# Pinball Roundtable Part - 11 with Retro Ralph and Cale Hernandez - Episode 77

**Source:** JBS Show  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-11-15  
**Duration:** 81m 24s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-18193839

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## Analysis

JBS Show roundtable discusses Spooky Pinball's Beetlejuice release, which sold out within hours at $10K MSRP. Hosts praise its art direction, innovative playfield design, and comprehensive theme incorporation, contrasting it favorably with Stern's recent releases like Star Wars LE ($13K+). The conversation explores Stern's apparent shift toward cost-cutting and market diversification under new leadership (Seth), with hosts speculating that creative constraints and accounting-driven decisions are limiting Stern's mechanical/artistic ambition compared to boutique competitors.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Beetlejuice sold out before anyone saw it; crashed website within ~1 hour of direct sales launch — _Jamie mentions distributors still receiving calls; Cale confirms they sold ~70 on floor today but were technically sold out before that._
- [HIGH] Spooky produced Beetlejuice with extensive custom sculpts and detailed theme incorporation for $10K, while Stern's Star Wars LE is $13K+ but lacks equivalent mechanical/artistic depth — _Hosts repeatedly compare the two games directly; note Star Wars has 'no way that the average home buyer isn't looking at this right now' and questioning value proposition._
- [MEDIUM] Walking Dead LE remaster is selling worse than King Kong did — _Cale notes 'one person said it's selling a little bit worse than kong sold' and 'dealers didn't get any walking dead les because they're just not selling.'_
- [MEDIUM] Stern is under new leadership (Seth) and shifting toward cost-cutting/accountant-driven decisions rather than creative focus — _Jamie: 'There's a new sheriff in town, right? You got Seth. This is not – I don't think this is going to be the cool, hip, Stern – This is not the George and Gary Stern anymore.' References 'major changes going on' at Stern._
- [HIGH] Stern's custom sculpts are cost-prohibitive; molds/dies cost $50K-$100K, which is why they switched to off-the-shelf toys (e.g., McDonald's Happy Meals toys in Shrek) — _Cale provides specific cost figures and examples of McDonald's toy usage at Marco's Specialties from Stern games._
- [HIGH] Game Room Goodies (distributor) exited the pinball sales business; Cale says Stern is now enforcing MSRP pricing with no distributor discounts, a change from previous partnership pricing — _Cale describes email from Stern sales: 'the best we can do is MSRP, you know, with tax and shipping. And I was like, I've never paid MSRP in my entire life.'_
- [HIGH] Universal community acclaim for Beetlejuice; no negative feedback heard unlike typical game releases — _Ralph: 'I just haven't heard many people complaining about it at all it's always it's all been praised' and 'I didn't hear one person say they don't like it.'_
- [MEDIUM] Star Wars booth traffic was notably low compared to Winchester, Predator, and homebrew sections at Expo — _Ralph: 'when I was filming my video at Expo, there was a time where... there wasn't [people at Star Wars]. And it was crazy.' Contrast with Winchester lines and non-Stern booth flow being 'way higher.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I think this is like a weird turning point. And that's what it feels like."
> — **Ralph**, mid-discussion
> _Suggests perception of industry shift from Stern dominance to boutique manufacturer innovation._

> "I've never paid MSRP in my entire life. Like, what the hell is going on here?"
> — **Cale**, during Stern pricing discussion
> _Illustrates dramatic policy change at Stern toward stricter pricing control; suggests friction with traditionally-favored distributors/partners._

> "how the hell do they even do this for 10 grand? So then that's when the wheels start spinning and go, well, they're not doing this to not make money."
> — **Ralph**, Beetlejuice analysis
> _Highlights economic paradox: if boutique can produce content-rich game profitably at $10K, why can't Stern with economies of scale?_

> "They're being handcuffed because someone else is going you only have this much money to make this game."
