# Episode 28: Is Pinball Evolving or Dying w/ Jamie from Wormhole Pinball! **Source:** The Flipside Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2025-03-29 **Duration:** 100m 18s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** c94eb67a-672b-45b7-8dcb-9047130ff093 --- ## Analysis Jamie from Wormhole Pinball discusses his entry into the pinball hobby through friend Tim, the creation and evolution of Wormhole Pinball from a private insurance building into a public tournament venue and streaming hub, and plans for future public access. The conversation covers Wormhole's philosophy of rotating machines through its collection, the vault system for restoration, and community impact. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Wormhole Pinball started in October 2020 in a former $39 insurance building as a private hangout during COVID lockdown — _Jamie describes the origin story directly; building was gutted and machines moved in by October 1, 2020_ - [HIGH] A transformer blew at 82 Bar downtown in 2021, displacing 40 league players, leading Tim and John to invite them to Wormhole, transforming it into a public venue — _Jamie narrates the specific incident that changed Wormhole's trajectory from private to public_ - [HIGH] Wormhole has 23 pinball machines in approximately 1,400 square feet — _Jamie states this directly during venue description_ - [HIGH] Wormhole has hosted 87 Monday night game streams with 10-12 people, $2 entry fee, featuring different machines each time — _Jamie provides specific number; this is an operational metric_ - [HIGH] Tim Hood owns approximately 250 pinball machines total — _Jamie states Tim has 250 machines; earlier mentions Tim started with 2 in 2015 and quickly grew to 20_ - [HIGH] Jamie started playing pinball in 2018 after Tim showed him Metallica with a specific teaching moment about game strategy — _Jamie provides detailed origin story: Tim said 'there's a method to this madness' while playing Metallica_ - [HIGH] Future Wormhole plans include one to two public open days per month at $20 entry with food service, potentially expanding to two-three days weekly — _Jamie explicitly states future plans being discussed_ - [MEDIUM] Houston has expanded from two pinball tournament venues with two tournaments monthly in 2015 to five tournaments weekly currently — _Jamie mentions growth trajectory but specificity on current count is conversational rather than verified data_ ### Notable Quotes > "There's a method to this madness. It's not just keeping the ball alive and just doing this crap... hit sparky trap up boom boom." > — **Tim (as recounted by Jamie)**, ~14:30 > _The pivotal teaching moment that sparked Jamie's understanding of pinball as a skill-based game with learnable strategy_ > "I just kept calling it a suck hole. Wormhole sounds better than suck hole." > — **Jamie**, ~24:15 > _Reveals the humorous origin of Wormhole's name; Tim rebranded Jamie's casual descriptor_ > "I lived at the wormhole. I would get here like at 3 in the afternoon, and then at 2 in the morning I would be driving home." > — **Jamie**, ~20:00 > _Demonstrates Jamie's deep commitment during COVID era establishment of the venue_ > "Tim would have been a really good cult leader... he'd be the greatest pinball cult leader of all time." > — **Jamie**, ~10:00 > _Characterizes Tim's persuasive, passion-driven personality as instrumental to bringing people into pinball_ > "A game cannot leave the wormhole unless it's been streamed on one of our game stream nights." > — **Jamie**, ~47:30 > _Core operational philosophy: all machines are documented and showcased before rotation_ > "Think about the Wormhole as really our first iteration of a museum that we want to build." > — **Jamie**, ~30:00 > _Positions Wormhole as part of a larger vision beyond a casual venue—as archival and exhibition space_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Jamie | person | Co-host/operator of Wormhole Pinball, content creator, face of the venue, podcast host, tournament emcee | | Retro Ralph | person | Host of Flipside Pinball Podcast, pinball content creator, conducted this interview | | Tim Hood | person | Co-owner of Wormhole Pinball, major pinball collector (~250 machines), original pinball enthusiast who introduced Jamie, artist and designer of venue aesthetics | | Christine Hood | person | Co-owner of Wormhole Pinball with Tim, long-time friend of Jamie | | John Spates | person | Co-operator of Wormhole Pinball, friend of Jamie and Tim, involved in early community outreach that led to public opening | | Kale | person | Co-owner of Electric Bat Arcade in Tempe, Arizona; podcaster; connection point where Jamie first met Retro Ralph at Pinball Expo | | Rachel | person | Co-owner of Electric Bat Arcade in Tempe, Arizona; podcaster; connection point where Jamie first met Retro Ralph at Pinball Expo | | Wormhole Pinball | company | Pinball arcade venue in Houston (Shepherd Street), tournament host, streaming venue, machine rotation/rotation system, private collection exhibition space | | Electric Bat Arcade | company | Pinball arcade venue in Tempe, Arizona operated by Kale and Rachel; frequently discussed and respected in community | | The Vault | venue | Secondary facility where Tim stores and restores pinball machines before they move to Wormhole; functions as restoration and acquisition hub | | Flipside Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Retro Ralph; aims to be accessible to new hobbyists rather than existing experts only | | Twippies | event | Awards event hosted at Wormhole, attended by Retro Ralph, Jamie, Aaron, and Ian; community celebration | | Pinball Expo | event | Annual pinball industry gathering where Jamie and Retro Ralph met (through Kale and Rachel) | | 82 Bar | venue | Downtown Houston bar that hosted pinball league; transformer failure in 2021 led to relocation of 40 players to Wormhole | | Josh Sharp | person | IFPA decision-maker who initially withheld WPPR points from Wormhole during COVID due to venue name and safety concerns | | Metallica | game | Pinball machine that Jamie played during his awakening moment learning about game strategy; pivotal in his onboarding | | World Cup Soccer | game | Pinball machine Jamie's first IFPA tournament entry; only machine he owns (lets friends borrow it) | | Whitewater | game | Early pinball machine Tim Hood acquired (along with Fishtales) around 2015 | | Fishtales | game | Early pinball machine Tim Hood acquired (along with Whitewater) around 2015; described by Jamie as 'a nut rash' | | Magic Girl | game | Rare vintage pinball machine displayed at Wormhole; example of Tim's collection aesthetics | | IFPA | organization | International Flipper Pinball Association; governs tournament sanctioning and WPPR points; Josh Sharp is decision-maker mentioned | ### Topics - **Primary:** Wormhole Pinball origin and evolution, Jamie's entry into pinball hobby, Wormhole's operational philosophy and machine rotation system, Tim Hood's role as collector and curator - **Secondary:** Future expansion and public access plans for Wormhole, Streaming and content creation at Wormhole, Houston pinball community growth - **Mentioned:** Pinball as skill-based game with learnable strategy ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.88) — Jamie expresses deep affection for pinball community, genuine appreciation for Tim's mentorship, enthusiasm about Wormhole's evolution, and pride in the venue's quality. Retro Ralph is encouraging and enthusiastic. No negative sentiment detected. Tone is celebratory of community growth and venue achievements. ### Signals - **[venue_signal]** Wormhole Pinball planning transition from private tournament/streaming venue to public-access destination with planned open days at $20 entry fee, food service, potential catering license, and expansion to 2-3 days weekly (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'I think all of the above are being discussed right now... maybe one or two days a month open, $20 at the door, come on in, sell you some sandwiches, maybe get a catering license. And then eventually moved to two to three days a week.' - **[venue_signal]** Wormhole operates systematic machine rotation policy requiring all games to be streamed before removal; 87 game stream events conducted to date with 10-12 participants (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'A game cannot leave the wormhole unless it's been streamed on one of our game stream nights... we've done this 87 times, 87 different machines, Monday night game streams.' - **[content_signal]** Wormhole has developed technically advanced Twitch streaming setup for pinball tournaments; acknowledged as among the best pinball streams available (confidence: high) — Jamie and Retro Ralph discuss streaming quality evolution: 'It was absolute garbage... We learned... I think, honestly, we have technically one of the best streams out there.' - **[community_signal]** Wormhole Pinball functions as more than arcade venue—positioned as museum/collection exhibition space and community gathering point with exclusive aesthetic and carefully curated environment (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'Think about the Wormhole as really our first iteration of a museum that we want to build.' Retro Ralph notes exclusive club atmosphere with high-quality design throughout venue. - **[design_philosophy]** Tim Hood applies artist vision to Wormhole's physical design; strategic decoration with vintage signs, back glasses, collectibles, and attention to detail creates museum-like environment from building interior to bathrooms (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'Tim is a collector... He collects signs... He collected things, right?... little by little, some of his other collections started coming in.' Retro Ralph notes bathrooms and rugs are 'cool,' everything 'designed with vision.' - **[event_signal]** Wormhole Pinball hosts major community events including Twippies awards show, tournament series, and regular game stream nights; serves as central hub for Houston pinball community (confidence: high) — Multiple references to hosting Twippies, running tournaments multiple times monthly, and streaming events - **[personnel_signal]** Jamie emerged as de facto public face and media voice of Wormhole Pinball through podcast hosting, tournament emceeing, and content creation despite being one of five co-operators (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'I kind of raised my hand pretty early on... because I know Tim and Christine... they knew that I've always wanted to do podcasts.' Retro Ralph: 'you're pretty big in it and you're the face of the wormhole.' - **[business_signal]** Wormhole Pinball's creation in October 2020 enabled by COVID lockdown circumstance and PPP small business funding; Jamie's IT staffing company had minimal operations allowing him to invest time in venue (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'There's no IT staffing going on in 2020... PPP funds... that just kept me alive. And so I lived at the wormhole.' - **[community_signal]** Houston pinball community experienced rapid expansion from 2 venues with 2 tournaments monthly (~2015) to 5 tournaments weekly (current); attributed to community enthusiasm and venue development (confidence: medium) — Jamie: 'In Houston we had really just one play there were two places that you could play... there were two tournaments a month... now we've got five a week.' - **[historical_signal]** Wormhole Pinball originated unexpectedly in October 2020 from private COVID-era hangout in former insurance building; public pivot triggered by external event (82 Bar transformer failure in 2021) displacing 40 league players (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'We had no aspirations for anything else but just our own private club... a transformer blows at this bar called 82 Bar... John looks at me and he nods his head... And John invites these 40 people to the wormhole.' - **[design_philosophy]** Tim Hood's approach to pinball introduction emphasizes teaching strategic depth rather than casual play; positions pinball as learnable skill with meaningful progression and rewards (confidence: high) — Jamie recounts Tim's teaching moment: 'He stands next to me, and he goes, dude, there's a method to this. There's a madness... hit sparky trap up boom boom and i went what... there's something I can do here which makes me feel like good about myself.' --- ## Transcript Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Flipside Podcast. I'm your host Retro Ralph and Jamie is my guest today. He just left. He doesn't even know I'm starting the show. I just started. I'm just trying to make him as stressed out as possible for this show. So anyways, hit record. Yeah, we're here. We're live. We're going to do this. And this is like probably the second time I've had a guest on the flip side. It's not much of a guest person, but this is my buddy, Jamie, and I just had to have him on because he's such an interesting guy. You know, so I'm going to kill the music. Jamie, I'm sorry I did this to you, but I just felt like I felt like we were just going to get it started. We were pussyfooting around too much. I said I just needed one Diet Coke. I needed one Diet Coke to get going and started the intro. Jamie, how did you let's start by just how did you get addicted to Diet Coke? Can I just ask that really quick? Even though we've got much more to talk about, but when did this addiction start? I think it was about 10 years ago. I started really needing caffeine in an excessive amount of caffeine. And then I looked at the back of a Coca-Cola can and saw this 1,000 calories that I would be drinking in a day. And I like the fact that it says zero right there. And they're delicious. That's why, Ralph. Why would I not want to drink something delicious? Okay, I'm not going to judge, but the fact that I'm just – I'm not that great at math, but you said 1,000 calories. That would imply you drink like maybe 10 of these things a day. Is that accurate? Yeah, so we stacked up a couple days ago just to see what we were at, right? Because