# King Kong vs Jaws!

**Source:** LoserKid Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-05-23  
**Duration:** 48m 51s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://zencastr.com/z/EX0In1J-

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## Analysis

Josh and Scott discuss recent and upcoming Stern Pinball releases including King Kong (just released) and rumors of Jaws 50th Anniversary arriving in July, debating whether this timing cannibalizes Kong sales. They also cover Jersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter status (rumored delayed but apparently still on track), Pinball Brothers' Predator announcement, and broader industry pipeline dynamics including Star Wars, Walking Dead remakes, and manufacturing constraints.

### Key Claims

- [MEDIUM] King Kong LE is the third best-selling LE released in the last decade — _Josh states his understanding based on quick sellout of LE units to distributors_
- [MEDIUM] Godzilla is the best-selling LCD Stern game, possibly best-selling machine of all time — _Scott notes 'my understanding is it is the best-selling LCD Stern' and compares dominance to Addams Family/Twilight Zone_
- [MEDIUM] Jaws 50th Anniversary rumored for July release with limited run (~500 units) — _Josh: 'Jaws 50th could be coming out in July' based on rumor; educated guess on production volume_
- [MEDIUM] John Borg is designing both Star Wars and Walking Dead titles with dual-title release within 1-2 months — _Scott's understanding: 'he's doing double duty. He's doing the Star Wars title and the Walking Dead'_
- [LOW] Ray Day is the heir apparent to Lyman Sheets on code design — _Josh's opinion: 'Ray Day is the heir apparent to Lyman on code' based on Metallica and Foo Fighters work_
- [MEDIUM] Keith Elwin designs sell approximately 50% of Stern games — _Scott: 'he sells easily 50% of the Stern games' based on market observation_
- [MEDIUM] Jersey Jack Pinball is making Harry Potter in Pro, Premium, and Arcade tiers without hard LE limits — _Discussion of JJP's three-tier strategy mimicking Stern's model; production continues until shut down_
- [HIGH] Pinball Brothers' Predator is an original design, not an Alien retheme — _Official announcement: 'It's official. Predator's coming from Pinball Brothers. No, this is not a retheme of Alien'_

### Notable Quotes

> "Kong is like the third best-selling LE that has released in the last decade. Like I can see that it has – just the LEs have went out the door. They're all gone."
> — **Josh**, early discussion
> _Establishes King Kong's market performance and distributor inventory pressure_

> "I would argue let someone else try. Okay, Dwight, by the way, is the most passionate person you will ever meet in pinball. Okay, I'll put it this way. If you are into Dungeons & Dragons, you want Dwight as the dungeon master."
> — **Josh**, mid-episode
> _Character assessment of Dwight Sullivan's design philosophy and passion_

> "Ray Day is the heir apparent to Lyman on code, okay? And this is me 100% respecting Lyman's legacy, respecting everything Lyman has done."
> — **Josh**, code discussion
> _Succession narrative for legendary code designer Lyman Sheets_

> "I think it's a terrible decision. I think it puts way too much pressure back on distributors and dealers to take more product when the product that they have right now may or may not be selling."
> — **Josh**, Kong vs Jaws discussion
> _Direct industry concern about rapid LE releases and dealer inventory saturation_

> "They're not selling a lot, but it's still a great game... He gave me very fair market value. He's taking care of shipping. I don't know how he's going to make money, but hey, that's his deal, not ours."
> — **Scott**, opening segment
> _Secondary market weakness for Foo Fighters despite game quality; dealer economics pressure_

> "The Kong figure is awesome. But as I sat down and really evaluated the game, the difference between the two, the Kong's not really much of a game-changing feature, right?"
> — **Scott**, Kong analysis
> _Premium tier value proposition questioned; toy features don't justify price delta_

> "When Star Wars came out, it didn't hit my expectations on what I wanted in the game. Like, I remember going over to my friend's house, we unboxed the LE, and it was the same time that I was playing his Attack from Mars LE downstairs. And I played Star Wars a few games, and I said, I want to go down and play Attack from Mars."
> — **Josh**, late episode
> _Recent Star Wars game received mixed reception despite monster license; theme translation challenge_

> "People are like, this is going to sell more than Kong, 10 to 1, and all this stuff. But then it's like they can't produce at scale like Stern does. It's going to be a while. And people are still getting their Avatars now."
> — **Josh**, Harry Potter discussion
> _JJP production capacity concerns and Avatar fulfillment delays affecting hype_

> "I like the presentation better. Now you can still do a really good job with the Premium and adding the stuff on and still getting a really close representation of it, but there is the – it's kind of like Cactus Canyon without the topper."
> — **Josh**, LE vs Premium discussion
> _LE differentiation strategy and topper impact on perceived value_

