# The Pinball Show Ep 89: Stern Production Updates & How NOT To Market Trends

**Source:** The Pinball Show  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2022-01-31  
**Duration:** 133m 7s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.thepinballnetwork.net/e/the-pinball-show-ep-89-stern-production-updates-how-not-to-market-trends/

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## Analysis

The Pinball Show episode 89 covers production updates from major manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack, Spooky, Haggis, Chicago Gaming, American Pinball) and includes a tribute to legendary Lyman Sheets, who died by suicide on January 19, 2022. Key production news includes Rush delays, Deadpool Premium manufacturing finally resuming after year-long delays, Iron Man Vault formal discontinuation, and multiple code updates across Stern titles. The hosts discuss Jersey Jack secondary market trends and celebrate Haggis beginning manufacturing on Fathom Remake.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Lyman Sheets died by suicide on January 19, 2022, after a long battle with mental illness — _Funeral obituary read on air; family explicitly disclosed cause of death in funeral program_
- [HIGH] Lyman Sheets designed or co-created software for over 45 pinball machines across three decades — _Craig Bobby segment; cited machines include Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, Attack from Mars, The Walking Dead, Metallica, Tron, Batman 66, Elvira House of Horrors, Cactus Canyon Remake_
- [HIGH] Rush Pro production line was delayed 7-10 days due to part shortages; production resumed with LE run to begin by end of week — _Production update segment by Ken Rudberg; Premium run expected week of February 21st_
- [HIGH] Deadpool Premiums were finally built this last week after being delayed since December, expected to ship early February — _Host notes on production backlog; orders pushed back multiple times from December through January_
- [HIGH] Iron Man Vault has been formally discontinued; all pending orders terminated — _Host states: 'the orders that were pending. They have actually terminated all future runs. It is done, done, done.'_
- [HIGH] Godzilla received code update V.90 with new features including Planet X Wizard Mode, Smog Monster Frenzy, verbal countdown for ball release — _David Dennis reading code notes; described as 'fairly large' update_
- [HIGH] Haggis Pinball has commenced manufacturing on Fathom Mermaid Edition with Series Ticket Holders to receive games first — _Dr John update; manufacturing anticipated to commence in four weeks_
- [HIGH] There are 17 Guns N' Roses Jersey Jack machines currently listed on Pinside: 8 LEs ($9.5-10k), 5 CEs ($17-21.6k), 4 SEs ($7.5-8k) — _Ken Rudberg Jersey Jack market update with specific price ranges and quantities_
- [LOW] Someone spotted what might be Toy Story in blurry background of Jersey Jack Instagram photo; speculation about unannounced title — _Ken Rudberg notes: 'way too low resolution and blurry to say anything about what this game is' but community excitement building_
- [HIGH] Corwin 'Bug' Emery from Spooky Pinball won the Iowa State Pinball Invitational — _Dr John update; noted as result of playtesting work at Spooky_

### Notable Quotes

> "His rule sets are seen as groundbreaking and still serve as the backbone for modern pinball rules design."
> — **Craig Bobby (Stern news segment, reading tribute to Lyman Sheets)**, Early segment
> _Captures Lyman's lasting technical impact on pinball industry_

> "After a courageous and long battle with mental illness, Lyman died by suicide on January 19, 2022. His soul is finally at peace."
> — **David Dennis (reading Lyman Sheets obituary)**, Mid-episode
> _Family's explicit public statement normalizing mental health discussion in pinball community_

> "I'm glad that the family was willing to actually say that, because at least here in the U.S., historically, there was a stigma associated with suicide, and it takes a lot of work to get rid of that stigma."
> — **Dennis Creasel**, Post-obituary discussion
> _Host emphasizes importance of destigmatizing mental health in pinball community_

> "The Hobbit is priced higher than GNR. There are two listed for 11k each. That is a huge bump up for that game."
> — **Ken Rudberg (Jersey Jack market update)**, Market trends segment
> _Secondary market pricing shows Hobbit appreciating faster than premium Guns N' Roses CEs_

> "Well, you're all SOL now, guys. I'm sorry. You're going to have to go to the secondary market and buy your Iron Man vault for $1,000 less used."
> — **Dennis Creasel**, Late production update segment
> _Delivers discontinuation blow to customers waiting on Iron Man Vault orders_

> "I think probably the two worst phone calls to make to somebody who's on a list is, one, the price of your pin has gone up by $1,000 or $2,000 from when you put your name on the list. the other one is that the game is totally cancelled that's the worst."
> — **David Dennis**, Iron Man Vault discussion
> _Captures pattern of Stern pricing increases and cancellations affecting customers on waitlists_

> "Deadpool Premiums are expected to, well, no, apparently this last week they were built...I remember the announcement of them supposing to be done in December. But it got pushed back."
> — **Dennis Creasel**, Production update segment
> _Documents repeated delays of Deadpool Premium run across multiple months_

> "Insire Connected kits...estimated two or three weeks, so they are backordered again."
> — **David Dennis**, Production updates discussion
> _Shows continued supply chain constraints affecting Stern Connected upgrades_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Lyman Sheets | person | Legendary Stern/Williams/Data East/Bally/Chicago Gaming software engineer who designed code for 45+ pinball machines including Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, Attack from Mars, Walking Dead, Metallica, Tron, Batman 66, Elvira House of Horrors, Cactus Canyon Remake. Died by suicide January 19, 2022, age 55. |
| Dennis Creasel | person | Host of The Pinball Show; co-hosting episode 89 with David Dennis |
| David Dennis | person | Co-host of Silver Ball Chronicles podcast; filling in as co-host for The Pinball Show episode 89 in place of regular Zach |
| Craig Bobby | person | Reads Stern Pinball news update segment on The Pinball Show |
| Ken Rudberg | person | Provides Jersey Jack Pinball market trends update and American Pinball news for The Pinball Show; analyzes secondary market pricing |
| Dr. John | person | Provides Spooky/Haggis/Chicago Gaming Company updates on The Pinball Show |
| Corwin 'Bug' Emery | person | Spooky Pinball designer/staff member; won Iowa State Pinball Invitational; recognized for playtesting work |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer experiencing supply chain delays; produces Rush, Deadpool, Mandalorian, Batman 66, Godzilla, Iron Man Vault, Stranger Things; discontinuing Iron Man Vault |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer of premium pinball games; Guns N' Roses in secondary market abundance; Toy Story potentially in development (unconfirmed) |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; launched merch shop at shop.spookypinball.com; Bug Emery associated |
| Haggis Pinball | company | Remake manufacturer; commencing Fathom Mermaid Edition production; Series Ticket Holders receive first shipments |
| Chicago Gaming Company | company | Released Cactus Canyon Remake; SEs in production followed by LEs then SE Pluses |
| American Pinball | company | Manufacturer; Stephen Bowden guest hosted Pinball Profile episode 331 discussing puzzle book |
| Flippin' Out Pinball | company | Distributor/retailer providing production updates to The Pinball Show; Zach Minney's company |
| The Pinball Show | organization | Podcast featuring industry news, manufacturer updates, market analysis, and community discussion |
| Silver Ball Chronicles | organization | Pinball history podcast co-hosted by David Dennis |
| National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) | organization | Mental health nonprofit; Lyman Sheets' family requests donations in his name |
| Pinside | organization | Online pinball community forum/marketplace used as proxy for secondary market pricing trends |
| Rush | game | Stern Pinball title experiencing 7-10 day production delays; Pro, LE, Premium editions with staggered manufacturing schedule |
| Godzilla | game | Stern Pinball title receiving code V.90 update with Planet X Wizard Mode, Smog Monster Frenzy, destruction jackpot countdown |
| Iron Man Vault | game | Stern Pinball title formally discontinued; all pending orders terminated; no future runs planned |
| Deadpool | game | Stern Pinball title with troubled manufacturing; Premiums finally built after December delays; expected early February shipment |
| Guns N' Roses | game | Jersey Jack Pinball game; 17 machines currently listed on Pinside secondary market (8 LEs, 5 CEs, 4 SEs) |
| Fathom Mermaid Edition | game | Haggis Pinball remake; manufacturing commencing; Series Ticket Holders receive first shipments in ~4 weeks |
| Cactus Canyon Remake | game | Chicago Gaming Company title; SEs going into boxes, LEs and SE Pluses following; shipping this week |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Lyman Sheets memorial and mental health awareness, Stern Pinball production delays and supply chain constraints, Code updates across Stern titles (Godzilla, Mandalorian, Batman 66, Monsters), Iron Man Vault discontinuation and order cancellations
- **Secondary:** Jersey Jack secondary market trends and Guns N' Roses abundance, Haggis Pinball Fathom Mermaid manufacturing commencement, Deadpool Premium manufacturing delays (delayed since December)
- **Mentioned:** Unconfirmed Toy Story sighting in Jersey Jack Instagram photo

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.35) — Episode opens with somber, respectful tone regarding Lyman Sheets' death and mental health crisis, shifting to neutral/frustrated discussion of widespread manufacturing delays affecting customers. Secondary market analysis presents business-as-usual tone. Iron Man discontinuation delivers disappointing news to affected customers. Hosts maintain professional but somewhat resigned attitude toward production backlog as industry-wide pattern.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Stern pattern of price increases and product cancellations affecting waitlist customers identified as recurring pain point (confidence: medium) — David Dennis: 'the two worst phone calls to make to somebody who's on a list is, one, the price of your pin has gone up...the other one is that the game is totally cancelled'
- **[community_signal]** Family of Lyman Sheets publicly normalized mental health discussion by explicitly stating suicide in funeral program; community response on Pinside forum includes sharing personal mental health struggles (confidence: high) — David Dennis: 'I'm glad that the family was willing to actually say that...takes a lot of work to get rid of that stigma'; Dennis Creasel: 'I've seen such on Pinside. A lot of people are really talking about their own battles with mental illness'
- **[competitive_signal]** Spooky Pinball staff member Bug Emery won Iowa State Pinball Invitational; playtesting work at manufacturer translating to competitive tournament success (confidence: high) — Dr. John: 'Corwin Bug Emery for winning the Iowa State Pinball Invitational. All that playtesting at work has paid dividends'
- **[leak_detection]** Potential Toy Story machine sighting in Jersey Jack Instagram background; very low confidence due to image quality but signals community excitement and speculation about unannounced title (confidence: low) — Ken Rudberg: 'blurry to say anything about what this game is. I think it just points to the excitement that's building over this title, and what people are trying to do to glean any little piece of information'
- **[market_signal]** Jersey Jack secondary market shows 17 Guns N' Roses machines available; Hobbit appreciating faster than GNR CEs; indicates market saturation or dealer liquidation (confidence: high) — Ken Rudberg: '17 Guns N' Roses listed at the time of this recording...The Hobbit is priced higher than GNR. There are two listed for 11k each. That is a huge bump up for that game.'
- **[personnel_signal]** Lyman Sheets confirmed as legendary software architect whose rule sets remain backbone of modern pinball design; his death highlights mental health crisis within pinball community despite public success (confidence: high) — Craig Bobby tribute: 'responsible for designing or helping create the software and code of over 45 pinball machines' spanning three decades across multiple manufacturers; family funeral program explicitly states suicide after mental illness battle
- **[product_strategy]** Multiple Stern titles experiencing production delays: Rush delayed 7-10 days, Deadpool Premiums finally manufacturing after being pushed from December, Insider Connected kits backordered 2-3 weeks (confidence: high) — Production update confirms Rush delays, Deadpool premium building 'last week' after multiple pushbacks, Ken Rudberg notes Insider Connected kits 'estimated two or three weeks' backorder
- **[product_launch]** Iron Man Vault formally discontinued with all pending dealer orders canceled; represents significant customer impact and loss of announced product (confidence: high) — Dennis Creasel: 'Any dealers that still had orders outstanding for this title, those orders were not going to be fulfilled. They are canceled.'
- **[product_strategy]** Godzilla code update V.90 adds significant gameplay features including Planet X Wizard Mode, Smog Monster Frenzy, verbal countdown for ball release, expanded sound/lighting (confidence: high) — David Dennis: 'They've added a lot of really big, big stuff...Planet X Wizard Mode...Smog Monster Frenzy...Destruction jackpot [with] verbal countdown for the ball release'
- **[supply_chain_signal]** Widespread manufacturing delays affecting multiple manufacturers (Stern, Haggis, Chicago Gaming) attributed to generic 'part shortages' but specific components unidentified (confidence: medium) — David Dennis speculates: 'Like, is it the plastic arches...Is it the little...Is there a chip that's in the camera'; hosts acknowledge uncertainty about root cause of delays