> — **Cale**, creative constraints discussion
> _Attributes Stern's reduced creativity to budget restrictions imposed by management, not lack of engineering talent._

> "Their competition is cell phones, not even television anymore. Their competition is cell phones. It's things that are taking people's attention away."
> — **Jamie**, market competition discussion
> _Reflects Stern's stated strategic view: leisure attention economy, not pinball competitors, is the real threat._

> "It crashed their website. People were sending me because I told my friends, you got to get on the list."
> — **Jamie**, Beetlejuice sales discussion
> _Emphasizes unprecedented demand velocity and website infrastructure strain._

> "I don't feel like the lack of creativity is because they don't have really great creative people there or great mechanical engineers there... they're being handcuffed."
> — **Cale**, Stern creative analysis
> _Defends Stern's talent while criticizing management/financial constraints._

> "Competition is good for you... Especially when you're on the top of the hill. You've got to go, you know what? We just, we're getting our ass kicked a little."
> — **Jamie**, Stern competitive outlook
> _Suggests Stern should view boutique success as wake-up call, though pessimism follows about Stern's actual receptiveness._

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique manufacturer praised for Beetlejuice's art direction, sculpts, and comprehensive theme integration; positioned as creative alternative to Stern. |
| Beetlejuice | game | Spooky Pinball's latest release, $10K MSRP, sold out within ~1 hour; universally praised for art (Christopher Franchi), sculpts, and innovative playfield design (sandworm, waiting room lock mechanism, third flipper). 999 unit run. |
| Star Wars Pinball | game | Stern's recent $13K+ LE release; criticized by hosts for lacking mechanical depth and artistic innovation compared to Beetlejuice; booth traffic notably lower at Expo. |
| Christopher Franchi | person | Artist/designer credited with Beetlejuice artwork; hosts wearing 2026 10-year anniversary shirts he designed. Praised for tasteful, colorful art direction. |
| Stern Pinball | company | Large-scale manufacturer under new leadership (Seth); perceived as shifting toward cost-cutting and accounting-driven decisions, away from creative/mechanical ambition. |
| Walking Dead LE (Remaster) | game | Recent Stern release; poor sales performance cited by dealers; selling worse than King Kong. |
| Barrels of Fun | company | Boutique manufacturer; Dune and Winchester games praised for content-rich design at lower price point than Stern equivalents. |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Boutique manufacturer known for high-quality sculpts and elaborate playfields. |
| Game Room Goodies | company | Distributor that recently exited pinball sales business; now service-only. Historically provided pricing breaks to partners like Cale/Rachel. |
| Jamie (Birchall) | person | JBS Show host, at Houston Arcade Expo; broadcasting roundtable; reports on show floor activity. |
| Retro Ralph | person | Co-host/guest; engaged in detailed analysis of Beetlejuice vs Star Wars; references wife watching original Beetlejuice film; content creator. |
| Cale Hernandez | person | Co-host of Pin Pals and Electric Bat Arcade; distributor/operator relationship with Stern; experienced excitement about Beetlejuice and communicated it to Ralph. |
| Rachel | person | Cale's colleague; historically evangelized Stern machines with him for ~9 years; negative reaction to MSRP-only pricing policy. |
| Seth | person | New leadership at Stern; hosts speculate he represents shift from creative/homegrown culture to accounting/cost-control focus. |
| Bug | person | Co-owner/creative director of Spooky Pinball; featured in 'Hot Pins' interview content with Jamie/Serge. |
| Marco Specialties | company | Pinball parts/merchandise distributor; historically sold truckloads of machines with Cale and others. |
| Winchester Mystery House | game | Barrels of Fun game; major draw at Houston Arcade Expo with long lines; two units on show floor. |
| Dune | game | Barrels of Fun game; praised as content-rich alternative to Stern's offerings. |
| Predator | game | Pinball Brothers game; hosts note it's more impressive in-person than advertisements suggest; good foot traffic at Expo. |
| Houston Arcade Expo | event | Current venue for discussion; location of Beetlejuice debut (70 units on floor), Winchester lines, low Star Wars traffic. |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Beetlejuice reception and design excellence, Stern's creative constraints and cost-cutting under new leadership, Comparison of boutique vs large-scale pinball manufacturing philosophy, Market saturation, pricing escalation, and consumer value perception
- **Secondary:** Stern distributor relationship changes and pricing policy shifts, Walking Dead LE sales underperformance, Star Wars Pinball reception and booth traffic at Expo, Custom sculpts vs off-the-shelf toy economics

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.55) — Strong positive sentiment toward Beetlejuice, art direction, and boutique innovation; significant negative sentiment toward Stern's direction, pricing, and perceived creative decline. Optimistic about competition driving industry change, but pessimistic that Stern will respond or can respond given management philosophy and pipeline constraints.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Stern distributor ecosystem consolidation; Game Room Goodies exit from sales; partner pricing eliminated; suggests structural pressure on distributor relationships. (confidence: high) — Cale: 'Game Room Goodies, a distributor... They got out of the business... only going to be handling service calls' and 'I've never paid MSRP in my entire life.'