I'm – the biggest fear of my day is running out of Diet Cokes before 10 p.m. Okay. Because I have my last Diet Coke around 9 or 10 at night. Holy shit, man. Okay. So I'm rocking 8 to 10 Diet Cokes a day. Jeez. Okay. All right. This is another problem. I sprinkled in some water occasionally. We're going to have to talk offline about this. I mean, hey, I'm not much better. I do the energy drink thing. People have been watching the channel for a while, probably know. If I do die, it's probably going to be from – See, like I just do one drink that probably has the equivalent of like six of your Diet Coke. So but I'm not I'm not condoning your behavior or mine. It's terrible. But anyway, so I'm pretty excited. I'm so sad. I'm so pumped. I was nervous to be on this podcast. I don't know why. I literally talked to this dude, I don't know, three or four times a week. Yeah. And and here's the thing. You host you do something that would stress me out and it would be very stressful for me. You have you actually have to emcee and announce pinball tournaments and keep people entertained for hours. So, like, yeah, I can talk for a good hour or two. But that's a big that's that's not an easy undertaking. So the fact that you were even remotely stressed out makes no sense. But anyway, you know, you're retro, Ralph. Oh, God. OK. All right. We're just going to start the show before he says it. It makes me feel a certain kind of way. All right, so Jamie, these are things that my audience should know who you are because we hosted the Twippies together with me, you, Aaron, and Ian. So they should know. But if they don't know, you've become a friend of mine through a very interesting circumstance. I want to tell – I want you to explain how we became friends first because then I'll give you my recollection of it. Not anything too – yeah, because how did we actually become friends? So I think, well, we first met at Expo, and I weaseled my way. I was the third wheel to Rachel and Kale all weekend at Expo. Dude, third wheel of Rachel and Kale the whole time. Okay. That poor couple, right? I just globbed onto them. Was that the first time you had actually hung out with them in person? Yeah. Oh, wow. So last year's Expo was the first time you hung out with Kale and Rachel? Yes. Okay. You know, we had talked and chatted and IM'd and such, but nothing to the extent of what we did at Expo. And I had an absolute ball. And so I came on your podcast. I'm like, who is this guy? He's got an intern. He's got his own. Mason, my intern. You're talking about Mason. I'm like, this guy is really special, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know. He's making waves, Retro Ralph. And I went on your podcast. And the problem was you had Rachel Kale and then me and you. And I didn't really know you. It wasn't vibing as much. That's on me. I blame my ability on that one. And then I think we just started talking, right? I started, like, going, I really like this Ralph, dude. I'm going to glob on him for a little bit. Okay, well, here's the thing. Okay, for those of you who don't know Kale and Rachel, you should know. I talk about them many, many times. We've had Kale on the show. They're the owners of Electric Bat. So they're they're they're operators of a pinball arcade called Electric Bat in Tempe, Arizona. So my version of the story is that Kale and Rachel were late for the podcast recording. So it really was just like me. Well, they're divas. They're divas. So I was like, OK, I hope this guy's cool. I was like, he's got a New York hat on. that's that he's already like doing pretty good in my book he's probably an east coast guy so i'm probably gonna get along with him uh because of that so but yeah i was just like all right i gotta make small talk with you i did know who you who you are because of wormhole but the thing is like i had never met you so i was like oh wow i hope this guy's cool so we were just making small talk and it didn't seem uncomfortable it kind of seemed natural and i was like oh this guy's a cool dude and then it kind of yeah it took off from there and we just became friends but all right so jamie I know I've actually never asked you this question, so I think this would be interesting for a lot of people. But like you're pretty big in it and you're pretty deep down the rabbit hole of pinball, I'd say. I mean, you you you you I don't want to say you work at the wormhole. Is that even accurate to say? I mean, I feel like you're the face of the wormhole. Right. I think that's fair. Right. And there's five of us that run the wormhole. wormhole and one of us had to do social media and be the face and I kind of raised my hand pretty early on uh because I know Tim and Christine my wife and John we've been friends for a pretty long time and they knew that I've always wanted to do podcasts and I wanted to be on the radio Ralph you have a radio voice I mean you really do yeah but I fidget right so that's It's perfect for me not to be on camera, so a radio would be perfect for me because I fidget all the damn time. And I wanted to be Howard Stern. That's one of our favorite – we love – both of us really like Howard, especially the Howard of the night. Hit him with the hind. Hit him with the hind. Love Howard, yeah. I wanted to be Howard Stern when I was a kid growing up in Long Island. All right. So now you're – so right now that's your current gig is you – obviously you have a day job. But you're kind of on the face of the wormhole. You're hosting tournaments. You're hosting events and things like that. We hosted the Twippies there this past year. But the thing I never asked you about is, like, where did – because obviously you're, like, deep in it now. But how did it start? Like, where did pinball start for you? Is there some, like, moment you can go back to that's like, okay, that's where I got into pinball? So I coached Tim's kids. In what sport? In soccer. Soccer. When they were little, right? And we were Celtic. And because I love Glasgow Celtic, don't worry about it. And I coached his kids and I was always very good friends with Tim and Christine. And we grew up in the suburbs of Houston together. And Tim started getting into pinball, back into pinball. He played in college. His first machine was a whitewater and fishtails. And what year? Like, when is this? Like, what year? 2015. Oh, I didn't realize it was that recent. OK. I mean, bring me over. He'd bring me over, I'd play it, and I just didn't get it. I was like, I can't do anything. This sucks. Fishtails is a nut rash. I can't do anything. Forget it. So you didn't enjoy this experience? I didn't enjoy this at all, right? And I was just like, come on, let's do something else. And then little by little, he starts breaking me down every time he starts buying more pins. So he goes from two to 20 pretty quickly. Oh, wow, okay. And where are these then? Are these in his house? They're in his house in a garage. He set up his garage in Pearland, and then he moved to Houston and set up a nice big garage with about 20 pins. And I went over there in about 2018, and I was playing Metallica. And I love Metallica, and I'm playing this game, and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. He sits next to me. He stands next to me, and he goes, dude, there's a method to this. There's a madness. it's not just keeping the ball alive and just doing this crap yeah hit sparky trap up boom boom and i went what right because you had that moment right like oh my gosh there's something i can do here which makes me feel like good about myself as you're going as you're going through the game right like usually like i got sparky multiball maybe it was ball two right and i was just like holy cow because as a gamer i was a gamer all as a kid from yeah you played you played video games i played constant video games and so for me all of a sudden this light bulb clicked of wow this is a video game with skill and that's what got me hooked and then 2019 he he invites me in a league he goes come and watch these guys play league and there were 40 people at a bar downtown called joysticks okay that was it so he went deep then because if he started his buying his first game in 15 then he was he already like did he get so into it he just started doing leagues and every league night and everything in houston wasn't what it was today they were really just one play there were two places that you could play uh that had league thing that had tournaments there were two tournaments a month and then league and that was it now we've got five a week so it's just exploded in houston but yeah he brought me to league and i met this guy tandy who wore the suit at the uh at the twippies and i'm like this is a good dude i can hang out with this guy and i just started meeting all these people and that was that i was hooked on the competitive side i was a golfer playing a ton of golf. Do you still? No, the clubs are in storage. I got some PXGs if anybody wants to buy them that are pretty solid. So you've basically replaced, like that replaced, when this happened in 2015, was it like instantaneous that this replaced golf? No, it took like four years of him just keep breaking me down. Like I've always said Tim would have been a really good cult leader. I think I would have totally drank. I could see that, by the way. No offense, Tim, but I could see that. No, no, no, no, right? Like, that's my joke is that he'd be the greatest pinball cult leader of all time. And we would all just bow and drink the Kool-Aid and have some fun. So I can see that, Jamie, because when we were at and we're going to get to the vault, too. But but when we were at the vault, which if you watched my Twitter video, you'd see we went to the vault and we'll explain what the vault is and all that stuff in a second. But when he opened up this crate and he was showing me all this stuff, his eyes changed. He got like he's like, do you realize what's in this? Those were 80 Geiger kits that you were watching that were unboxed, untouched. Yeah, he was so stoked at that. And his, like, here's the thing. Like you said to Colt Leader, when someone is, like, really passionate or excited about something, it's really easy for me, at least. I'm one of those people that I feed off other people's passions. And he was just, like, he was telling all the details. And he was showing this one play field that had, like, RoboCop, Starsky, and Hutch. It had all these, like. It had Dragnet. It had Dragnet. It's like a police force baloney. Who knows what it is? But just a total ripoff of American cop culture. Yeah, and I'm like, well, what do you think their philosophy was when they made this? He's like, I don't know. They probably were like, hey, what are a bunch of cop figures in the United States? Let's just throw them all on here and make a cop pin. So it was really funny. But anyways, I love the story you shared for this reason. I do think that when I started this podcast, I really wanted it to be something that someone that was newer to the hobby would feel comfortable listening to, only because I was listening to podcasts, and it was all like you had to know all the 101 and 201 stuff first. Right. And I felt like that was intimidating to me. So when you tell that story about he's I love that he told you like, hey, look, it's not about just like flailing your flippers. There's actually things you can do in the game. There's code here. There's there's progression. There's there's tasks that you have to perform in order to make it from here to potentially finishing the game or beating the game like you can beat a pinball machine. and uh especially the modern ones and i feel like once you that that moment clicks like the light bulb goes off that there's things you can do uh and and they feel real good they're rewarding when you accomplish them like when sparky you know does the electric chair thing and he's shaking and the shaker motor's going off and he's like that whole thing is like it's a moment where you you get excited because you're you're like my skill allowed me to do that and um and like any The cult leader, he's so encouraging. He's like standing next to me and he's like, you know, I see a lot of promise in you. I see a lot. And I'm like, really? He's like, yeah. Like, hey, you're going to be the next Roger Sharp. I don't know who Roger Sharp is. I didn't know. Yeah, you do. I know now, but I'm sure I did it in 2018. If someone said that to me, yeah, if someone said that to me like five or six years ago, I'd be like, who? who you're like you're that you're going to be the next guy that saved pinball but um no he's like you just he's he's all hey man just one thing i need you to grow a mustache i'm just like just please just go go home work on the mustache and and you'll be great imagine that he had a whole no my mustache sucks i'm too puerto rican for that i can't uh oh really i'm half puerto rican buddy i can't grow the stash sorry all right well hey maybe next time um next life uh so so all Right. So I love that. So that was the moment. And then it did it all snowballed from there. And you gave up your other hobby for pinball. Was there a which is crazy. So I was going to ask you, I already know the answer now. I was going to ask you, like, who mentored you or influenced you to get to this spot you're at now? But I guess that would be Tim. It was Tim. And then John Spates also got addicted about a year before me. So then, John, I went to league. It didn't pay. And then they go, hey, come up to Game Preserve North. and play in a pinball tournament with us. And I'm like, no, but I'll come and hang out. And when I got there, they had already set up an IFPA number for me and already put me in the system. Oh, wow. All right. And I was like, oh, shit, now I've got to play, right? And my first game was World Cup soccer. I'll never forget it. And I was like, oh, a soccer game. This is really awesome. And that's a great game, too. Oh, it's the best. It's so great. That's the only machine I own. I thought you were at Jurassic Park No that's Tim's He lets me borrow his toys I Three months later I went and