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## Transcript

 Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. The Pinball Network is online. Launching the Pinball Show. Pinball is the game of still. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show. It's pinball with personality. Welcome, everybody, to the Pinball Show. This is episode 89. I am your host, Dennis Creasel, along with my new co-host, Mr. David Dennis from Silver Bowl Chronicles. David, welcome to the Big Boy League. Oh, yes. I am here in the big time. What can I say? You have longed for this for quite a while. I've seen a number of messages that you have sent for Zach to see, saying that you are willing to step in and do an off week. Off weeks are defined by me as weeks that I am not present, but here you are instead of Zach. So it didn't really work out the way you thought it would. No, certainly not. I do a lot of lobbying every other week. I'm always the first one, myself and Robert Byers, basically saying that we want to be in the co-pilot chair. And I did get a huge opportunity to host the Pinball Industry Awards this year, which was taken away from me. Just grassed. Grassed. It was tragic. And we'll touch on that more later on in the show. So I guess before moving on, are you excited? Even though, I mean, you don't have Zach to play against. He's not going to do all this faux rage, you know, taking these really weird contrarian sort of stances, like how we need ten pinball machines and we'll just number them machine number one through ten and they'll be the perfect competitive machines. Yeah, I don't bring any of that. You know, this is going to be a no shenanigans, straight-faced, straightforward event here today. So if you've tuned in for tomfoolery, you know what? That's not happening. This is straight to the goods. It does make me wonder, though, like, how much longer is Zach going to podcast? I mean, he'd been missing the off weeks for quite a while. Now he's missing the on weeks. Yeah, well, sometimes family, my friend, takes over, and you have to get that done, as well as all the work he's been doing here over the last couple of weeks. He's deserved a couple of weeks off to probably go to Florida and sit on a beach or jump on an airplane and go to Mexico. Isn't it cold in Florida right now? I've been hearing it's really cold down there. Iguanas are falling from the sky. Wow. They're coming at you from all directions. It's crazy. We actually just had a blizzard here in the northeast. Oh, what a shock. Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, so we have these things called nor'easters. Are you familiar with a nor'easter? I am familiar with the term, but I do not know the specific science behind it. Yeah, so over kind of in the Chicagoland, Toronto kind of lake area, they get this thing called lake effect snow, right, where the snow comes in and spins around. Yeah, I did live in Syracuse when I was doing my graduate school, and so we had lake effect snow all the time that year, and they'd always announce it. They even had a little intro for the Carl Weathers on the news channel to go, The Effect. They called it The Effect? They'd say The Lake, and then they'd show a scene of snow, and then they'd say The Effect, and then they'd show more snow. There was a lot of snow. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, Lake Effect snow. Yeah, I was there over 2000, 2001, and it was a really heavy year. I think Syracuse was within a tenth of an inch of setting a new record. Wow, a tenth of an inch. That's how I always feel. I thought you were feeling metric. Good point, good point. So what happens is that lake effect snow starts over kind of around the Great Lakes, and it moves east. And then you've got the coastal, the east coast effect snow that kind of comes up. And that's like the same sort of event that you get when hurricanes come up, right? But it comes up with cold snow. And then they both meet basically right over kind of the Massachusetts, Maine, over here in New Brunswick, and Atlantic Canada. It all just kind of, the two storms jam into each other. So you go to bed, and you wake up with like 40 centimeters of snow the next morning that you have to dig out of your house. Yeah, the strangest thing for me being from Kansas. Sorry, the centimeters, that's like 17 inches. No, you know, everyone just made up numbers. That's fine. they converted it in their own special American way the weird thing for me wasn't even the volume of snow though obviously it was very different than what we were used to in the Midwest at least in the central Midwest where I'm from but was that you would actually see it blow because of the effect hitting with the ocean you'd see it come in there would be storm fronts that actually come from east to west which is not something we see in Kansas everything's west to east except for very very atypical situations but it was just commonplace because of how that all would spin, essentially. But when you were zoomed in, it would be like, okay, well, this snow is actually going to start in the eastern part of New York, and it's going to move west. And I was like, that doesn't make sense. Right now, at this very moment, my neighbor is blowing snow with his snow blower, so I apologize for any loud noises, as well as usually I'll record this at my office, which is like five minutes down the road. And because I'm literally snowed into my house at the moment, and I haven't been out to shovel or anything, I'm recording here in my wife's home office. So I do apologize if you hear screaming kids or blowing snow from the neighbors and things like that, but I'll do my best. Now, given we're discussing Nor'easters and everyone listening is probably like, what does this have to do with pinball? Do you think that Nor'easter is the next American pinball theme? Well, I think the next American pinball theme is going to be an original theme by Dennis Mr. Ramps Nordman. So that's probably going to happen. Okay. You heard it here first. I bet it could possibly do, at least in eastern Canada, better than Rush. Yes, but not as good as Canada A from the Puny Factory, guys. You know, I don't know where that is in the schedule, but I did see a lot of disappointment that the Pinball Industry Awards was unable to celebrate Puny Factory, but the fact is we didn't hear about any being shipped out in 2022. 2022. 2022 is their year. The year of the pun. It's time for TPN Industry News. Hello and welcome everyone to the Pinball Show's Stern News Update. I'm Craig Bobby. And we start our Stern Update this week on a somber note with the news of Pinball's legendary software engineer and former Stern employee, Lyman Sheets, tragically passing away on January 19th after losing the battle with mental illness at the age of 55. Lyman was responsible for designing or helping create the software and code of over 45 pinball machines in a remarkable career spanning nearly three decades while working at Bally, Williams, Data East, Stern Pinball, and Chicago Gaming where he helped make classics like Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, Attack from Mars, The Walking Dead, Metallica, Tron, or the more recent Batman 66, Elvirus House of Horrors, and the new Cactus Canyon remake, to name just a few. His rule sets are seen as groundbreaking and still serve as the backbone for modern pinball rules design. An avid and world-class competitive player as well, he was viewed by many as pinball royalty, although he always had time for a friendly hello or helping a fellow pinhead when that elusive solution couldn't be found. He has Lyman Sheets at the gold standard in the world of pinball code and software design, but also just for being a damn decent human being in our humble hobby that is enjoyed by so many the world over. Lyman is survived by his loving wife Penny, his sister Beverly, uncles Christopher and William, and of course by his many, many friends and legions of fans who will miss Lyman and mourn his passing for many years to come. Rest in peace, Lyman Sheets. We certainly will miss you. In what seems like rather trivial news in comparison, delays, delays, and yet more delays as Stern Pinball continues to do battle with supply chain issues that the entire world seems to be suffering with at the moment, most recently with their latest release of the Rush music pin. Although Stern was able to ship many of their first run orders of the Rush Pro Edition machines to various distributors in the first couple of weeks of production, this line has been delayed over the past 7 to 10 days due to part shortages. In the meantime, in order to keep that production line moving, it appears Stern opted to make a few Deadpool and Mandalorian premiums for owners that have been patiently waiting for those titles, some for over a year. This week it's looking like the Rush Pro line will start up again before they turn to their Rush LE buyers, followed then by a run of Rush Premiums at the end of February. I can't wait. And in the meantime, while there may be production delays, the coders at Stern are certainly moving forward full steam ahead as the Stern Code bonanza continues. This week we have new Mandalorian Code V1.02, Batman 66 Code V1.06, as this title makes its debut on the Stern Insider Connected Arena while also addressing various bug fixes and upgrades for that title. Dwight Sullivan and his team continue to amaze and perform as they continue to tweak and polish code for what some were calling impossible and would never happen, let alone happen again twice this year. Yes, new code yet again for the monsters now at V1.11. And last but certainly not least, the king of all monsters and pinball machines it seems, Godzilla received a Kaiju-sized update this week. V.90 is now available for the Pro Premium and Limited Edition models. Well, that's all for this week for the Pinball Show. I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side. Hi, this is Ken Rudberg with your Jersey Jack update. This week, I'm going to give you an update on the current market prices of Jersey Jack pinball games. There have been some recent fluctuations that I think make this interesting, and a reason to do a Jersey Jack pinball-only version of PINBALL MARKET TRENDS! So the first thing that appears to be happening is a lot of Guns N' Roses hitting the market. We're going to be using Pinside as a proxy for the overall market, And right now I see 8 LEs ranging in price from $9,500 to $10K, 5 CE's from $17K to $21.6K, and even 4 SE's from $7,500 to $8,000. That means there are currently 17 Guns N' Roses listed at the time of this recording. That is a lot of GNRs. And what is even more interesting is that right now, The Hobbit is priced higher than GNR. There are two listed for 11k each. That is a huge bump up for that game. We also see a few Wonka LEs also listed for around 10 to 11k. I think that this means if you're looking to snatch up your very own secondhand GNR, now might be your chance. Spy, spy, spy! In other pin-sized shenanigans, someone recently highlighted a post made by Jersey Jack Pinball on Instagram. It features a picture of Eric Meunier poking his head out of the top of a GNR cabinet. His smiling face was not the focus of interest in this photo, though. In the background, in the upper left, someone thinks that there is some unusual cabinet art on one of the pins on the line. In fact, they claim that it might be the long-awaited and still currently unannounced Toy Story. You have to squint really hard to make out what this person claims is there, but it is way too low resolution and blurry to say anything about what this game is. I think it just points to the excitement that's building over this title, and what people are trying to do to glean any little piece of information they can. We here at the Pinball Show will keep on top of the story, and you will all be the first to know when some new piece of information drops. For the Pinball Show, this has been Ken Rudberg. Hey, this is Kaz with a quick update on American Pinball. While there's no major news this week, Steven Bowden was a guest host on Pinball Profile, episode 331, where he talked with Stephanie Lesser about her new pinball-themed puzzle book, 101 Fun-Centric Pinball Puzzles. It's got crosswords, word searches, mazes, and more. and you can find it on Amazon. You can just search 101 Fun-Centric Pinball Puzzles. It's only $9.95. It was a great discussion and go get that book. And also check out the Pinball Industry Awards. You can go check that out on YouTube. Look under the Pinball Network. It was a great show hosted by Zach and Greg. So go check that out. I hope everybody has a great week and has fun playing pinball. For the Pinball Show, this is Brian Cosner. Hello and welcome to this week's SHIT update with Dr John on the Pinball Show. At last, some news to report out of Spooky and Haggis. Spooky has opened up their merch shop with a number of hoodies, hats, just tees, mugs and everything that's normally available from pinball manufacturers to be purchased by you to show your love and support for Spooky Pinball. The website can be found at shop.spookypinball.com for all your spooky apparel needs. And congratulations to Corwin Corwin (Bug) Emery for winning the Iowa State Pinball Invitational. All that playtesting at work has paid dividends as Bug ascends into the hallowed halls of game designer and top competition player. Keep an eye on him in the future. And out of Haggis, at long last, after a little bit of niggling from the general public, Haggis has released an email outlining manufacturing is commencing for the Fathom Games. Of course, it will be the Mermaid Edition first, and the first to receive their games will be the Series Ticket Holders, as they're called. These are the group that placed their deposits down for all five upcoming Haggis Remake games, and although that number hasn't been released, they will be receiving their Mermaid Edition games first, followed by those of us, that means me, who have purchased the Mermaid Edition Fathom, followed by the Standard Edition games. It's anticipated that the commencement will be in four weeks and those on the list will be receiving a more detailed email to pay their money to have their games manufactured. good news from Haggis, things are moving forward and that's it for this week, and just finally a thought of respect, admiration and dear missing of Lyman Sheets who of course passed away that's it from me, catch you all next week Matt Morrison here with your Chicago Gaming Company update for the week if you thought CGC was on a permanent hiatus think again, in case you missed last week's episodes of the Pinball Show, here's a recap It sounds like Cactus Canyon Remake is finally going in boxes, and a few shipping out this week. After SEs, then the LEs, then the SE Pluses. I'm excited to get some time on the production games to compare it to the prototypes I played at Expo, and I'll report back with my findings here. That's it for this week. Back to you guys. So let's go ahead and let's get into the news now, David. And unfortunately, we're going to start with one I know a lot of people are familiar with, but we have not discussed it on this show, and that is the passing of Lyman Sheets Jr. And I know you've loaded up the obituary, so I think it'd probably be best if you want to just go ahead and read that, because I don't think it's very long. So this is the obituary from Lyman Sheets' funeral, which was held last Friday, January the 28th at 11 a.m. Eastern. After a courageous and long battle with mental illness, Lyman died by suicide on January 19, 2022. His soul is finally at peace. Loving partner of Penny Epstein, devoted brother of Beverly Sheets George, cherished uncle of Christopher George and William George. Lyman was a pinball software engineer whose accomplishments spanned three decades. Lyman brought a wealth of knowledge in software design as well as gameplay. His vision for gameplay and rules were the result of his many years as an avid pinball tournament player and enthusiast. And many of his rule sets serve as the backbone for modern pinball rules designed today. He loved watching people playing and enjoying his games. Please assist us in bringing awareness to this silent epidemic. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Yes. So when that came out in the news, I mean, I was surprised. I didn't, for whatever reason, I just, I had not contemplated that his death might have been a suicide. And I'm glad, though, that the family was willing to actually say that, because at least here in the U.S., historically, there was a stigma associated with suicide, and it takes a lot of work to get rid of that stigma, because a lot of people have issues related to mental illness, and mental health is just as important as physical health. So in regards to that, I'm glad that they put that out there. I'm glad that it actually has started quite a discussion. I've seen such on, for example, on Pinside. A lot of people are really talking about their own battles with mental illness and depression, and I think that it's good to put that stuff out in the light and normalize it and say, you know what, lots of people do go through this. It's okay to seek help. And if you're feeling depressed or you're suffering from anxiety or anything along those lines, it's okay to reach out. So I'm hoping that this sort of message and the loss of such a prominent pinball personality really does bring a lot more awareness and acceptance to the challenges that a lot of us face with mental health. Yeah, pinball is a very sort of macho, handyman kind of hobby. And, of course, the stigma for mental health is real. It has been real. And having something like this publicly come out is a good thing. We can all celebrate Lyman for what he was and realize that, you know, as groundbreaking and pivotal as his machines were in pinball, that, you know, he did struggle his entire life, and now he can finally rest. And hopefully now we can bring some awareness to that. The obituary mentions the National Alliance on Mental Illness. So you can give to the National Alliance of Mental Illness in Lyman Sheets' name, and I think that will help to honor his name. Yeah, and if for whatever reason you're not comfortable or able to make a donation, then, you know, you can always reach out to people that you know and care about and just check in on them. Yeah, this whole pandemic thing that we've been going through here for the last two years is really, I think, brought this to the fore. Before, you know, people had mental health issues and, you know, you struggled at home or you did what you did. Now, it's so hard to find any relief whatsoever. It's hard to go to a pinball tournament and have that positive uplift from your friends. It's hard to see family, to take travel, to do vacations, to just go to the mall and hang out. All of those things have been taken away. So it has enhanced the negative energy in the world, basically. And we've seen a lot of problems now when it comes to people passing away from issues of mental health. Oh, yeah. Increased isolation has an impact on social creatures, such as humans, and even introverts. Typically, you want to go out and do things from time to time and have had an impact of this as well. And, I mean, it doesn't have to be this severe either. We have seen lots – I mean, I myself have had points where when we were in, like, early 2020, and it's just like – or I should say early 2021. One, and the pandemic's going on, and it's just like I couldn't even go play pinball anymore with anyone. And I was just like, you know, started like stir crazy almost. It's like, when will this grind of just being here end and let me do something else? And I'm not an extroverted person, but you start to miss the ability to interact with other people, you know, aside from through your webcam. Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm an anxious person. I've always been an anxious person. And every morning I take anti-anxiety medication to sort of level me out and chill me out. And I am an extrovert. I feel like I love to see people recharge me. Right now it's so difficult for me to sort of charge my battery up. So when I get kind of bummed out, I get really bummed out. Well, let us go ahead and move on to a happier topic then. And that would be Stern Pinball. Well, I guess it's only happier if you own Stern Pinball machines. But nonetheless, we will do our best to make it happier. So your favorite part. That's why I'm not going to do it. New code. So, David, there's new code for Godzilla. It's version .9. And apparently it's a fairly large one. Would you mind, because I despise going through code updates, doing it instead of me? Yeah, you could just take a nap. Go hang out if you want to. The Godzilla code, judging by the show notes here that I've been given, because I'm a bit of a diva and I required some show notes, because, quite frankly, I don't care about all this stuff either. They've added a lot of really big, big stuff to the Godzilla code. One of them is the Planet X Wizard Mode, which is when the player gets through all the Tier 2 battles. They finally have sort of like a mini wizard mode in there. They've got a Smog Monster Frenzy, which is a new mode available for Mystery Awards when you collect two secret combos. Don't know what a secret combo is. But they've added ten of them, Dennis. Oh, I know. Keep it secret. I have no idea what they are. Keep it safe. I haven't played a game since Stranger Things, but I'm sure it's still shooting combos. That's kind of what I'm guessing. Now, with the Destruction jackpot, they've added a verbal countdown for the ball release, which is pretty exciting, right? Building a little anticipation. You can just listen for it. They've increased the light show, the sound effects, and the call-outs. Award-winning call-outs. We'll touch on that later. Oh, my. Oh, my. Don't spoil it, then. We'll touch on it later. Ah! So, production updates. This is the bread and butter here. This is what people turn to. This is what people like having a distributor host the show, because they get all the skinny on production updates, at least for the companies that they sell. The TPN email gets so many comments about how they like the production updates in the shows. So I'm actually really pleased that we have this in here. It doesn't really matter for me. I'm in a totally different country. My distro is not Flip N Out Pinball. Sell, sell, sell. Yes. And, you know, the TPN email also gets people, like, asking if certain stuff at Flip N Out Pinball is in stock. Folks, the TPN email is not for Flip N Out Pinball. You've got to email that direct to Zach. Don't send it to the TPN. It's not the business account. It's separate things. You get an angry email from Dennis Creasel sitting on a chair. I know some people spread this rep that TPN was really just like this flipping out thing, but it's not. So email the flipping out email accounts if you're asking about product. Yeah, Bob, stop doing it. So, of course, the thing that dominates now is the back orders. Everything is slow and back order across multiple manufacturers. With Stern, though, it shows up more with Stern because they release more pins, right? They're a machine, so you notice backups and production delays a lot bigger. So, you know, one of the biggest ones I know people have been concerned about is they're trying to get Insire Connected kits. So what's going on with those, David? Yeah, those are estimated two or three weeks, so they are backordered again. I would love to know what is it that they're waiting for? Like, what is it that Stern needs? Like, is it the plastic arches that are shipped from Asia or something? Is it the little, like, they're out of solder at Stern? They need a bunch of solder? You know, I hadn't really thought about it. If I were to guess, it would be something about the little camera that doesn't stand. Like, is there a chip? I usually blame things on microchips. Is there a chip that's in the – like, I doubt it's the camera, like the lens, but maybe it's a chip that's on the board or in the camera that it needs. Nope, sorry, Ford took all those chips. There's like a little gerbil inside there, like running around on a little wheel. So gerbils – Two to three weeks isn't – compared to what we were seeing, that's really not that bad. Anything under a month is – doesn't seem like that bad of a back order. Yeah. What I have noticed, though, we've had this in some of the discussions that we've had. The Stranger Things apron is very different because it has the UV light kit holes in it. So there's a bit of an issue there. Well, I don't own one, so I don't care. What about you? Do you have the Stranger Things? You said the last game you played was Stranger Things. Do you own one? No, no. I just have Tron. Did the Stranger Things you play have the UV kit? No. I played that with, like, .8 code. It was absolutely horrible. I played that in Toronto in January of 2020, just before the world ended. We won't talk about that anymore, because that will make us all sad. So instead, let's talk about something happy, and that would be the Rush Pros. Are they finally going to finish up the initial pro run? Yes, so they've resumed the initial pro run. It is on its way. They are making their way out. The LEs will also begin by the end of this week. So if you are on the LE list, hold on to your hat. And I'm hearing from Zach that the premium run is going to start on the week of the 21st of February. So, a little under a month to go before those start to be built. Yeah, you can really see these production delays, right? Like, it's really, before, remember when Stranger Things came out to tie it back to Stranger Things? They, like, released that in, like, just before Christmas. And they were in arcades. and the run was basically done by the end of February for everything. And then they couldn't even sell them. It's absolutely astonishing. Well, you know what else is astonishing is I have received word that Deadpool Premiums actually got on the line. That was supposed to be a last year thing. Those are a mess. Those are an absolute mess. I've seen on various discords that I'm on people going, I have an order in on Deadpool, and I haven't gotten my Deadpool. It's a great game, right? It had a slow start, but it hit its stride about halfway through its production. And whatever they're waiting for, whatever is the issue on manufacturing those, that can was kicked down the road, I want to say, like three times last year. Specifically the premiums. Yeah, and I don't know why, because my theory had always been that they just ran low on red ink. but apparently it's affecting really just the premiums and not just the price. I bet you it's that liftgate. I bet you it's that orbit liftgate over on the shooter lane, right? Because that's the only major difference. Maybe they're short on drops and they just have stand-ups for days in the buckets and the bins at Stern. Yeah, they're like, well, we canceled all the drop targets in Richie's game. We got them in this bin over here. We could just take those. That's true. They won't be needing them for LZ sales. Oh, my. So, anyway, the Deadpool premiums are expected to, well, no, apparently this last week they were built. But Zach noted this was the run that was last supposed to be, you know, I don't remember how many other adjustments they had had to when it was going to be done. But I remember the announcement of them supposing to be done in December. But it got pushed back. So I guess they'll go out here in early February. And then one of my favorite games. This is terrible. This is absolutely terrible. Yes. Yes. Iron Man. The Vault. The current Vault. The Vault of the Vault. Yes. Apparently. Or was it the Vault of the Vault of the Vault? So a Sam game. The only Sam game I think they were still producing. I don't think there were any other Sam Vaults in production. But apparently it has been formally discontinued. Now, I don't think that's particularly surprising, but the issue is the orders that were pending. They have actually terminated all future runs. It is done, done, done. Hasta la vista, Iron Man. Oh, that was bad. No, I think it was pretty good. He does this every other week. This is painful. So many of the dealers actually, of course, you've got those lists, right? Everybody's on an interested list. or a back order list. I'm on my distro's wait list. Right. Well, you're all SOL now, guys. I'm sorry. You're going to have to go to the secondary market and buy your Iron Man vault for $1,000 less used. Yep, like the rest of us. Like us plebs. As the common folk in pinball have done for years. You might have to go with a vault that was four years old. I mean, I just don't know. You're not going to get that new box smell. But, yeah, Zach's information to us indicates that any dealers that still had orders outstanding for this title, those orders were not going to be fulfilled. They are canceled. That must be the worst phone call to make. You know, I think probably the two worst phone calls to make to somebody who's on a list is, one, the price of your pin has gone up by $1,000 or $2,000 from when you put your name on the list. the other one is that the game is totally cancelled that's the worst yeah but you know that's when you've got this it's just it's odd and it's something that this is the one thing that I really associate just with Stern is this hey we'll do price increases and they're immediately impacting everyone who's been waiting and hey let's just go pull the plug that might happen more often than I realize but yeah I mean I guess it is what it is what are you going to do about it And to be fair, in theory, there should be plenty of Iron Man pens floating around out there. I've won that a bunch of times. I've won at Iron Man. It's a game I really, really like, but I could never mentally get behind paying modern spike prices for an Iron Man vault. I just couldn't do it. That was one of the reasons I didn't buy Star Trek, because I was like, well, why would I buy a Star Trek for the same price that I could buy a Deadpool Pro? That didn't make any sense to me. Yeah. Yeah, it's just... It's funny how pinball works like that, right? In cars, it's like, get this thing off the lot. It's costing us money, right? Mark it down 500 bucks and get it out But not pinball It just sits in a distro warehouse until he finally gets it out the door or she finally decides you know okay it time to get rid of it At least at one point. But my understanding is, you know, like, again, CERN, I had heard, this was a few years ago, but they put on a price floor on what their official distributors were allowed to discount down to, which is, again, most of the things I am involved in do not do that. So that was very odd. But nowadays it doesn't really matter because the demand's been so high, everything. I mean, I bet you if you had Munsters in stock, you'd sell them at this point. No. Oh, my. I don't know about WWE. There might still be a line in the sand there. I'm pretty sure that people are using that to heat their homes in the northeast of the world. Yes. I'm sure the monitor up there in the, well, I guess that was the only premium LE, but the monitor up there in the ring probably puts off a lot of good heat. I just have this image of a bunch of homeless folk under a WWE cab that's got the fire coming out like a barrel. They're like, oh, it's so hot. So nice. Keep rubbing your hands together, brother. Oh, my goodness. It's so sad that the legs are starting to crack the cabinet on this thing. But that's okay. I think you can get that same mustard yellow off of the Guardians, at least. Just strip the legs off of that game. My favorite yellow is mustard yellow. It's everyone's favorite. Speaking of favorites, Stern Insider Connected. So I'm hearing good news for Batman 66 owners. Yes, Batman 66 is an absolute masterpiece. Talk about Lyman Sheets. This thing is an absolute masterpiece. It's got a little clunk. It doesn't really do it for some people. Well, that's not Lyman's fault. No, that's George's fault. Yep, exactly. This Batman 66, you can get the Insider Connected on the title, however. The units that were sold prior to the Insider Connected kit coming out, so those that were actually made, like, years ago, they're going to require a special connectivity kit because there's a unique bottom arch, apparently. Oh, gosh, it's like Stranger Things all over again. Yeah, I don't... Weird apron stuff. Yeah, I mean, do you know what's so unique about the Batman 6? No, I do not. Oh, it must be because it maybe has those plates in it, right, for the cards? Yeah, I mean, yeah, they do have the cards. I didn't know that was going to... I mean, apparently the way this reads is this affects all the versions. Did the premiums come with that stuff? Yeah, because they did, but it wasn't signed by Adam West. So I think it had the card it wasn't signed by Adam West. Anyway, I'm really confused now because I'm actually seeing that the specialty kits are going to be required on more than just Batman. Yeah, all of the kind of the unique games. Also Star Wars. Right, which I guess it's probably the Hyperloop. Well, it's just the Star Wars Premium LE. So I guess we should go ahead and go through. So it's Star Wars Premium LE, Batman 66, Beatles, Elvira House of Horrors, and Stranger Things Pro with the UV kit all require a specialty kit. I don't know if it's the same specialty kit for all of them or not. It must be an absolute mess for Stern to manage their back catalog with all of these sort of different arches and things. My guess is on a go forward, all of the arches will be standardized. Yeah, I would agree. Well, of course, they're going to come with Insider Connected, so it's going to be moot even if they wanted to change it. You're going to need to go get a special kit. Right, exactly. Good point, good point. So what games are not yet actually up and running on Insider Connected? Well, it would be the Star Wars Mandalorian, and, of course, everybody's favorite coded game, Monsters, for some reason, does not have an update for the Insider Connected kit. Can you believe that? Monsters has lacking code. Yeah, I just assumed limited demand, but I'm more surprised that Mando doesn't. Hey, you know what? What do all these three games have in common? All three of these games are Dwight games. Dwight? Where are our achievements? Oh, my God. Does that mean we're getting a fancy updated code for all three of these, do you think? I don't know about fancy update. I mean, were people waiting for a major update to Star Wars, for example? More Ballsaber? it's pretty generous as currently coded isn't it? can you code the outlanes