- **[business_signal]** Stern shifting to account-driven cost-control under new leadership (Seth); perceivable move away from homegrown/creative culture. (confidence: medium) — Jamie: 'There's a new sheriff in town... This is not the cool, hip, Stern – This is not the George and Gary Stern anymore.' References 'major changes' and 'accountants running stuff.'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Hosts recognize industry shift/turning point; boutique success forcing re-evaluation of Stern's strategic direction and market positioning. (confidence: high) — Ralph: 'I think this is like a weird turning point. And that's what it feels like.'
- **[competitive_signal]** Beetlejuice's rapid sell-out and universal acclaim positioning Spooky as clear creative alternative to Stern; boutique manufacturers gaining competitive ground. (confidence: high) — Jamie: 'Beetlejuice sold out before anybody saw anything... that's unbelievable'; Ralph: 'no one's still here's what's crazy... I didn't hear one person say they don't like it.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Stern's recent games criticized for reduced sculpts, flat plastics, and mechanical 'B-level' features compared to boutique competitors. (confidence: high) — Cale: 'less, less, less... majority of what I have here for a premium stern is got a bunch of flat plastics' vs competitors' 'amazing sculpts.'
- **[event_signal]** Houston Arcade Expo shows dramatic visitor flow disparity: non-Stern games (Winchester, Predator, homebrew) drew significantly more traffic than Star Wars. (confidence: high) — Ralph: 'flow of people from anything non-stern, it was way higher... Star Wars... there wasn't [people]... it filled throughout the [weekend] but... overall [was] way lower.'
- **[market_signal]** Walking Dead LE (remaster) selling worse than King Kong; distributor inventory challenges; MSRP-only pricing policy signaling reduced partner cooperation. (confidence: high) — Cale: 'dealers didn't even get any walking dead les'; 'one person said it's selling a little bit worse than kong sold'; 'the best we can do is MSRP.'
- **[market_signal]** Stern explicitly targeting non-pinball markets (cell phones, attention economy) as competitive threats; acknowledging pinball market saturation and pursuing diversification. (confidence: medium) — Jamie: 'Their competition is cell phones, not even television anymore... They're looking for something else where they can tap into a market.'
- **[personnel_signal]** Christopher Franchi associated with Spooky Pinball art direction; context suggests potential migration of talent from larger to boutique manufacturers. (confidence: medium) — Hosts praise Franchi's Beetlejuice artwork and mention 2026 10-year anniversary shirt design; Franchi associated with Spooky production.
- **[market_signal]** Star Wars LE at $13K+ perceived as poor value compared to Beetlejuice at $10K; hosts question if average buyer will pay premium for Stern without equivalent content. (confidence: high) — Ralph: 'one-upification of Stern... Star Wars... doesn't hold a candle to this [Beetlejuice]... I buy... I'm going to be able to buy this game for $10,000.'
