# Episode 219 - John Wick & Dark Times

**Source:** Eclectic Gamers Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2024-05-12  
**Duration:** 86m 7s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://soundcloud.com/user-465086826/episode-219-john-wick-dark-times

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## Analysis

Tony and Dennis discuss Stern Pinball's new John Wick pinball machine, covering its design, the "gun gate" controversy over missing firearms in artwork, and the actual licensing reasons behind the decision. They address conspiracy theories about "woke" design choices and clarify that Lionsgate's licensor required an E-for-Everyone rating for public-facing art, though guns appear in video clips once gameplay begins. The hosts express disappointment in community members who spread unfounded theories without understanding standard licensing practices in the industry.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] John Wick pinball designer Elliot Eisman is a first-time designer, mechanical engineer, with roughly a decade at Stern — _Dennis states 'First time designer, mechanical engineer, I think has been with Stern for around a decade at this point. Elliot Eisman is the designer'_
- [HIGH] John Wick pinball pricing: Pro $7,000, Premium $9,700, Limited Edition $13,000 capped at 1,000 units — _Dennis: 'pricing pros seven thousand dollars premiums ninety seven hundred dollars limited editions thirteen thousand dollars that is capped at one thousand units'_
- [HIGH] The absence of guns in John Wick artwork was due to Lionsgate requiring an E-for-Everyone rating for public-facing art — _Dennis from Gomez interview: 'the licensor has to sign off, and because there's no rating system and because they're put out in public, the licensor wouldn't sign off with guns because of whatever reason the licensors have'_
- [HIGH] Guns do appear in John Wick video clips once gameplay begins, after the start button is pressed — _Dennis: 'once the start button is pressed they don't care the Lionsgate is like, whatever. We know what John Wick is. It's time for the gun, Kata.'_
- [HIGH] Stern offers optional weapons crate with guns in the goodie bag for homeowners/locations to install if desired — _Dennis: 'there's a crate with guns because homeowners might want to – or locations that are like I'm okay with it being this way or I'm a bar and I don't let kids in'_
- [HIGH] George Gomez has indicated Stern would walk away from licenses if the artistic restrictions were too severe — _Dennis: 'Gomez even says there are games where they've walked away from because they felt like they couldn't do it justice because of what was laid down to them as the rules'_
- [HIGH] Code for John Wick is by Tim Sexton (lead) and Joshua Henderson — _Dennis: 'Code is Tim Sexton, I believe on Lead, and then Joshua Henderson did significant help with that package'_
- [HIGH] Art for John Wick is by Randy Martinez — _Dennis: 'Art is done by the famed Randy Martinez'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I don't like the style they went with... this definitely would not be one i would get because of the art like i wouldn't hang any of this on my wall"
> — **Tony**, approx. 24:00
> _Expresses strong aesthetic criticism of John Wick playfield art direction, indicating design choice may negatively impact collector interest_

> "I totally understand that if you are a huge John Wick fan and it broke your little heart to not see guns all over the playfield, to jump to all of this just like insane conspiracy rabbit hole nonsense... is just sad"
> — **Dennis**, approx. 40:00
> _Directly criticizes community reaction to missing guns as irrational and unfounded_

> "I have lost respect for several people in this hobby... just because of how this happened"
> — **Dennis**, approx. 55:00
> _Shows genuine community disappointment over how members reacted to the controversy without factual basis_

> "If I had had a reaction like this, I would have been so embarrassed. I would have deleted it after the truth came out"
> — **Tony**, approx. 48:00
> _Reflects on the severity of community overreaction and lack of accountability for unsubstantiated claims_

> "it looks competent would be the way i would put it"
> — **Tony**, approx. 31:00
> _Summarizes overall assessment of John Wick design as functional but not particularly exciting or differentiated_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Elliot Eisman | person | First-time pinball game designer at Stern; mechanical engineer with approximately a decade at Stern; designed John Wick pinball machine |
| George Gomez | person | Stern Pinball leadership; gave interviews explaining John Wick artwork licensing decisions; discussed rating systems and licensor authority |
| Tim Sexton | person | Lead code designer for John Wick pinball; worked on Black Knight Sword of Rage |
| Joshua Henderson | person | Code designer who provided significant help on John Wick pinball rules package |
| Randy Martinez | person | Artist for John Wick pinball; known for Star Wars pinball art; design choices received mixed-to-negative reception |
| Ian McShane | person | Actor who plays the Hotelier in John Wick films; recorded custom call-outs for the pinball machine |
| John Wick | game | 2024 Stern Pinball machine based on John Wick film franchise; first game by designer Elliot Eisman; three-tier pricing model (Pro/Premium/LE) |
| Lionsgate | company | Licensor of John Wick IP for pinball; required E-for-Everyone rating on public-facing artwork per standard licensing practices |
| Stern Pinball | company | Developer and manufacturer of John Wick pinball; subject of community criticism over missing firearms in artwork |
| Tony | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast; provides critical analysis of John Wick design and artwork aesthetics |
| Dennis | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast; defends Stern and licensing practices; expresses disappointment in community conspiracy theories |
| Loser Kid Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast that interviewed George Gomez about John Wick licensing decisions; recommended source for understanding the gun art controversy |
| Triple Drain Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast that featured extensive discussion of John Wick, including marketing analysis by Travis Murray |
| Travis Murray | person | Guest on Triple Drain Pinball Podcast; discussed John Wick marketing approach and strategy |

### Topics

- **Primary:** John Wick pinball design and features, Artwork and aesthetic design controversy, Firearms absence in public-facing art ("gun gate"), Licensing constraints and licensor authority, Community conspiracy theories and misinformation
- **Secondary:** Three-tier pricing model (Pro/Premium/LE), Playfield layout and mechanical features

### Sentiment

**Negative** (-0.65) — Dennis and Tony express strong disappointment in community overreaction and conspiracy theories, though they acknowledge valid aesthetic criticisms of John Wick's artwork. They defend Stern's licensing decisions while criticizing the design execution. Overall sentiment is frustrated resignation mixed with professional understanding of industry constraints.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Stern indicated willingness to walk away from licenses if artistic constraints prevent doing the IP justice; suggests careful evaluation of licensor demands (confidence: medium) — Dennis: 'Gomez even says there are games where they've walked away from because they felt like they couldn't do it justice because of what was laid down to them as the rules'
- **[community_signal]** John Wick artwork missing firearms sparked conspiracy theories about 'woke' design, Disney interference, and Second Amendment opposition, despite straightforward licensing explanation (confidence: high) — Dennis: 'I have seen from that this is Stern Pinball going woke and deciding that they hate guns' and 'Either Disney is a corporate overlord and Stern is the puppet... Or... Stern does so many licenses with Disney that Disney now has some sort of carte blanche authority to veto art packages'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Hosts express loss of respect for community members who spread conspiracy theories; criticize emotional, rage-filled reactions without factual basis (confidence: high) — Dennis: 'I have lost respect for several people in this hobby... just because of how this happened' and Tony: 'I can't even imagine having posted some of this stuff'
- **[design_philosophy]** John Wick artwork received mixed-to-negative reception from hosts; playfield art described as 'Photoshop cutout' style with photorealistic character heads, causing jarring tonal inconsistency (confidence: high) — Tony: 'I don't actually like any of the art at all... it feels very much like a hand-drawn version of the old Photoshop cutout art' and 'Here's a ramp with someone's face on it. Here's a ramp with someone's face on it'
- **[licensing_signal]** Lionsgate required E-for-Everyone rating on public-facing artwork due to lack of pinball rating system, allowing guns only in video clips (after start button pressed) and optional crate for adult venues (confidence: high) — Dennis from Gomez interview: 'the licensor has to sign off, and because there's no rating system and because they're put out in public, the licensor wouldn't sign off with guns' and 'once the start button is pressed they don't care'
- **[market_signal]** Playfield layout described as 'fan layout' with shots far back; no particularly differentiated mechanical features compared to recent Stern releases like Venom (confidence: medium) — Tony: 'when i look at it i don't it doesn't look particularly special' and comparison to Venom's swinging doppelganger mechanic
- **[personnel_signal]** Elliot Eisman's first pinball design as mechanical engineer at Stern; hosts note potential unfair criticism due to non-design-related issues (licensing, art direction, marketing) (confidence: medium) — Dennis: 'i feel bad for elliot because it's his first time putting out a design and there's so many issues that have about this that have probably nothing to do with the actual'
- **[market_signal]** John Wick Limited Edition capped at 1,000 units at $13,000 MSRP; hosts note calling 1,000 units 'limited' may be questionable given terminology debate (confidence: medium) — Dennis: 'limited editions thirteen thousand dollars that is capped at one thousand units calling something with a thousand units limited i know'
- **[product_strategy]** John Wick three-tier model includes Muscle Car Bash toy (swinging on Premium/LE vs static on Pro), motorized Blood Oath token (Premium/LE vs plastic on Pro), weapons crate with opening mechanism (Premium/LE vs stand-up targets on Pro), and center ramp ball lock (Premium/LE only) (confidence: high) — Dennis detailed feature matrix comparing Pro vs Premium vs LE; motorized toy and physical locks exclusive to higher tiers

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## Transcript

 Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, May 12th. This is episode 219. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. We were having a fun discussion with Little Shop of Horrors. Little Shop. Little shop of horrors. That's the only fun thing that's going to be mentioned in this episode, because the rest of this is going to be the bleak blackness of the dark side. Oh, man, it is. Oh. Wow. This has been, yeah, it's been rough. Interesting, hasn't it? Yeah. So what's been going on over the last couple weeks for you, Tony? The last couple weeks have been a mass of car repairs. The wife's car broke down, so she started driving my van. So I started driving my old pickup that we hadn't gotten rid of yet. And then my old pickup broke down. I had to order parts. Which is why you had the van so you wouldn't have to drive the pickup. Right. So I had to order parts to get the pickup running because we weren't going to be able to get it. Her car is still not fixed. We're supposed to get it finished today. What about your eldest's vehicle? Oh, the motor one. Okay. So that one's out too. All right. That one. In case people are keeping, you know, I imagine there's like a bingo card of the Tony vehicle fleet, and they're marking them all. In all technicality, I own four vehicles, but one of them needs to be hauled off because the motor blew. And then the other one has been relegated down to just the occasional driver because it needs like $5,000 worth of work. And it's not worth it for something that has almost 300,000 miles on it. So since it's the pickup truck, I'm just using it to haul stuff to the dump every now and then. Stick truck. And as the spare. Yep, stick truck. That's what I've started calling it since you started telling me. That's what my dad calls his backup truck, stick truck. Yep. So it's basically just the backup and hauling stuff to the dump. And other than that, it's just been a whirlwind of, like, busy days and nights and lots of stuff going on. And we're getting to the end of the school year, so all of the crazy is going. My eldest is taking a bunch of AP classes, which apparently translates into finals that are like four-plus-hour-long multi-section finals. Wow. I just don't remember well enough anymore. I had some AP classes back in the day. Yeah. Yeah, no, she had like a final that started when school started and got out at lunchtime, and that was one final. Wow. It's like, whoa, that's rough. So, no, we've just been busy, busy, busy. I am in early to bed, early riser. Yeah. I mean, I like to go to sleep maybe nine-ish. but almost every day this last week especially i rarely got to bed before 10 or 10 30 it's just been it's been insane unfortunately my body still makes me wake up at 3 30 or 4 in the morning so yay yay so how have your two weeks been well i don't really remember two weeks ago anymore Those were happier times, I suppose. Yeah, I've been out for a training. I actually talked to Tony about that earlier, so you all won't have to hear it. So I actually just got back real early on Saturday, yesterday, about 2 a.m. our time. So I'm not completely rested up yet, but I'm better than I was. It was just really intensive days. It was a work-related training that essentially went for a week of all of this stuff. So I have not gamed at all because when I say all day, it was basically eight to eight most of the days. So there was no time to do much else other than I did take some time to catch up on what was going on with John Wick because I knew we would have to talk about it because I wasn't able to do the pinball show because I was out. Right. I was out for that trip, and so I couldn't make the usual episode time. And then that episode time got pushed back anyway because Zach wanted to wait until John Wick got revealed so that – because otherwise, you know, it's kind of like what we run into here. It's like, oh, there's a new reveal like a day or two after we hear the episode. I mean you didn't want to be that guy who does the – records your half of the podcast while sitting in your seat on the airplane on speakerphone or – Yeah, no. I didn't bring any of my recording equipment, and I was like there wasn't going to be a good time that would have been amenable. I mean it would have been a really awkward time for Zach if I wanted to have recorded and I wouldn't have wanted to. It was it was one of those where I'm just like I don't want to. So I'm just I know I won't want to. This is going to be way too exhausting. So I didn't. Well, you get back to your hotel room. You just drop in the chair. You're just like I need to go take a shower. Maybe after a short nap. It was. Yeah, it was just a lot of. Yes. Downtime was downtime. A lot of downtime was was sleeping was. what it was because it was time to get back up and then do more work. I do have a correction from our last episode. I said that the Blues Brothers that we were talking about, pinball machine from Home Pin, that the layout was similar to Meteor. That was incorrect. A listener noted it on one of our social media accounts. I was supposed to have said stars. Stars. So I apologize for that error. And I want to thank James G., who has joined our Patreon at the basic level. Remember, you can support us over at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. And that's all I have to say about that. So let's jump into pinball. There have been several things going on. I'm not going to talk about any of them except John Wick. There's a lot to talk about. So, Tony, I'd like to take this in chunks because I know you have been getting caught up on a lot of the materials that have been happening this week as well as I. John Wick has blown up and had so many issues about it that I have been forced to listen to interviews. Yes. That's where we're at. That's where we're at right now. And so it's going to get our full pinball. We got video game stuff, and we're going to do that. But this is going to be our only pinball topic today. I'd like to do it in three chunks. I'd like to start with just what we normally do, some basics and thoughts about the game as we have seen it in terms of the reveal information. then gun gate let's go ahead and tackle gun gate and then i want to talk a little bit about uh marketing and the approach and what's kind of going on with all of this so in the show notes folks i got plenty of links for you i have two written article pieces about john wick from nap arcade and kineticist that you can go if you want to look at pictures and learn a lot about what's going on in terms of the of the design of the game so sort of the usual stuff we would talk about. Then I also have a link to Loser Kid Pinball Podcast's interview that they recently did with George Gomez, which responds to a lot of the early criticism of the John Wick pinball machine. And I also have a link to the Triple Drain Pinball Podcast episode, which spends a lot of time talking about John Wick. And in particular, I really want to call attention to a lot of the marketing discussion that Travis Murray does on that episode, because it's going to be the big thing that sort of informs some of what I want to talk about here. So anyway, all of those are there so you can look, read, and listen to your heart's content. Basics about Stern's John Wick pinball machine. First time designer, mechanical engineer, I think has been with Stern for around a decade at this point. Elliot Elliot Eismin is the designer, so this is his first designed game. Code is Tim Sexton, I believe on Lead, and then Joshua Joshua Henderson did significant help with that package. Art is done by the famed Randy Martinez. We know him for a lot of his Star Wars style art, but obviously this is not Star Wars. And then Ian McShane, who plays the hotelier in the movies. You might also know him from Deadwood, where he got to have all the fun swear words. He did custom call-outs. So they did get an actor to do custom call-outs. pricing pros seven thousand dollars premiums ninety seven hundred dollars limited editions thirteen thousand dollars that is capped at one thousand units calling something with a thousand units limited i know as uh well we can talk about that in part three the marketing side side of all of this uh i have for our convenience in our internal notes tony included some basic images including uh the kind of very very shrunken down feature matrix of the of the games themselves but uh i'd like to just start with asking you so what do you think about the decision to do john wick as a pinball machine just period like where you're just general thoughts because it's a newer property i think i think the first movie is about 10 years old yeah it's a newer property but it's been insanely popular um i feel like the john i mean i i've enjoyed well i'm gonna be brutally honest i enjoyed the first two john wicks The third one was, and I've not even seen the fourth one. I have not seen the fourth either. And I think I agree with you. I think it's getting a little too superhero-y with the third one. Yeah. It's just a little more goofy. I do like that they built a mythos around the world. Yeah, I like that they built a mythos around the world. I like that they very much have gotten away from the kind of jump cut, can't actually tell what's going on, rapid cut action stuff that we've seen for the last decade or so in most. uh fight scenes in movies and stuff that's one of the things i like but uh i don't know that the john wick series really needed more than one movie no and this uh this game does use film clips from all four right currently existing uh pieces and maybe the fourth movie is really really good i do need to i want to i want to watch it it's just not been free yet on prime I haven't done it. So I want to go ahead real quick and highlight the differences between the premium LE versions and the pro versions. So the muscle car bash toy, the premium LE version, it actually swings open and closed. That's sort of in the center back of the play field is where that toy resides. Then the premium LE has a motorized blood oath token. For those that have seen the second movie, they will remember the Blood Oath token little round disc thing. And so it actually was created with a scan from the original movie prop for the Premium LE. On the Pro, it's represented by a flat piece of plastic, which is pretty common for Pro model stuff. Let's see. All three models do have over in the back right corner the Continental Hotel as a sculpt. That's actually there. On the Premium LE, the weapons crate, which is on the far right, kind of right middle, a little bit above the sling, it opens and closes to reveal a hidden shot for collecting weapons. On the Pro model, that is stand-up targets. So that is a distinction as well. And let's see. There is no physical ball lock on the Pro model, but on the Premium LE model, there's a center ramp diverter with a physical deconsecrated ball lock, which is one of the acts that happens in the film series. And there is a drop target red circle club accessed, which