to be smaller? you see that that's the, can you code the plunge to not drain you down the left out lane when it goes over and hits those drops? fixing layout with code can be a bit of a challenge, but I heard good things about the code changes to Ghostbusters to solve some of those layout challenges, you know I don't think I've ever played Ghostbusters with that new code. It's not even new code anymore. It was wonderful. I heard very good things. Finally, I didn't want to smash my face off the bottom arch. Now, speaking of face smashing, I don't know if you've heard the latest Loser Kid Pinball podcast. Actually, I did, and I really, really liked this episode. Yeah, it was fun. I always like to listen to Loser Kid, though, but they had a twofer. I'm sorry, it sounded like I peed there, but I did and I just poured some tea in my tea cup. Yeah, sorry. Well, Zach might cut that, or I might leave it in now that you mentioned it. But Tim Sexton, also known as Time Sexton, according to Zach's notes, and Ray Day were both simultaneously interviewed on the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. What did they talk about, Dave? Yeah, so they talked about coding rush, you know, it beginning before Led Zeppelin and how they kind of structured it together, the three challenge modes. But the thing that I pulled really most from this is kind of the loser kids. Everybody loves to sort of probe and kind of ask, hey, right, like what's coming up or what's going on, right? So when you're at a show, Tim and Ray were sort of talking about how people kind of come up and they ask or they try to kind of pull one over or they're watching how they answer questions. I thought that was super interesting. But the way Tim said was that as much as they want to talk about those things and they want to tell their friends and they're excited to show what they've been working on for so long, that that takes away from the work of other individuals at those shows that are releasing their pins. Right? So it takes away the focus on Insider Connected and how exciting that that program was and all the work that went into Insider Connected. if they're going around kind of spilling the beans about Rush. So I thought that was really, really interesting. You know, all I can say is because Raymond Davidson does stream on the Pinball Network is whenever Stern comes up, he just gets real quiet in the Discord, doesn't say anything, unless he's heard me criticizing something about Led Zeppelin that he says. Right, or if somebody mentions the code incorrectly on Rush, he will pipe up. Oh, yeah. He'll correct mistakes. He's the corrector of that one. Yeah, we probe. We really do. We try to get the info, but my goodness, he is tight-lipped. Now, they did talk about some challenge modes, three challenge modes, I guess, over about Rush. But I don't really remember any details. Yeah, it's code. I think it was still kept fairly vague. But FYI, there's some plans for that. That was breaking news, actually. Yeah, it was breaking news, so that's why we mentioned it. We always cover all the good breaking news. You know what the other big breaking news item was on that interview is Loser Kids admitted that they can no longer get the hot hat that they were branding. That hat is no longer, I guess it's discontinued, or at least it's no longer available through their printer. So those of you who have wanted to launch a competitive hat against Loser Kid, I think you have a window now. Wow. See, I have one of those hats. I do as well. And now I'm thinking about flipping that hat for about $500. I'd trade it for an Insider Connected UV kit compatible connection package. Yeah, yeah. I'd trade it for any pin at the moment because, quite frankly, nothing is affordable. Nothing. Don't shoot me up. Yeah, that's pretty true. So speaking of pins and speaking really broadly about them, I think it's now time to go ahead and talk about the second annual Pinball Industry Awards, which was just held actually back on Friday. That's right. We've got to give it a little more oomph than that, Dennis. The Pinball Industry Awards, Friday, Friday, Friday. The second annual Pinball Industry Awards was held this past weekend. You should have intro'd it like that, because you were the intro. So I worked so hard for four or five days on an entire ceremony, and it was hijacked. Yeah, yeah. And I guess going ahead and touching on that, because I had on a prior episode of the Pinball Show mentioned when talking with Zach that, you know, we were really looking at some really low-key sort of like social media. And that, I guess for people that are wondering if we did the old switcheroo, no, that plan was real. I mean, we had the whole Pinball Industry Awards committee, the governance committee, we were busy talking about, like, could we do animated GIFs or do, like, little, like, 15 to 30-second videos and just drop them on social media and do this? Because for those that don't know or don't remember, Zach, he wasn't a part of the PIA committee this year. He took a step back, so he wasn't involved. He wasn't helping us decide what new groups we were going to have as judges, all the changes to the Excellence Awards. None of that involved Zach. He had mentioned on the Loser Kid podcast a couple of the reasons why he decided to take a step back this year. A lot of it has to do with Zach gets a lot of crap for stuff that he's even minimally involved in And just because he is sort of out there or an evangelist for something, even though he may have a small amount of work in that, he just was like, I don't want to deal with that this year. And last year we got a lot of crap. Yeah, and it was – and maybe not everyone who was on the – and we had a lot of different committee members this year versus last. I think you and I were the – you, I, and George Fisher were the only holdovers. Yeah, that's right. But, and I had warned a lot, at least I tried to warn a lot of people that the first year of the PIAs, as we usually just refer to them as, there's going to be, we're going to get blowback. Because, you know, maybe it's, I don't know if it's a pinball thing, but, I mean, I remember the first year of the Twippies. There were people on Pennside blowing back on it, saying, like, why do we need this? Why do we need an awards ceremony? And, of course, ours was a little different. It was, why do we need another awards ceremony? And that sort of stuff. So I had expected it the first year, and I noted it's going to be a year one thing, which I think was pretty demonstrably true. We got next to no criticism about doing the second one. Yeah, there was only like maybe a couple of things that sort of popped up, but really straight sailing. Oh, yeah, no, really, really, really minor. And I don't think it was because Zach wasn't involved. I think it was just that, oh, it's all right. Now, once it's established, people quit whining. It's just how it is. And I might complain about the specifics, but – and that's fair. Every award show is going to be criticized by the decisions they make or don't make. That's pretty typical. So anyway, here's my theory. So Zach and Greg were the surprise hosts. And the thing that I think happened is after that TPS episode, this is the thing. Zach never confirmed this with me, so this is me putting an assumption in place. But when I explained what – and he and you and I have a – you know, we have a little messenger chat. And we had described what we were planning to do. And based off of his responses, I think we absolutely appalled him. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think he was like, you're not planning to do a ceremony? And I'm like, no. Because, I mean, we discussed it as a committee, and the thing was, every single one of us was super uncomfortable doing it because we knew it would be compared to the first Pinball Industry Awards ceremony. And there's just no way anyone involved with the committee was going to put in the time, effort, even if we had the skill to try and do an entire ceremony, have the transitions, have all the video. It's a lot of work, and no one was – I didn't have the time to do it. I mean, Dennis, straight down the middle, a pinball show, the production quality that they have on the videos that they shoot for manufacturers, even just the silly kind of this or that videos they have on YouTube, Zach and Greg are just so good at that that we could not compete with that. And everybody would just be like, oh my god poor David and Rebecca Salem and George Fisher, David Dennis. Oh my god, it's horrible. It looks so bad. So we decided to go in a completely other direction to be so different. Yeah, not comparable at all. And I still think it was a sound idea. I don't think it would have been as cool overall. I think, you know, there were only a couple people that gave feedback online about it, and they, of course, wanted to spare a moment. They wanted to be able to tune into a premiere and watch something. They wanted it to be more of an event and sort of us just kind of releasing things a little bit. Yeah, and we did hear a lot of that feedback, and quite frankly, I'm so glad that Zach and Greg did it, because they were, they obviously were like, oh, this is not going to go well. Let's get the excitement back, right? So I'm really glad. Yeah, so anyway, Zach said that they would actually be willing to do the ceremony, and I was like, oh, well, that was a huge relief. And so, my guess is that's probably why Zach has been missing a number of those, what I call those off-week TPS episodes, is he's been doing video editing over those weekends. Because we had determined Greg and Zach were going to host quite a while ago. Yes, and they also brought back Crystal, the announcer lady. Yes. Yep, so she was my favorite. It's funny. It was funny to me because Zach kept saying, you know, this isn't going to be as good. You know, this is more of a rush thing. This is not referencing the paper. Yeah, we're going to do 75% of what we did before. I thought it was really good. My wife commented that she thought this year was even better because some of the too much was scaled back a little bit. The rapport that Greg and Zach had, they were a little more comfortable this year. I saw some others mention that they thought that the interaction between Greg and Zach felt better this time, too. I didn't remember it as a weird... I mean, they know each other so well, I don't think they ever really come across as stilted. It may depend on how many beers Greg had before you started recording. I don't know. Exactly. Miller Lights? Yes, apparently. The Randy Travis back and forth, I just lost it. I couldn't handle it. So funny. And, you know, a lot of really positive feedback about it. They opened with an in memoriam for Lime and Cheeks, and it was pretty emotional, but it was very well done, very tasteful. I think a lot – every comment I saw about that was people really appreciated it, and also that there were a lot of people crying. It was – you know, we're all impacted by that, And I'm glad that the Pinball Industry Awards and Zach with his editing and that we were able to really celebrate Lyman. And having the videos at the end of him just smiling and laughing and doing those things, that was a big deal. Yeah. And Zach kind of hinted at it when they were leading into that portion of the show. but because the news about Lyman came so late, Zach had to scrap his intro and put all that together. Like, obviously, that wasn't the plan. He had an intro in mind. It was actually going to be, I guess, in his view, a really funny intro, which was a little bit biting, a little bit of a roast, I guess, at the expense of manufacturers, and he was even going so far as to vet this with some of the manufacturers to make sure he wasn't stepping over a line. Because you know how Zach is. There's sometimes lines, and sometimes he likes to kick it over. Sometimes he disappoints us a little bit with some of his shots and shenanigans. Yeah, and that was one of the conditions of him and Greg doing this. We did not get to preview this awards ceremony. It was. We turned it over to them. If you give Zach and Greg clearance to do something, they get to have creative freedom. We were willing to take that chance because it meant they were doing the work. But anyway, I thought it was very, very well done. Let's go ahead and, I guess, just run through the awards and the winners. And I think the game stuff, Dave, you're going to be able to fly through. Yeah. Thank goodness for this. We'll just be able to smash through some of this stuff. But I guess maybe let's focus on some of the highlights. Godzilla dominated. Absolutely dominated. So we had, what was it, 55 applications for judges by pinball hobbyist personalities. Yeah, 55 that were approved. We did have a few people that either, most of them that weren't approved didn't complete the application. So they have to give us permission to be able to list their names on the website because that's one of our transparency rules we have. And a lot of them just didn't get to that step. And I emailed everyone who was an issue, and if I didn't hear back, obviously, I couldn't let them be a judge. So 55 was the number of approved ones we sent ballots to, and then 53 at least partially filled out ballots. Right. So we had a wide variety of podcasters, videographers, tournament players. There were a few tournament players. We would have liked to see more. Yeah, that's my biggest. Not to whine, but yeah, that's my biggest disappointment because that was a new category. And it wasn't just the overall top 50. We also included the two versions, the IFPA tracks of top 50 for women's. There's one where I think it ranks them off of any tournament, and then there's one that ranks them off of the women's only tournament. So we had, I know it's not 150 unique individuals, but it was a pretty big pool, and I'd hoped for more. I think we only had a couple. Yeah, we had more judges this year, but we wanted like 25 more. Yeah, our judge count, I think, was up about like over 25% from last year. But I just expected, given how much we broadened the categories, or thought we did, I'd hope for even more. But I guess that can be a year or three to go. Yeah, so keep an eye out, anybody, next year for judging ballots and being able to apply if you meet that criteria. but we're still growing as an industry awards show and as we pick away a little bit every year, I'm really pleased with what we're able to do. In terms of the 55 ballots that we sent out, the breakdown was as follows. We had 16 podcasters. We had four social media providers. That was one of our new categories for this year. We had 20 streamers, which was our largest category. We had two of the top 50 IFPA ranked, either overall or women's. That's a new category. We had four tournament organizers. That was a new category. We had eight video content creators, and we had one writer. Exactly. Now, we'll be breaking those down in detail on the Facebook page and on the website here shortly as to the names of those individuals and what category they fit into. So, Dennis, a lot of the time people just go, well, aren't these just TPN people? Yeah, no, I mean, some of them are. Exactly. But I believe someone went through and did the breakdown. Actually, it was mentioned in the ceremony. And yeah, no, the majority of the judges were outside of TPN. Exactly. So we're really excited to share that. Keep your eye open for the detail of that. But you want to dive into, let's start with something kind of more fun. Let's go with the inductees to the Pinball Machine Hall of Fame. Yay! Yay! Yay! So there was no, I think, major issues with the balloting that went out. This is a public vote. Everybody can vote as long as you have the link, right? So this isn't the judges that have the pre-vetted ballots. This is anybody who is anybody. We had about the same amount of people this year that voted last year. I want to say it was around 320 people. So it was a large, large engagement. The only confusion that we had was that a couple of people didn't read the description at the top of the page, and they were wondering why certain games were missing. So, for example, people are like, well, where's 8-Ball Deluxe on the list? Well, written there it said previous years are not eligible to win again, obviously, because they're already in the Hall of Fame, and those names were listed. So some people didn't read those. But other than that, tell me then, because they're all drop-down style except EM, because there are so many EMs it would be very difficult to build a list. So did Grand Prix actually try and win again? So here's the thing. So the write-in category for EM, Grand Prix has won two years in a row. In violation of the rules. Right, so it's ineligible to win the second year. So we went down to the second game. Yes, as you would have to. Which was, what was it, Jungle Queen? It was Jungle Queen Jungle Princess, the two-player or four-player version from Gottlieb. And I have played a lot of Jungle Queen, and it is very deserving, but I didn't think it would have as many votes. Now, it had half as many votes as Grand Prix. Yeah, I'm really sorry. Yeah, no. Guys, don't write it. Grand Prix is going to win in year three also. It's like, read the rules. Please, please. We beg of you. Yeah, no, I play Jungle Queen as well. Yeah, it's fun. I'm really surprised, though, because it's not what pops in my head when I think of famous. It is famous, though. I voted sing-along. Yeah, that's what I voted, because I love sing-along. But, you know, something like a doodlebug or a slick chick or, you know, maybe one of the, what, like, El Dorado or something. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, so I'm really pleased with that. It's kind of a surpriser. It was a very deserving game. I guess it was monkey drop targets, man. The monkeys. I shoot the monkeys. Yes. So much fun. So much fun. So then the 1970s era, right? Yeah, these are solid state 70s. Exactly. So now, of course, there's only three years of solid state games in the 1970s. But it doesn't make sense. There were a lot of games, though. Right. But it doesn't make sense to say decade and only say three years. That's just silliness. But this one, I'm really, really happy with. Harlem Globetrotters on tour as well as tied with Gorgar at 11.31% of the vote, or 31 votes each. Yeah, I was really surprised when we had a tie there. You know, not the only tie during the Pinball Industry Awards. Yes, exactly. The 1980s era, no surprise here. Centaur, for Bally, 10% of the vote. The 1990s era, this one's a bit of a shocker. I was surprised. I was so sure it would be Attack from Mars, but you're right, it wasn't. I was like, what? It was not Attack from Mars. One vote. It was Twilight Zone with 11.9% I'm not a Twilight Zone fan. I like Twilight Zone, but I mean, ahead of something like Attack from Mars, ahead of what I thought was going to win, which was Adam's Family, Oh yes, Adams Right Yeah, it's surprising Shocking, shocking 2000s era, so this is the era that has a little bit of the controversy Yeah, this is the one everyone's like, when are you going to stop this? Because that era is garbage Yeah, four years in, basically everything is going to be in the Hall of Fame, right? So last year was Lord of the Rings by a massive sweep As it deserved Exactly This year, it's the Simpsons pinball party with 27% of the vote. Basically a clean sweep. I mean, what's the next best game in that era? Spider-Man? Yeah, Spider-Man would probably be the third one. And then if you were to keep going, my guesses would be you would probably see World Poker Tour and maybe Terminator 3. Shoot here and here. Those are about the only ones people talk about in a positive manner, though. Elvis? Is Elvis any good? I actually do think Elvis is fun, but I don't know how many people have played it. Let's get to the shocker. The shocker. This was, I was, you know, when I thought about it, I got it. But I was, yes, I was really surprised. Just because so few people own it. In the era from 2010 to 2019, we've got games like Iron Maiden. We've got games like Batman 66. you've got WWE you do but we've got some of the probably the best games ever in the year. ACDC, Metallica, I mean there's some huge heavy hitters. Exactly. Really post 2012 there was a ton of really popular games that helped bring pinball back to what it was and for those that don't remember Wizard of Oz is what won last time. Well deserving right? Changed the industry. Well here is Total Nuclear Annihilation by Spooky Pinball with Scott Denisi as the designer there. Huge round of applause for Scott to pull out the win with 12% of the vote. Yeah, it was, I mean, I own a TNA. I really do enjoy the game. I just, it did not cross my mind because they only made 550 of them. So it's not a high unit game. At the time it was for Spooky, but it's just, you know, again, It's really, really interesting. So that one was a, I can't say, I mean, obviously I own it, so I can't say it's undeserving. I would have thought for sure it would be an ACDC or a Walking Dead or something like that. Yeah. I mean, it is like The Wizard of Oz before it. It has added something different, a big, you know, some flair, some salt and pepper on that steak. this thing has really, I guess, showed the test of time that it is something special. And I think that the 300 people that did the voting, you know, 12% of them basically said, yeah, that's got a little bit of something extra, that secret sauce, and it deserves it. And that is exciting, that he has beat out the names of Keith Elwin, John Borg, Lyman Sheets, Coded Games. That's a big deal, so Scott, you should be proud. Yeah, yeah, no, it was It was really interesting. And for me, I felt different in a way as well. Because one of my issues with, well, Wizard of Oz, I mean, it's really credited for pushing, like, the let's have full-featured pinball again. Let's have a lot of mechs. Introducing the LCD is what ultimately became a staple of pinball machines. I don't think Wizard of Oz is that great of a player. Yeah, exactly. But TNA is. TNA is a fun game. So, and it's so interesting because who would have thought the second inductee from 2010 to 2019 wouldn't have a single ramp on it? Oh, amazing. And has so much hot glue. Yeah. In a way, actually, I don't even think it's in a way. I think it's safe to say that the Hall of Fame voting was actually the most surprising thing to happen out of the whole show. Yeah. Granted, I mean, it is our only people's choice aspect. So what happened with the Game Awards? So the Game Awards, this is a whole thing. So, Godzilla wins everything. You know what I mean? So, that's no surprise. I think what happened here, and we're probably going to see this in the Twippies as well, is Stern released three games last year. Jersey Jack released zero games last year. American Pinball sort of basically kind of kind of released a game at the end of the year. They got Riot Pinball's Legend of Valhalla out to people early enough to meet our deadline. but I don't know how played it was. So this is a bit of an anomaly of a year. Yeah. And hats off to Greg and Zach. That's pretty much what people knew. Yeah. And hats off to Zach and Greg because they were able to make the ceremony fun and interesting and the flowing and the pacing even though we basically knew Godzilla was going to win. Yeah. The chat was pretty positive. I mean, there were some people that were kind of, you know, ho-humming that, oh, it's Godzilla, you know, Godzilla. I mean, but, you know, I mean, well, the votes are the votes. You can't go in and change the votes. But it's interesting because it's like Godzilla winning just about everything makes for a boring list of awards. But also, if Godzilla hadn't won just about everything, who would have really believed, like, who'd you pick to be judges? Because it's like if you have an awards thing and Godzilla isn't cleaning up, people are going to think something's wrong with your system. Exactly. The process is proven that these people are hobbyist personalities. They're the streamers. They're tournament players. They're us who are hyper-focused on what's the code do and what's this do. And our conversation and our social life revolves around this stuff. Now, and I did not agree with every win of these games. But by and large, yeah, no, it was in no way surprising to me that Godzilla did so well. And it didn't win every game award. Just almost every. So can we go through and do some griping on a few of these? Sure. You want to just run through real quick with the, I mean, and we can gripe as we need to. Yeah. So best cabinet, art, and back glass, Godzilla wins by a 32% margin over Mandalorian. And if I remember, for me, I voted Mandalorian on this one. I voted Mandalorian on this one. I specifically voted the premium on this one. So on our ballot, you choose your game, and then it gives you another page that says premium, LE, or pro is your favorite. Randy Martinez killed it. He killed it. Yeah. It was some of the best art I have seen on a pin for a long time, especially when it comes to photorealistic style. He was robbed, absolutely robbed. I mean, I did think it was superior. I did like the cabinet and back glass on Godzilla, but I thought Mandalorian was a better package. I also thought it was really interesting that Halloween, actually, it wasn't in the top three. It was actually fourth. And that was one thing that Halloween has been praised for was that cabinet and back glass art. Now, best art on the play field. I voted Mandalorian on this one. So did I. And it lost even worse, big time, big time bad, by 45% margin. And all these percentages are on the Facebook and will be on the website shortly. 45% margin. Yeah, I was. Again, I wasn't surprised. There were some people that complained a little bit, very mildly, about Godzilla. It almost became a little bit of a weird thing because Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti), Zombie Yeti, who did the Godzilla art, I felt early when the game dropped because that was really the only criticism I thought it was fairly light but he got a little defensive about it and so it kind of seemed like it was maybe more of a thing than it was but apparently at least with these media and social personality judges and tournament people that were our judging pool they were like nope it was and I would say that it should have been closer yeah you know what can I of course I wanted it to be tighter than this just because I thought Mandalorian was excellent really I thought that that art package got really praised but it seems like once Godzilla came out everyone forgot about Mandalorian I mean, spoiler alert, Mando won nothing. And at the time when Mandalorian came out, I thought this might be Stern's game of the year. I didn't know what Elwynn was working on. Yeah, so best lighting effects, we have something that's not Godzilla. It's Led Zeppelin with the Expression Light Kit specifically. Yes, and I did vote for Zeppelin for this. I did as well. This is a 32% margin over Godzilla. This just beautiful Expression Light Kit has a bit of a silly name, but it is a great kit. And Mike Vinikour, who people may or may not know the name, he is one of the sort of the jack-of-all-trades programming trade booth individual. individual. You see him on the social media a lot for Stern. He specifically designed all of the Expression Light Kit stuff for that, as well as Rush. So, I thought this one was very deserving. And it did win by a significant margin. Thank goodness. Because I think if something else had won, I would be like, oh, are you kidding me? Theme integration. Yeah, so I mean, this is Godzilla. Theme integration. I mean, when you look at that, it is a world under glass. It totally is, right? Yeah, no That's exactly the way it should Yeah, and this was a big margin A 56% margin Yeah, it was huge Almost three-fourths of all the voters chose it It was so popular So that's actually not the biggest shellacking that happened So, Best Toys Best Toys Godzilla gets 88% of the share of Best Toys That is an 81% margin over Mando. Yeah, that collapsing building, I think, is what sold so many people on it. But it's not even just that. The Premium LE also had the bridge. And though I think all this maybe is more into the next category when I talk about innovation, but the Newton ball magnet, also pretty popular and very, very involved. I mean, it's used a lot. You've got the rotating spinner stand-up turtle spin. For Mechazilla. It was now All transparency I actually voted Mando on this one I did So I thought Mando doesn't have a Mechagodzilla tummy grab magnet Tummy grab You want to know where Zach got that I've always called it the tummy grab magnet That's from me Yeah Because that's what it is He grabs it with his tummy What I did is I chose Mando Because yes the building is really cool With the diverters and all that stuff Absolutely But, I mean, that has been sort of done before when it comes to, you know, like the design of that kind of building. Are you thinking Doctor Who? Exactly, right? It's kind of been done before. A rotating spinner jump ramp into a magnet has kind of been done before. Yeah, but it's Best Toy, not Best Innovation. No, so I thought the toy, that rotating play field on Nando, I thought was super cool. I really think that that does not get its sort of just due, but I am in the significant minority here. People kind of stand to worry because Baby Yoda didn't do the arm wavy thing without a 20-page mod. Exactly, exactly. But the other one that's interesting here is Jurassic Park the Pin and Sorcerer's Apprentice for Best Choice. Yeah, they each got one vote. Exactly. Exactly. Best innovation, this is another big, big, big margin, 60% margin for Godzilla over Sorcerer's Apprentice. Now, a lot of people were like, why is Sorcerer's Apprentice on here? Because it's using the play field of a different pin. Right, the Cosmic Heart Racing. So why do you think some of the judges, actually a lot of, more over Halloween and Mando, again, wrong, Mando should be up here, but why do you think they went Sorcerer's Apprentice? I have two theories. One would be it is possible some of the judges may not have been aware that that playfield module had been used on a prior game. So that's a possibility because Cosmic Cart Racing came out a while ago, and some of these judges may be too new for that. The other thing might just be they really considered it, how does the software take advantage of that equipment, the staging balls with the magnets that that playfield module is really known for. They added a lot of RPG elements in there. They added, like, it's not a sort of regular traditional pinball experience with Sorcerer's Apprentice. I think that's what it's done. Could be. It could also be some of them may have been going in and going, as much as I love Godzilla, I know these things have been done before. I did vote for Godzilla, and the reason I did is only because I didn't factor in, because you're right, like the Doctor Who thing going on with the building. It was the Newton ball magnet. That was new. So I played that. That is pretty cool, though, isn't it? That's how I liked it. Best play field layout. Oh, my goodness. 89% margin. Godzilla over Mando. Or Steve Ritchie. Or Steve Ritchie gets one vote on his Netflix. The king of flow. More like the king of no on this ballot. Oh, my. Ouch. Best rules, Godzilla by a 40% margin over Mando. I was actually surprised that Godzilla wasn't, I mean, it's not close at all. I don't want to downplay it. But I actually thought we would have seen a closer margin on playfield layup than we would on rules. Yeah. So I figured rules, rules specifically, you've got the Rick Nagel, you know, Keith Elwin combo, you've got some of the other support team on there adding a little bit of the extra code on it. You really think that that would be the blowout, not necessarily the layout. Yeah, and I do think had we been successful in getting more of those top tournament people, more than the two that we had for our judges pool, that we very well could have seen Zeppelin pass Mandalorian on best rules. Yeah, I would agree. It's definitely favored over Mandalorian amongst the competitive players. Yeah. So best accessory, your favorite category. Yeah, I actually asked, David can confirm, I asked could we drop this category because I didn't want to do it. Yeah, that's actually, we actually had a discussion on that. And I'm like, no, man, the accessories are great. I think the only one who wanted to get rid of it. Overruled. Well, that's the problem with committees. So, Insider Connected, 75% of the vote, 70% over the Led Zeppelin Airship Topper, which I think is actually pretty slick. Yeah, people like to see little light beacons. Ever since Batman did it, everyone loves them. I think it lasers. Let's see, lasers. That'd be pretty cool. Love your eyes, though. But once we put together the accessory list, I knew Insider Connected would win. The general rule of thumb is, of course, the accessory challenge, and part of the reason I'm never a huge fan of this, is anything that's used on more than one game is going to have a leg up. So, Insider Connected is used on 17 different games. So, 18 now, I guess, with Rush. The best music category led Zeppelin by 53.8% over Godzilla at 23%. So, here's the controversy in this zone. How do you compete against Led Zeppelin? Last year, GNR won. It was the same controversy. There are people, and again, it was during the live premiere. People said it in the chat. People will say it online. Some people might go on their own podcasts or shows and say it, which is totally fair. And it's going to be the, we don't think that real bands should get to be up against originally created music for pinball machines. And I'm like, well, you know, just now behind the scenes, like, are we supposed to make a rule to ban it? Because, I mean, the same thing is going to happen with the Twippies. People are going to complain if something like Zeppelin wins. It's like you can't. I mean, at some point you have to let the judges interpret the category is my stance. Now, that being said, I also don't agree with that position at all because I voted for Zeppelin. Yeah, so then the thing is, do we break best music into two categories of best original music and best band music? If there's one band pin that year, there's literally one pin. Yeah, no, the reason I don't agree is, in a way, it's semantics. You want the real snotty answer. My snotty answer, Dave, would be, you? Snotty? Well, if you want original pinball music to beat established bands, get good. But I will say there's only a 30% margin on the difference between Led