> "They don't know it's better than Alien. Um, I just – we know people that have seen this design. They're telling us it's better than Alien. It's better than Queen."
> — **Josh**, Predator reveal
> _Leaked insider feedback on Predator design quality vs Alien/Queen comparisons_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Keith Elwin | person | Legendary Stern designer; designed King Kong, Jaws 50th, Godzilla, Jurassic Park, Avengers; estimated 50% of Stern sales |
| King Kong | game | Just-released Stern Pinball title; third best-selling LE in last decade; Premium/Pro tiers discussed; Spider vs Gong playfield differences between tiers |
| Jaws 50th Anniversary | game | Rumored July 2025 release; potential ~500 unit production; anniversary edition with possibly new art package by Michael Bernard; competing directly with Kong timeline |
| Godzilla | game | Best-selling LCD Stern game; Keith Elwin design; influenced Jaws development; 70th Anniversary variant in black/white at Premium tier; possibly best-selling machine ever |
| Star Wars | game | Rumored Stern release; possibly Andor-themed (not Original Trilogy or Prequel); John Borg designer; Ray Day code; mixed reception on original Star Wars game mentioned |
| The Walking Dead | game | Rumored Stern remake; John Borg designing; Ray Day potentially returning to code design/refinement; release expected within Oct 2025 window |
| Harry Potter | game | Jersey Jack Pinball delayed rumor (now reportedly back on track per Naps Arcade); three-tier system (Arcade/Premium/CE); no hard LE limits; licensing constraints delaying production; Avatar delays affecting pre-order enthusiasm |
| Predator | game | Official Pinball Brothers announcement; original design (not Alien retheme); insider feedback suggests quality competitive with Alien/Queen; 1987 film IP; production concerns discussed |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major manufacturer with aggressive 2025 release calendar; three-tier LE/Premium/Pro pricing model; distributor inventory pressure from rapid releases |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Premium boutique manufacturer; tight-lipped about development; licensing constraints on Harry Potter delaying production; Avatar fulfillment still ongoing; considering unlimited CE model |
| Pinball Brothers | company | Boutique manufacturer announcing Predator; smaller-scale production vs Stern |
| Ray Day | person | Stern code designer; designed Metallica, Foo Fighters rule sets; positioning as potential successor to Lyman Sheets; possibly on Star Wars and Walking Dead updates |
| John Borg | person | Stern designer; reportedly designing both Star Wars and Walking Dead simultaneously; legendary status; comparison to Spielberg of pinball |
| Dwight Sullivan | person | Stern code designer; passionate about game design; D&D: Tyrant's Eye has game-crashing bugs at level 3; potentially not assigned to Star Wars/Walking Dead due to workload |
| Lyman Sheets | person | Legendary Stern code designer; created Monster Bash; designed Metallica updates; potential heir apparent is Ray Day |
| Flippin' Out Pinball | company | Distributor/retailer; hosts podcast with Zach (owner) and Nicole; favorable trade-in deals for players; mentioned as purchase source |
| Naps Arcade | company | Announced correction on Harry Potter delay rumor (not actually delayed, still on track) |
| Jurassic Park | game | Keith Elwin design; 30th Anniversary edition released ~6 years after original LE; Scott sold his Pro version |
| Foo Fighters | game | Ray Day code design; secondary market weakness; not selling well despite quality rule set; Scott trading in his machine |
| Avatar | game | Jersey Jack Pinball title; Avatar CEs still being fulfilled; praised for immersive environment design; announced before fulfillment completed, impacting pre-order buzz |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Release Schedule Conflicts & Dealer Inventory Pressure, Keith Elwin's Design Dominance and Market Impact, Jersey Jack vs Stern Production Capacity & Licensing Constraints
- **Secondary:** Code Designer Succession (Ray Day vs Lyman, Dwight workload), Anniversary/Special Edition Strategy and LE Differentiation, Pinball Brothers' Predator and Theme Licensing IP Fit, Premium vs Pro Value Proposition and Toy Features
- **Mentioned:** Secondary Market Weakness (Foo Fighters, Star Wars reception)

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.35) — Hosts are enthusiastic about game quality (Kong, Jaws potential) but deeply concerned about manufacturing/distribution strategy, inventory saturation, and rapid release cycles creating market friction. Cautiously optimistic about JJP Harry Potter but worried about production scaling. Defensive of Ray Day's code abilities against perceived skepticism.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Jersey Jack Pinball considering unlimited production model for Harry Potter CEs; market demand drives production rather than scarcity strategy (confidence: medium) — Josh: 'if they have a potential of selling 5,000 CEs of Harry Potter, they should... you can order it up to a certain date, and we will make that many. That is a smart move.'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Star Wars Pinball failed to meet player expectations despite monster license; direct secondary market rejection (players preferred Attack from Mars over Star Wars) (confidence: medium) — Josh: 'When Star Wars came out, it didn't hit my expectations... I played Star Wars a few games, and I said, I want to go down and play Attack from Mars.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Predator should embrace 1980s retro design aesthetic (similar to Pulp Fiction's '70s vibe or Congo) rather than modern design; question of developer self-awareness on era authenticity (confidence: low) — Scott: 'they should have had kind of an '80s, like an '80s Bally Williams game... like Congo, where it's a little more retro... I'm not sure the Pinball Brothers are self-aware enough to do that though.'
- **[market_signal]** Ray Day positioned as heir apparent to legendary Lyman Sheets for code design; Metallica and Foo Fighters work cited as evidence of elite status (confidence: medium) — Josh: 'Ray Day is the heir apparent to Lyman on code... And Ray Day has the chops to take it to Lyman level and maybe continue along that path.'
- **[licensing_signal]** Jersey Jack's extreme caution on Harry Potter announcements driven by aggressive licensing oversight; Bond experience cited as precedent for delayed approvals (confidence: medium) — Josh: 'we know that there are licensing constraints... once you start announcing things, it typically triggers stuff in a licensing agreement... Stern got into a lot of challenging situations with Bond because Bond was notoriously a challenging license.'
- **[market_signal]** Godzilla identified as best-selling LCD Stern, possibly best-selling machine ever; dominance comparable to Addams Family/Twilight Zone (30-year gap) (confidence: medium) — Scott: 'my understanding is it is the best-selling LCD Stern'... Josh: 'the last time a single game dominated an era was like Addams Family or Twilight Zone, right?'
- **[personnel_signal]** John Borg assigned to dual-title design (Star Wars + Walking Dead) with rapid release timeline; raises capacity/quality concerns (confidence: medium) — Scott: 'he's doing double duty. He's doing the Star Wars title and the Walking Dead. So he'll have two titles released within a month or two of each other.'
- **[market_signal]** Three-tier LE/Premium/Pro model creating unsustainable dealer inventory with rapid releases; Kong dealers sitting on heavy stock facing immediate Jaws 50th competition (confidence: high) — Josh: 'You have plenty of distributors and dealers who bought plenty of stock on King Kong, right? And they're sitting on this stock... All of a sudden you release a Godzilla 50th or a Jaws 50th... you're essentially pitting Elwin versus Elwin.'
- **[announcement]** Pinball Brothers officially announces Predator as original design (not Alien retheme); insider feedback suggests competitive quality with Alien/Queen (confidence: high) — 'It's official. Predator's coming from Pinball Brothers. No, this is not a retheme of Alien... people that have seen this design. They're telling us it's better than Alien. It's better than Queen.'
- **[product_strategy]** Harry Potter rumored delayed but Naps Arcade corrected within hours; still on track per official sources (confidence: high) — Josh: 'Jersey Jack Pinball delayed Harry Potter. Supposedly, that's the rumor. Yeah. And not even two hours ago, Naps Arcade said never mind – apparently they're still on track.'
- **[product_concern]** D&D: Tyrant's Eye has game-crashing bugs at level 3 of dungeon crawl requiring fixes; despite Dwight's passion, execution issues persist (confidence: high) — Josh: 'the big thing right now is in D&D, if you get to level three in the dungeon crawling, and you get a specific creature, it crashes the whole game. It resets.'
- **[rumor_hype]** Star Wars pinball possibly themed to Andor (newer series) rather than Original Trilogy or Prequel; based on show ratings and target demographic fit (confidence: low) — Josh: 'I heard on the Pinball Show they talked about was the Prequel Trilogy. I don't think it is... And I think it's Andor because if you look at Mandalorian, Mandalorian came out in season two... Andor, while it may not be as huge... it is the best [reviewed]... best reviews from the generation that's buying pinball machines.'