is protected by a drop target. That's only available with the drop on the Premium and LE version. game is planned to have six multi balls with too many wizard modes and the final wizard mode so uh also another thing that that was pretty interesting that this is in the kineticist article for sure uh it's talking about uh they mentioned using some ai aspects to how the rules are are working or how the game is going to do some stuff in terms of adjusting shot requirements it's not clear to me exactly what that means i'm assuming based off of how well you're doing something happens i'm not sure what the like i don't know what it will like what its intent is is this going to try and make it harder and harder or what that would be my guess but i i just don't know so uh so looking at all of this um basic thoughts on the layout let's sort of start where we would normally start i think this is just a two flipper game i think so i i didn't notice anything else anywhere unless there's one stashed away i haven't found one i think it's just two okay so that instinctively makes me think is this going to be a fan layout and shots are pretty far back so i think the answer is basically yes yeah so people generally really enjoy shooting fan layouts so and for a first-time designer i think that probably makes a lot of sense as being a a good place to start um but that also means people looking for something that feels really different when i look at the layout here i don't it doesn't look particularly special like i don't see anything that's really really yeah all right like the moving bash toy on the premium le okay yeah that's a it's a cool idea of a like a swing a swinging but we saw that with venom with a little doppelganger thing it swung out right and it was even a cooler because it wasn't a bash toy it had them little dangly uh targets dangle targets so let's not go there let's not go i don't want to do beeps um uh okay so it looks it looks like it shoots fine yeah fine to me maybe well i just but i'm not i don't when i look at it i'm not excited to shoot it i mean i like to play anything new so right no i mean like anything i i look forward to trying it that doesn't necessarily mean anything else. I think the rules should have potential. I tend to like Tim's rules. I think what he did with Black Knight Sword of Rage is the highlight of Black Knight Sword of Rage. And I really associate that a lot with him. What do you think of the art? And we're going to get into the aspect that there's no guns in the art in our second portion, but just in general, how Randy Martinez tackled this. I don't actually like any of the art at all. And it has nothing to do with a lack of guns, it feels very much like a hand-drawn version of the old Photoshop cutout art. I get that vibe. I'm more thinking about like some of the back, like the, what is it, the premium back glass, and in chunks on the field, it kind of feels very that style. but overall I just don't it doesn't wow me in any way shape or form I think it's an interesting idea with the cabinet side art the way they did just on the Pro and the LE it's just like a single big static image no writing no anything else and the way they did that I really do actually kind of like how they did the side of the head on the LE that's an interesting choice that I don't hate but overall it doesn't really do anything for me I would say generally speaking the cab art like sides of the backbox sides of the cabinet I'm okay with those I think those look decent I don't care for the trans lights I'd say the worst one in my personal opinion is the premium which is going with this comic book sort of cut scene thing and it's like that it's not a comic book though it's not a comic book movie it's yeah he's something like a superhero but uh i personally think the pro probably has the best of the three translators but i don't love it and and but the premium is easily my least favorite and like you uh i i'm i'm very unenamored by the playfield art choices uh you've got the wheel at the center with Keanu in the middle, a bunch of character heads sort of surrounding him. So I definitely see where you're getting that Photoshop era vibe thing, but hand-drawn. And it's well hand-drawn. Yeah, it's executed well. But then you end up with a more photorealistic hand-drawing of the cast of characters just below that circle, which I – that's actually the part I like the best, and I don't like it very much. I don't like the comic-y panel cutout above the circle before all the shots. It just seems really jarring. It's like this horizontal – well, not quite. It's more diagonal. But this diagonal slash of art that just looks different, and then all of a sudden you get to exactly what you were pointing out. Hey, look. Here's a ramp with someone's face on it. Here's a ramp with someone's face on it. Oh, look. Here's a third ramp with someone's face on it. It's like, thank you, era of 24. We're back. We're back, baby. we're back um i i yeah i i like the sort of cityscape stuff in the back and stuff but the actual art uh and all these character placements i i yeah i it does not it does not work for me i never buy games based off of art but um this definitely would not be one i would get because of the art like i wouldn't hang any of this on my wall no like this is a lit translator yeah a playfield i wouldn't want any of these um well done but i just don't like the i just don't like the style they went with um so uh well those are all the the main things i i've not watched gameplay i don't know if gameplay is out yet i think probably a little bit by now but i thought i thought they aired it i haven't watched it but i've not seen it so okay well then i we can skip that um anything else you want to say about what we what we see here it looks competent would be the way i would put it but i i feel bad for elliot because it's his first time putting out a design and there's so many issues that have about this that have probably nothing to do with the actual i mean most of this what we've covered so far wouldn't like if the game plays well if the shots do feel really good and the rules are good like i would be cool with owning it yeah so that none of this so i don't feel too bad for i'm not gonna feel too bad for him well if the other issues that we're about to talk about hurt its sales enough to make it very poor for something that's not necessarily his fault that's true but i i think where people are complaining it'll be obvious what the issue is right if it's not elliot then it's not elliot i i think stern will understand that but speaking of understanding let's go ahead and get into gun gate okay and so this is where the link to the loser kid interview with george gomez you watched that on youtube i did right and i listened to the actual audio uh version of the podcast while i was mowing yesterday so we are we both have that as our main source on this uh so as background game uh gets revealed people notice that in the art and by the art we mean the playfield art the cabinet art the translate art the backbox art none of it features any character holding a gun they are holding weapons their swords their nunchucks there are things like of that nature but there are no firearms and think you know because we obviously we cover every major pinball release so listeners i want you to think back when it's where i'm sorry i want you to think back think why shark no eat ball from jaws but on the biggest most illicit steroids possible very much why no guns in gun fu game so and people lost their minds not everyone no no but it was i will go to the phrase of disturbing it was some of it was some of it some of the rants that i saw and read about were what did one of the kids today say cringe is cringe the word maybe that was the word they said 10 years ago. I don't know. I don't know. So here's the thing. And let me just tell you, for those of you who don't podcast, which probably most of you, or do YouTube or anything else, let me tell you two things you do not talk about in your hobby. You don't talk politics and you don't talk religion. Because all you're going to do is hurt people's feelings and alienate them. We've tried to be very cautious. We have never touched religion with a 10 pole on the show We flirted a little bit with politics on occasion Well hey baby how that yeah but but we both work in government so it kind of hard for us to never mention anything obviously there's a difference between politics and government but but you know these sort of things rear their head and so let me open with that i totally just like with job even though i thought personally the notion that a jaws pinball machine had to have a shark on it that had to eat the ball was the most ridiculous set of demands that one would just fabricate in their own brain i am sympathetic to someone who wants a john wick pinball machine which is a movie that features a lot of guns that maybe one gun maybe maybe one gun maybe half a gun maybe just a clip so so i want to say that if you don't want to buy the game because there are no guns in the art i I totally understand that. I totally understand that. I would have just instinctively thought it's John Wick, right? It's going to have a gun on it. Just like if there was an official Matrix game, I'm going to assume there has to be a black trench coat in the art, right? I mean, I would just assume it would be there. Maybe. And if it didn't, I'd be like, oh, well, that didn't go as I assumed. But all right. So let me take this and let's give a little – because not everyone here is going to have consumed. In fact, I'm not going to suggest you go and search out the stuff that happened with it. Quite the opposite. I'm going to say you probably shouldn't. You'll feel better, and you won't be – Don't ruin your hobby with conspiracy. Yes, and you won't be nearly as disappointed in your fellow hobbyists. Yeah, disappointed is a good word to say. So it has been all over the place. I have seen from that this is Stern Pinball going woke and deciding that they hate guns, which, I mean, in and of itself seemed like a very strange claim to me, given that it wasn't that long ago that James Bond came out and there are guns in the art in James Bond. So I'm like, yeah. So this is like a new wokeness. Right. It's not like it's not guns. Bad nuclear weapons. Good. Yeah. You can't hug your kids with nuclear arms. Thank God. All right. Okay. So, yeah. So, all right. So there's the woke Stern that this is a move against the Second Amendment. You know, Gugga full America and that they've taken the stance. I get that kind of ties with the wokeness. It does. Though my favorite that either Disney is a corporate overlord and Stern is the puppet and Disney's hate of guns means Stern. even if they like guns, couldn't put the guns in. Or if you wanted to be a little more grounded but also super cynical, that Stern does so many licenses with Disney that Disney now has some sort of carte blanche authority to veto art packages on properties. This is a Lionsgate