- **[product_concern]** Stern's X-Men accessories (leaked) criticized as lacking inspiration/creativity; consistent with theme of cost-driven design decisions. (confidence: medium) — Jamie: 'you can even see it in the X-Men accessories that have been leaked. They really lack inspiration and creativity.'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Universal acclaim for Beetlejuice contrasts sharply with typical mixed/divided opinion on game releases; represents rare consensus in pinball community. (confidence: high) — Ralph: 'I just haven't heard many people complaining about it at all... I didn't hear one person say they don't like it.'

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## Transcript

 This week on the program, Retro Ralph is back from drinking one too many Korean old fashions. Jamie, don't call me James Birchall, is live from the Houston Arcade Expo. And Cale Hernandez may have avoided the CDC with Surge, but he's here today on the latest edition of the JBS Roundtable. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. It's showtime. There you go. It's showtime. There you go. Let's go. Welcome to part 11. That took us five minutes to figure that out, ladies and gentlemen. I'm kidding. I was like, wait, I'm third or I'm second? Where did we go? I'm JV Virtual. Welcome Retro Ralph and Kale Hernandez to another edition of the Roundtable. And it is all Beetlejuice right now. Today is the day of Beetlejuice, isn't it, boys? It's insane. My God. And, you know, the thing is that you guys know I had the videos and everything. I just couldn't show anybody. but I've been telling you how exciting, how excited I am. And I'm so glad you guys can finally see it. Bug hooked me and Serge up with the videos so we could do podcasts and do a lot of content. And I don't know if you guys have seen it yet. If anybody in the chat out there hasn't seen it, go to the Electric Bat YouTube. and we did our version of Hot Ones, but it's Hot Pins, and it is absolutely hilarious. We talked to Bug about Spooky and Beetlejuice for about an hour and a half while we eat progressively hotter wings, and we almost killed Bug. I don't think the Wisconsin boys are ready for the spice, the southern spice. Once you said that you were from New Orleans, he felt that you were cheating him, right? I thought that was one of my favorite things. That was pretty funny, actually. I grew up on hot stuff, yeah. He's like, oh, no. He's like, I thought we were on an even playing field, but. Yeah. Well, all the content today has been unbelievable, right? Have you absorbed all of it, boys? I know we were working this morning. Ralph and I had a tough time. I'm a quarter of the way through maybe. Haven't had time, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're wearing your nice shirts. What is everyone wearing here? You have shirts from Christopher Franchi, is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, he gave us these at Expo. Where's yours? I wasn't shirt-worthy. I've got my own shirt, Start a Mode, which is now available. I'm sure he had one for you. He probably didn't see you. No, he saw me. Because you had to leave early. No, remember, he ran into Jamie's table while we were podcasting. Oh, yeah, that's right. Just so everyone knows, this was not planned. No, I got on. I got them before Jamie was here. I was like, dude, we have the same shirt. It's awesome. And we love it. It's not like when you go to the party and you're wearing the same thing and you're like, damn. We both obviously shop at the Gap. We're excited to be wearing the same thing. It's cool. It's a good shirt. You know how sometimes the pinball shirts, they like chafe your nipples? This is a good – Franchi was considering how it felt against our skin. It's nice and light. Yeah. He does some good stuff. And I don't know if you've noticed, this is an early shirt because this is actually a 2026 shirt. Oh, does it say 2026 on it? It does. It's a 10-year anniversary. So we got – it's an early release. Jamie, lead this ship. We're too – Ralph and I are too excited. You're too excited. Here, let's hear it. Good call. Good call. So I had a business meeting this morning. Once that meeting ended, I went and watched Zach's trailer or teaser, not teaser, Zach's feature app. Very good. Awesome. It's outstanding. And I actually reached out to Zach and told him what a great job it was. And if you have his personal information, send him a thank you for doing such a good job. This is a thankless job, okay? our boy to our left or wherever he is did one recently and he had a you know it's a lot a lot a lot of work and you could see that in that feature so congratulations zach meany great job yeah yeah you killed it killed it zach it just got us excited right and then the rules come out so we're watching the rules and then uh all these things and the hot ones with you and surge and i just consumed. I'm supposed to be at the Houston Arcade