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## Transcript

 Jaws 50th anniversary, Jersey Jack Pinball delayed Harry Potter, not really, Pinball Brothers Predator and CGC Cactus Canyon delayed. All that plus more, this is Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. Thanks for tuning into Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. I am Josh Roop. With me, my co-captain, Scott Larson. And Scott, we've got quite the episode today. where there's been a rumor mill just going wild, but there's plenty of games coming out, including Kong that just released, plus some other rumored games. Where are you going to get your games if you're buying these games? I'll call Zach and Nicole Mini at Flip N Out Pinball. They've always hooked me up. I did just place an order, and so I'm really excited to get that. And I'm sure you're getting one too, right? I am. Didn't I hear that? So what are you getting? Foo Fighters is officially leaving. I made a deal with Zach to do a trade in He gave me a heck of a deal Considering the state Foo Fighters They're not selling a lot But it's still a great game He gave you fair market He gave me very fair market value He's taking care of shipping I don't know how he's going to make money But hey, that's his deal, not ours Thanks Zach for taking care of us It's amazing Nice So like I just announced there is a ton of stuff coming down the pipeline yep first let's talk stern everyone wants to talk stern right king kong just released people are loving it the premium is amazing you went out to the media day yep i've heard nothing but positive about this game i i'm i'm excited to get my pro it should be here next week now tell me about that because we did talk back and forth so tell me what now first off now you had jurassic park right correct you still have it i can't tell No, I sold my Jurassic Park. But you had the Pro version, right? Correct. And I thought the Pro was very good, especially for the price and everything. I felt like the premium didn't add enough features to justify the difference. And I felt that the code is amazing. The thing about Jurassic Park, I feel like the code can get a little stale. I really think Elwin came into his own during Avengers. like I know people don't really like that code but there was a lot of experimenting there that ended up making Godzilla what it is nowadays and Jaws well with the ball paths too I would say Avengers is really where he perfected the long ball paths and the visual candy that you see with the ball moving around well not only that but like he perfected especially with Godzilla and Jaws the fact that like just by playing the game you get rewarded right like like godzilla is a great example you know i'm hitting tesla targets on accident during a multiball that's moving towards actual tesla tesla mode that can play in the background just stuff like that you know and he does that in jaws 2 with the beach goers and stuff like that and and that's really kind of started in that godzilla era but we're seeing hints of it in avengers and so like kong is like a no-brainer to me that's the thing is like i really would like the premium because like the kong figure is awesome but as i sat down and really evaluated the game the difference between the two the the kong's not really much of a game changing feature right like it is like this the the the building on godzilla literally changes the game the ball pass and stuff like that and the subway doesn't really like it's cool it holds the balls it's a physical ball walk well you're not really changing much to the game because of it and really all the ball paths are the same. There's drop targets. I mean, and you're taking out the spider and the gong, and really the gong is like very good. The gong is dangerous, actually. Okay, we talked about this last time. We talked about that with the gong, the danger shot is on the right. Yeah. Because you're trying to get there, and the gong can actually mess you up. It can fight back. The gong can fight back. But on the premium on the left side, you have the spider that kind of grabs the ball. it's kind of reversed on the pro like the the left shot that's a little more dangerous because it doesn't have the the spider that comes down and grabs the ball and you get a lot more of that unpredictability with that shot well and like elwyn told us like that that actually is magnet controlled yeah it's not on a it's not on a coil or anything like that i half wonder if you could actually just kind of buy a secondary market thing if someone knows about a secondary market spider i could put on the pro i wouldn't be opposed to it like you should put one of those leaper jumpers like from miller yeah that'd be awesome or do like a stegosaurus or something like that like i don't know there's just there's so much you can do with it yeah but okay so here's my question i'm going to be asking this question throughout the whole episode okay okay kong has released it's only been out there like they're shipping them now like the ellies have already went out but we're finally shipping premiums and pros but we've now heard the rumor and it's Where there's smoke, there's fire. Usually. Jaws 50th could be coming out in July. Is that a good decision or a terrible decision? Because are we cutting off the legs of Kong at this point with Jaws? I don't think you are. Jaws 50. Okay. Jurassic Park 30. Now, they took some flack for this because they released it as an LE. Now, I've got the old LE over here, which is great. I love the look of it. They changed the look. They upgraded it. And so they did Jurassic Park 30. But they also did it like, what, like five years later? Like six years later? Okay. And so my friend who actually sold me the original, Gary, when he sold me the Jurassic Park, he ended up buying the Jurassic Park 30, like that edition. Okay. But when you have a special decal edition – now, Stern has done this a lot. So walk with me on this. They had two Metallica LEs, right? They had the back in black, and they had the Master of Puppets, right? Then you also had ACDC. So they had the Leatherby Rock, and they had the back in black. Okay? They also have the Lucy edition, which was kind of that, hey, it's a premium, but it's – they've done this with Batman, right? They have the Catwoman edition. Yeah. Okay. And with – now, I'm 100% certain that they pivoted, and with Godzilla 70th, they decided to go black and white and to put it at the premium. I'm 100% convinced that was supposed to be an LE. Yeah, I agree. They got blowback from the LE purchasers because they're like, you're devaluing my game because you're offering more LEs. Okay. Yeah. I am not one of those people who subscribe to that. I don't really care about having