property. It's not a Disney property. But there's been that. That's pretty insane. Yeah, and everything in between to connect all of this. Now, the thing that was so surprising, galling, however you want to phrase it, was that, again, while I fully understand if you are a huge John Wick fan and it broke your little heart to not see guns all over the playfield, to jump to all of this just like insane conspiracy rabbit hole nonsense. instead of just thinking about anything practical that would have come into play, a practicality that has come into play on all of these games. And we've complained about this practicality on all of these games. This is, honestly, is it really that much different than when Jaws came out and Brody, Roy Scheider, not Schneider, Scheider's character wasn't on the playfield art because they didn't have the license to him? They couldn't do it. He's in the clips, but he couldn't be in the art. Yeah, licensing is weird. He's like the movie. He's in most of it. This stuff happened. But people just reacted in this way that it was this big conspiracy against them and their interest in firearms. And it was pretty sad, in my opinion. And it looked really, really bad. I normally wouldn't encourage people to take down stuff they post content creation-wise. But if I had done if I had had a reaction like this, first of all, I can't imagine I'd ever would. But if I had had a reaction like this, I would have been so embarrassed. I would have deleted it after the truth came out. We spoke we spoke last episode or the episode before about a rant that I had recorded on multiple times. And I deleted and never posted the grant. And people came and said, please, Tony, post it. I had completely deleted it because I felt like that rant was too raw and emotional and was too not controlled to be posted. Too much rage. Too much rage. And it was like 30% of some of the stuff I've seen out there about this thing. Yeah. I mean, I can't even imagine having posted some of this stuff that I've seen people type and put out into the universe to share with people. But that's just me. I just can't even imagine having done that. It's insane to me. But the fact that they did, I mean, it's their right to do that. It's their right to have their opinions. It's their right to have their thoughts. But the fact that all of this was based off of teaser pictures of a game with absolutely no other knowledge is just sad. It's not intelligent. Very much so. It's not. That's why I, again, if it had been me and I had somehow done this, I would have been like, I can't salvage this. I can't spin this. I was so grossly wrong. I need to just take down this wrongness and not let it spread any further for my own reputation. Well, and to come up with such so so vehemently. Oh, they're woke and they're trying to take away our guns and they're trying to do this and that. You get the picture of the guy with the with the strings on the board and all the pictures. Yes. The string board. String board. And everything together. And this is how. Oh, and that's what this is. And that's pulling this in. And it's all part of the grand conspiracy. and the you need to take a deep breath yes it's very dangerous there's guns when you have rage right there's guns in the video clips yep but the reaction was so quick no one no one paused to find out it's it's and and the thing is is everything was coming oh this is starred starts evil and Disney, and listen to the interviews with Gomez. So what's some of what you learned from that when you went through it? And again, we have a link to the podcast version with Loser Kid, so you can hear what George has to say. And this isn't the only one. He's done some other shows now, too. He's done some others. But I would recommend – I would start with the Loser Kid one because that's what I started with. But what's going on here, Tony? What actually happened? From the interview, the licensor has to sign off, and because there's no rating system and because they're put out in public, the licensor wouldn't sign off with guns because of whatever reason the licensors have. Okay, that makes total sense. It does. If the licensor says no, you have no choice in the matter. I mean he had a very good discussion about a rating system game for a game he'd done a video game he'd done back when he was with Midway talking about ratings and how that affects and has to be signed off and Penball doesn't have a rating system Penball I don't think Penball needs a rating system no I wouldn't I mean there's a lot of people in Penball but it's not that big it's way too niche to have an actual rating system and the thing i guess that kind of leaves me a bit gobsmacked regarding the reaction the visceral rage-filled reaction is we have seen this license or interfering with how art can be done for so long now why would anyone jump to any other weird theory right and off the bat without even defaultly again if you have any sophistication in this hobby and i don't mean that in in like an intricate way like if you've been in this hobby for like more than a year and followed the new stuff you know this stuff happens all the time with licensors you won't don't go into the hall while disney's interfering with lions gate because of the politics of the second amendment it's like no so as you noted george like the too long didn't read you already put it really succinctly was that because these games can be routed they basically demanded that the art package be an e for everyone rating in the video game world because any child in theory could go up and see it but once the start button is pressed they don't care the Lionsgate is like, whatever. We know what John Wick is. It's time for the gun, Kata. Because, yeah, because you've pressed the start button. You have chosen to play the game. You have made that choice as opposed to you walked into a room and it was in your face. And in theory, a parent is supposed to be monitoring their child. And so if the child put a dollar into the game, the parent was okay with it. That's the idea. And I believe even, as I recall, Gomez noted that in the goodie bag with the games, the weapons crate, which doesn't have guns in it on the default install, They have – there's a crate with guns because homeowners might want to – or locations that are like I'm okay with it being this way or I'm a bar and I don't let kids in or whatever. Whatever. You get to make your own decisions like Americans get to do. You get to make your own decisions. That I am just – I still remain absolutely flabbergasted that, again, I totally understand people being pissed and reacting quite loudly about there not being guns in the yard. I totally get that, that they went to conspiracy levels to justify their reasoning for why it happened in the face of what we have seen so many times. I don't understand how any of you I'm so if you fell for this, I'm so disappointed in you. I'm so disappointed. I will go. I will go a step farther. I have lost respect for several people in this hobby. I have lost respect that I had for them just because of how this happened. And this is, they've had to spend so much for stuff. I mean, they've had to come out swinging that, hey, this is what happened. We didn't make the choice. We didn't make it. And in that interview, Gomez even says there are games where they've walked away from because they felt like they couldn't do it justice because of what was laid down to them as the rules. Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. So obviously this was, okay, the art, but I mean, I'm sure if they said, oh, you can't have guns in the video clips, that they would have walked away. Yeah, because it's like, well, what's left? Is John Wick walking around thinking about his dog? Right, right. So, I mean, it's just, it is disturbing. When I first saw everything blowing up, I was just in shock. I'm like, really? Because I'll be honest, I didn't even notice that there weren't guns in the art at first because my first thought when I saw the art was, wow, that's real crappy. I didn't notice because I'd actually found out about the visceral reaction before I even saw the game because I was so busy. I didn't consume the game media right when it came out. um yeah it's just so i guess before we move on to our third and last section of our john wick discussion i just want to say look folks as tony said take a breath like everyone everyone should take it out even if you didn't react this way and just maybe the simplest answer is the re i mean because at this point with what with what gomez has said about all of this which makes perfect sense makes total logical business i mean how long did they have stuff delayed uh because uh they couldn't get the art signed off on for star wars oh yeah the r2d2 topper forever what what about the uh i mean they had that whole special release of james bond was blown because the licensor wouldn't sign off and lots of people myself included were really you know pretty down on james bond's art package because it's like it's just posters everywhere and it's like that's the only thing they'd let him have right it's like i mean this is far from the first time the licensor has it made total sense so to conspiracy theory to bring that sort of mentality into this hobby is deeply destructive i think that's what because i mean without again not wanting to get political tony and i own guns we've gone hunting like we're not i i i'm I'm sure I have told this story before. Dennis was there. But I remember picking you up from Syracuse, New York, when you graduated. Oh, gosh. Oh, yes. I remember this. And we were on the drive home. We're like, let's go to Niagara Falls. And so we went to Niagara Falls. We're like, well, let's go to the Canadian side because this was back in the day before you had to have a passport to go into Canada. This was pre-9-11. So pre-9-11. We're like, let's go to Canada. and we pull up there and the guy at the border walks up to us and in my mind he was like a trainee it was like his second day on the job maybe that that that's what is in my mind he walks up and he's like oh hello there uh oh where's he going over just want to go see the falls from the canadian side oh that's real nice uh do you own any guns oh yeah i own a lot of guns I've got tons and tons of guns. And the guy's eyes went huge. He didn't ask if we had them on us. He asked if we owned any. Right. So I answered truthfully. You did. Own lots of guns. And the guy's like, uh, uh, uh. And he realized, he was like, I realized that he's like freaking out. I'm like, I don't have any with me. I just own them. because I remember afterwards because we were at that stop for so long while all of this was figured out I was getting help moved back so we were a group in multiple vehicles but we were delayed because Tony and I were in the same car we were delayed enough that the people in the car the other car ahead of us were like oh, nope, nope they're being pulled out oh, they just smashed Tony's head off the car my dad said that to the Which might not