Expo, boys. I've been up in my room half the day consuming pinball content from Spooky Pinball because they own the day. They did it. It was great. Ralph and I are at home. We're keeping up with everything on the internet, trying to. What are people saying at the show? What's on the ground? Great call. You know, the show itself, I think there's a huge Winchester line, right? They brought two Winchesters, two Dunes, two Labyrinths. So there's a huge line for that, a huge line for Portal. That's not enough Winchesters. No, I know. Those lines, I remember at Expo, I waited. I waited in line because that game is phenomenal. Yeah. Really good. As I was walking by this line, guys, I know a lot of people in the line, they grabbed me and they said, have you seen Beetlejuice? It was the first thing that happened at noon today when the doors opened was the Winchester line got long, and they said, have you seen Beetlejuice? They were asking me last night, have you seen Beetlejuice as we were setting up? I said, no, but my buddy has, and he won't show us. I know, right? No, Jamie, really. I was at a work meeting, and I happened to be in Tempe, and I texted Cale. I'm like, you at the Arcadia? He's like, yeah, I'm going to be here. And I was playing The Walking Dead, right, the old one, the original one. And I'm like, dude, like, you got to tell me something. He, nope, Chamber of Secrets. He wasn't going to tell me anything. But he did. But I could see it on him. Like, it was like wanting to explode out of his body because he was so excited, which got me excited. Because I'm like, man, if Cale's this excited, then this thing's got to be amazing. Because you had already seen it at that point. Right. So I think a lot of us were a little worried. I mean, secretly, my anxiety was giving me a little agita saying, can this machine be as good as the hype, right? Because the hype for Beetlejuice Boys was off the charts. They sold out before they released a teaser. I mean, that's unbelievable, right? And then they sold out of those games they sold directly. I mean, it had to be maybe an hour. It crashed their website. Yeah, it crashed their website. People were sending me because I told my friends, I told other people outside of you guys, right? I told other people, you got to get on the list. You got to get on the list. I've been saying that for a little while now. And all of them were like, how do I get one today? And I was like, dude, you didn't do the list thing. So one of my friends did get one. He called in and he got one. So he's so excited because he missed out on Evil Dead. I just got off the phone with two distributors who are still getting calls about how do I get this Beetlejuice game? And they're like, dude, that was you didn't know about this hype. Yeah, they're I mean, they're gone. That's it. What was crazy is I was in this meeting all day long. It was this long meeting. They're boring as hell. It's these quarterly business reviews. And I have to be, like, present, though, because I'm supposed to be the one asking the hard questions about these deals. And all I'm seeing is, like, it's like everywhere on my feed was Beetlejuice. It blew up. Nothing on my Facebook feed was, like, not Beetlejuice today. It was absolutely madness. Yeah. It was madness. Congratulations. Let's start with the art, okay? Can we start at art since you're wearing his shirt? Yeah. yeah it's beautiful he i mean when has he not crushed it this is just he just did it again i mean and um i know there's a lot of talk about uh you know art there's a lot of talk about art in pinball in in various directions today various directions yeah um but this one seems to have won everybody over and he used every color in the rainbow in a very tasteful manner that that fits the ip and and and that's that's just something that the Christopher Franchi has a skill of uh pulling off every single time yeah and what do you think ralph i i mean it looks amazing so like one of the things that i you just it has to do with this but so when my wife was visiting her sister just recently and And she's like, hey, and my wife does not watch movies much. I have to like force her to watch movies. She's like short attention span. She's like, hey, we watched Beetlejuice. And she doesn't know about all the pinball stuff that's going on. She's like, we watched Beetlejuice. I was like, oh, yeah, how do you like it? And she goes, and I was explaining to her. And she's like, that doesn't sound like the same movie. I was like, oh, you watched the new movie. So she had never seen the original. So it was like two or five days ago we went and watched the original. And so it was fresh in my mind. And when I was seeing like the not only the cabinet artwork, but the play field and how they incorporated so many of the like iconic things in the movie so many so much so that like when i was thinking about it because i just watched the movie i'm thinking what things