something that someone else doesn't. But I do understand the people who that they do value that. It's going to be a big deal. Okay. So that was different enough than the other Godzilla. And having the black and white with a retro Godzilla really fits the theme. Okay. So what are they going to do with Jaws 50 if they do that? Are they going to do a black and white? Because it's a 70s movie. It's not really originally black and white. Are they just going to have a different art package? Are they going to do – is it really going to push people over to buy a Jaws if they haven't already purchased a Jaws? way i don't think so what do you think i i don't know i think it'll sell i i do think it'll sell but i don't think it's gonna kill kong so i don't think it'll kill kong because from my understanding kong is like the third best-selling le that has released in the last decade like i can see that it has just the le's have went out the door they're they're all gone here's my concern you have plenty of distributors and dealers who bought plenty of stock on king kong right and they're sitting on this stock they're they're slowly trickling it out all of a sudden you release a godzilla 50th or a jaws 50th and granted it's limited quantities like we're not going to be producing a ton of these but still like a single run or a double run or something like that but you're essentially pitting ellen versus ellen jaws is a more desirable theme in my opinion versus the king kong really i think so i think you like you like jaws over king kong huh i think theme wise i do okay i don't know about gameplay wise no no but i i that's what i'm talking about theme wise i i think i i understand i understand what you're saying and like market ability i am on the i'm on the other side though i i look at king kong and i think king kong is a more desirable theme for me maybe not for everybody but for me i would rather have a king kong than a joss but you just had dealers and distributors fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars and then not even like a month or two later fair it's like surprise we have another one now fork out even more money where we're having a hard time like whether you want to talk about economics whether you want to talk about like just inventory just and here's the thing like stern's making their money like sure they're not slowing down because it's like every time we release another hell one it's money in the bank but the problem is is these are backing up at dealers and if dealers don't know how to sell these or how to and if they don't have the or if they don't have the the ability to buy yeah um i i don't think it's gonna if they do a 50th I doubt it'll be a huge run. I would suspect that they may be able to make, who knows, maybe 500 of these. But how many Jaws? I guarantee they made 10,000 Jaws at least. Godzilla, if they still released the figures on Godzilla, Godzilla could actually be on track to be one of the best-selling machines of all time. Yeah, my understanding, it is the best-selling LCD Stern. so and that's outdoing star wars of all things which which does surprise me but it's you know i could be wrong on those numbers but just okay either way there's a possibility that godzilla could if they release the numbers i would not be surprised okay it's at least dominating the era yeah it's definitely dominating the era so the era and the last time a single game dominated an era was like adam's family or twilight zone right yeah and so we're talking 30 years later to get a a game that has the same monster level appeal well and here's the problem too like kong like kong is really good like it it's a no one like it's gonna shoot amazing you know what you're game the code's gonna be fantastic like but here's the thing though like so you've got jaws 50th then the rumored star wars and i've heard on the pinball show they talked about was the the prequel trilogy i don't think it is i don't think i'm hearing emperor strikes back i mean i don't think it is that either and some people are like maybe it's and or like okay that's where i think it is and i think it's andor because if you look at mandalorian mandalorian came out in the second season yeah okay and or while it may not be as huge as the um as the mandalorian If you look at the ratings of Andor it is the best And you know that they're only doing two seasons of it, and then it goes right into Rogue One. So not only that, it's got the best reviews from the generation that's buying pinball machines. Yes, 100%. Yeah. And it's not even close. And actually, Kay, I was interesting, though, because I was interested because I heard Zach and Dennis talking about Obi-Wan. And I heard Dennis kind of dogging on Obi-Wan. I totally agree that the first three episodes were – they were slow. Yeah. I would argue the last three episodes were really good. And by the way, if you don't get choked up at the end when he's fighting Anakin Skywalker, then you have no soul. I'm sorry. You have no soul. So, okay. So Kong, Jaws is right behind it. We've got supposedly Star Wars at some point. We know that a remake's coming. The rumor is The Walking Dead. Yeah. This is all within from here to October. Oh, jeez. And then. Yeah. I mean, and my understanding is too, because people are like, well, what's Borg doing? Is he obviously going to do Walking Dead? My understanding, he's doing double duty. He's doing the Star Wars title and the Walking Dead. So he'll have two titles released within a month or two of each other. And my guess, this is just an educated guess. Dwight has said multiple times, if it's a Star Wars theme, he's on code. Like, he's got seniority. I don't know. I would argue, let someone else try. Okay, Dwight, by the way, is the most passionate person you will ever meet in pinball. Okay, I'll put it this way. If you are into Dungeons & Dragons, you want Dwight as the dungeon master. He is motivated to do that. However, I would argue, okay, if Dwight did that, okay, the last time Dwight and Borg teamed up. Was that? No, not sorry. Was that Munsters? It was Ninja Turtles. Okay. Okay. In 2021. I would just be surprised, though, if Dwight did two games in the year. That's a lot. It is a lot. But if you look at it from this perspective, Dwight's more doing the rule set and some of the coding. Because with D&D, didn't they have seven coders on that game or something like that? Sure, but Dwight's also not known for fast development. I agree. And obviously there's some game-breaking bugs in D&D that need to be fixed. I love Dwight, but there tend to be exploits that high-level players figure out really quickly. It's not even exploits. So the big thing right now is in D&D, if you get to level three in the dungeon crawling, and