Zeppelin and Godzilla. Some of the judges may have very well just said, no, I'm not just going to vote for some best of hits that didn't even have Stairway. Right. So, I mean, there you go. It wasn't, like, I mean, Led Zeppelin compared to Jerry Thompson doing a pinball machine, like, quite frankly, you know, that should be like 98%. But it's only a 30% margin. And, you know, there's stuff, the sound engineers are doing stuff on those games with the music as well. I mean, and don't forget, like, you know, going back last year with the same controversy on Guns N' Roses, Slash did unique music for the game. So, to me, it was like extra moot. Godzilla has Blue Oyster Cult in it. Yeah. Maybe that's why I got that 23% of the vote. Yeah, probably. Best sound effects, Godzilla by another 30% margin over Mandalorian. which I'm taking issue with this one, because quite frankly, I thought the Star Wars stuff that they get to then mix with the original stuff has to beat out 100% original stuff from Godzilla. Now, I declined to vote in this category because I have not been able to listen to enough of the sort of the sound effects. Right, right. And so for those that don't know, we do have a – people, so that they don't accidentally skip a category, We do have a decline to vote option, and I didn't compile the percentages on that. Of course, we have it in our SurveyMonkey PDF report that we just pull all this stuff from. So I don't remember if I voted in this or not. I can't remember what I did. I just don't remember. So best callouts, Godzilla by a 10% margin over Mandalorian. This is a complete, complete snub. At least it was close. At least it was close. Carl Carl Weathers did the callouts. And he didn't, like, I mean, he didn't Ernie Hudson Ghostbusters it. He didn't just destroy everybody around him with how amazing they were. But he was still pretty good. I did vote for Mando on this. I thought his call-outs were better than Shoot the Lambs. So can you explain the Shoot the Lambs thing to me? I guess there's a voice person that Stern likes to use, and they often kind of have this sort of East Coast Brooklyn-ish accent. And to a lot of people, the shoot the ramp line in Godzilla sounds to them like they're saying the R like a W with that accent. So it's like, shoot the wamps. Oh, I see. See, because I'm from the Northeast, I don't hear that. Yeah, you thought I was saying shoot the ramps the whole time. Exactly. But for those of us out in the Midwest, it's wamps versus ramps. Right. So I live, what, like five hours from Boston? So I don't hear anything different. I say out. So, I mean, come on. We got best animation display and effects, Godzilla, 40%. And I have to agree with that. Yeah, they had some interesting original stuff. I don't know if they all really did, but I also really thought, the reason why I voted Godzilla on this one was just how they took the old movie clips and integrated them in. Yeah, I agree. Really creative design choices that just, from the, what, the Jet Jack war guys spinning around the monster, to, of course, the one everyone remembers is, I forgot his name already, the little Godzilla guy getting kicked back into the fight as the ball save. And it just was like, it just integrated really, really well. Like, I like Mando's animation display effects and stuff, but to me that feels more like Guardians of the Galaxy, where it's just sort of like, here are clips from, you know, that are cool. I like how in Mando they freeze the frame. I like the integration of that. I like how Mando, you can upgrade his armor in the actual heads-up display of the thing. It's all very cool. And it did come in second, so it was well-respected. Yeah. It was, what is this, a 12% margin? Yeah, yeah. This was one of our closer categories. And the Sorcerer's Apprentice was third. The only other one to break 10% of the board. Yeah, which literally has a whole LCD screen in the middle of the playfield. Yeah, but it was unique animation created just for that. And I didn't have anything from CCR. That was all wholly new. It getting 13% is quite surprising. So, Multimorphic, although, you know, last year you won Best Toy for the crane in Heist. You should still be pretty happy with how it went. It was, and that's one of the things I really like. You know, when we decided to do a Pinball Industry Awards, you know, my reason for wanting a select group of judges wasn't to be snobbish, But rather, if you're trying to bring in people that, in theory, have been everything we've chosen, be it media or like a high-level tournament player or tournament organizer meeting these conditions, is, in theory, we're trying to use those ideas as proxies for people that have actually experienced a lot of these games. And we really emphasize in the ballot for them to not just pick their personal favorite, but really try and evaluate, like, what you want to do. And your mailman that you're asking to vote for you because you create something isn't going to do that. Exactly. That's the idea. And that's why I think we see things that might not have really high production runs do really well, is the idea. But, of course, the issue this year is Godzilla was just seen as such a better game than in a – I mean, honestly, a fairly weak year. Yeah. We actually – it was – it's not down a lot on total units versus 2020. But when you start thinking about that, well, you know, Ultraman is the same layout as Halloween. And three of the games were P3 games, and all of them were module three. They were all DLC games. It's just, it's like, when you think about it, it's like, wow. You know, as you noted, no JJP. There was no CGC. It's just, it is what it is. Absolutely. So the best in show, which is our game of the year. So I do not think we will, I'm just going to speculate, I do not think we will ever see something this one-sided ever again, ever. So, of course, surprise, Godzilla wins Game of the Year, right? Everybody knew that. Yeah, yeah. Godzilla's going to win Twippy Game of the Year. Like, it's all, it's obvious. Like, come on. It doesn't get any more obvious than this. But can you tell me why on the actual ceremony that we listed Godzilla and Led Zeppelin, but we didn't have a third place finisher. Because those are the only two games that got votes for Best in Show. Godzilla and Led Zeppelin are the only games that got votes, so those are the only ones that we could actually put in the Best in Show nominee list. And can you tell me how many votes Led Zeppelin got out of all of them? Yeah. One. Literally one. I don't know, because I haven't gone and looked at the individuals. I just download the summary sheet in terms of what I review. But my assumption is someone misclicked. Do you think – we didn't let Steve Ritchie secretly in here. No, and Ray Day wasn't allowed to go in there because he's in the industry. So somebody voted for Led Zeppelin. And if you were that person and you meant to vote for them, we're not mocking you by any means. That's why we included this. But for it to be 98.08% for Godzilla and 1.92% for Led Zeppelin is hilarious. Yep. Not two votes. Not two votes. It wasn't Godzilla didn't get 100% of the votes. There's just one. Which I think is just the one. Just the one, yeah. We've had a heck of a lot of great feedback as well when it comes to the industry awards this year. We've had a lot of constructive feedback of people like, what if you did this or what if you added that? Really, really pleased. So if you could shoot us some feedback information, specifically around category awards, the game awards here, it's thepinballnetwork at gmail.com. But do you want to go into the excellence awards? Yeah, we can go through those pretty quick. Now, I know you went and put together percentages on those, because I actually originally just had gone and looked at the vote. Because the way we did it, we really changed up the Excellence Awards this time around. That was one of the areas I was super uncomfortable with how we did it the first year. So for those that don't remember, for the first Pinball Industry Awards, we actually had a group of 12 people in TPN. So they were all Pinball Network people who went and they did nominations of people for these categories. And then we had a big session where we would debate and argue and pick the winners. The two things I didn't like about that approach was, one, it was only TPN people, which is not the way I wanted this. Yeah, the Pinball Network is organizing it, so the governance committee is all TPN. I'm fine with that. But I just didn't like that it was that sort of select, that it was more so than I wanted. And leading into my second big issue is, of course, what we ran into is people were really – and Zach, when he was on the committee in the first year, we argued about this, was, well, what happens if you want to support a TPN entity for the Excellence Awards? And I couldn't do it. I was like, no, it's going to look corrupt. I can't – I cannot support that. So the change that we all made with the new committee this year was let's just ask the judges for the game awards to go ahead and be the judges for the excellence awards. But then the question was, well, how do we develop the list of who they can pick and the criteria? And it was just like, no, let's not do any of that. We didn't want to get into pre-voting. We didn't want to get into any of that stuff. So it was just like, well, let's just do a write-in. We'll do straight-up write-ins. And it worked really well except for, of course, the sucky part, which was having to go through and compile all those, right, because, of course, people are spelling things different. People are naming the stream. Other people are writing the name of the streamer. It was – anyway, so the way we did it was that we did the write-in approach. You actually – because we – you know, this is all in SurveyMonkey. So we just downloaded the results. You typed up all of them and combined them in a spreadsheet. I went through totally separate on the same spreadsheet. I made my own tabs, went through my PDF report, and did my own version to see how they matched up. We shared that through the full committee. We made the decisions on, of course, if any of them would want to do their own tally, it was easy enough. And so that was the approach we took. And it was a lot of work, which right now I'm still a little bit more work than I would have assumed it would have been. I'm still kind of burned out on it. But that being said, it was effective. And it wasn't that bad. It killed one of our weekends. Anyway, enough of the whining. So, yeah. So, excellence in pinball streaming. Carl D'Python Anghelo at IE Pinball with 34% of the vote just stole it this year. This is the second year in a row for IE Pinball. Last year was the committee approach. This year is amongst his peers. So, I think this year means a lot because not only did we recognize it last year, This year, the judges really are his peers and really drove that home, as well as Don't Panic Flip with 13% of the vote, and Manu at MPT3K and 11% of the vote. Yeah, so amongst really great streamers there. Really, really happy to see that. And for those that are, unlike the Game Awards, when this all goes on the website, we had already, and per our rules, we're only going to really list the top three. We're not going to list every, I mean, some of these categories is a lot, so we're not. Yeah, and we also got into a lot of ties in this area as well. Yeah. Like, fifth place, everybody had, like, one vote. Yeah, there were a lot of one votes and a few, you know, and two votes. For that matter, so, anyway. Yeah. So, next was podcasting. Excellence in Pinball Podcasting, the pinball show in which we are on right now. Congratulations, Dave. This is the Dennis Creasel category here. This is 27.5% of the vote. We're not IE Pinball Hot. You're not IE Pinball Hot, but I will say, Zach has some very kind words on the ceremony for you, because quite frankly, and I'm not blowing smoke here, one of the fun things of this podcast is yourself, Dennis, so that is well deserved. I like the part of the ceremony where Greg wondered if for the first year I was nervous. No, no Because I had done the This Week in Pinball podcast with Zach for a year before that No, wasn't nervous, just changed up the style Just changed up the style Before the show, I just do it live Silver Ball Chronicles at number two My podcast is Ron Hallett You weren't even a Twippy nominated podcast in 2020 I am Twippy nominated this year so I'm really hoping this year I can crack the top three on the Twippies 12.5% of the vote I will have to say though in the ceremony Zach probably picked just the worst clip I think he does that on purpose oh my god seriously the clip that he chose was leading up to a punchline and then he cuts off the punchline yeah well just brutal but I'm really happy with that and I'm really happy that the judges sort of put me down on the list I'm really humbled by that I put a lot of work into the podcast though well it's probably and this is unfair of me to say because I have no idea of the background of any of the other ones but it might be the most edited but I think it's definitely the most researched podcast of any of them yeah so we were just about to record our latest episode, Ron Hallett and I, and that's going to be on Dennis Nordman and his ramps. But with the passing of Lyman Sheets, we've decided to put that episode on the shelf, and I've started the research really quickly on a Lyman episode because I really want to honor Lyman, especially now that he's sort of in the fore in front of everybody. Third place, the second year in a row nominated is Backbox. this year with Rebecca Salam as the co-host of Backbox. Yeah, the show changed up its format a little bit. Absolutely. Super happy to hear that. Specifically women in pinball, lady pinballers, I believe they call them. So I'm really pleased to see them finishing third. Now, Slam Tilt podcast, Ron Hallett's other podcast. Oh, you might have been number one if they hadn't voted for him on that one. That's with Bruce Nightingale, of course. They are five years in. So, of course, now their podcast is allowed to have opinions. And what I'm going to say there is, you know, Ron had mentioned, oh, man, I think, you know, for Twippies, for example, he's like, oh, we're going to split the vote. I'm like, Ron, you shouldn't be worried about splitting the vote. And you should be happy to know that you are on two of the highest regarded podcasts out there in pinball at the moment. He should take a lot of pride in that. He's integral to Silver Ball Chronicles. And quite frankly, the corralling that he does with Bruce Nightingale on Slam Tilt is an award. Yeah, that seems exhausting. Yeah. Final round also. So all three of these podcasts, 7.5%, they were all ties. So they all finished third. Each took 7.5% of it. Final round has really just surprised me with just how awesome they are. It's interesting. For a podcast that started with the concept that it was going to be about competitive pinball, surprisingly to me, to this day, it's still actually... Like, Triple Drain does more competitive pinball than Final Round does. And honestly, I think Final Round's better for it, for what they're doing. Sorry, Triple Drain, no one wants to hear all that turn of talk. Joel's the worst. Hi, Joel. When it comes to final round, so originally in the first episodes of Silver Ball Chronicles, I was going to do like a sponsor, a silly sponsor. And you can hear that kind of in the pilot episode, the first three episodes. And around the same time, final round starts. And their sponsors of the week are so good that I just said, oh, God, I can't do this. I have to stop. They're so action-first. Not only are they entertaining, their rapport is really good. Marty's accent is super sexy. It's fantastic. So well deserved for them as well. Final round. They're taking a bit of a break at the moment, a little hiatus, but they will hopefully be back. So then pinball writing was another one of our categories. And the ceremony revealed the top two. And I think part of the thing was I looked at what the third was, and it was a tie between two. Like one of them was, well, honestly, one of them, someone, I guess, Some people wrote me in, and I didn't even have anything out in 2021. So I'm guessing that's kind of why they shut it. And everyone else was all tied. Yeah, yeah. So is that why I remember Christmas? So is that like listing literally everybody we just went with the top two? Yeah, yeah. This one was a walk-away home win here. This week in pinball, 38%, well-deserved by Jeff Patterson. Yeah, I'm going to guess most of the judges probably were thinking about the deep dives, which is still my go-to versus going to the manufacturer directly. I usually prefer going and looking at Twips Deep Dive. Yeah, some of the virtual pinball stuff that they did earlier in the year before Jeff Patterson has sort of taken his kind of step back and hiatus has been really good. What's surprising here is Nap Arcade with 14% in second place. Yeah, I thought it was fairly late, and all time blends for me now. But, of course, he has his own website at this point, and he's been writing a lot more lengthy pieces over there versus, but, I mean, he's always been posting a lot on Facebook. I'm guessing it's the website is really where people are