would i put on it and they pretty much nailed it like they nailed it all over the place but it looks gorgeous and then the coloring i think just the way he colored it just looks great for the theme right it's like these darker purples and greens and it's just it's pretty freaking amazing it's just i don't no one's still here's what's crazy is like normally a game comes out and you guys know this you'll get mixed people that you're friends with saying oh i don't like it it sucks blah blah i didn't hear one person say they don't like it like everyone was excited about it so to have like universally loved thing come out and pinball it's like almost not heard of there's always splits or people that are just complaining about something and i just haven't heard many people complaining about it at all it's always it's all been praised yeah correct let's talk about the machine itself wild shit going on in this machine all right from you know sandworm eating ball to you know drop targets that come up underneath the sandworm to all the way underneath the sandworm uh crazy stuff the couch so like the waiting room couch is where the is the ball lock so that was such a cool like everyone remembers the scene where beetlejuice is in there he gets his number and it's like yeah right and it has that counter i know the counter too yes i know i was shocked when i i learned that because you're i didn't i watched everything out of sequence i watched your surge thing first and surge was talking about the counter and i'm like holy shit they incorporated the counter from the waiting room like that's such a cool are you talking about the deep dive or the hot wings thing though the hot wings because he did a really good job like he was talking about a lot of beetroot specific things in that yes and so i learned a lot from that and then and then obviously i didn't i didn't get through the whole deep dive yet because or the not the deep dive but the featurette yet because work was i was any second they'd be like we have five minutes to go to the bathroom i'd watch five more minutes of a video and then come back well uh be sure to watch and it's only it's not the usual three hours it's only an hour it's like an hour and a half but serge and i just dropped a deep dive where I haven't watched that yet. Where he goes into the rules. It's so cool. That little back area, the waiting room, is like a mini game within itself. I mean, you shoot the spinner, which hopefully goes through those three – your ball goes through those three pop bumpers. And then you hit a scoop that fires it back at you through that spinner. That's amazing. But there's so much more you can do there with the orbit, and to qualify the lock, you have to do, I think, three loops around that waiting area. Isn't that also – Kel, maybe you talked about this, and I noticed it in one of the videos, but I didn't – again, I didn't consume all of it yet. Can you lift that flipper up and the ball goes underneath the flipper too, or did I just make that up? That's correct. Okay. I saw that, and I was like, where does that go? Yeah, the third flipper – so it makes two different ball paths. If you don't engage it, you can actually do that little orbit around the waiting area. Okay. But if you hit that left orbit and it feeds the waiting room and then – so it goes past the flipper, the third flipper. You lift it up, and then it goes into a scoop. Oh, that's what it is. There's a scoop underneath it. Okay, cool. All right. I was wondering what that was. Okay, that's cool. Like I said, I didn't watch all of it yet, so I'm not up on 100% of it. Yeah, the gameplay looks absolutely phenomenal. It's wild that this sold out so quickly without anyone even playing it, too. And before anybody even saw it. It was technically, I mean, if you don't count the 70 or so they did today, it was really sold out before anybody saw anything. That's crazy. When I had this featurette, like when I first got my hands on this featurette and I was like, Rachel, you have to come see this thing. She was just floored. Like we did not – we heard people hyping it up. People that I haven't even seen it yet, they were just saying, I think Spooky is going to knock it out of the park with this one. And then you see that featurette. Just – when you talk about a world under glass, they nailed it. Totally. And, you know, I mean, I think that the elephant in the room is look at this game, 10K. And then Ralph has to walk over to a $13,000 Star Wars LE that just, man, it just doesn't hold a candle to this. So, Jamie, you know, you saw the chat, like, Cale and I were going back and forth like psychopaths about this. I was playing on the floor and you guys were just going. We're going back like crazy because my first thought when I saw this, and it was a little bit of a thought when Evil Dead hit. Then it was even more of a thought when Winchester hit because both of those games, you can argue, they're