you get a specific creature, it crashes the whole game. It resets. Yeah, but that's more of a game-breaking part. That's actually nuts and bolts on the code. That's not engineering the rule set and doing all that kind of stuff. But my point being is, so Dwight's more than likely, and this is just my educated guess, he's more than likely on the Star Wars title. and then my guess is Ray Day would be back on The Walking Dead, fine-tuning that. Right, yeah, kind of doing the Metallica thing. Especially, well, he's a high-level player. He's a high-level player. Well, he's also, okay, I'm calling it out there. Ray Day is the heir apparent to Lyman on code, okay? And this is me 100% respecting Lyman's legacy, respecting everything Lyman has done. and ray day has the chops to take it to lyman level and maybe continuing along that path i know nobody who looked at what he did with metallica and felt like it was anything but an augmentated rule set well not only that like foo fighters behind me i don't understand if you if you're looking for a good game for your collection ray day did an amazing job on that i don't fully understand why people are like for a pro i'm only gonna pay four thousand it's like why like the game is it stands above the rest it holds its own it's the code is in my opinion right now it's good number one is keith ellen with rick nagle number two is ray day i don't know who else like that and that's not a dog on anyone else it's just they are that good and they have a very okay amazing understanding of rule sets and how they should play with the player during gameplay You're not saying other people aren't doing a great job. What you are saying is that you see – you connect differently with their rule sets. And you can argue very easily that many people connect with the Elwynn product because he sells easily 50% of the Stearns games. Okay? Now, being – Ray Day actually has done some interesting – he even made Led Zeppelin playable even though the layout is pretty bland. But he was able to do that with, and I know he was working with Tim on these things, but you have to understand that Ray Day is such an elite player that he thinks of all these things all the time. Yeah. And he is the embodiment of pinball. And so in many ways, that's a lot of how Lyman was. Lyman was always thinking about rulesets, tinkering on different things. So back to my original question. Okay. Just one word answer. So is it a good decision or a terrible decision that Stern is releasing what they are right now? Is it going to undercut Kong? Good decision. In the grand scheme of things, I think they're competing for slightly different audiences. Okay. I'm not sure a 50th Jaws moves the needle like a 70th Godzilla did. Yeah. But it depends on what the art does. I mean, is Michael going to do a new art package for that? So art will change how people want to buy a package. Yeah. If it's going to be a new art package and he does something different, kind of like the Lucy edition or the Catwoman edition, then maybe people like i want that art package but we know the game the game's a solid game and it's not like people have bought it and sold it the people who bought jaws under the original art package already bought it yeah and that's actually the one l1 that i haven't bought because the theme didn't connect me with me like the other things gotcha all righty let's move on to the next one on our list. You didn't tell me. What did you think? You asked me a question. Do you think it's a good idea? I think it's going to change. I think it's a terrible decision. I think it puts way too much pressure back on distributors and dealers to take more product when the product that they have right now may or may not be selling. I would argue it's not really a cornerstone. It's more of kind of like a vault edition where it's a low volume, it's not going to be the same production level that King Kong is. I'm guessing. Okay, this is me throwing numbers against the wall. I bet that if you do a special edition like this, sells easily less than 1,000, maybe 500. That's still a good seller, but it's not going to change. They're making over 10,000 Kongs. Yeah, true. all righty jersey jack pinball delayed harry potter supposedly that's the rumor yeah and not even two hours ago nap arcade said never mind apparently they're still on track um we know very little when it comes to jersey jack pinball okay they're very tight-lipped and i think appropriately so because we know that there are licensing constraints and once you start announcing things, it typically triggers stuff in a licensing agreement. So if they start releasing things, then it can be challenging. We know that Stern got into a lot of challenging situations with Bond because Bond was notoriously a challenging license to work with. It's because they're very jealous of their product and they want it to be reflected in a certain way. I guarantee Harry Potter is very hands-on, which can be a challenge if it took so long to get the approval from the estate to make this game. So it can take longer in development. What are your thoughts, Josh? I don't know how to feel about Harry Potter, man. This whole thing is so interesting. and I find it funny how people are like this is going to sell more than Kong 10 to 1 and all this stuff but then it's like they can't produce at scale like Stern does. It's going to be a while. And people are still getting their avatars now. I am a fan of Avatar. I played it and I felt that it was one of those games that really drew me in. Like they, JJP knows how to have an immersive environment experience in a game. And that's what Avatar did for me. It felt like I was really in Pandora. Here's the criticism though. You're selling a collector's edition at $15,000. and my friend here just got his collector's edition avatar $15,000 after they announced, don't buy anything, we're coming out with Harry Potter. You kind of missed the window on the buzz on the game. And I understand they're trying to produce the best thing and they were making sure the ink printing was going to be the best with the lighting. And that seemed to be what was holding it up. But it's like Pulp Fiction, like the LE. You want to, you, my opinion is I like Stern's old way of doing it. Get the pros, set them out on location because that's your test run for how you're going to produce it. And you're going to find the errors that way. and then go to the LEs and then do some more pros and premiums. That's the best way of selling your game. But I don't understand why they push that toward the end, and Pulp Fiction LEs is the same thing. It's like, my gosh, Sterns is going to release 12 games before they release the Pulp Fiction LEs out to the market, for some people