bought a World Cup soccer It's the only machine I own And it's I let other people borrow it Right now my IT support guy Brandon Is borrowing it I haven't figured out how to See I'm the guy that buys all the toys And then my friends enjoy them by coming over I need to find more friends that buy more toys That let me borrow them Like I'm always on the, you know, I'm like the equivalent of like a friend who has 250 pinball machines. That's all you have to do. Is that how many he has now? Yeah. Wow. 250. So do you think that in 2010 to 250? I'm a little jealous because I feel like the way you started would have been how I would have wanted to start. but I started a bit differently because with Tim, he was, I think he quickly got really obsessed with owning, uh, I don't know, everything, you know, anything that's cool, unique and rare. So I feel like your perspective, like you've gotten to experience pinball machines that probably a lot of people have never played. And I think that's probably really good because you have this, like, I don't know, this vast, you know, you've seen almost everything. I mean really because we're going to get to the vault next You've seen the progression of everything You've seen the older games and how these companies Might have used little new tricks and techniques Or innovations to make the games more interesting So you've kind of seen it all which is crazy Because you've probably been in the hobby say like 10 years But you've kind of experienced a lot in that 10 years Yeah it was really interesting when we, I'll give you the quick story of the wormhole, okay, for those that don't know me. I was going to go there, but good. This is a good segue. Is that okay? Good segue? Yeah. I do a podcast too once in a while. And so this building here was a $39 insurance building. The street that we're on, Ralph, is called Shepherd and it was nothing but car lots. So Tim and Christine Hood bought the building and had a tenant and he was selling $39 insurance. And there started to be a re-gentrification of this area and all the car lots started leaving and businesses and apartment complexes and condos started popping up on this really nice street. And they were going to turn this into a pinball bar. But COVID hit. It's October of 2020 and we decide, look, we haven't seen each other in a few months. We're all quarantining. Let's just hang out at the insurance building, we called it. Okay. And maybe, you know, we'll move some machines in here. So at the time, this was, they owned it, but it was still like, were there still like things in there from when it was an insurance company or was it all cleared out? What they did is the insurance guy left in like September 1st of 2020. By October 1st, the whole building was gutted and started getting electrical and started moving machines in. Like the stickers that you see and all the artwork on the walls, none of that was here. None of that was there. Was this well thought – so I got to ask you something, though. I know you're in the middle of saying this. No, no worries. But that place is so cool inside. For those of you that haven't ever been, it's – and I haven't even asked you this. I'm assuming like everything that's in there is probably other collectibles and things that Tim was interested in. Yeah. Because the way it's decorated, like that had to be. So when he was doing this, did he have that vision of I want it to look like it looks now? Or did it kind of just like evolve into that over time? Like when you were moving in machines. Yeah, Tim is a collector. Okay. Yeah, I can definitely tell that. He collects things, right? And he collected signs. He was really into signs. He was really into old porcelain signs, any old oil and gas signs. Tim was gobbling them up. And he didn't really have a place to put them. And that just made sense right off the bat. He's like, I've got a shit ton of signs. I'm just going to put signs all over the place, right? And then the walls were really empty. So he's like, I have all these back glasses. Let's start putting back glasses up. And some of these rare, like we've got a magic girl right over here. This is a Magic Girl play field that he bought. Yeah, I remember seeing that. It's just – so little by little, some of his other collections started coming in, but there were only six of us here. So we were doing all the work, and I own a staffing company, IT staffing company. There's no IT staffing going on in 2020. Yeah, oh, gosh, yeah. I mean, I don't know if you remember PPP funds and all these things for small businesses we're getting, And that just kept me alive. And so I lived at the wormhole. I lived here. I would get here like at 3 in the afternoon, and then at 2 in the morning I would be driving home. Do you have any footage of like you guys doing all that, like the progression of it? Have you ever published any of that? You know what we're doing on the website, wormholepinball.com, a little shout out to that new site, is going to be a timeline to show all the pictures of an empty building to what it is today. Oh, that's so cool. All right. I'm sorry. I keep interrupting you. So, all right. So now you're in the wormholes evolving. So finish that off because I have a direction I want to take you right after that. So we just started. We didn't let anybody know we were doing this because we didn't want to mess up our spider web. I remember during that time, you know, we were quarantining together. There were six to eight of us. And somebody had loose lips, right, and started telling people in the pinball community, you've got to see what these idiots are doing at this empty building. They're calling it the wormhole, which we called it because I was here for five, ten hours. I'm like, this place is a suck hole. And Tim was like, it's like a wormhole. and that was it. I wasn't asking you how the name came up. That's awesome. That's it. That's exactly right. I just kept calling it a suck hole. Wormhole sounds better than suck hole. People might be questioning what the suck hole is actually if that was the name of it. True. I'll give him all credit for taking suck hole and changing that to wormhole. He's got a marketing bone in his body too. He's very, very good. That's really how it started. Lastly, we We're starting a league in like 2021, but no whopper points. The IFPA, Josh Sharpe said no whoppers. Why? It's just because COVID wasn't officially over yet. They didn't want to be associated with getting people, killing people. They were like, hey, man, this place is called the Suckhole. We might want to rethink if we want. Let's hold off until the name change and maybe we'll let them. No, there was a league downtown, totally different place, and a transformer blew up. And there were about 40 people just dying to get out of the house, dying to play pinball. And this transformer blows at this bar called 82 Bar. And John looks at me and he nods his head and I know what he wants. What he wants is to invite these 40 people to the wormhole. And I was really hesitant. And me and Tim were like, I don't know. This is kind of like our spot. Do we want this to be open to the public? Do we want anyone to know that we're here? But we did. We finished the league night there and the rest is history, I guess. So are you saying that at first Tim wasn't even sure that this was even going to be something that would host regular terms? Like was it going to just be a private thing of his? Yeah. Oh, really? So it wasn't going to – That was it. And we had no aspirations for anything else but just our own private club where he could store his pinball machines that were excess. And at the time, I think he had about 50. Oh, wow. Okay, so I didn't know that. So this really was never going to – it wasn't supposed to be – or not supposed to be. The intent wasn't to turn it into what it is now. It kind of became that – like had this transformer not blown, could the trajectory of this place completely have changed? I really don't know. That's a great question. I don't know. I have no idea if we would have let people in. I love stuff like this, Jamie. If we just would have turned it over, if we would have turned it into a bar, other things. No idea. And then all of a sudden we were like okay what if we do tournaments three a month We do the first and then let maybe we could stream you guys want to stream yeah on twitch and i was like i don know i don know what i doing and they go come on you do the podcast a long time ago this is what you've always wanted to do we're streaming on twitch jack changer does it you could do it and i said all right so we started streaming on twitch It was absolute garbage. You can go see those on YouTube. They're terrible. Hey, that's not an easy thing. Streaming pinball is not an easy thing to do just from a pure technical perspective. There's a lot going on that has to be real good. So I think it's a learning process for anyone. We learned. We learned. And I think, honestly, we have technically one of the best streams out there. We're really in the great. It is really good. And I love that we had to bust our butt to learn. So anyway, that's the wormhole, and then I start streaming, and then John and Tim go, you need to do a podcast. All right, so before we get – because I really want to get to the main topic, but at the same time, this is really interesting. No, this is really interesting because – no, this is so good. I wanted to know – so I know the current state of the wormhole. Hopefully I'm not incorrect, but the current state is you guys are open so many days a month for tournament play. And then we rent. Right. But there is no like I can't just go down to the wormhole Monday through Friday anytime I want or or through the weekend or whatever. So is there any future plans right now as it stands for the wormhole to evolve from? Because it looks like it's gone through. Obviously, I didn't know about some of the early days. It's definitely evolved into this. So is there like a phase two that's, hey, we're going to be a bar or we're going to open to the public more frequently? Are we going to become maybe a private club that you pay to go in when you want? Like, is there any of those plans? I think all of the above are being discussed right now because I think this collection has become so eclectic and so unbelievable that we want to show other people. We do want to show it off. It is a really great place. The games play great. They do. So I think we'll start off with maybe one or two days a month open, $20 at the door, come on in, sell you some sandwiches, maybe get a catering license. and then, pardon me, eventually moved to two to three days a week. Yeah, I love that. You know, the place is just – I feel like that – so when you called it like, oh, it was going to be Tim's exclusive club, that's kind of how it feels when you're in there, though, because it has that like – I don't know, maybe it's because it was the Twippies, but it sounds like you guys do this stuff more on a regular, too, but the patio had a guy making tacos, and then there was a DJ. it felt like I was at some exclusive club with all my pinball nerd friends, you know, that I did some, I knew and some, I didn't know it felt really unique to me. And then just the way it's designed inside, it's just like, wow, it, it just, it's too good. Like even the bathrooms are cool. Like everything about it's cool. The rugs are cool. The bathrooms are cool. The decorations are cool. Like the people in there. And I don't know if that's just the Houston, uh, pinball community. It's super cool. I also think that Tim has a very vision for what he wants the place to look like, and he is an artist as well. I mean, he really is, and so he uses his art to – this is his art piece, if you will. It's a museum. Think about the Wormhole as really our first iteration of a museum that we want to build. Yeah. No, I think it's awesome, and all the games played really good. And the other thing that I love, and this is where we're going to weave into the vault, and hopefully – people won't be surprised if I don't get to the main topic anyway, but we will. We'll weave it in. We've got time. What time is it? Yeah, we're good. We're doing okay. We're good. The thing that I think is really interesting too, though, is that the wormhole is fed by the vault. So, like, you guys have this philosophy that if a game comes in from the vault – and for those of you who don't know, I'll give you the two-second vault, and then you can elaborate on it further. but the vault is like Tim decides he's going to buy a new game or a set of games or a lot of games, and they may be rare or old or in need of repair. They end up at the vault. The vault is where they can get fixed up and ready to go into the wormhole, but when you bring something in from the vault to the wormhole, your philosophy is that you stream it at least once as a way to sort of document it, and if the game is really popular, I would assume it stays there for maybe a little bit longer, but the idea is that you have some probably games that are bolted to the floor that probably won't move because they're fan favorites, but you're also cycling games in and out to keep the overall experience at the wormhole fresh. Do I have that right? Yeah, well said. I think we have 23 pins here. It's not a big building. I do a very good job of making it look big on stream, but when you come here, it's not big. It's 20, what is it, 1,400 square feet, Ralph? I mean, it's not that big of a building. You know what, though? And it feels like it. It doesn't – I don't know. Because of the outside patio that we built and other things makes it look a little bigger. But we rotate them in and out, and you're totally right. A game cannot leave the wormhole unless it's been streamed on one of our game stream nights. And what we do is we just – everyone throws in $2, and we've done this 87 times, 87 different machines, Monday night game streams. There's 10 to 12 of us. We do a little match play tournament. winner is the winner of that game and forever will be known as the winner of future queen but forever i've won