coming at it from, which would make sense because Twip's a website. And he's doing weekly news drops now over on the Nap Arcade website and Facebook page. So he's kind of filling the gap where This Week in Pinball has kind of taken a step back in 2021. So it was, for something so new, a very good showing. But, of course, we're going to be mentioning NAP Arcade here later on. Actually, in just a moment. So excellence in pinball social media. This is a new category. This is where people really know NAP Arcade, though, because of his Facebook and Instagram. But we had a tie. We did. Two very deserving teams. Oh, yes. Yes, this was. So it's Fun With Bonus and NAP Arcade both got exactly the same number of votes, 18.75% of the vote total each for them. Very good. Yes. And Fun With Bonus, I mean a staple when it comes to social media, sort of posting and news and sharing, an absolute staple. I was surprised about Fun With Bonus only because for so long, you know, it really changed focus when Steve was at Deep Root. And it really was where he was listing a lot of rules stuff for Raza. And it wasn't the same. I mean, it used to be daily posts, which I can't. He did that for years. I couldn't imagine trying to do that much work for pinball. But, you know, he's gotten to go back, I think, and do stuff again after Deep Root kind of imploded. So, yeah, he also stopped posting all of his tax advice and investment advice on Fund with Bonus around that time. Hmm. Oh. So and then because that would kind of take away the second place because, you know, first has got to there was a tie at third. Yes. This this one I'm really happy with. Joe Cherovino, Joe C. from Pinball Degenerates. They are on Facebook as well. Toronto-based. Man of my own heart. I'm originally spent 10 years in Toronto living there. And the Pinball Degenerates page is having their own awards here in February. Yeah, do we really need another award show, though? I say them more than they're here. Exactly. I'm going to be one of those year one haters. And it's like pinball silliness, right? It's like somebody shows up and packs three electromechanical machines into a 2002 RAV4, and they are a pinball degenerate, and they post their share. The social interaction is really funny. Fun with Bonus is a really great sharing resource. Degenerates is really kind of a fun, collaborative kind of page, which is really neat. And Joe tied with the Pinball Network, which is- That's you. It's kind of me. It's me and Zach. We share some stuff there. You do most of the social media posting. Yeah, I think a lot of that, it's a lot of reposting from a lot of our other content providers. It's a true collaborative effort. It really is. I post some stuff and I do some things. I often miss a lot of posts that I should be putting up, most of them from Top Rope Pinball. Sorry about that, Rob. But that stuff does come up pretty often. and I think we should be pretty happy that we've only been really around a year or so, two years, and we've been able to do that. But excellence in pinball photography. This one is a bit surprising. I didn't see this one coming. So Map Arcade was the first place winner, which he does post a ton of photos. It's just people I don't think, and I'm one of them, don't go immediately. When I think photographer of pinball, it never pops into my head. I always think of him as a social media person of pinball. Yes. 30% of the vote. Significant. So this is the thing, okay? Last year when we did our committee approach, I don't think NAP came up. Because, you know, we're in the committee, we're sitting around. But this year where the judges that voted in the game and category awards, they can write in whoever they want. A lot of them wrote in NAP arcades. So it's widening out the breadth of what we can see. because last year Orange Photography and Charles Acosta, who was Pinball Photos, they were nominated as well. So two re-nominations, if you will. Right. But they were in the arcade. Yeah, they were in second and third. I do wonder that in the case of Orange Photography, at least, which I'm more familiar with, I know a lot of those photos have often been at tournaments, and with the IFPA suspension of awarding Whoppers up until like August or so, of 2021 if there's just been less output that people have been seeing because it's kind of like out of sight, out of mind. It's kind of like out of sight, out of mind. It's kind of like out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, yeah. But both very good. I will note we did actually, in third place with pinball photos, was 17% of the vote. Orange photography was about 22% of the vote. There was a tie at third, but even before the voting happened, we did have one of the photographers ask not to be ever named if they were nominated, so we won't mention who that is. Yeah. Yeah. Pinball excellence in pinball videography. So this is really a growing category. Video and YouTube in general has really I say grown in the last three years and a lot in the last 12 months Because people are kind of making their own content because we all generally stuck at home and local So it's really exciting to see this one. But straight down the middle of Pinball Show with 30% of the vote share, they are significant. They are what they are, right? They are Twippy award-winning videographers. We're talking, of course, about Zach and Greg. So this isn't, you know, anything that's surprising. They've done really well. I will say I wish that they had more content in 2021. That's been, I've seen some people talking about, yeah, that's been, you know, actually, I remember hearing that a lot in 2020 as well. But, I mean, he, you know, Zach is doing the editing of the pinball show. He's doing a lot of the pinball stuff when it comes to flipping out. So, like, I understand. But, yeah, it's a – I mean, people – saying aside even his job now as a pinball distributor, I mean, the bottom line is they're not the closest people in terms of – they have to be together to do what they do. And so they're not the closest physically. Like, it's not like it's a five-minute drive for Zach and Greg to get together. But separate from that, you know, back when Straight Down the Middle really was first going, Zach didn't host a podcast. Yeah, exactly. And then once he started doing the Twip podcast and then the Pinball Show podcast, It's just that stuff eats into the ability to do some of that. So, I mean, I understand that some people who prefer that to this will lament that. Yeah, selfishly, I wish they did more video content. I really do. The second place last year's win, though, the Mono Arcade, a Mono Harney, 18% of the vote. And a new name who I had never heard of before until I started seeing the votes come in is Abe Flips with 15%. I have been told, I think mostly by Zach, that Abe Flips is really, really, really good quality. And I think even, and Zach can correct this next time he's on an episode, I think he said, you know, if it was straight up on quality as the only judgment factor that someone might factor in, Abe Flips should probably win. I'd never seen it before. That clip they did, though, for the ceremony was hilarious. With the jiggling or the nudging? Yes. Yes, to save a ball from the out lane into the in lane. I thought, wow, I really need to check out some of this because I've never seen a video of a clip. This is one of the major reasons when we had originally discussed starting the Pinball Industry Awards or a judging type of awards, an Academy Awards style awards for pinball, was I wanted to highlight these individuals that don't bubble up in a popularity kind of people's choice vote. And there is a prime example of somebody that we're giving exposure to who normally wouldn't get any exposure. Abe Flips. So check that out. He's also got a very, very nice accent. He must be from Europe. So our final Excellence Award category was a new one, the Harry Williams Legacy Award. And I'm giving you credit on this because you pushed for this last year, if I remember. You've been talking about that we need a legacy award. It was actually talked about by the committee last year. And, you know, at the time with the group of 12, we were so – I mean, we just burned so much time, as you remember, trying to decide the given awards we had already agreed upon that we just didn't do it. But this year, you got to have it. because, I mean, you made a good point about having something to really recognize people that have been contributing long-term to the hobby. So let me give you the floor to talk about it, because I know you were really passionate about this one. Yeah, I really wanted to make sure that we could give recognition to somebody who's been in the hobby for decades, years, somebody who's given a lot of themselves. And we can see with somebody like a Lyman Sheets, they literally do give so much of themselves, and they are so involved in, you know, giving us fun and having a good time that they deserve to be recognized. And the winner this year is somebody I didn't expect to win in the first year and to win so handedly. They definitely have been really involved with pinball for a very, very long time. It's just, you know, when people talk about a national pinball day and stuff, they say they want to name it after Roger Sharp. You know, there's just certain names that you hear about. Or Gary Sturr. Gary's been in it for decades. You know, things like that. So, yeah, I was surprised because, you know, I didn't know what to really expect. And there were so many different names proposed. I mean, the percentages in this category were actually somewhat lower than the other ones because people did not, in many instances, coalesce around. Like, there are a lot of one-vote people that kind of, you know, that sort of thing. There's a wide breadth of choices. Oh, yeah, because there's so many people. Like, do you recognize a designer? Do you recognize a rules person or a programmer? Do you recognize someone who's done sound? I mean, there's just so much stuff. Do you recognize someone behind the scenes? I chose the same as Zach Many, which I'm quite surprised he mentioned in the ceremony, that he chose Shelly Sachs, who is exactly who I wrote in from Data East and Stern Pinball because she is really one of the integral three as to why both Data East and Sega were around. And, of course, the jack of all trades currently still at Stern Pinball. Kind of those unsung heroes. Gary Stern is sort of out in front and flashy, and Joe Cam and Cow, of course, is Mr. Sales' Joe Cam and Cow. So I thought that that was really, really important. but it came down to somebody who got a lot of votes from a lot of individuals, Dwight Sullivan, senior programmer at Stern Pinball. And, of course, his career dates well back before Stern Pinball, too. So, I mean, he has been programming and doing rules design for a very long time in the hobby. But, honestly, I did not expect a programmer to be the first-year pick. Absolutely. And a programmer outside of somebody like Lyman Sheets. I could have expected something like that. Honestly, if the vote were to re-happen immediately, I think, just given the wake of what's transpired with Lyman, he would probably have cleaned up. But this was concluded before, obviously, that tragic news came out. So Dwight picked up 14.28571% of the vote. That's pretty specific. Yes, because it's Dwight, I wanted to make sure that I got the percentage multiplier correct. You should probably announce a percentage and then a multiplier to have him figure out his own percent. Exactly, exactly. I'm really proud of Dwight Sullivan. Probably my favorite programmer. I'm not a good enough player, Dennis, to really tell the major differences at this point between Dwight and Lyman and Lonnie and Keith P. Johnson and those guys. I get it, but I don't get deep enough. I don't get as complex enough because, quite frankly, for the last two years, I haven't been able to play as much as I wanted to on location. But really happy with the Harry Williams Legacy Award because, quite frankly, Dwight has, in fact, left quite a legacy on pinball. Yeah, and, you know, again, you'd have to ask every judge that happened to vote for him exactly why they made that selection to know, like, what the logic was. Looking at it from the outside in, because, yeah, I think when you take someone like a Lyman who is perhaps better known on the rules design side for what he brought to the table, I think one of the key things that it's really important to know about Dwight is setting aside, like, the stuff Zach, for example, likes to play up about, you know, him and his focus on coding and making moments and that, you know, and the light shows. Yeah, and the light shows and all that, which, yeah, I'm sure is a factor. But he's incredibly approachable. When you hear him, the biggest thing is, regardless of who you might think of as the top, like, who makes your favorite rules, if it's Elwin, you know, and having Rick Nagel program them in, or if it was Lyman, and, like, what he brought in for Batman and Walking Dead and Spider-Man, like, games. You know, he's seen us saving certain games and such. But if you ever watch a stream, like, watch a dead flip reveal with a game that Dwight worked on, the enthusiasm, he oozes enthusiasm. He's just so excited. He just can't wait to show you. He's just so vibrated. From that perspective, we often throw around that phrase, ambassador of pinball. We talk about an ambassador of pinball, someone who has done it for as long as he has and still so clearly exudes his love for it. It's very compelling. That's what I think is what pushed him over the edge. I mean, because we had some other high vote people as well. But, yeah, he, I mean, it wasn't a tie. He won. And I think that's what pushes him over the edge is, you know, some of his personality. And some of these people that do things are really aloof or they don't exude it in the same way. But when you ooze pinball like Dwight does, it's hard not to get excited. Like, I remember watching The Mandalorian. I didn't even vote for, I voted for George Gomez. But when I watched the Mandalorian reveal, it was like, the way he's going through, I could barely follow it. But you could just tell how excited he was on the foundry and the concert and just everything. It was like, he loves pinball and it comes through. And so that's my guess. I don't know if that's what the logic was for the voters or not. But, I mean, that's what stands out to me. Congratulations, Dwight Sullivan, being the very first Harry Williams Legacy Award winner. I will note here, now that we're finally through, so those that don't want to, I mean, you can always go to YouTube and watch the ceremony if you're interested. I think it's about an hour and 45 minutes. You can always put it on 2X if you want. Don't tell Zach he gets mad when I do that. Oh, come on! But I did see that Zach did let us know that Dwight and Scott Dinesky, for his Hall of Fame total nuclear annihilation, did reach out to Zach. both of them expressing their gratitude for the recognition of their work. So I'm not going to share that. Very good. So should we move on to some of the other news outside of the Pinball Industry Awards? You know what I feel like? I feel like some basketball. Yeah, we're going to have shoelaces tied or not tied. Well, if it was the 90s. That's right. If it's the 90s and it's a premier game, those shoelaces ain't ever seeing a loop. So all this information is provided by Nap Arcade from Nap Arcade's website. Throw that into your Google machine to bring that up. We're talking about Super Hoops, which is a new game that is designed by Quetzal Pinball. Yeah. Their third design, they did a Captain Nemo in 2015 and a Tokyo Drift, which I do remember, in 2018. Were they the – and I don't know if you'll know this or not, so I'm going to spring it on you, Dave. Were they the ones that had been working on Pinball? There was like a goblin, like Olympic Goblin, and they had to change the name because of the word Olympics. I have no idea. I can't remember. Anyway, there was... Let me know. What a weird name. This was years ago, so... Sorry. Of course, they're a Spanish manufacturer of gaming devices, Bittronic. So they reached a deal with Quetzal on a request to build the design and the game of Super Hoops. So they basically outsourced it to a third-party manufacturer. Super Hoops is on the line currently at Bittronic. So they're doing direct sales and stuff. It's actually just Super Hoops Singular. Oh, it's one hoop? There's only one hoop? Yeah. Well, how do you play basketball with only one hoop? That doesn't make sense. Well, it doesn't. But when you look at the photos at the NAP Arcade website, you see there's only one basket toy, but it's quite a toy. Ugh, Europeans. Tell us about that. Is basketball big in Europe? They're playing half-court basketball. They're playing half-court basketball. Of course they would. So they're doing direct sales in Spain, so you go directly to them to purchase. Up here in the Great White North, they're doing nitro pinball. That's where you can get your Canadian dealer from them over there, out in the West. And then, apparently, Flip N Out Pinball here in the U.S. is doing that. Now, there's a question mark. I don't know if Zach doesn't know. Well, based off of my experience with Zach with his show notes, when he wants to