anyway. yeah I just this whole thing is weird like the whole like the way that they've released it the way that they've just they've done everything with Harry Potter it's just it's kind of strange what do you think of so do you think it's a good decision or do you think it's a terrible decision that they decide not to limit anything that they just gonna like they are in the fact that like going to make these and then once they done making them they shutting down the line But like Yeah There could be 10,000 CEs if they get – you know. Okay. I have already declared many times having a limited amount of LEs doesn't matter to me. Okay. What I definitely want is for the market, for the best version of your product to be adequately satisfied. Now, what does that mean? I said it before. That means that you ideally produce one less than what demand is for. the worst the worst case scenario is you you produce two more and then people are like oh there's tons of these around and so i don't it doesn't justify my price um but this is where like metallica metallica should have been a thousand le's because the way they engineered the le package it was a better version just just the art package was more was tighter i like the presentation better now you can still do a really good job with uh with the premium and and adding the stuff on and still getting a really close representation of it but there is the it's kind of like uh cactus canyon cactus canyon without the topper and i know a topper is just kind of this gimmick thing but cactus canyon without the topper didn't sell right because it was that took it to a level and once they were sold out that's why they they kind of scrambled and said okay now you can have the se plus because it has the topper now um i want them if if they have a potential of selling 5 000 ces of harry potter they should and i want them to have that position of just saying okay you can order it up to a certain date and we will make that many that that is a smart move and it sounds like that they're going to have you know basically a pro premium the three-tiered system right like stern perfected it yeah they're gonna have the arcade level they're gonna have the whatever their mid-tier level is and then the whatever their premium level is i like that the market will dictate how many of these are sold but i agree what do you feel because again, I've said that numbers don't drive sales to me. I'm glad that Guns N' Roses LE wasn't really an LE. It was a premium. Whoever wanted it could have bought it. I think it's... Like I said, I can see this from both perspectives. I think it's a terrible idea just because I think if you don't limit this, you could get into some trouble with... You don't have the building capacity just to make as many as you want and you have other licenses in the pipeline that have deadlines yeah you can move them around and stuff like that but i just there's a lot of weird things going on with this release and it hasn't even released yet and i i am nervous for jersey jack but hey they are the people that own and operate the company yeah they they can they can figure it out themselves they are big boys and girls sometimes the having a monster license can be detrimental um and i i was a huge i i am a huge star wars fan especially for the first three you know the ones that i grew up with right and i i've said hit or miss on the on the later stuff but i still like the theme when star Wars came out, it didn't hit my expectations on what I wanted in the game. Like I remember going over to my friend's house, we unboxed the LE and it was the same time that I was playing his attack for Mars LE downstairs. And I played Star Wars a few games and I said, I want to go down and play attack from Mars. So that's not that that's it's a hard level. It's the same thing as having a book that everybody has read, it's really hard to translate that into a movie because people will say, that's not how I envision it in my mind. So it's hard to translate a beloved theme into a pinball machine because unless you're having a linear rule set, then you're going to have to figure out ways of making all the encounters. Now, Jersey Jack does, they have code bloat. Right. And they end up having like 200 different, you know, different things in the game. And so it is possible they could put everything in this game. But that didn't help Hobbit. So are people going to be disappointed by the product? That's that's a real uphill climb for Eric to hit. That's true. Well, I wish them the best. Like, seriously, I'm excited to see what they've come up with. I like Eric's designs. I'm hoping this one meets the mark because there's definitely some pressure on this one. But it should be their next Wizard of Oz. You remember how many runs of the Wizard of Oz they did? This should be their next evergreen title because there is so much to know. Yeah. All righty. We've been getting teases for like the last couple days now. it's official predators coming from pinball brothers no this is not a re-theme of abba like we were told like someone speculates there because abba does have like a helicopter and everything like that uh no this is this is its own original design i didn't even think about the helicopter being like they can reuse the ball lock that's hilarious um i just i we know people that have seen this design they're telling us it's better than abba it's better than queen they don't know it's better than Alien. How do you feel about a Predator pinball machine, Scott? The theme's great. What they should do with Predator, though, is it should be a Pulp Fiction type era game. You know how Pulp Fiction, they came out, if you watch Pulp Fiction, it's kind of that odd 70s vibe, but still modern right and they still have cell phones but it's it has that retro vibe right yeah yeah so they made the pinball machine with a retro vibe to it okay so what they should have done with predator is they should have we don't know we haven't seen it but they should have had kind of an 80s kind of like an 80s Bally Williams game. It should feel a little bit like that. Maybe like a Congo where it's a little more retro. It's a little more stripped down rule set. Kind of like a Lethal Weapon 3 where it's a lot more linear and retro. It's kind of like playing Contra on the Nintendo Entertainment System. You know what you're getting. it feels very theme and era appropriate so that's what i would do if i were doing this machine um i'm not sure the pinball brothers are self-aware enough to do that though i don't know either and like i think it's a good idea to have a predator pinball machine especially where you own alien so it kind of goes hand in hand and whatnot i just don't get me wrong i enjoy the 80s and