seven of them donovan my boy donovan's won 11 he's very frustrating to me this is not for ifpa points this is just our game monday night game stream we'll tell you about the game so we'll tell you about future queen we'll tell you about locomotion right down there and then we can let it go. So if it's a stinker, if it's not that fun of a game, just fly, dude. If it's not that fun of a game, we'll get it out quick. Yeah. But if it's a fan favorite, we'll let it stay a little bit. Like Banzai Run won't go anywhere only because it's so damn heavy and it's perfect. And it's not one that, I don't know, the only other place I've seen a Bonsai, well, I've seen it in two places. Interium has one, right? Do they still have it, though? I think they do. Okay. I've seen it there. I've seen it at Rob Burke's place, Past Times Arcade, and I've seen it at the Pinball Hall of Fame, but it wasn't working at the Pinball Hall of Fame. Shocker. Shocker. Shocker on that one. All right. So I got a chance to check out the wormhole. I mean, not the wormhole, the vault. Yeah. And I think I – you gave me probably one of the coolest experiences, pinball experiences I've ever had, and it was because – Why we didn't video that. I know. Mason wasn't because my intern wasn't there yet. Yes, he's a prima donna with the intern. And dude, I'm going to call him the intern. He's going to get so pissed that you called the intern. No, but that's like Howard. That's what we do, right? That's the Howard Stern. You know, we name everyone. So he's a very well paid intern. So, I mean, that's good. You can have paid interns. Yeah. Well, so here's what I know. I wish we filmed it, but I'm going to try to recreate it right now. So I go into the vault, and there's video of this. You're waving us in. Hey, check this out. It looks unassuming from the outside. It doesn't look like anything. It's in the middle of a neighborhood. Tim does a very good job of buying buildings that have tenants in them that are about to leave, and then he fills that with pinball machines. Now go ahead. Yeah, it was awesome. I guess it was an old – you told me it was an old screen printing place that didn't take good care of the building at all. So you guys had to fix all that. but um when i went in i wasn't really expecting much you know other than to see some really cool you know some rare pinball machines and some maybe maybe in various states of of being fixed but the thing that was so cool is you're like hey why don't we and i don't even know if you said this but this is what ended up happening it turned into like a hey i'm gonna give you a tour of the place and we're gonna play all these like unique games except we're gonna do it a little bit of like a competition style between between you and I and whoever else wants to join along the way which was really cool because every game we stopped at you made it a point to choose ones that that wouldn't be like the ones because sometimes you when you're when you're in a big collection I think you gravitate towards stuff you know and this was good because there were things in there I had played before but that would have been stupid why would I go and play you know a game in there that I could play anywhere else when there's some really cool things in there I'd never seen. So we did this whole around the world thing. And what, what, what, what ended up happening as well, I was doing okay against you. And then you started like turning it on. Well, I can't lose. I just have this competitive in me. We were neck and neck though. I know it was really good. So we would walk up to a machine. Ladies and gentlemen, I let's use fly high as an example, which is a total and utter rip off of Neverending Story. So we walk up to Neverending Story rip-off, and I'll tell Ralph a little bit about this fly-high. And then we play. And we were doing, I think we were doing a best of five that wound up being a best of seven because you wanted to try to get, you wanted to win, and you kept changing the rules. Trying to change the rules. You're a little wrong here. I didn't start changing the rules until I started playing really poorly. Toward the end, I changed the rules like 100 times on you, and you still beat me. But anyway. But that's what we would do. I would give him a little tutorial, and then I would whip him on fly high. And then we would go – no, I'm whipping. And then we went and played – Tim has a very strong Zachariah techno play collection. And Zachariah is a timing company, three brothers. Next time you go to a Zachariah, look at the plate on the bottom, and you'll see their initials of the three brothers. A little useless fact for you. So we're going through and we're playing Time Machine. I think Robot was there at the time. And we're seeing all this crazy innovation, all this neat stuff. And I geek on these machines, and we have techs that work there that get them ready to come to the world. Yeah. It's fun. Yeah, I had the absolute best time with you. Me too. It was so fun. And the thing that I really do wish we filmed it. But the thing that came out of that is as we were playing, I remember like looking at you and I'm like, man, some of these games like it makes me, you know, I'm not trying to talk poorly on the new on the designers of the modern era. But I was looking at it going like we're playing Time Machine. Time Machine was the one I think where both of us had an aha moment. Yeah, because I'm watching the freaking play field come out of the play field, like coming up from the thing. And I'm going, wow, like how cool this for someone to think of that back then, because I don't know what that game that game had to be in the 80s, early 80s, maybe. So so I'm looking at it going, wow, that is so cool. And then I started talking to you just saying like, hey, do you think maybe like some of the modern designers for whatever reason are scared to take these kinds of chances because there's like more at stake now? Like they can't have a failure because the cost of all this stuff is so much. And if they have a flop game and we started kind of talking back and forth on that. But that was only one game. And then as we kind of progress through, I kept seeing like more and more unique things because I mean, Time Machine has two cool things. It kind of has the flipper set up from, shoot, what's the game? Big Game, right? Like it has those flippers like Big Game. But Big Game has gaps in between them, right, if I remember right or no? No, there's no gaps on Big Game. On this Zachary, it has like plates to allow you not to get the scissor flipped. But it holds the balls. Yeah. Yeah, like you can trap anywhere on there. Anywhere, yeah. So that was cool. And then what's the other game I'm thinking of that's from that early era, but it has four flippers like that. but when you lift them up, you can drain between them. I can't remember the name of that game right now. Paragon? Yeah, there's probably many games that do that. Yeah, Paragon. That's not the one I'm thinking about, but it's at the bat, and every time I get it, I have to remember, like, hey, you can't trap in the middle of these. But anyway, so we started talking about all this innovation, and the other thing that I loved about the Zachariah games, and now the weird thing is I think I had played this digitally at one point, so I was kind of familiar, but when you pointed it out, I was like, this is so cool. This idea that however I play, like if my performance is good, I'm racking up some kind of points that when I drain ball three, I get a ball four, but I only get it for so much time. And that time is dictated. Bonus time. Yeah, and that time is dictated by how I played. Like I can play better. If I played better and did certain things, I'm going to get more time on that last ball. And then when that timer runs out, the flippers just die, which is actually like a very dramatic way to end a game. Like it's like all of a sudden the flippers just – the power is off and it drains. And I don't know. I just – those kinds of things seem so cool, and it just made me think to you – like our conversation kind of turned into like, well, what – do we feel like the modern companies could maybe be doing a bit more with this kind of stuff? wow look at robot i mean think about it the danger room in uncanny x-men wicked cool right yeah really cool the sentinel he's okay what if you had the robot little pop-up sentinel heads all over the damn place no right i mean it's sort of a main one imagine you still have the main one but when there's like when you're fighting multiples those things are popping up out of the play field like robot does they're like whack-a-moles it was so cool it's whack-a-mole with pinball and it's it was built in the 80s and no one's done that since look at future queen from bell games uh if you knock these three drop targets down on the left side a spinner comes out behind the just a spinner and this is 1980s i know remember remember you brought it up didn't you bring it up to Mark Seiden? He kind of like, you know, Mark Seiden's the designer who designed Avatar and he was hanging out with us, which he's such a cool, him and his wife are so cool. They're really fun to hang out with. Yeah. And, um, he kind of like, you could tell like his wheels were spinning like, Oh, that is kind of like unique, right? Like, you know, so I don't know. It's, um, so I think some of the modern designers are taking like definitely Jack. I mean, Jack, you looked at what, I mean, you could almost argue X-Men has what spy hunter in it. And, uh, what's the other game he has a couple of features from that game that i think you could argue are he was inspired by some older games but i wish we'd see more of that like i kind of wish we'd see more of this hey let's take some chances and do something a little different in in the modern you know in modern pinball and that i think that is happening though like i do think there's some definitely some innovative things i don't know how much you've played dungeons and dragons but I know we got to play it when we went to the Stern thing together, but as I'm playing it, and it's different, right? Because these aren't necessarily play field elements that are being added as the innovation. It's more this idea that Insider Connected is saving my progression as I'm playing through the game. So like traditional pinball machine, you play it and if you drain the ball, like whatever progress you have is, you know, or if you complete the game, meaning like your game is over your your progress isn't saved like you come back and you got to do it all over again but dungeons and dragons is like this multi-layer bringing video games and pinball together and as you progress through it it's like well you don't have to play that that mode again because you already completed it so that i i kind of like that uh and i view that as pretty innovative but i don't think it's very i don't think it's talked about that much like i don't think people are looking at that as an innovation uh as much as i think they should because that's i think that's more appealing to someone that is coming from a video game world to know like hey i already beat that part of the game i'm i don't need to start it all over again even though the world we grew up in with video games was like you know if you're playing sonic the hedgehog or whatever game you want to pick from our from our childhood when you die like you're playing the level all over again there was no save you know there was no save state back then it was just oh you're dead like in mario Super Mario Brothers or whatever game you want to pick from that era, you died and that was it. Or any Atari game for that matter. There's no saves in Atari games. No, but once you started getting into the Xboxes, even Nintendo 64, you know. Yeah, you started to get it then. You started getting into it. And I think Stern Insider Connect is awesome. I think they could do a hell of a lot more though. I don't know if you want to take this conversation down that road. They should be allowing. All right, so here's the deal, right? You complete Dungeons & Dragons. You beat the game. Now what? Well, I did beat the game. I don't know if that's what you're referring to. That's what I'm referring to. I'm pretty proud of that. He called me very late at night to tell me that he beat it, and I was very proud of him. But, you know, like what can you do? Well, I think more downloadable content for that, maybe different maps. Maybe you get to beta test them before everybody else or whatever. or Star Ninja Interconnect just to increase the longevity of that particular game. So I do want to mention, though, like I didn't know this. So I thought I was a little bit – I was excited, obviously, because I told you at like the middle of the night. But I was excited about winning it or beating it. But the thing is I didn't realize that the two other unlockable characters are not even coded into the game yet. So I do have that to look forward to. So they're only at like 90% there. I mean they got to – but getting unlockable characters in Call of Duty is a big damn thing, and if they can implement that through their machine – Well, that's part of the – they're on the – Jamie, they're on the artwork of the play field. So I don't know why I didn't notice that. So when I finished the game and saw that there was that, I posted it online, and someone's like, did you get the other two characters? And I was like, oh, I don't know. And then I saw someone else comment on that comment. This is kind of cool how I figured this out because the rule sheet's not published for that game yet. this guy's like, hey, I don't think they're coded in yet. You should check the release notes. So then I go and check the release notes. Oh, like a true dork. I know. It's super dorky. I know. I know. You can tell them in IT I'm looking at freaking release notes. I'm like, oh, let me check the release notes. So I look at the release notes, and sure enough, the other two characters aren't in there yet. So I do have something to look forward to. All right. Well, that's cool. Yeah. But