packing a lot of stuff in there, even Dune. And then now you look at, if you think about what they're doing, to your point, Cale, producing this world under glass. And then you see this. You're like, holy shit. And then I go look at the Star Wars. And there's no way that the average home buyer isn't looking at this right now going, like, I buy, especially the ones that tend to buy, like, premiums and LEs and go, I'm going to be able to buy this game for $10,000. As far as we can see, none of us have actually played it. It looks like it plays amazingly well. And they brought this world under glass. And if you're a Beetlejuice fan, holy shit, they tied in basically every asset. I don't know how they did it, but they did. And so it's going to bring it's going to question people are going to question why. Why am I not getting sculpts in my stern? Why am I not getting these fun toys in my sterns? And, you know, it's going to come up. There's no way it's not. And I think this is like a weird turning point. And that's what it feels like. It really is. And people I mean, we did. Let's just talk about what. Well, let's just talk about – No, it's a tough conversation, right? But it's true because – go ahead. Well, it's – let's just – what we know publicly, I think we've all heard stuff from Stern employees and stuff. There's major changes going on. But you just look at what's going on publicly. There's a new sheriff in town, right? You got Seth. This is not – I don't think this is going to be the cool, hip, Stern – This is not the George and Gary Stern anymore. And we know that publicly. Now Seth is in control. I think this is where, like, the creative teams maybe take a backseat, and this is more like the accountants are looking at stuff and running stuff. And I think you're going to see more and more taking out of the games because they want to reach this critical mass. It's almost like the one-upification of Stern. I think, you know, the writing's on the wall. You can even see it in the X-Men accessories that have been leaked. They really lack inspiration and creativity, but I don't think that's what Seth is looking for. He's looking at Excel spreadsheets and thinking about how many more people the market can reach. where you know this, Ralph, with the one-up games. Now, that's a very different market because these Stern pinballs, all pinball machines are very more expensive, but I have a feeling they're thinking they can tap into that because even if they can tap into a fraction of that market, they can move more pinball machines. But the only way to do that is to – but also the whole market – I mean, I've talked to all the manufacturers. Everything's slow. everything is very very slow uh you know i just got off the phone with one of my friends who's one of the biggest dealers out there and he didn't even um get any uh walking dead le's you know because just they're just not selling and but i think really yeah no they're not they're really not that's pretty much been i mean that's been the message i'm not going to say who i spoke with but there's definitely people i spoke with that said they're just not one person said it's selling a little bit worse than kong sold kong i feel like is a whole other topic because i think kong is actually great i don't know that that one that one baffles me a little bit but yeah the walking dead le is not taken off or not the le the remaster is not i don't think taken off like maybe they thought it might for sure and and you can really see um i mean i mean like and like i'm saying just think about the stuff that's going on publicly like you had a stern employee somebody has been there for seven, eight, nine years, just like blasting him on Facebook, and then he gets let go. You know, this is a really, it's a different thing. And I don't think Stern's not going anywhere. They're not going out of business. But this is the beginning of a very different Stern. Just one case in point. I mean, it's not the homegrown kind of feel like it used to be our game room goodies, a distributor that Ralph and I have both had a relationship with. Great guys over there. Yeah. Yeah. Family owned operation. They got out of the business. They're only going to be handling service calls for now and they're no longer like selling machines. So, you know, I got in touch with a friend at Stern and say, hey, can you get me in touch with somebody in sales so we could start getting machines direct, right? Because through Game Room Goodies, and it was all approved by Stern, we got a little break as a partner to promote the products. Man, Rachel and I have been evangelists for Stern for like nine years, but we've been selling machines. Like when we were at Marco's, selling truckloads of machines, and we've had a good relationship with them. but now it seems like you have more of the accountants cranking down on things I got an email from someone, I won't mention most people know this