in. For the 15 or 1800, we get about like 1800 people watch this after the fact. For the 1800 of you that watch this at some point over the week, thank you. I do. I do love you hanging out here. And even if we We're going to get Neil McRae back. He'll make his adjustments. He's a tech guy. He knows what he did. And everybody, namaste. Namaste. Ichigo Ichi. Ichigo Ichi. Dwell in the present. We're never going to get today back. And because of that, you're never going to get this 90 minutes back. You should have been doing something better than listening to Kaneda rant about pinball All of these are pinball and Stern. Everybody, peace out. John Wick, DOA, Stern Marketing, Flatline. It's funny, Flatline. George Gomez, who can we go to? And here's the final part. I heard Stern is inviting a whole new level of pinball media to come play John Wick. They didn't invite Kaneda, but they're going to try. They're going to try to get this in front of as many people as possible. It's not going to work. It doesn't matter how many people you invite to a movie that's not great. It's not going to change the word of mouth on the game. And they should know better. This game is not going to have a word of mouth turnaround. It's just not. And everybody knows that. Oh, it's awesome to witness. And I'm just in the corner like, I don't know. Hey, look Chico, this guy just bought an LE. He just lost $4,000. Look at this. Think about it. If everyone who buys an LE at $13,000, a thousand of them, what's 4,000 times a thousand? $4 million in money will be evaporated from the pinball buying community if you buy a John Wick LE. Good job Stern. Nice market research. You got it wrong. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-15 | Item ID: 11f361bd-24f7-4c60-b7b1-e62392f4b604*