I don't know where – but you make a good point, though. Like if I beat those other two, then what? Like, am I going to want to sell the game because I've seen everything there is to see, or will they continue to add more to it? And I think that might be the challenge with some of these games is, like, they have the right idea with this saved progress, but is it going to make people breeze through the game so much faster that they might get bored with it? And so there's where I think the opening is, like you said. Well, what if you add more content? Now, I don't – DLC is, like, a bad word in pinball, and people don't like hearing that. fired up about that don't they i have no problem with dlc i've been doing it since battlefront star wars and and honestly if done correctly right if i'm so let's just in this fictitious world let's just say the code exists right now and i unlock the other two characters but now they're like oh we're gonna add new battles and stuff but it's gonna cost you uh six bucks whatever four ninety five bucks uh i would do that like i would do that i would be downloading as we speak in this podcast you'd be downloading it right now i would so i don't know man but like getting off of stern so that's that's what stern's doing obviously you got insider connected but what do you think like you you you see all these new games is there are there things that you see on on like i don't know pick your manufacturer is there someone out there that's doing something that you're like oh wow that's also very cool and and innovative or do you feel like yeah i don't know like what is your take on the other stuff i think p3 is doing what we're used to as gamers to do it's just is it catching on as a system right yeah p3 itself if you have i keep going to dungeon door defender for 200 you can download a totally different game for your heist play field and it's hilarious you're gonna get addicted to dungeon door defender You just can apply that. So that's a fun one. You actually have a lot of fun with that. I really actually had a lot of fun with Dungeon Door Defender. I liked it more than Heist. And no offense to Heist. So how does that work exactly? Because I'm not familiar. Like, obviously, I've seen the P3 system and everything. So, like, I have a Heist, right? So, like, you have the module for Heist. So you go to their store, just like you would on your Xbox or your PlayStation, and you download the Dungeon Door Defender. It'll tell you you must have the Heist play field and these playfields. Okay. You literally download it onto their hard drive, onto the P3, and you flip through what games you want to play, click on Dungeon Door Defender, and it boots up. So do you do that purchase on the game, or do you go to, like, a website or an app or something? You can do it on the game if your game is signed into their platform. Okay. We screwed that up, so I did it online, and then I got a support ticket, and then the support – and I'm trying to stream it. I'm fooling around, and they literally got back to me in like 10 minutes, gave us the – and we were streaming Dungeon Door Defender. Okay. It's pretty easy. Do you think that the price is good for that? Like do you feel like you got a good value out of it? I think I got a great game that I played the hell out of. And he constantly put add-ons to Dungeon Order. I thought it was too hard because it started pissing me off at like level six or seven. These damn zombies are coming way too fast and I can't kill them. But it had that one more play factor. I just kept playing it. So what did you think speaking since we're on this topic of P3 and you were at Texas Pinball Festival? Yeah, and I was actually kind enough to get invited to the media day for. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. Ultimorphics. I wasn't invited. Just, you know. You weren't, huh? How about that? Jamie got invited to something that Ralph didn't get invited to. Okay. So how did that go? It was a two-hour drive. It was fun. I like the P3 platform. We have one at the Wormhole. It is different. It takes a minute to get used to those flippers. Once you get used to the flippers, it's fun as hell. I enjoy the P3 platform And I enjoy Portal Now I knew nothing about Portal I never played that in the 2000s My kids played it So I called them up and I was like Hey guys I'm going to play This game called Portal It's a pinball machine I know you guys put a lot of time into this On the Playstation Talk to me about it They gave me a good run down But I just worry about P3 Can they move the entire system That's the key I mean, they got to move Xboxes, right? Yeah, they got to get people to buy into that platform. They got to get them to do it. And Xbox were losing money, if you remember, per console they sold because they wanted for the long run to go up against Sony. So that's the rub. Isn't to this day like the consoles still loss leaders? Yeah, they're loss leaders. They don't make money on it. It's the content they want to make the money on. That's what they need to make money off of. And I think he could get there, Jerry. I really do think Jerry could get there. He just needs more. He needs to keep going. I wonder if he did. His innovation is amazing, though, dude. You got to give it to him. He does seem like they seem like their engineering efforts are like pretty big. Like it looks like they put a lot of thought into the engineering. Like they are doing unique things. And I mean, it was pretty cool for people. I was I was not expecting them to have. I can't remember what they call it. but like a better version of the module that would actually have, you know, things that spill over into the screen. Because that was kind of the thing. Some people always say like, oh, well, I wish it wasn't so open down at the bottom of the screen. Even though the screen does do things, interact with the ball a bit. They were like, oh, I wish there were some things to hit, like a spinner or a ramp that was like further, you know, closer to the flippers. And they've actually done that. So I don't know. It sounds like at TPF too like the response was really good right Like they had lines going and people were excited about it They had three of them Two were the extended module on the bottom third of the play field One was not. That one, no, he's not going to sell any of those. Which ones? Oh, which ones? The non, the standard version. Because after you play the other one, you wouldn't even want it, right? Once you play with the spinner and the Foo Fighters ramp on the right side this time, you're not going to. you're not buying that um i need to i need to take a small break real quick not not break but i need to break up the conversation for just a few seconds because i i look at the camera when i'm doing podcasts and not at you and i see you have a big cup now did you like slide in more diet cokes into that big cup and i just didn't notice it no no this is my wormhole cup i i'm only this is my third diet coke of the day i think i'm four dude you have a problem with the diet cokes man It's 12 o'clock. the other modules. I think that would be cool. That's probably what he's got to do, don't you think? I think he has to because he can't have the system be the same price as everything else and then expect people to buy into the platform because he does have a bit of a disadvantage in that there's still people in the community that are like, I don't know about this blend between digital pinball and physical, even though I think there's a lot of physical pinball aspects to it. I still think that he needs to sell. He still needs to win the hearts and minds of the rest of the pinball community. And I think he's still got a lot of work to do there. But I do. I'm with you, though. I think he's got some interesting ideas. And he's definitely married to it because he hasn't deviated from it. And I think the company's been around for like 10 years. So he's definitely trying his best to do this. But all right, that's P3. Yeah. Are there any other companies out there right now? And by the way, if you're not on this list, it doesn't mean that we don't think you make great pinball machines. I'm just I'm asking Jamie the question. Like what do you think is another thing you've seen more recently? And it can't be Stern. Something outside of Stern that you're like, wow, that's a cool innovation or they're doing something different and unique. You know, Spooky's doing some really cool stuff. Okay. I know you've got an Evil Dead coming, right? Wait, who said that? Didn't you buy an Evil Dead? I didn't, but here's the funny thing. I didn't, but here's the funny thing, dude. shit you're giving up my secrets no i uh i uh cut it i've been thinking about it i have a little bit of fomo and i i'll tell you dude i am such a puss actually look i have this stupid thing that i call it stupid don made this thing do you know about this yeah the mods that he made for it but you know what this is supposed to represent no idea okay on my podcast i told a real story about Evil Dead from my childhood. My cousin, my cousin, I have two cousins. One of them is, is a computer geek, which is the one I latched onto is why I went into technology, but we'll get into that at another podcast episode. My other cousin was fricking nuts. He would, he would like do messed up stuff, man. He'd, he'd go into, he'd, cause I always was like curious what was in his room. And he had this big stereo in there with like a, you know, 70,000 band equalizer and subway, like, you know, you know, the old school stereos equalizer. And he'd go in there and our families would be like together. And he'd like, go put in two live crew, pop that song. And then he'd run out of the room and be like, Oh my gosh, like, I don't know what little Ralphie is doing. He's, he's listening to like this explicit music. And my mom'd be like, what are you doing? And so like, he would set me up, he would do all these things to set me up. And for some reason, I'm like, why are you not mad at him for listening to this music? Like he's listening to a song called pop that whatever like yeah maybe you should be upset with him but they didn't care uh you know 80s parents they were just like yeah whatever cool whatever um but they're like yeah he's not hurting anybody it's fine so he brought me into the basement one time duct taped now he is using rope he duct taped my arms and like my chest to a like an office chair and he played Evil Dead. Made me watch the original Evil Dead when I was a little kid. Did you talk to this dude to this day? Yeah. I went and talked to this dude. He messed with me, man. My cousin messed with me bad. But anyway, so Don made that mod. I mean, the only thing is, I appreciate that he made it, but I don't have blonde hair. I have dark hair. And it wasn't Rope. It wasn't Rope. But Rope makes it a little bit more creepy, I guess. Did he make that for you? Don made this. He made it. Yeah. He's like, yeah, if you ever get an Evil Dead, you can have the guy that's like strapped in and he's looking at the TV. I like Don. I get a kick out of Don. He's a good dude. So, all right. So no, I haven't bought it, but, but I have some serious FOMO about it. Cause. Cause they're sold out. Well, but I think it's sold out for a reason. I think they put a lot of cool ideas in that game. Like I look at it. I'm like loading the shotgun. You tell me like what, when, cause you've played it. I didn't shotguns. Wicked. Cool. It's super cool, right? It's super cool. There's a lot going on. We have John's Spades at Eureka Heights, which is a brewery near us that has 14, 15 pins now. They just got an evil dead. They're the first one in Texas that has it on location. Okay. So I'm putting quarters in it like a crazy person now. Man, I'm so jealous because I didn't tell you this, but I'll tell you in two seconds. And by the way, she's fine. So last night – was it yesterday? Yeah, yesterday afternoon after I was done with work, I was supposed to go over to this guy Mark Pearson's house. He's a really good player here in Arizona, a nice guy, and I met him at the Electric Bat. But super cool guy, and he's like, hey, man – because he's the one that provides the spooky games for Electric Bat, so he's the operator of those games. Electric Bat doesn't buy those. Mark does, and then he operates them there. So his Evil Dead just came, and he's like, hey, before I bring it over to the bat, Why don't you come over and play it? I was super excited because I knew you and I were doing this podcast, and I kind of felt like you – we didn't – you know this. I didn't have any script. I didn't tell you anything, which was stressing you out. No, I know. Stressed to the T's. To the T's. But I felt like you were going to say Evil Dead. I felt like you were going to say it because that's – I think that everyone feels that way, like that Spooky's doing some really cool stuff. I think it won the show. I think there was no question that it won the show. You want to see a complete total opposite. I was talking to Chris Turner and behind me and Chris Turner's pinball machines are very nice and they're very meant for family friendly. When you turn around and you see a zombie coming out of an effing topper, right, you can see a Slash of differences of opinions between Spooky and Turner Pinball. And the game is – the art is fantastic. The game shoot's amazing. I think obviously they have a winner. They sold out. And the future is really bright for this company. They're doing some innovative shit. And the fact that you can load the shotgun itself, if you do nothing else in that game and just start hitting that shotgun shells, it's really fun. It's super fun. It is, huh? Is the hand cool too? When you shoot the hand, it's cool, right? Like that's cool. The hand to the left, you know, getting that timer because Spooky doesn't like, you know, they like push buttons. So, but you can time it and it comes right around to the hand and that's your skill shot and get going. You're ready. Yeah, it is cool. And honestly, I don't, I think it's cool that they did it as a, and I'm assuming the