humble Brad Kill, he'd probably say it like, well, it's direct sales for Spain. You can always turn to Nitro as the dealer in Canada to get Super Hoop. And it looks like Flip N Out Pinball is the dealer for the U.S. Very well delivered. Very good. Thank you. So the conversion rate on currency is $5,272.50. cents. Don't stiff them on the 50 cents. That puts it under a Stern Pro. That's pretty attractive. That's pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. So, what do you think of the game? I mean, I have not watched the video, but from the still images I've seen, it seems like it's got quite an interesting sort of light show going on. I have seen social media posts about it, actually, on Nap Arcade and a couple places, like GIFs and little clips and things, and I'm quite impressed by its main toy, which is, and you had mentioned it, is a backboard with a magnet in it and a hoop in front. So you shoot up and the magnet will catch it and hold it on the backboard and then drop it into the hoop. That's actually pretty smart. I mean, it's not something we haven't seen before. There's a scoop right under that hoop. Exactly. There's scoops and hoops. Yeah, think of the backboard as basically Mechagodzilla tummy grab. Yeah, it looks fairly wide open. The shots are nice and wide. There's no real tight shots in there. No pop bumpers. No pop bumpers. It's got lots of room in the back. Sort of like Star Wars. I'm intrigued by this layout. I'm intrigued by this layout. Yeah, it's got a three-flipper layout. It's got sort of that kind of differently positioned, but I guess if you didn't see a photo, you could think something of a warp ramp shot from Star Trek. Like, my, what do you think of the art? It's not, for me, it's not bad. I can see that people don't like it. It is very busy. It is very kind of red and colorful. Like, it's not bad. It is hand-drawn. It's not silly. But it's just, it's okay. Some people might be a little off-put by the, like, some of the basketball players. It's kind of, this is a common Stern Pro tactic, where you, instead of sculpts, you use these flat plastics and kind of stand them up. And they've got that for a few basketball players. I will say my favorite, though, is what I'm calling the Warp Ramp shot. The Warp Ramp basketball player, who apparently Guile from Street Fighter has decided that B-Ball is what he's going to be doing. Because he's still got all the muscle, and he's still got the hair, but now he's basically going to Sonic Boom three-pointer. He's playing European basketball, brother. That's right. I think, actually I'm quite surprised that this is the third sort of pin they're releasing it's probably the most professional one that they've released, the pricing is really good, I'm really impressed I have to say, I'm going to keep my eye on it allegedly their next game is a licensed theme from Netflix in which they have already 100% secured the license. Tiger King? Oh god I thought it was going to be like the queen. Oh, come on. No. The game was streamed on RB Flip France. They are the sort of European podcaster streamers over in France. You can check them out on their streaming channel. You're probably not going to understand what they're saying unless you're buying gold. Well, specifically with French, I would assume. Well, I mean, I guess. I don't know. Maybe they speak Spanish on the stream. I don't think I've watched their stream. But that's not the only game news. There's kind of that, remake's not the right word, I guess enhanced package, Funhaus 2 Rudy's Nightmare. This is exciting. I'm not joking. This is pretty exciting. That's the Halloween theme for Rudy's Nightmare. For those who don't know, Funhaus 2 Rudy's Nightmare is basically sort of a conversion kit for an existing Funhaus. So if you wanted to take a $7,000 game and spend another $2,000 because you got money just burning in your pocket, this is the add-on kit for you. Same price as a brand-new Stern Premium. Yeah. I guess for those that don't know, we've talked on – Zach and I have talked about this before on the Pinball Show. Those that don't remember, this is the game with the hot dog that has mayonnaise on it. All right, so overall, I think I'm really pleased with the way that this machine is turning out. There's two new videos of gameplay which were posted on the Knapp Arcade website. You go ahead and check them out. He also put some information on the rule set that's sort of starting to be developed or be released in a way that's digestible. Overall, it's still in beta, right? So you can buy it, you can hook it up, but it's still not quite complete. The gameplay videos could have been of better quality. Like, again, probably Zach, if he was here, he's a stickler for sort of revealing yourself on your best foot. You know, Stern is very good at that when it comes to releasing their games on their best foot. Jersey Jack with Straight Down the Middle. They're able to present that better. This was kind of like meh quality. Did you see those videos? I did not, no. Yeah. The other thing is our good friend, friend of the show, Marc Silk. He was in Star Wars. Did you know that? Yes. Episode 1. Yes. Yes. I've heard about that. Yes. Very big in discussing things in committee. Yes. If you want to follow him on Instagram, you can always see every time he gets a haircut and his dog sits on his lap. That's always the best. He has to kick his dog a lot. He kicks his dog a lot. Yeah. I think he pokes his dog. I think that's less kicking. Oh, I don't. My sister had a dog that was like that, that wanted to be kicked. it would walk up to you and it would demand to be kipped that's so funny so Marc Silk does the voice of Rudy it is a bit stiff the dialogue is a bit stiff and I don't think that's a critique on Marc Silk and I think that's on the script that he's getting, I think the script is too basic probably, I mean we've heard Marc Silk in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball and it's not stiff So, right. So, yeah, that's a scripting thing. Let Mark loose. This guy is talented. He was in Star Wars. I know I mentioned that. He knows what he's doing. He's a pro. Just let him bring it. Let him get down there. Let him smash it the way he wants to. Get some excitement. Let him talk about the mayonnaise on that hot dog. Exactly. The hot dog. Get yourself a hot dog with mayonnaise. Something's wrong with you, kiddo. and enormous respect for the sound effect of the squeaky toy for the slings. I've not heard that yet. That sounds like it would drive me insane. It's like the noise of when you've got, like, a killer clown that's sneaking up behind you. It's like, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak. Yeah, I just, you know, I'm not like Ryan C., who's, like, he's a stickler for all things sound. But that was my thing with Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle. I could not stand that tinkling glass sound of their slings. It just drove me crazy. I think they actually tweaked to that. But early on, it was, I thought, very annoying. Wow. So that's all I've got for news. Is there anything else that you want there? No. That's all we have from our notes. So I guess that means, is it time for pinball market trends? Well, let me do this the way that Zach wants it done, okay? Okay. Do it the way Zach told you to do it. It's time for Pinball Market Trends! What's trending up? Trending up this week, everything. Everything is trending up. This market is crazy, super annoying. I draw. How's Tron doing? Also trending up this week Tron! The greatest John Borg layout of all time Combined with the code of Lonnie D. Ropp The one and only Lonnie D. Ropp And Lyman F. Sheats Jr. Jr. This game of course featuring a scoop Two ramps Surprise, it's a John Borg layout It is fantastic, always trends up A fantastic game But that brings us into something else that's trending down at this moment. What should we trend down? Trending down are bad reveal videos for obscure pinball machines and conversion kits. We need good quality. We need to know why we should spend exorbitant sums of money and not just spend it on powder cut. Trending up right now is the Uber Eats guy who just arrived and walked by my window in literally four feet of snow. God bless that man. He made it all the way. You made someone drive and deliver in that Carl Weathers? I didn't. I think my wife did. But hats off to you, Uber Eats guy. So mean. Oh, wow. I can't even see my fire hydrant in front of my house. The snow is so high. That sucks to be that guy. Of course, this week's deal of the... is World Cup Soccer here in Canada. I have a good friend who's looking for this Valley Williams C-Grade title. C-Grade title. C-Grade title. C-Grade... Take that back! Take it back! Now you take that back. You take that back right now! Take it back. C-grade title. Say what? C-grade title. You do, you do need my help, sir. Can't you see that, you son of a bitch? Could you please just let me check out my groceries? Fuck you, I'm trying to help you, motherfucker. C-grade title. Accuser of the fucking brethren, you motherfucker! And quite frankly, the prices are true. Everything was trending up. Absolutely. So we're talking $6,250 here in Canada. The asking price on the majority of those machines. We're talking $4,900 US. So that is crazy talk. Crazy talk. I never thought I'd see the day. Not for World Cup soccer. we're at the top of the market we're at the top of the market here at the moment sure it might keep going sure it might stay flat but the more people use their emotions and buy things with the money that they have just sitting on the side the longer that this is going to continue stop it just stop it you couldn't give those away like five years ago you shut up you shut up shut up Zach may not like this. And that's it for Pinball. All right. So in closing here, Dennis, where can everybody find you? Well, they can always e-mail me over at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast and shoot a message. They can also e-mail the pinball network at gmail.com. I don't check that as much anymore now that I'm not having to deal with all those emails related to the Pinball Industry Awards, but I can get access into the email account at will should I need to respond to something. What about you? Hey, don't you have a finance business for Canadians? I do, I do. If you're a Canadian, you can check out dennisfinancial.ca. But if you want to talk about pinball and all of that other stuff, just shoot me an email at silverballchronicles at gmail.com and you can also check us out at silverballchronicles.com and of course we have to do our sponsor plug even though Zach's not here for flipping out home ball so gosh I've heard that the product showcase this week is Guns N' Roses LE is now in stock so if you've been hoping to get a game where if you hadn't heard Slash was able to just call up Paul McCartney and get Live and Let Die in on the game hey it's now available I could hear that story three more times. It would be great. It would be great. Yeah, I'm famous. I just called another famous guy. Yeah, because we're famous. We're just famous things. Turns out all that other BS that happens in the music industry is all just BS and we do it for fun. Batman 66 LE pre-owned this machine. If I had the money. You know what? I talk about emotional purchases and pushing up the price of things, I would probably buy a Batman 66 LE. He's got that awesome topper. Christopher Franchi. Oh. Mm. Mm-mm-mm. Well, Zach also has a Godzilla Pro pre-owned. I know most people are interested in the premium, but, hey, if you're willing to settle. Exactly. Cactus Canyon SE SE+. The SE+, of course, comes with the topper for the same price as the LE. The Elvira 40th anniversary is still in stock It's Star Wars Premium comic pre-owned The price of those is through the roof Because it is the best copy of that game And they did not make very many of them So that is collector's item Yeah, I don't think he'll hold that one for long Oh yeah, let's see He's also got the Star Wars Limited Edition topper pre-owned Last time I looked, it was pretty expensive From him at least Godzilla pre-orders on the accessories and the game itself. So if you want to wait until 2023 for that premium order, get your order in now. He's also got the Elite Pinball Indiana Jones Deluxe Topper. Is that the one that's gold? I don't really know anymore. It's shiny, whatever it is. It's shiny. Yes. Zach got that in from the Elite Toppers guy with the nice case. Give him a ring. Pick that topper up for your game that's already worth too much. Yeah, IJ4 from Star... Oh, wait. No, never mind. Williams! Indiana Jones. That's the one it's for. No one would buy a topper for IJ4. Chicago Gaming Company. Ms. Pac-Man Galaga Stand-Up Arcade. Those games are really old, so if you for some reason couldn't find one, there's a stand-up arcade with them both. Stranger Things Art Blades. If you want to have Christmas lights all year round and not feel shame, that's how you get them. That's right. You can enjoy looking at those while you don't see them glow because you didn't buy a UV kit. Let's see, what else? Avengers die-cut armor, shooter rod, and art blades. You remember Avengers, possibly Keith Elwin's most complicated game. That's right. So if you want to be distracted from the fact that you don't know where to put the gems on the play field, die-cut armor, that's the way to go. Guardians of the Galaxy shooter rod. I don't know what that is. I think it's Groot. I am Groot? I think it's Groot. I think you're right. I think it's Groot's head. I am Groot. It might be a small one, so it had to raise its voice like a small child, like a baby Yoda of trees. Let's see what else does Swoopin' Out Pinball have? A Jurassic Park topper and the Amber Shooter Rod and the Art Blades. This is Stern's Jurassic Park, not the Data East hit. The Amber Shooter Rod is pretty awesome with the mosquito inside. It's pretty awesome. It is, but who doesn't have it yet? Yeah, that's true. That's true. The TMNT Art Blades and the Shooter Rod. If you want to have a Shooter Rod that you break because you get it because it's really long, this is the one for you. Looks like a sword. On the plus side, it'll hold up longer than the glider mech will. Oh, sorry. So let's see Deadpool. Let's see. Flip N Out Pinball's got the Deadpool Pop Bumper Ninja Star Kits. Also, Deadpool Shooter Rod, Deadpool Art Blades, and Deadpool Armor. Basically, with all that, Deadpool basically becomes Mandalorian. That's right. And of course, let's talk margin. This is where the margin is for Stern. So if you want to keep Stern going and keeping those games on the line, make sure you buy things with high margin. Iron Maiden shooter rod and arc blades. I don't know what either of those are, but I'm sure they're pretty good. And if you're an Iron Maiden fan, you probably know everything about Iron Maiden because those people are strange. And Zach does have banners. I thought they were not supposed to sell the banners or list the price on the banner. I don't have the price on the notes. He'll probably give them all away, though, for things. So maybe just hold off and see if it gives the banners away. One thing that I did wish I had was an Escalera. The turnaround on those purchases are three to four months, so get your name in. That's the thing that helps you go up and down the stairs with, like, a machine. That's where it's at. I have used an Escalera before. They are really useful. I've never been after one because my game room's on the ground floor. I've gone to other people's houses to buy games and wished I had one. Of course, you can grab your merch, which I get no kickback from, over at FlippinOutPinball.com. That's because your swag is somewhere else. Where do you have your swag for Silver Ball Chronicles? It's over on SilverBallSwag.com. Go ahead over there, check on all of the new stuff that we've got in there. Mispronouncing names since 2020. So you can watch the PIAs on demand. Of course, this week we've got a lot of really cool stuff on TPN. And go ahead and check out the Facebook page, and that'll see it. Well, Dennis, after that sponsorship plug, I feel dirty. Yeah, it was. I mean, we tried to, but, you know, hosts don't lie. We're only here to report the facts. I got to go shower. Yeah. Filthy. You got to go maybe have your kids shovel out so the next Uber Eats delivery isn't quite so arduous. Poor guy. It sucks so bad. Yes. So, if I'm going to do anything fancy, I'm just going to say, my name is Dennis. Oh, sorry. My name is David. That's right. Incidentally, yeah, people keep, look, I know David's got two first names for his first name and his last name, but he's David and I'm Dennis. He is not Dennis. We are officially two separate people because we are here. Yes. So, anyway, everyone have a great week. There we go. Oh my god, this is long. Zach's gonna be so... Yeah, that's two and a half hours. I'm eating. You're eating while recording? Oh, that is a faux pas. It's not like Ron eating an apple. God damn it, Ron. Oh, my God. We don't like that. We don't like our head frosted. That gets mad. He's like, I hear an echo. I turned him up. I'm deaf now. The human torch was denied a bank loan. Oh, my God. Oh, Jesus. Accuser of the fucking brethren, you motherfucker!

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 2c8ada7f-36c1-4a73-8b4b-401c48703f90*