have been the nicest thing to have done at that time in retrospect. But anyway. Anyway. So just so again, just to give context. So I want people will wonder about bias and such. But Tony and I have firearms. So just as so anyway, it's not a and we didn't. And I think most people, when you'd see all this, you'd be like, you wouldn't have jumped to this as your theory. It doesn't align with anything else that we've seen out of Stern. It's such a – but oh, Seth Davis is there now, and he's from Disney. So maybe that's the angle on how the mouse is in the house. I hadn't heard that, but now I'm wondering because, I mean, he used to work there. Anyway, it was goofy. Oh, goofy, goofy. Oh, goofy. Disney's in the house. Maybe I said it because Disney owns us. maybe when I said thank you on the basic support at the start of the episode for our Patreon for James G what if G is for Goofy and that James is Disney and that's how we get our money. Disney better not be doing basic support. I'm just saying. After their trouble in Florida, Disney's being a little more cautious with their money. They're giving us a dollar a time. They're going to have to work a little harder to buy me off. I mean, I'm dealing with a lot of car repairs right now. There's a lot of stuff going on. They're going to work on it. They're going to work on it. All right. Third piece I wanted to briefly cover, and this really ties more to the Triple Drain Pinball Podcast episode. Now, I don't think you've had an opportunity to listen to that. I did have an opportunity. Now, we have not recently. However, you and I, though, have had multiple online marketing discussions with Travis. Yes, we have. So you kind of know his approach on how he's doing. He's got a very good approach. Yes. And he has an extended – it's towards the latter portion of the – it's basically the latter half of the episode that I have linked in the video description for folks if you want to find it. About kind of like what's going on now. Now, with a marketing campaign, I want to touch on a couple of things. So one will be John Wick specific and one will be more stern and broad, and then we'll move on to video games. The John Wick one was the strategy that they did when the reveal came out. Basically, non-pinball media, but media individuals and non-distributors as well got embargoed access to the game. So they had the art assets. They had all the stuff ready to go with their videos. The videos were pre-made, like we've seen in so many – like I see in wristwatches all the time. We see it in video games all the time, all the same of that. and what do you think tony though of the decision to do that with basically non-pinball people but they didn't do it with any of the pinball people like kineticist didn't have early access nap arcade didn't have early access and the distributors like the pinball company flipping out pinball tilt amusements they didn't know anything until the webinar with stern like they normally they didn't get the assets early to put up to start building the web pages until after the game was announced or revealed really so what do you think of that decision i guess the decision to do that with outsiders but not do that with either the media in the hobby and or the people who actually sell the games for them i can see i i've got a couple thoughts my my first thought is everybody talks about trying to get pinball out to people who are not in the hobby and this sort of outreach and priming of the pump to kind of give them the chance to get everything put together and put out there outside of the hobby is something that I think needs to be done if you want to try and get that reach to go farther. Because these internal hobby stuff, people are going to watch or like one way or another. And then if we want to go ahead and pull out tinfoil and go conspiracy. Another conspiracy. I don't know if we can handle it. I think the pinball media within the hobby leaks like a sieve. So anything that went to them other than maybe a few that have proven themselves is going to find its way out early anyway because it happens pretty often. Half the stuff we talk about is stuff that comes out from leaks. But I don't actually have a problem with it. I think that outreach outside of the hobby is a problem that pinball has had for a while. I know I've said on multiple occasions that several specific companies, it would probably help them to reach out to non-hobby people that are in a similar vein just to get that outreach out there and to try and get more people into it. Because even after all this time, you still hear the, oh, pinball's still a thing. And let's face it, the pinball resurgence has calmed. We are beyond the peak. We are falling into a trough again. And that's the second side of this I wanted to discuss. In terms of my thoughts on the media thing, I didn't – honestly, I didn't think too much on it. I think the leak control is why the distributors aren't getting early enough access from their perspective. But I do agree that it really causes issues for them to be able to properly build up their stuff in order to be able to sell it Travis is able to dive in more because he I think looked into some of the non media that got the early access and whether or not they were the best picks is a strategy that you can go and listen to what his opinion is on that because i don't know enough about them to be able to weigh in on it i do think that with you just doing maybe a couple pinball media things in da's uh in place signed would make sense and then you'd know especially if it's just a handful you'd probably be able to sort out if anyone broke that and if they did obviously their hashtag dead to me uh sort of thing and they could do that i don't think there should be on the media side it does seem like they would be able to do that i don't feel strongly on it but in part because we would never be an entity that they would work with so because we don't sign in DAs for the podcast here. So we would never be the ideal format, but I could see them being able to arrange something with a NAP Arcade, who I imagine would be able to, or Kineticist. I think there are plenty out there that would be willing to sign that sort of stuff to be able to build their resource ahead of time so that it could drop right away when the embargoes are lifted. But I get where Stern comes from with probably what you kind of pointed out, which is broadening pinball to the bigger market, and pinball media is not going to do that. We're preaching to the choir here. Right. So now going into what you brought up about the situation, the trough, as you phrased it, yes. And that's been something else that's coming up. I mean, we looked at this. You mocked their 1,000-unit count on the LEs. This is a lot of money. my very very preliminary information i have is that john wick is not selling great out of the gate uh perhaps because of the conspiracy theory stuff perhaps because it's a new designer perhaps because the art isn't impressing people and or perhaps because the layout looks relatively pedestrian uh regardless and this is also discussed on triple drain is this whole thing and it came up with Loser Kid in the interview as well, the issue about the pricing. And I liked how they pressed George Gomez a bit about like on the topper thing because he really emphasized how inflation, we all know about inflation, it's hit all of us. Oh, yes. And how much inflation has impacted things like the steel they bring in and all of that. Didn't really feel he gave a good answer about, okay, yeah, well, why is like the $450 Black Knight topper now $1,500 though? I mean, there's inflation and then there's gouging. Right. which is how I view what they're doing with toppers. But it's obviously a problem because regardless of what's happened with inflation, and George did acknowledge this, that their prices are much higher than they would like them to because they know it. I mean they know it's hurting their sales. Our wages didn't go up the same rate as this pinball inflation has. I wish. Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, it's becoming a – and lots of us, including me, have talked about, like, after doing TPF, Elton John, Jersey Jack Pinball, really fun game. I was really – I really enjoyed it, but I didn't enjoy it for $12,000. Are you kidding me? I mean, it's not $12,000 fun. and now that we're in the trough that you noted like pinball is you buy it you play it you sell it you get less than what you bought it for which is proper market dynamics right but when you're coming out of a world where i got you know when i got my godzilla premium i knew i could sell it anytime i wanted and make two thousand dollars at least on that game at least that's like that day is gone as it should be but now people are going to be a lot more cautious you don't want to buy a dog what if you what do you end up with a barbecue challenge you're going to lose thousands of dollars on a game like that thousands yeah before the pandemic a stern pro on average i'd say in home use only would maybe lose 500 off of new in box but that was when new in box was five grand not seven so it's just so travis really dives in a lot about about some of that but i mean what do you think in terms of given what we're seeing now the demand is is falling even if more people than ever are interested in pinball i when they see the stickers on these things of the price tags they are going to shock pikachu all over the floor and that's where i kind of look at what, and Travis discusses this, when they did the non-pinball media embargo early access stuff, how many of those views, everyone gets so excited about the views, but how many of that people are really going to turn into buyers when they find out how much money this is? It's not like a video game. It's going to be a very small number. We can see this look at some of the comments and reactions from other things that have gotten big outside of the hobby talk, Labyrinth Pinball, Weird Al, they all got large outside the hobby talk. And some of the first comments you ever saw from people was, that looks amazing. Oh, my God. How can anybody afford that? Yeah. So, I mean, do you think, is there anything that could be done short of they have to figure out a way to get the pricing down? I don't know. I honestly don't know. There might be something. But I think even if they get the pricing down with the situation that most people are in and the situation that the economy is in right now, I think it's just going to be hurt no matter what. I think there's always going to be a core of people who have plenty of disposable income and they buy everything. I think it will remain strong enough to sell for most of the companies to keep sales up and to not necessarily break everything. But I think we're going to continue to see sales slump for a while, barring a major change. I just don't see how the sales rates can continue like they were. Yeah, I do not see a path short of you have to crack the code on getting the pricing down. And like