reason why they did it as a wide body was because they went, hey, we need, we need the room to pack in some of this extra stuff. Yeah, I think it's, I also think that little, that like tape recorder thing that's in the corner that starts spinning it like, that's cool too. Like it's a little, it's the little details. I was talking with you a little bit when you're playing. Yeah. You're like, what is this thing that's on the apron making all this noise? They did it. They did a great job. Congratulations to them. I'll tell you a funny spooky story. All right. So John and Taylor are operators at Eureka Heights. They go put cash on glass and buy a floor model of spooky, of Evil Dead. And we went to Eureka Heights. We played there during the Twippies. During the Twippies, Friday night, we had a little Dungeons & Dragons launch party. I loved the vibe of that place, by the way. It was so cool. Super cool place. Very cool place. Super cool place. So, Taylor, it's on TPF Thursdays are load-in day. You're not playing any games. It's load-in. It's for all the vendors to get their ass together and get going. Yeah. So he literally bought it from the manufacturer, from Spooky, at like 9 o'clock. At 10 o'clock, there's hardly anybody in there. Most of the vendors are gone. Now, did he actually pay for it at that point? Yeah, he paid for it. He paid for it. Okay, so he bought it. And one of the cool things, if you ever go to a show, you can buy those on the site for like $500 discount, right? Yeah. And all of a sudden there's very few of us in the hall and he turns it on. John turns it on. I go, what are you doing? This is my machine. I go, it's not yet. It's not your machine yet. He's like, no, no, no, we're playing it. So they go, they, you know, they know how to operate pinball machines. They get balls. They do all these things. And it's 11 o'clock at night. We're playing Evil Dead. And this crowd of other people come around. It's like, what are you guys doing? We turned one on, which happened to be John's. So there were no other games on at that point. Nothing in the entire hall was on. That's awesome, actually. Nothing. But our morons, the wormhole shirts. Of course, we're wearing wormhole stuff. We're not even inconspicuous. We're just going, we're going to play this game. And we played it for an hour before I finally said, I don't want to be around you when Bug or Luke come back over here and are going to be pissed off that you're playing. And he goes, it's my Spooky. I bought this Evil Dead. So I got to play it very quietly. It was loud, but there was no one in the hall, so I got to hear all the call-outs. I got to hear everything before. Because during the show, that's one of the rubs, right? No, that's the bummer. It's such a bummer. It's so damn loud in those things that the only way you could really play them are at the late-night VIP things or just go and turn one on. Yeah. So I know you – by the way, I did not buy one yet. I thought you were going to. I was going to. So ladies and gentlemen, here's what I do to Ralph. I like to get him to buy machines, and I'm not even going to see him. I'm only going to see him in a month, but I just think it's very funny that Ralph has gone down a wormhole of wormholes, a suckhole, if you will, of buying all these pinball machines, And I keep sending him like, hey, P3 would look really good next to D&D. Evil Dead is going to look really good in his collection. You know what's crazy, though, Jamie, about what you just said, though? Or Kim. Like I'll tell you, you know, and I know I get so much crap for this because like I was very big into like arcade game collecting and everything. And I sold them all. Sold them all. And I went full pinball. But here's the thing. I play them every day. They all have. I went through them the other day. Now, I do cycle through games sometimes. Like if there's something I'm just not feeling, like I'm like, eh, this one isn't just doing it for me. Like I will cycle through it, which is good and bad because nowadays it's tough because you lose money on stuff when you sell it. But like it's not like the old days where you can kind of get out of it and not lose anything or even make money in certain circumstances. Yeah, unfortunately those days are gone. Yeah, but so I went through my games the other day, and I was like, you know what? I'm going to see how many total plays I have on everything. And it's funny because what would you guess? You know what I have. You know the games I have in my collection, right? Do you know all of them? What one do you think? Do you know them all, you think? Or do you need me to route them off real quick? I think I know them all. But go ahead, route them out for your fans. Okay, so there's T2, Williams. There's Pulp Fiction, which is brand new. I just brought that in not that long ago. There's Black Knight Sword of Rage, Dungeons & Dragons, Godzilla 70th, Jaws, and I'm missing one. I know you're playing D&D the most right now But what one do you think has the most amount of plays on it? Oh, good question Jaws It's Jaws Good, man That's awesome Like, I was It has significantly more It has like a hundred more than everything else Yeah I still, I love that game And I wasn't shocked when it won It has one more game It does Oh, shit I effed that up One more game yeah oh oh i thought you meant like no no that's what i mean it's like oh i screwed that up yeah all right next time i'm gonna get that feeding frenzy started early and i'm really gonna focus on these modes and i'm gonna close beaches and the theme integration is great on it too if you if you were a fan of the movies and then the other thing too is like once you that was one game though jamie that before i understood the how to close beaches i was struggling with and Now it's like that's what I focus on first. Even though that's probably hard to do first, I focus on that. I don't – I focus on like I want to close these beaches up. So you're closing beaches before you're going into modes. I try. It doesn't always work out that way because maybe I just shoot something accidentally that I didn't mean to. I try to pummel that shark and get that encounter going. Yeah, I love the – but I love that game. It's one of those ones. But anyways, back to close off on Spooky. I'm very excited because I feel like this is a turning point for them. They're a company that I think has this momentum. them like they keep on doing things that that it's like the games keep improving and they're still a small outfit like they're not they're not a big company like some of these other companies yet but they're quickly becoming like hey could they could probably take maybe some would argue they're already in the number two spot right now i don't really think so i think they're in the three spot i think it's stern jersey jack and then spooky but i feel like they could take that two spot yeah they're in the hole right to use a baseball term but they're right on deck man they're coming up and uh congratulations to them and if they have beetlejuice like everyone says they do that could be pretty cool i know unless it's the beetlejuice second one who gives a shit about that yeah no no one cares about that one i will say though dude the one thing about them too is they uh they do a really good job utilizing the assets of the property that they're gonna go with like if they decide hey we're gonna do halloween like they even though i wasn't a big fan of that one but they do a good job integrating the movie clips or whatever it is like whatever I mean, Evil Dead, from what I've seen, and I haven't played it yet, I'm like, oh, my gosh, they really focused on like what things. And even though Christopher Franchi, he trolls me every chance he gets. He's your buddy. I don't know why, but when I meet him, I give him a big hug. We're going to hug him. I have met him before. He just doesn't remember. But he did a great job going, okay, how do I integrate the artwork? How can I incorporate the artwork? They did a good job saying, like, what memorable things from the movie belong as toys or whatever on the play field. I just, yeah, I'm. I've never even seen the movies. Oh, you haven't. Okay. No idea. No clue. I have no interest. I don't like horror. I don't like it. But here's what's crazy, Jamie. I like the game. I don't need to know it. I like it. It's fun. But here's what's crazy, Jamie. I don't like horror, and I'm considering buying it. But now my problem is I don't even know if I can get one. You can get one Where? Well you're going to have to get it on the used market And you're going to have to spend a couple of bucks But you'll get it Do you think I'm going to get one here? Do you think I'm going to have one? In six months Over under ladies and gentlemen Six months from this date He will have an evil dead And I think you'll get rid of Black Knight Sword of Rage I think you'll get sick of that Wow you know me really good dude I think Black Knight Sword of Rage is the next one that's going to be in your collection. Holy shit, man. How did you know? I bet you that's your least amount of play. You know, I really like it, but I'm having some problems. Yeah, you know, T2 was a nostalgia play for me. I told you that, right? I know, but it's going to run out, and that'll be gone. It already kind of has, man. That was one of those ones where I have it, and I love Terminator. But it's really a right. T3 is a better game. I like T3 a little better. Yeah. I mean, it's a right ramp. It's a left ramp. and it's shoot the T2 head, and then you're just like cannon. I mean, that's kind of all you're doing over and over again, and so it does get a little monotonous, I guess. That's out of there for you. I can see that. I hate that you literally know me well enough to know this shit. It actually kind of bugs me a little bit. That's okay. It's all right. We get along because we're very similar, and I'm looking at it like if I have this dude's collection, right, I can't see you not getting Harry Potter. I can't see you not getting Kong. So that's your rub. That's going to be your problem. It's a lot of money right there. I know. You're doing well. Life is good for you. God bless you. Well, right now, I don't know. I don't know. I'm nervous for, you know, not that we want to get into that, but I don't know. I'm a little nervous. You staff for technology. I'm a little nervous right now. I'm very nervous right now. That's an interesting point. I know we're going long. I'm sorry. We can cut this down. Maybe we'll be done. But, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I listen to a ton of pinball podcasts. I'm obsessed with it, Ralph, right? I'm obsessed. I've got a problem. Me and him talk about them. Like, I like WAP right now. They're cracking me up right now. Cengiz makes me laugh, right? He's hard to listen to sometimes, but he makes me laugh. I love that he calls Don Donnie. Donnie. Donnie. Donnie, how was PPF, Donnie? And then Don's like, oh, man, it was good. It was good. All right, sorry. Sorry. What was that? That was ESPN. I was trying to do the wah-wah-wah. Wait, I have it. Hold on. Do you? No, I think. Donnie, what are we doing? Oh, my God, Donnie. Oh, dang it. It's amazing. Life is great here at the WAP. I can't see Donnie. Sorry. Those guys are great. They're good, right? So what were you bringing them up for? My point was they're very, very positive. But sometimes our podcasts that we listen to are very, very negative about what's happening in the space, right? Yeah. And I know what's happening in the space, and I know it's negative, right? And I know it's tough. It's tough to be a pinball manufacturer today. It's brutal, right? If barrels doesn't knock it out, could they be in trouble? I don't think so. But, I mean, it's nerve-wracking, right? I'm in the staffing business. If I listen to a staffing podcast and all the staffing podcast was every minute was how shitty the marketplace is, even though I know it's right now, you're saying that's what they are. If you listen to one now, that's what I listen to a staffing augmentation podcast. I'm sure they would be crapping on the marketplace, but I don't want to listen to that. Yeah, I don't I don't spend an hour on my walk or my my little jog hearing about how crappy the marketplace is. So one of the things I like about what you do and what all these other podcasts are, is we're trying to keep it positive, right? We know that we're not 2020. We're not in 2021 with the marketplace that it was. There was a ridiculous demand and there was no supply. Of course, prices are going to raise. But now with inflation, of course, prices are going to have to stay maintained. And demand is going down. It is what it is. I don't need to hear a podcast every day telling me about that. Yeah, I'm nervous in the sense that I feel like – like I feel like if – and it's not like I want to – put it this way. The last – this past year we had at work, I did not feel – I feel like we worked two times as hard for about the same result or less of a result. But the year before that was very different. We had this like momentum of the economy being good. And I feel like I'm nervous. It's too early in the year to tell, but I'm nervous because we need the tailwinds like and those tailwinds impact everyone, because if everyone has everyone feels like they're doing OK financially and they're not strapped for cash, then they'll go spend money on pinball machines and things like that. So it does make me a bit nervous for all these manufacturers because if we don't start seeing the economy kind of dragging along in a positive manner, then I think people do take those funds and maybe don't allocate them to pinball and stuff like that. So that does make me nervous because we're at a point where there's all these manufacturers doing cool stuff, but people need to be buying these products in order for that to be sustainable. And then obviously those that have been in this hobby long enough know that really the first buyer is the distributor. They have to take on the – they have to take that burden on first, and then we buy from them. So anyways, it's – It's a weird-ass model, but it works for them. Good luck. But you know that through technology. Like my company sells through partners. Like we don't sell direct. So yeah, same kind of model. We sell through partners that add value just like some distributors add value and some don't at all. Some just pass it through, and you don't hear from them after that. I don't know if there's a couple of those out there, right? I'm sure there are. so i'm sure there are anyways i love this i feel like our innovation conversation like could have gone like we could talk for hours on it but i do think we picked some good ones like i think dnd really showcases some interesting new avenues we could go down with gaming maybe not with more toys and stuff on the play field but more this like how can you evolve the software side of it um to make pinball more approachable by saving progress and things like that i think that's really cool and then what spooky's doing with just like hey this is a bold idea let's let you load shotgun with two balls like just some cool stuff and that and that's not even scratching the surface at some of the other stuff that spooky did that i think is really cool with that game and what home pin is doing i mean if you got to play home pin home what you are totally kidding by the way i did play a home pin for the first time at which one either or not this is so crazy there's all this stuff that's broken at pinball hall of fame in the home pin yes and it's one what's one of the earlier home pins it's like an aviation game under thundercats and uh one others one other i think it was like an aviation based game is that one that i don't know i don't even know i know they made blue blues brother but anyways whatever it's a joke but um all right real quick before we wrap up is there another is there anything else right now modern that you're like, hey, they're doing something different or something unique? Or do you feel like I'm putting you too much on the spot and it's too hard to think of on the fly? Like, is there something? I think Jersey Jack fills their machines, right, with some pretty cool stuff. It'll be really telling when he said next to Mark Seid and when he was trying to sell avatars how Harry Potter's coming out, which I thought that was a really classy move. And I wish I had like Godfather music that I could play. Like, you know, don't spend your money. There's other stuff coming. I would not spend a dime until you see this game. And this was the crowd. This was the crowd. Like, I do think so. There was someone that got pissed. You saw my whole video I did about like – I thought your video was the best. People got pissed. Again, I get to see some of this stuff. I'm very lucky that I'm friends with Retro Ralph. Oh, God. Because what really kind of cool about that is we send each other our stuff that we trying to do and we good with each other If something is wrong or something doesn work you know like my thumbnails are shit compared to yours And so I got to work on my thumbnail game but that me But I got to see that. And I was rolling on the floor. Well, I wanted to make sure, cause if you weren't laughing and you were like, this is dumb, then I probably wouldn't have, like, if you said, Ralph, this is stupid. I probably wouldn't have put it online. No, it was great. You were like, this is how it should sound. But you sent me, you sent me a podcast. Like, I feel like we do have a little bit of a chamber of secrets things between like probably like me, you and Kale. We all have a deep trust for like, hey, if I share something with you, like it's not leaving this these three people. And you had shared me a podcast. You were like, I don't know. I don't know if I like the way I edited this or whatever. And I was like, man, I really enjoyed the conversation. So you were being extra critical about something. And I'm like, yeah, I loved it. So it's always good to have that like someone to kind of gut check you. Because I'm sure there's going to be something I send you at some point where you're like, yeah, Ralph, no, like, don't do that. It's bad. It was not bad. It was really funny. I got to see Mark Seiden like minutes after that, and he still looked shocked. And just that's my personal opinion. He still looked a little shocked. I might be in a little bit of a – and maybe – so there is a part of me that I feel like you and I really like to get to know these people. And I really like Mark. He's a really nice guy, and his wife is super nice. He's so sweet. Really nice. It's so nice. How could you sit next to him and go, don't buy anything? I just wonder if he just wasn't thinking about – like I wonder if in that moment – I don't know. I think he just said it because he wanted to get ahead of everybody else or something. But it is kind of a – like it's just not a cool thing to do to Mark. It's not a cool thing to do to Mark. It's also not a cool thing to do to the other manufacturers. I was standing next to Chris Turner. Jerry from Multimorphic walked up. Oh, were they in the room? Were you in the room during it? No, no. I was at the Stern Army. Oh, that's right. You weaseled your way into the Stern Army. That's a whole other conversation. I totally walked up like, hey, I'm Jamie Burch from the Wormhole here. Michael put this band. He goes, dude, you drink Diet Cokes. I don't care. But I didn't just drink Diet Cokes that night, and I had a little too much fun. But shout out to Michael Grant. Thanks for inviting me to the – well, you didn't invite me, but thanks for letting me in. Let me crash your party. But what I was going to say about – I do feel like sometimes I get to know these people, and then I get soft spots for the person. Yes. It is really hard as a content creator, isn't it? Like Mark Seiden is so nice. I want to like hug him and go, dude, I'm sorry Jack did that to you. Yeah, and honestly, like I don't – I might be a little bit of a – I don't dislike Avatar. It's just one that I wouldn't buy for my home collection. It's not like Mark had to choose Avatar, right? And that's the other thing, right? I think he made the absolute cool, beautiful machine out of a theme that – it's Avatar. Yeah, and I think – No offense to Avatar. It's just there's no like people aren't going home and rewatching Avatar again and again. I know. And I think that's the thing, even though it grossed so much money. And if you looked at it just from that, like if you looked at like, you know, these these movie franchises and you looked at how much money they've made. If you just did that, you'd be like, oh, my gosh, well, it's got to be a hit if we did this, because look at how much money it grossed. Yeah, but it just didn't. I just don't think I don't think it even had to do with Mark and his layout or anything. I think it just had to do with people just don't have that. Yeah, can you name a character from – what's his name, Sully? I don't – isn't Sully from Monsters, Inc.? Oh. Or is there a Sully – See what I mean? Wow, dude. Is there actually – See what I'm saying? Is there a Sully in Avatar? There might be. There could be. No, there might be. See, I don't even know. I've seen him once. I just thought about Monsters, Inc. when you said Sully. I didn't think about Avatar. I'm like, what? I think his name is Sully. Is there really? I don't know. Oh, man. Someone will correct us. I guarantee you. Oh, believe me. we will be we will be corrected about a lot of things if we said anything incorrect during this podcast i've said i'm sure i'm sure one of the zacharias was from like 1990 and i said 80s and i'm gonna get hammered so it's no worries i don't care anymore but i i know i started not caring for a while it's like you know what there's always gonna be someone that's gonna you know be be a jerk about something but uh i forgot what you've been saying so what was your other what happens to our conversations ladies and gentlemen at night too i i know i forgot anyway i i think um i almost feel like at some point we should do a when when we see what comes out this year we'll see is there a theme because it seems like um i've heard it at least from seth davis seth davis is telling people like hey we're going to put more into our games we're going to be a little bit more risky and you could argue like they were a little risky with dnd and they were a little risky with x-men i think Kenny X-Men, that's not a traditional layout in modern times, I don't feel like. He took a lot of chances. So maybe we'll see Stern continue to do that. Obviously, Spooky, I think, is going to continue to push the limits. P3, I really hope this Portal game propels him a little bit further where he can win some hearts and minds. But I think you said it best. I think he has to view the platform as a bit of a loss leader and then make the money on the modules. But we'll see if he does that. And we'll see what Barrels does, right? We'll see. Is it Dune? Is it Goonies? Is it Fifth Element? Dude, I really hope it's not Dune. I know all these people. Like, I know them very, very well. They won't tell you shit. And they won't tell me a freaking thing. I goad them at night. Like, I'll fool with them. And I'm like, dude, I can't wait for Dune. It's going to be so awesome. Just to see if they'll be like, yeah, man, we're working hard. And they're like, yeah. And they're like, well, we'll have to see what it is. And I'm like, you bees, you clowns. So wait a minute. Didn't you have a story? And I swear we got to finish on this because I'm going way over what I don't really like when podcasts get too long. But I think we're pretty entertaining. So whatever. I don't know. I think you are. No, I think we both are. So what was I going to say? See, I already forgot. Oh, isn't there a story that you have where you like – you interact very closely. Or wasn't someone going to Wormhole that worked at Barrels of Fun and never told you they worked there or something? Yeah, he's been in my house. They have dinner at my house. I made him pizza bread and pizzas, and they come to my house, and he was working. And this is before Labyrinth came out, right? This is before Labyrinth comes out. And he knows what you do and what you're into. Oh, yeah. I'm Wormhole. I'm doing all these things. He comes to Wormhole all the time. and one of them who they hired two techs that are very good friends of mine, Lee and Matt, and I won't give their last names, but I said hey, I heard you got a new job. He's like, yeah, I'm in manufacturing. What are you manufacturing? He did not say I worked for Barrels of Fun. I was like, okay, cool. No one knew what Barrels of Fun was. No one even knew that this company was this. But he didn't say a pinball manufacturer. He just said I work in manufacturing. That's it. manufacturing and then the other guy he worked he's a very close friend of mine he works at boeing forever as an engineer and he never told me that he left boeing and is at barrels of fun and the only time i heard about barrels of fun was i got a call from David Van Es and said we need to use the war and i don't really know who David Van Es is and I got a call from... Yeah, because it didn't... The trailers, Aaron... The trailers, Aaron, at the Wormhole. At the Wormhole, yeah. Yeah, if you go and look at the Barrels of Fun trailer, Erin Winnick-Anthony, our co-host for the Twippies, is in that video. Yeah. And they wanted... So they make us sign an NDA and they tell us what they're doing. When you guys filmed that, because we didn't know each other then, I don't think. No. But so like you knew – so then you knew at that point before it came out. But that was probably like what? How much before? Not that long, right? A couple of weeks before they debuted it at Expo. And we did two things here at the Wormhole Forum. We'll leave it at this. How about that? We did two things. One, we filmed the commercial, and I just had to be here for that. I had to see this. the lights, everything they did. Erin like peeking. The idea was she was putting quarters in another machine. And what the hell is this? And then she comes around. It was really well done. And then we did Bo and Karen's tutorial video a few days later with my rig. Okay. And we filmed that for Barrels of Fun. So we're going to release the tutorial video and the commercial, if you will, the teaser. So Bowen Kerins comes in. Anyone that knows Bowen, Bowen has helped with Barrels of Fun on some of the rules and some of the design on Labyrinth. He comes in and he plays a game called Trailer. And we had – you got to play Trailer at the Vault. It's an old, playmatic, it's a pretty fun game. Well, we had a GC competition on that game. Bowen comes in, and the GC was 2.4 million. He puts up 4 million. Oh, wow. And we had people coming for a Monday tournament, and he's finishing. We already finished the tutorial. Everything went great. Did the rules. Did everything. I'm packing everything up because we've got all these people coming to play a Monday tournament, and they walk in, and Bowen Kerins is in here. With the Labyrinth is already gone. It's already boxed up. And this crowd of people, like, what is this guy doing here? And he's like, hey, thanks for letting me hang out. And then he just took off. He put up $4 million, and to this day it's still the GC. No one's ever going to beat that, I don't think. So there must have been some tension there for barrels to get that labyrinth out before tournament, right? Like, was there a little stress? Like, hey, we got to get this thing out of here? I go, listen, people show up at 5 o'clock for the 6.30 tournament. You've got – you don't have much time. Yeah. You've got to get the hell out of here. People are coming. And unless you want to sign 40 more people up to your NDA, Ralph, right? Don't you feel like, though, in modern times, it's nearly impossible for any gaming company, no matter what, it's pinball, arcade, video game, whatever it is, to keep things under wraps. How the hell do these guys do it? Like, how is it that no one there leaks anything out? I really don't know. And it's not just their NDA, which is pretty good NDA. If you've ever read