whatnot is predator as relevant now like i feel like alien is because they're still making alien movies but predator i don't feel like they're really pushing the license or the franchise very much anymore i mean that's not a big deal like obviously there's sometimes you just want to make game like evil dead that is a cult classic that has a strong fan base and whatnot. But I just get like there's memes of Predator and stuff like that but when I hear the classics and the highlights and the epic themes that people want from the 80s, I do hear Predator occasionally but I don't hear as much as other themes. The question is did they get Arnold Schwarzenegger? Because if you do Predator there's only one movie to do. You don't mess around with Predator 2. You don't mess around with Predator vs. Alien. You don't do any of that. I like Predator vs. Alien. No, no. You're not going to sell that. For my age group, the guys who grew up on Predator, you know, you want... You know, you want... Whatever. Isn't his name Dutch? Whatever. You want Schwarzenegger and Apollo Creed like doing the bro handshake with her giant muscles and you want the the you know the the mystique of the predator just looking like you know he's a monster that you don't want glover from the second one doing his thing oh yeah oh my gosh that would be so bad if it were predator 2 i mean it's like alien where they had alien and aliens and you get to choose from the code and Oh, yeah. No, Predator 2 wasn't. I still remember that as being an, okay, that happened. That's rough. Yeah, it's rough. But, okay, so now what do you feel about saying, okay, if you do this, really lean into that 8-bit, you know, kind of that Deadpool retro feel where you're doing the fighting, but it's like a 90s, like, you know, like Street Fighter 2 fighting. So I want to feel like this game was made in 1988 or whenever Predator came out. Kind of like T2, I guess. Yeah. It was released in 87. Okay. You know, I could see the retro vibe. That could be cool. I don't know. I just think you do lean on the jungle. You lean on Mace and that retro vibe and whatnot. I don't know. Honestly, like predator doesn't do a ton for me. Like it's a really cool theme. Okay. I like, I like predator, but I just, I will argue though, if you're my age, predator was huge. Yeah. Yeah. That show was awesome. And so if you, and there's definitely, if you're looking for the dudes that are like 45 plus who are like, I want it's predator probably had as much of a, following in that era as T2 did. It was an iconic Arnold Schwarzenegger role. So do you think it's a good idea or a terrible idea that they're doing Predator? Well, I think the theme's great. However, it's like in Olympic diving or Olympic gymnastics, right? You get a degree of difficulty of how much you can actually pull off. and if stern did predator then i think it would be a really great license that they could really lean into i i just haven't played any pinball brothers games that i wanted to buy yeah so i'm hoping that they're able to do something and i'm hoping they're able to find like a way of of proving me wrong, saying, no, you want this in your lineup. But I... So the theme's a home run. The company's still questionable in my book. Same and the whole terror thing plays into it Dutch kind of went off last month when the terrorists were announced They said I actually going to charge to the customers in America for Alice It's turning into this weird, what is or isn't going to happen. And so overall, I think it's a good decision that Pinball Brothers went with Predator. I think it's going to draw more of an American audience outside of ABBA. I think Queen should have been a home run, but it just doesn't play fantastic. And so are you optimistic about them making a game you want to buy? No. Yeah. I'll be frank. No. Well, okay, but that is ultimately the level that in today's market, you have to make something that people want to buy and put in their home, right? Right. Because over half of their sales are to home environments. You're not going to make this marketable if you're just putting it in bars. Yeah. Here's the other thing too. I've pretty much sworn off New in Box unless it's an L1 or it's a game that has been proven to be a great game so like I would probably take a chance on a Cactus Canyon maybe New in Box sure Medieval Madness easily Metallica Walking Dead I'd consider just seeing where the market's currently at, what it's doing and everything. You're a lot more gun-shy. You're gun-shy because it's... Yeah, because it's not five years ago. It's not five years ago where you buy a game and you can sell it for 500 more than you bought it for. Or even just take a haircut of a couple hundred bucks. When MSRP on a Foo Fighters is seven grand and they're not even selling for five, it just becomes this like, well, don't get me wrong I think Foo Fires is an amazing game I don't understand I don't understand the concept but here's the thing too so I messaged a location operator and he usually buys my games and I said hey this is what I'm selling it for and he's like yeah I think I'm going to pass and then like three weeks later I said I dropped the price would you be interested at all and he said no we're going to hold off right now so I messaged him today or yesterday and said this is my bottom dollar I'll take for it if not like it's going to zach and so he's like josh to be entirely honest foo fires is doing nothing for us on location it's a terrible earner he's like i don't want anything to do with it and it's like oh it's because yeah but that's because music music pins have to be in a home environment they do just because unless you have a headphone jack because music pins are heavily reliant on the soundtrack and it is so hard to get a good soundtrack on location that unless it's a metallica it's the you know it i i doubt even iron maiden does great on location yeah i know when i talked to a lot of operators and they say it's hard to route music pins they just don't do well on location unless you're metallica metallica probably does yeah probably yeah so but it's you know aerosmith um you know maybe not so much uh acdc probably but there's it is more missed than hit in the uh on the music pins for location yeah yeah all right let's move on to our very last topic um cgc cactus canyon delayed it sounds like that these the remake uh extended kit with the doors and the code and yada yada i was originally aiming for end of may beginning of june but it has been postponed um i didn't exactly see how long but it's cgc so it's probably like we'll see it at Pinball Expo? As long as CGC puts out a good finished product, then they'll be fine. People are willing to give them a slight pass. I'm not going to