hearing to Gomez talk with the loser kids, I'm thinking things like, do they need to do more vertical integration? Do they need to have more control over their stainless steel supply if that's the problem? Steel is so expensive, then maybe they need to get into the business of making – do we go that far and say, you need to start making your own steel? Well, like they're too small to achieve that. Yeah, it's too small to make that work. But the idea of having more control over their own supply chain could – I mean, the supply chain is what's giving them the strain. Because I don't know what else – I mean, George noted – George Gomez on the interview did note that it's more than just the bill of materials. But things like – let's say we say, all right, your code needs to be simpler. One programmer per game, period. You don't know more teams, and you're just going to make them simpler games moving forward. They don't get to have 10,000 wizard modes, Jersey Jack, sorry. But then people are going to complain that they're too simple. They're not going to want to buy them. Is it really going to make a big difference in the price, though? Because that individual's salary is amortized over hundreds of games. Is it really going to change? I'm not sure. Honestly, I think it has to be a focus on building materials. I don't think it's – unless the licenses have just got stupid expensive. What else is there? Which is a valid thought. If the licensing has gotten really expensive. But, I mean, even with when you take into account, you know, cost of office space and factory space and workers and benefits and everything else, there's a line in there. But short of having an actual accountant down into the weeds, we could never know what those lines actually are. Yeah, no. But it's – I just – no. To me, it's got to be a price thing because they won't do – the other angle – here's where I think they're in a weird wedge, pinball in general, is it's a hobby. It's a blue-collar hobby really in my mind in the sense that it's – historically, it relied on people who had to work with their hands to keep the games running. That's still true. They hold up better now. And a lot of people just remember playing in an arcade because you just go with a handful of quarters and you could have some entertainment. It was a low-cost hobby to engage with. And then when pinball was dying in the early 2000s, getting used games was relatively affordable. And the older you went back, usually, the cheaper the games could be. And you could fix them up and sell them for more. And there was a way you could kind of channel yourself up into the newer stuff. I did that. Yeah. A lot of people did. And it's harder to do that nowadays. And there are also a lot of people that don't want to work on their games like that and do that path. And I think that's absolutely fine. I'm not judging any of that. But a lot of people who did it that way can't do $7,000 pros. Or they won't. They won't do $7,000 pros. Much less all the way up to $15,000 collector editions from Jersey Jack. And that's kind of the range we're in now. So Stern's got this problem because they had people where this was kind of like a quote-unquote middle-class obtainable entertainment product, but they won't go high-end enough to make it a true luxury product. Again, I'm going to do – when we start – we think about wristwatches, and there's a whole range of these really practical, fun-to-own, interesting mechanical movement tool watches. and then there's like the hand finished movement decorated uh luxury you know you know that you get it i don't want right i don't want to belabor it with you i'm just saying they're like in wrist watches there's like functional tool watches that we don't need anymore because we have computers but we want them because we want watches and then there's luxury watches which are really expensive because you're paying for the prestige and the hand finishing and all of that pinball refuses to cross that line because in my opinion because the standard they would be held to they cannot meet and they know it look at all the blowback they've gotten as now like john q public has started buying pinball machines you remember like five years ago why are they dimpling i don't like dimples it's ugly it shouldn't have to dimple at all like there were massive foreign debates on this sort of stuff that was never seen as a big deal historically and people also there weren't dimples historical just depends how far back you go but but my point is like they these people y'all y'all listening right now you guys get excited over powder coat can you but i'm telling you you could have like people going in and using diamond polish black polishing every screw in a pinball machine they do it in watches yeah you pay enough money they do it in watches they could do it in pinball and then there's like here here is your 25 000 pinball machine but they won't go for that because they can't meet that quality standard you mean you mean just 3d printing parts and putting them into the machine isn't the quality that people are looking for when they want hand-finished high-end luxury stuff i'm telling you pinball people don't know what that is like like if you wanted to target i'm just saying another option if you can't get the prices down is to go the luxury route but no one jersey jack is the one that's closest to trying to do it and they haven't done it all they do is stick more toys in and claim they're the cadillac of pinball it's like but the game doesn't run any better than a stern in fact it runs worse so right and here's the thing is i i don't think the route you're talking about requires there to be the cadillac of pinball you're getting to the point where you're looking for the mercedes amg of pinball you're looking you're yeah no we're not talking lamborghini you're looking you're looking for for something more than just a cadillac there needs to be here's pinball here's how pinball justifies higher pricing three things one limited edition and we see this in plenty of other luxury goods so that one makes total sense two more leds it's like we'll just stick more leds in the fancier versions they're I'm surprised that LEDs are cheap. LEDs, and along with that, like sticker, excuse me, like what, art blades inside and all that. They're stickers. So stickers. Stickers and lights, which is stuff you can order off of from Amazon, pennies on the dollar. And then third, designer's signature on the card. Wow. So, like, there's, it's, I'm sorry, guys. I get, you want to collect LEDs? by all means do it but i'm just telling you it's super low effort like they this is super low effort it's like where's the where are the ramps made out of gold like where's that like that's still low effort but at least it's like stick some real money in there if you i'm not saying this i don't think ramps made out of gold i'm not saying it's smart obviously would have to be platinum it would played it well rhodium played all of it it won't be 18 karat we'll do 10 we'll do 10k i'll be fine the i i'm just saying like that's the other option i think it's the bad option but i'm just saying like they're in this middle ground they don't want to go to the effort to be true luxury but they can't get the prices down enough to be fair to get the market that they need to get to in the middle class and and that's going to continue to be a problem and blaming inflation isn't going to fix the problem for them right because you're at a point where people are freaking out because of discussions of moving the price of a video game to $70. Right. Where people are freaking out because a new console might release at $600. Mm-hmm. And here's the thing is that audience is amazingly huge compared to the pinball audience. It is, and it's arguably always been more egalitarian on that side, but also I need to point out, like, I remember a time where I could buy a working EM for $600 or less, price of a console. So there are people who remember the hobby being like that, and they're priced out now. And they were always going to be priced out. Some of them would have always been priced out in new and box pricing, but it's just – it's a lot. And obviously the companies have to make money, and so we know a portion of it is profit. And it's hard to really trust because they're not publicly traded. It's hard to trust exactly how much of this is profit and how much of this is truly inflation in action. Right. And I also – this is going to be a kind of out there tangent thing. I wonder how much of this has also been driven by that we've seen so much since the pandemic, the move away from stuff to experiences. Because I know plenty of people that if they had $10,000 and their choice was to take a trip with their friends or family or to buy a pinball machine. they're going to take the trip because they're going to want the experiences over the tangible physical item. So I think that could be a part of it as well, is just seeing a shift in how people are. And let's face it, a pinball machine takes up a lot of space, and a lot of people don't have the space for more than a machine, maybe two. F that. So, yeah, actually, I think the trough that you described at the start of this third portion of our pinball section is probably driven more by that, by those things than the price itself. The price itself is an issue for the long term people that were buying and now they can't buy as much because the resale value is going down and the price has gone up. And so the risk is higher and higher and higher. but yeah i think like that that whole here huge surge that we saw in 2021 2022 that's people stuck at home yeah and now their homes are full of games like however many they were going to get one two three they're full and they don't want to go around selling them like they loved what they bought or they don't know how to sell them and they don't want to deal with it or they're happy with things as they are and they want to go on trips again that's what they did before the pandemic and now they're going to do trips again they're not going to it doesn't matter if the game was 7 000 or 5 000 they're not going to buy it anymore they're done with pinball and that like they'll always be fans but like they're done with acquisition right so so yeah i think i i actually that's truly the majority of why the sales are down now like foo fires was the last big hurrah i don't know how well jaws sold that it would not shock me to find out that jaws ends up being sold less than Godzilla and Jurassic Park. Oh, I believe that. And maybe even Avengers. But I don't know. I don't know. So anyway, that's all I... These are just thoughts for the listeners to think about. Feel free to share yours with us, emailing us at clicktogamerspodcast.gmail.com. But I want to go ahead and let's move us into the video game section because we've been like an hour on this pinball thing. I do want to open with an email that we got from Sean L. Thank you for emailing, Sean. He actually has a bit of a pinball thing