NDAs, it's pretty good. I signed it. I didn't read it. I just signed it. I did, too. When we saw when we went on, we saw a little side project that are working on. But I they're just the most secretive company. They're very, very good at it. they're really kind of pissing me off because I'm like 30 minutes away from their manufacturing facility and I have not a clue not a clue I just no I did I know this is bad to leave it at this I just hope it's not all right let me ask you this if it is Dune but it's awesome like and you don't because I'm not I watched the original movies but after that I have not watched any of modern ones and i don't know if they're really cool are they yeah did they do anything though like did they do anything like the one thing about certain movies is like i'm okay with them being a little slow to develop stories but there was no like pumped up moments to get me like really hyped about it so i don't know if the newer movies do that a little bit better movies do like he rides this sandworm and he's kicking some ass and do you think if they do if it is dune then it's going to based on the new movies? Because Labyrinth, their theme so far is using an older property. Do you think they'd use new or old? Isn't there like three dunes? There's a David Finch dune. Yep. The other dune from the 80s. I don't know how many there are. I don't know. There might be three. It doesn't matter. I think when you look at theme, was Godzilla so incredible that everyone was like, oh my god they made godzilla but when they played it they went oh my god this is unbelievable right yeah and i could give a rat's ass about i could literally give a rat's ass about godzilla like i you know what i mean like i didn't sit here being like oh my gosh the dream theme of mine is godzilla like it wouldn't even come in my yeah no one cared but i love the game so maybe they could do that with dune maybe they'll figure out some way i think look i know literally every single person that works there. They come to the wormhole and they play in our tournaments. And not only are they tight-lipped, but they're excellent at what they do. And they're not going to put a stinker out there. There's just no way. There's no way they're going to put a stinker. It's going to be great. Labyrinth is great. It's fun. It is fun. And I can give a rat's ass about David Bowie and his, you know, whatever he's rocking down there and everything he does. I don't care. But I like playing Labyrinth. It has that, I want to play one more time. I want to try to get to the end. Yeah, it does. All right. Well, hey, I don't know. We'll see what they do. I got to admit, though, I got really pumped when it started, when more people started saying Goonies. And then, of course, whoever, I think it was Colin that did all the trolling. Did Colin bring the freaking skeleton key? Colin did not bring it. Colin did not bring it. I'm going to tell you what happened here, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, tell me. And then we're going to wrap it. We're going to wrap it up. Tell me the last story. The Twippies, Barrels of Fun, did a tour for content creators and people that came from the Twippies. Thank you so much, Brian Savage. It was great. That freaking food was amazing. And everything was amazing. So all of a sudden, we start seeing these Goonie Keys all over the place. And the pirate ship. And the big pirate ship when you walk in and all these different things. Well, David, here's the rub. David was feeding them to Colin. Colin was putting them down and taking pictures. So that leads me to believe that it's 100% not that. I didn't know that it was David. He's so good at veering you to another way and not letting you know. It's pretty impressive. I know. I don't know, man. It's going to be good, dude. No matter what they do, I'm telling you, people are going to sell it. They're going to sell a thousand of them. I'm telling you. All right. By the way, this text just came in. I got to. I got to. I got to read it to you really quick. There's a guy at my work that I just found out is really into pinball. And he's like, sorry to bother you on a Saturday. Quick question. Did you get a chance to play Evil Dead? I have a chance to get one, and I'm in line for one. Machine looks awesome. Any thoughts? And, of course, I'm on the podcast, so I haven't responded to him. He's like, hey, never mind. I think I'm just going to pull the trigger. Shit, my wife is going to kill me. here's what you do here's what you do ralph you tell him listen it's dog shit don't buy and then stay and then say and then snake it for yourself how good a friend is he is he really good friend he's very high up in the company and that would be limiting that would be a career limiting move on my part well you won't be able to buy any more machines if you keep doing that yeah yeah Yeah, that's not good. Tell him to get it. It's great. Yeah. He actually would – all right, never mind. That's a whole other – I'll tell you offline. It's another – it's a fun story. But anyway. How do we do, man? We're at an hour and a half. That's a long one. Jamie, I think this is good. I'm not going to even edit it. I love the conversation. I love that – No, there's no editing involved. This is good. It was a really fun conversation, and I feel like I could go on for another half an hour. But we'll have to cut it for right now. But we'll be on again. You are going to be doing some more podcasts in the near future, buddy, because I have a lot of fun with you guys, and I have a lot of fun with you, and we've got some ideas me and you are throwing around. So we're going to have some fun. We're going to have fun. Okay, Ralph? We're not going to delve onto the negative of this hobby. There's plenty of it. There's plenty of negatives in this damn world. We don't need it. You're sitting here. You're in your car, and you just want to be entertained, and that's what we hopefully give you today. Or you're on your elliptical trainer, whatever. Whatever. Whatever you thought you were. You're taking a run. You're on the toilet. You could be on the toilet right now. You could be. We don't even know where you are. I hope not. I mean, I don't. Donnie, this was, I wish I could do, I wish I could do Jenga. It's really easy to do. I can't do it. I don't have, I've never been able to do other voices. Any excitement? Do you have any excitement? I swear I got to end it at this. All right. Do you have any excitement over Pinball Brothers Predator? Because Predator was a movie I watched quite a bit. back in the day. You son of a bitch. I know, that's such a great line. That has to be... Alright, let's talk about it. When you press the start button. You son of a bitch. Oh gosh, how epic would that be just to start? And then they come together and the shaker motor goes off like... Oh my gosh, that would be so cool. It has to be. If you don't have Arnold and you're still making this, you might... Forget it. What are you doing? What do you mean? I mean, I have a sound package from Pinsound on my T2 where they have some guy that apparently does Arnold. It's not bad. OK, it's not bad, but you can tell it's not him. Predator and not have. I know you need to have Arnold, dude. You have to. You know, you know, here's a good ball. Say you're bleeding. Ain't got time to bleed. Yeah. Yes, dude. Right. Totally. There's your ball. Save. Totally. one of my favorite scenes in that movie i was obsessed with this gun as a kid the gatling gun where jesse yeah jesse out and shoots down like every freaking tree i was a huge wwf guy so jesse to me was like are you kidding me do you remember how fun it was when do you remember when all of a sudden you started seeing wrestlers in movies like when uh rowdy rowdy piper did they live were you not like holy shit the thing that i like that i was like is mainstream now like they're in movies like these guys are in movies it was and they live to me i live is a pretty good movie though i haven't watched it in a long time but i love you wear the glasses no oh that's good i don't know see i don't i would want if i would definitely want to play a they live pinball machine if they made it i don't think it would be a hit but i think everyone can do with it i mean i think they're kind of kicking some ass and i'm sure abby rowdy piper he's still alive right no he's dead is he really yeah they don't live very long i know did you watch by the way last thing i swear to god did you watch the mcmahon thing on netflix i didn't get through episode five why you like it hurt feelings he's so evil it's so terrible i know that i couldn't i loved it so much because it brought back me you know i went memories were cool wasn't it i used to go to madison square garden yeah and i saw hulk hogan face randy macho man savage with elizabeth in his corner on saturday night main event and madison square garden that's so cool i loved wrestling and so that netflix series is really cool if you haven't seen it except episode five it becomes a bummer when he becomes an absolute horrible human being i know i know i i honestly though i was really enjoying it up until then too because it was taking me back to all of the beginnings when I started watching it. And it was really cool. And I remember Saturday night's main event was a big deal for me. When I could watch that, it was really cool. My dad would wake me up. Well, you're a little younger than me, but my dad would wake me up. Yeah, because wasn't it on? It was on a little late. Yeah. That was so cool. It was in place of Saturday Night Live like once a quarter. Yeah. there was a i'll tell if i say i'm so bad with the one more thing but this is really fast one there was a guy that my sister what we do ladies and gentlemen i know my wife our wives look at us and go getting off the phone yet i know hey by the way janine wants me to tell you this okay i'm nervous right now my wife is janine she adores you so she was really cool i really liked her a She wants to know if you're real. Because when Ralph comes up and talks to you, ladies and gentlemen, if you're ever fortunate to get Ralph to talk to you. Shut up. You know, you feel very privileged that Ralph is gracious. He is the same person. Right? You're the same person. There are people that question that, but I feel like that's. Bologna and cheese. Bologna and cheese. They're wrong. Okay? I'm telling you as a very good friend of yours. He is infectious with his love for pinball. I love it. We're at Eureka Heights. I've got my dog Bagel there. Janine is holding Bagel. You come up, and you walk away because it's time to play in the tournament, and she goes, he's not a real person, is he? I go, no, no, no, no. I'm a cyborg. That's a real human being. Donnie, watch me rip my arm off. I don't know. I don't know, Jenga. He just really likes pinball. No, no, no, no, no. He really likes pinball. Oh, that's awesome. No, I really enjoyed meeting her. And did you just do a symbol? Yeah, I did a rich shot. I was trying to find the damn... I don't know, man. No, but the dog... It's Bagel, right? Bagel was so cool. I just had so much fun. I really was... I was honestly kind of sad leaving. Like, I was so happy because the Twippy weekend was so fun. And for those of you that... I know we don't have all the details on next year or this coming year's Twippies, but if I wasn't hosting the show and I was just in attendance, which there were other people that did that the whole weekend, we had so much fun together because it wasn't just the Twippies. It was all these other things that Colin and you and everyone had put together. It was like the most geeky, awesome pinball weekend, And it still stands, I think, right now out of all the conferences and stuff I've ever been to. It was the most fun that I've had in like a pinball weekend hanging out and playing games. It was just awesome. I had an absolute blast. Thank you, Colin, for helping putting this together. And we can't wait for next year. It's going to be a blast. It's going to be a blast, dude. Yeah. And the reason why I bring it up is because I hope more people, you know, I know we can only have, depending on where, you know, what we decide to do this year. Right. I think if you have a chance to come, I got to think Colin and the rest of the committee is going to plan something very similar. And it's just – I think it would be a really fun time for everyone to come. So if you do have the chance to fly in, you got to do it because I think it's only going to get better from lessons learned from this past year. So anyways, all right, Jamie, where do they find you? What do you want to plug? Wormholepinball.com. You can find us on all the socials, Wormhole Pinball. I am Jamie Burchill. I am your host. And I will also be at the electric bat at the end of April hanging out with this dude and Rachel and Kale. So if you're at the bat and want to come play in Chewy's tournament, which is the end of April on a Sunday, I think it's the 26th or 27th. Check my dates. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to play in that. I'm going to me and John are going to dominate. We're coming from Houston to come to the bat and do some winning. Yeah, you're coming right before it gets so ungodly hot that you don't want to visit. If we're going to a ballgame, me and you are going to go to a ballgame that night. Yeah, we've got to figure that out. I want to do that. I think that would be fun. I do too. All right, man. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show. I appreciate your friendship, and I think we're just going to have so much more. We have more fun in store for this year, and what an exciting year. Honestly, we really, really do. Ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned. More content coming your way. It will be a lot of fun. All right. thanks jamie we'll uh i'll put all the the links to how to find you in the video description and uh yeah we'll see you we'll see you soon i'll probably talk to you later on today all right man see you brother bye _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 4d104026-23ea-4bb6-9857-5bcfd764189b*