say a full pass, but they're giving them a slight pass as long as the quality is up. Once their quality, or if their quality, drops off, then they're going to be in a world of hurt. and here's the thing though like their quality is slipping like I don't it is there were more issues with Cactus Canyon than there were with the other games and there was more issues with Pulp Fiction there has been with others too and like it's not just like here's the thing I will excuse wire forms being not bent the right way it's easy to adjust adjusting a coil or bending a switch when the cabinet separating when right And we saw that. I haven't heard playful issues. Yeah, we personally saw. At the one at Logan Arcade, the backbox was separating. It was – I would be nervous. That needed a whole bunch of super glue and Bondo to keep that thing together. Well, and you've had a big turnover rate of the people that worked at CGC, and it's almost like a whole new crew came in last year too. so the question is as we're getting these products out the door like are they changing the like where i'm hearing more and more that we're changing quality on that so i don't know we we ask i hope not i we're hoping to get our hands on a kit soon because i i have a cactus canyonelli and josh has been out to my house many times to to play these games so yeah i would love to get my hands on the kit and put it in and then we can see because it does have a significant code upgrade and they're calling it the code complete now right yeah yep and so how you know and what josh has done we want to have josh on and josh we actually messaged josh when everything was done he was like yeah we can do it and then every just there was so many things but i want to give it uh i want to give the interview when it's getting a little closer so we can actually talk more about it so it doesn't get lost in the shuffle yeah definitely um but yeah that's i'm i'm hoping that this ends up being like a really cool upgrade for cactus canyon yeah i agree with you man um yeah it's just i feel like cgc starting to slip you know it's funny like a few years ago i i firmly believe CGC was in the number two spot, even above Jersey Jack. Between their timelines, now their quality is starting to slip. I need some reassurance that things are getting a little better. But it doesn't matter because Medieval Madness sold out in less than 24 hours. And I hope that they take this as a, hey, we'll do the Merlin. I am disappointed that they don't have a standard edition right now. But I would not be surprised if at some point they're just like, okay, let's just do a standard edition. And I actually just bought a rental down in St. George, and I was hoping to get a standard edition to put down there. So I guess we'll see. Maybe I'll put – And they're still doing good. I'm not saying like they're bombing completely. Okay. Yeah. They're not falling apart. But it was when you bought the other machines, they were bulletproof. You're just seeing typical things that you see with all manufacturers. That's the only thing. I ordered a Merlin, so I'm planning on swapping my game out for a Merlin edition. I'm still a big CGC fan. What CGC is making, what JGP is making, what Stern is making, and really even spookies creeping up into that solid build category i i am getting more and more and more of a believer in spooky yeah what they're doing is right they are they are on the right path and uh here i'll give friendly advice to anyone out there that is a pinball manufacturer that isn't stern if you want to start making more money this is this is going to sound counterintuitive you're going to have to give better margins to your dealers and distributors because people aren't going to sell your product if they're making, they're not even making half the margin they are on a Stern pro. So if you, if you're having issues moving product and stuff like that, you might want to consider, I'm not saying give, give price off to the end consumer, your B2B, you, you've got to start figuring out that relationship a little better if you want to start weathering some of this economic storm that we're seeing right now. Yeah. Well, Stern also, they make up for a lot of this with volume. Yeah. Because Stern, you add up all the other companies, and Stern still sells four times as much. Yeah, but Stern sells that much too, but they also have the best margins in the industry. Yeah. And we've known this for years. At least us behind the scenes have. Yeah. The incentive for the dealers to sell a Stern is higher than it is to sell another game. Yes. But I don't know if they can do the same thing as Stern just because their volume is 25. Yeah, but add all the other ones up and they still only make 25% of the market. You can't tell me that a Jersey Jack can't offer a little more margin to their distributors. Maybe, but there are cost-cutting things that people would not like to see. And so it is this it's this fine line. It's this fine line of trying to make sure that your dealers are not overloaded with inventory. Because when as you're a dealer, you want to buy a game and you want to move it out the door in less than 90 days. Yeah, that's how you want it to be. and if you're sitting on a game for a year then that is death for a dealer because that is you know that's five to ten thousand dollars they could be using on something else yeah alright I'm going to leave the conversation there it's late it's past midnight we kind of stayed up late tonight to record because it's been a while and Scott's leaving out of town he's leaving out of the country on Saturday so we figured we'd better get one out before he leaves for two weeks so yeah um if you want to get a hold of us we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com you can get a hold of us on all the socials at loser kid pinball we appreciate your support those that have supporters on patreon thank you again for signing up for our content and saying that we are worth your dollar uh and also big shout out to flipping out pinball and for all they do to help sponsor us scott give us our last words you know what seriously check out the silver ball swag right now the shoes are great uh right now that we're we're in a tariff uh window where the tariffs are lower and so go ahead and get the shoes they're not there for the time being yeah yeah but like i hey i i've been having my uh you know my my big uh high tops the uh you know they they look great they're fun and i will say it's amazing how many times I'm wearing my pinball shoes and I get random comments on my shoes all the time, not from pinball people, just like, Hey, those are cool things.

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 29c5447a-6f28-4a21-9202-97368627a4d6*