and a bit of a video game thing, but I think the video game thing is the one that's more relevant for our discussion, so I put it in this section. So here's what Sean wrote. One, I have to say, I was a bit shocked that you didn't have a category for board games. Incidentally, he's referring back to when we were talking about our let's name three movies to do as pinball themes. Yeah, we didn't do board games. Didn't have a category for board games. As I understand, part of your podcast used to include a board game section before I started listening, so I could be wrong. You're not wrong. I would think there would be many, but Risk and Settlers of Catan could work very well. Two, I've never asked a question regarding video games before, but here goes. I grew up with the Atari 2600, and the joysticks were set up with the fire action button on the left side, but most modern consoles have the majority of the main buttons on the right side. even 40 years later i prefer the button on the left any idea why it changed sean thank you for emailing sean we do appreciate it um no uh i just didn't think of the category for board games when i did the pinball so i just didn't put it in our bull i made a bullet list in our eternal notes and tony was just responding to the bullets that i made as i was i so i just i've had like six things in there i thought that was enough and i quit thinking yeah that's the only reason there uh Joystick, do you have any knowledge on why that would be? Do I have knowledge? No, I have a guess. Okay. I tried to research this. I actually spent time on this when I was at my work trip. So I want to hear your guess because I don't have an answer either. Mine is basically a guess as well. My guess is it has to do with the majority of the population is right-handed. The majority of the population is right-hand or more dexterous. And thus with the buttons, they'll be moving them more than a control pad where it's just your thumb sitting on one spot and just shifting your thumb around. Yep, that was the online general consensus I could find from the research. That was my guess as well. So, yeah, it's more about the handedness of the player. And now that there are multiple buttons, it matters. Yeah. So, all right. Well, again, thanks, Sean. We do appreciate it. Tony, we've got the bleak blackness of the dark side of pinball is done, and now we have the bleak blackness of the dark side of video games. So let's see. Who hasn't pissed off? Sony's pissed people off. Microsoft's pissed people off. Steam has pissed people off. and Twitch is pissed off. I don't know what order you want to go in. Welcome to the Eclectic Emo Podcast. This might be the Eclectic Ragers Podcast. Erp. Welcome to the Eclectic Ragers Podcast. Okay. What does he do to Twitch, man? Tell us what the mouse do to their house. It wasn't the mouse, but Twitch Twitch's number one subscriber thing for years now has been Critical Role. That's been their biggest by far. Several years ago when the leak of Twitch internals happened, Critical Role was their number one moneymaker by a lot. Like double or triple the number two. Well Critical Role has decided that they tired of dealing with middlemen when it comes to being paid for their stuff uh so they have created their own channel their own website their own streaming service so they're doing their own streaming service they're gonna make a lot more money doing that They are because, I mean, Twitch takes more than half. So the big thing is that it is slightly more expensive than a Twitch subscription. It's a dollar more. But you get all the same stuff you would on Twitch plus all sorts of extras. There's new shows. There's a Discord. There's discounts in their stores. There's early access to tickets for live events. And the big thing here is that their main shows are going to remain to be free on Twitch and YouTube like they have been for their entire run. But now you can directly support Critical Role. So all of those Twitch subs, those $4.99 Twitch subs, can now go to a $5.99 sub directly to Critical Role, which means they get 100% of that money instead of just the smaller amount of that money. And they're bringing a bunch of new shows out, including what I think is just a great idea because you've played role-playing games. You've played role-playing games before. And when you end the session, everybody just gets up and goes home and doesn't talk, and you don't just sit there and emote for a while about everything that's happened. They just leave. Exactly. So they literally have a new show that is just, okay, the session has ended, but we're just going to keep the cameras rolling, and then all of their discussions and emoting is a new show. uh their other big things is they've been getting demonetized a lot because of language and because you know the show has violence and stuff in it uh so that's reduced what they've made on like youtube and such so that's another reason they've gone that route uh i think i've not heard any formal announcements from like twitch or anything about this but i don't see a way any way shape or This does not harm Twitch in a large way. It's just too big of a subscriber base to see shift. The question, I think, is going to be how many people are subscribed with a Prime subscription as opposed to people who actually pay for it. And maybe that's why they're doing the extra dollar because they're factoring in that they're probably going to lose a lot of the Prime subs. Could be. Hard to say. Well, I mean, I guess they'll find out pretty soon. Yeah. I don't think they have to worry. Yeah, probably not. Yeah, at all. So, Steam pissed off a country. A whole country? An entire country. Wow. Somehow. I mean, there's no official word, but every single ISP in the country of Vietnam has now blocked Steam in all of its form from being accessed within Vietnam. Okay. There has been some discussion that the local game developers have been complaining to the government that they can't compete with Steam, all the games on Steam, because A, their games are developed and have to be given and approved by the government, while Steam could bring in anything from anywhere else in the world without governmental approval. So, and now Steam is gone in Vietnam. Bye-bye Steam. so I'm sure that does pretty much nothing to Steam's bottom line because it's Vietnam. Yeah, I don't imagine it's a huge share of their portfolio. But it is an interesting – the fact that there's been no announcements and it just kind of happened is what is interesting. A lot of the reporting coming out of Vietnam is from people who are, like, using VPNs to get around the blogs. So Sony, as we've talked about and plenty of other people have talked about, did the wonderful let's make an announcement on Friday afternoon and then we're going to go home for the weekend. Weekends. When they made the announcement that beginning at the end of May, everybody on PC was going to have to have a PSN account to have access to Helldivers 2. The hit game, Helldivers 2, that everyone loves? Yes, the massively hit game, Helldivers 2, that is so huge on PC in addition to being huge on PlayStation. I bet those PC players love having to have their PSN account. Oh, yeah, they love every bit of it. Oh, the review bombing was bad. It went from one of the highest rated games to it just plummeted. 10,000 plus downvotes. It just completely fell apart. And what's interesting is the PSN requirement was mentioned when you bought the game, but it wasn't a requirement originally because of technical issues. It wasn't working initially, so they let people not have it, and they finally fixed it. And then they announced, oh, by the way, you just have to do this, no big deal. So there are a large number of countries where PSN is not available either for whatever reason, whether it's illegal in the country or Sony just doesn't have the rights to do it or what. There's like 177 countries where PSN is not even a choice. so they started rolling uh people started requesting refunds because obviously when that went active they would no longer have access to this game uh interestingly enough this isn't the only game affected by this psn thing the director's cut of ghost of tushima also requires you to sign into PSN. And unlike Sony backpedaling hard and saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're sorry. You don't need that anymore. We made a mistake on Helldivers 2. They haven't done that on the Director's Cut of Ghost of Tsushima to the point where all the people who had purchased that game who lived in those 177 countries have been refunded the cost of that game. Okay. Interesting. because that game has not actually been released yet. The director's cut's not out yet. Well, it's probably easier at that point to justify the refund then. Okay. Huh. When they walked back the requirement, Sony stated that they are still learning what is best for PC players. I'm a bit surprised Sony walked it back. I'm not a fan of people review bombing games like this. I don't like that either. It's a big change, so I don't approve of that. I mean, I think Sony think this was a smart play on their part, especially given how well Helldivers has been doing. Right. I mean, I think them stepping it back was smart. I find it surprising that they were surprised by the outrage. Yeah. Maybe it's just they're not familiar enough with the PC market, really. It could be because Xbox has been deep in the PC market for years, But Sony has always treated the PC market as that other thing. Yeah, sort of tangential. But still, we've seen this happen with so many things. It wouldn't take a lot of observation to go, hey, you know, this might – my guess is they probably are like, well, we always said this was going to be a requirement. So they just kind of are like, well, but everyone knows, right? Right. I mean I signed in with my PSN account. But I honestly – But you already had one. Right. A lot of PC players probably don't have PSN accounts. so but you know microsoft and xbox they don't always do the right thing tony yeah that's true at least not in the view of fans that's definitely true uh and that's where we're going next because xbox has shut down arcane austin tango gameworks and alpha dog that are all Bethesda Studios companies. They also merged Roundhouse Studios with ZeniMax Online Studios. Yeah, so they're going to be supporting one of those. I can't remember which online. Elder Scrolls Online. Yeah, there we go. Elder Scrolls. That's right. Oh, yeah, Bethesda. Yeah. I should have known. But like Arcane Austin made the Dishonored games in Redfall. Well, Redfall crashed so hard. That one's not necessarily. That surprised me. But the Dishonored games did very well. They did. I played both of them. So, yeah, they were all right. I didn't love them, but obviously they were good enough that I played both. Right. It's been a while since they were out, too. I think this is more just a side effect of Redfall in their case. In their case, yeah. The one that surprises me the most out of this was Tango Gameworks. That was my favorite. Because they did Hi-Fi Rush and The Evil Within. And I loved Evil Within. I do highly – if you've never played them and you like survival horror, I definitely recommend them. The first one is better than the second, but they're both good. And Hi-Fi Rush has been – Yeah, that's the thing. I was going to say Tango has been getting a lot of praise for Hi-Fi Rush. I know it didn't do as – like it wasn't like a massive sales record hit, but it's very critically acclaimed. And there's been some weird messaging I've seen where people like Microsoft execs saying we need more things that are critically well-received and win awards like Hi-Fi Rush. It's like, but you closed the studio. Right. Literally, that's had it out there like two days after that. That doesn't compute for me. It doesn't compute. So I think I personally think that this decision on Tango Gameworks is incredibly short-sighted. But anyway, go on. I'll judge this all later. Oh, yeah. I have thoughts. Yeah. No, I mean, you're right, because they did it. They had executives who said that, and it makes no sense. It's like this is exactly the kind of thing people want. AlphaDog did Doom roguelike on phones. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. whatever so i think the big interesting thing is going to be just how bad the layoffs are going to end up being totaled out because in addition to all of these they're also reducing head counts in other uh sections of bethesda yeah yeah no it's it's probably really bad i mean you noted the roundhouse being merged with xenomax and there was one other i think closure where part of the team was going to be put on Starfield DLC, but I'm assuming everything else is a termination, which is a lot. So this, it's like, well, I buy all these studios and then start shutting this stuff down. And I know they, I think they've made some comments related to that regarding what they're trying to achieve. But I'll just note, I guess my short summary is, this feels very much like, especially now that they've bought Activision, that Microsoft execs are like, all right, Xbox, we expect you to step up and start performing more like other Microsoft stuff. And so daddy is taking control now and not letting everything just be an Xbox. This is like, they're running it through. Like it's big enough now. They have so much money in Xbox stuff, including all these studios that corporate is intervening. And I worry that this is going to, this is going to hurt the creativity. But on the flip side, Xbox has struggled mightily with putting out very you know titles that they get a lot of credit for being successful so i could also start to see why microsoft thinks this is uh why they need to step in but the slash and burn tactic feels very embracer and i don't like it it does feel very embracer i think i think it's a symptom of a much deeper problem not just at xbox yeah no the game industry in the game industry in It's like when we were talking about pinball and all the pandemic buys. Well, when people were stuck at home, what'd they do? They played video games. Now they're going on trips. Right. And I think a lot of it comes right down to the fact that companies don't believe that they're successful. Their shareholders don't believe they're successful unless they make even more than they did the year before. They have to grow. They have to grow. Always must grow to the moon. Just keep growing. Never going to stop. but there's no need for anything other than try. I mean, yes, it makes more money and that's what they want to do is make more money and make more money and make more money, but they're destroying their fan base. They're getting to a, they're going to eventually get to a point where their fan base is going to start going away just because, Oh, this game was really good. Too bad. Everybody's been fired because as soon as the game was released, Oh, I really like this. I like the type of games this studio puts out, but if they're not super popular, they're going to go away and those games will vanish. It's one of those things that I feel like this ever-searching need to grow as opposed to just stay profitable. I mean, we're seeing companies that are announcing, we made record profits this year, but we expected that we would have made a million dollars more than we actually did. So we're firing 5,000 people has become the norm over the last several years. And I think that is a problem with the industry. I think that's a massive problem with the industry. How do you show record profits that immediately say, but they weren't as good as we wanted, so we're going to fire a bunch of people? Well, I'd say that's what the service to the shareholders. I mean, I checked this morning. My Microsoft stock is doing great. I'm sure it is. So it's – I mean it's like you grow. They do stock buybacks to drive – it's all because it's not just about – I guess for a lot of these companies, it's not about giving people dividend payments. It's, hey, I bought this thing at $20 a share. I want it to be at $40 a share. So how quick is it going to be for you to get me there? And so every – like, well, we made money, but we didn't make enough. so we got to drop expenses so we make more money on paper or they get cash reserves and you know it's and we know it's not just video games boeing has been notorious for this and the criticism of their quality control and they've been spending the last two decades doing stock buybacks because less stocks that's out there the more valuable all the other stock is so it's an easy way to drive up shareholder value right but this isn't the economic gamers podcast which would also be egp so we could be that we could do that but anyway oh that'd be a good that'd be yeah that's That's the whole thing going on with the video game industry. But this was a sign for, I think, a lot of the people that worked at studios that Microsoft picked up that. Just because Microsoft, with all its largesse, picked you up does not mean you're safe. Right. And it's not even that you're not safe if you do a bad job. Hi-Fi Rush is plenty proof of that. It is. I mean, at least they have the excuse when they did the layoffs after the Activision pickup is, oh, we're laying off redundant positions. Sure. I wasn't surprised at that. But we've been seeing so many layoffs. I mean, we've joked about Embracer Group so many episodes now. I mean, but the whole industry, this is hitting all facets of it. Yeah, the sheer number of layoffs across the gaming industry is, it's insane. Maybe Square will hire them. I don't think so. Because Square has announced a loss for their fiscal year of $140 million. But they had that new Final Fantasy come out. And the sales were soft. Really? Wow. Yes. All of the online reporting, their sales are soft. But that is, that again, just like so much we've talked about, has the caveat, the first one came out during the pandemic. There's nothing else to play. So now that the follow-up has come out, well, it's not the pandemic anymore. So sales are obviously going to be lower. but sales have been soft on it. But they have canceled, abandoned a slew of in-development projects. They have not announced what they were. They just announced that they are reorganizing and retargeting what they're working on, and they've gotten rid of a whole bunch of projects that have resulted in a $140 million loss, which they've only had two games come out this year the the foam stars and the new final fantasy okay which is just you know the super fancy remake of an old final yes well maybe they dropped all that stupid block train crap that's kind of what i hope i'm hoping they finally just quietly realized you know what this is a this is the stupid block train thing thing is we need to get out of this now just take the loss uh now i am going to finish on a high note yay i i found i just had to i had to find a couple things of good hades 2 has entered early access i'm not going to play early access i'm going to wait for the game to wait but i did watch one of the streamers i follow uh his very first playthrough when he started up and went in and it looks good. I loved Hades. And he said it plays just as snappy and responsive as Hades. It feels just as fun as Hades with new mechanics, with some new mechanics and some different things. Okay. So that's good. It looks real clean. I really liked it. I'll wait for it to fully release then. And going back to Xbox decisions that have been made recently, it looks like their opening and release of several games on PlayStation is working out fairly well for them. Sea of Thieves became the third most downloaded game on PlayStation in the U.S. in April, behind Helldivers 2 and Stellar Blade. In Europe, it was the first most downloaded game. Wow, I didn't know it was so popular. And Europe's numbers are weird because Europe's numbers were Sea of Thieves followed by Fallout 76 followed by Helldivers. Okay. Wow, the show. Yeah. It's like Amazon's most successful original series ever is Fallout. Yeah. No, it's been huge. Stuff's everywhere. It's so huge. Even Todd Howard's going out there now being like, yeah, we really do want to make more Fallout games faster. You think? Yeah. You think Big Daddy Microsoft is kind of like, where's the game that we can now use to – I even downloaded it because it's free with Prime's Fallout 76. Right. I haven't played it yet, but I saw like New Vegas set a new Steam record of most concurrent players or something because, I mean, people hunger. And Fallout 4 did the same thing. It set a new most concurrent players. People hunger. People want it. That was a thing on Hades 2. It had over 100,000 concurrent players on the day they released into early access. That's more concurrent players on Hades 2 than Hades ever had. Hades' highest concurrent player on Steam was 34,000. But Hades was released for an extended period of time on the Epic Game Store before it came to Steam. Yeah, that would affect the PC market quite a bit. Okay. But that's where we stand. That's okay. So there was some good news. There's some good stuff. Mostly darkness. Mostly darkness. That is the world we're in is darkness. Well, if you want to share your darkness with us, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. We're also at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. If you want to join forces with the power of the mouse and do basic support, you can do so at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We're also available on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And don't forget, we do have a Discord that the link for is in the show notes. You'll get it in the show notes. And you can join us on our Discord where we type chat all about all these things and other things. We have all sorts of wide-ranging discussions in the Discord. And weird meme pictures. Yes. But until two weeks from now, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. Bye.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 455285f8-6083-493c-8000-f0e20929c7bf*