person and this person knows who we are and and I was like hey what you know we need to buy machines We usually get either a pro or a premium Let me know what you can do on walking dead. And they're like, the best we can do is MSRP, you know, with tax and shipping. And I was like, I've never paid MSRP in my entire life. Like, what the hell is going on here? But that's that's the thanks you get nowadays with Stern. It's a different machine now. And the funniest part is, you guys will get a kick out of this because you know Rachel. When I got that email back saying you have to pay MSRP now, I had to hide that from Rachel. Yeah. And then when I finally showed – she kept asking. I was like, here's the email. She lost it. She was just like, I don't care if I own another Stern again. She was just like, I'm done. yeah i mean the one thing just to kind of circle back a little bit about one of your first comments it's like i and this was the stuff you and i were going back on the text i don't feel like the lack of creativity is because they don't have really great creative people there or great mechanical engineers there i think what it is now it's it's your it's directly what you said they're being handcuffed because someone else is going you only have this much money to make this game So with that comes, oh, man, all this creative stuff's too expensive. I got to put in maybe something that's lesser that probably the designer wishes it could be the first iteration of it, but they can't help it. They're being strangled, held by what the cost is to build it and all that. And then, of course, from a business standpoint, it's how much margin can we make on a game if we were to strip more of it out? And you can't help but just see it as the last couple of releases have come out. It's less, less, less. And then when you turn around and go, all right, the majority of what I have here for a premium stern is got a bunch of flat plastics. And then I go and look over at like a barrels of fun game or this new spooky game or even their last one. It's all in Jersey Jack. It's all these amazing sculpts that it can't help but make it more exciting to play a game. I mean, even Turner's putting sculpts in there. Yeah, I mean, it's but I know just because I've been in the industry and dealt with real quick. that it's really more of a like the real reason isn't the that the creative people aren't great it's that they're being yeah yeah they're hamstrung they're hamstrung by you know the the accountants clearing certain things sculpts are very very expensive and that's why you saw for years stern was using off-the-shelf toys like in an avatar um i mean shit they used like stuff from McDonald's Happy Meals. What game did they do that? Shrek? Because getting... Did you guys know that? That's not a joke. I'll take your word for it. Yeah, because we had tons of them. They were made by McDonald's. But we had tons of them at Marco's Specialties because Mark Mandator bought a whole pallet of them because he found at like an auction or something and we were just like selling them at shows um but they they were like mcdonald's branded toys and and that these uh and i don't know how spooky's pulling this off i don't know if it's 3d printed or they actually have a model maker doing this but the the dyes the the molds to create these things are outrageously expensive i mean we're talking $50,000 to $100,000 for just the dye to make certain items, the plastic, the injection molding stuff is so expensive. And that's what they're, you know, you're seeing less and less of that in these Stern machines because they are so expensive. I mean, you're so spot on. I mean, look at, since we're talking about Beetlejuice, it's like as I'm looking around the play field, I go, oh my gosh, It's his it's a tombstone. It's the replica of the right. It looks just like the tombstone. Oh, he's behind it and he pops out and that's a pops out. That's been the sandworms, a frickin skull. The the the couch must be, too. It's like then you then you go into like and then they have that funny like like strip club you went into. The head of that is there. And it's like, what the fuck? And then and then and then you're like, oh, oh, and there's heart blades. Oh, and there's a shaker. Oh, and by the way, all the wire forms are powder coated. It's like, holy shit, you start going, how the hell do they even do this for 10 grand? So then that's when the wheels start spinning and go, well, they're not doing this to not make money. So they're able to put all this shit in and for 10 grand still make money in a small operation. And anybody with like half of a brain cell is going to go, they're going to look at these Sterns now and go, what am I getting then? because if they're able to do it as a small operation, and Stern has the economies of scale, and they can go out and buy much more, many more coils, many more ramps, many more whatever, like it's really eye-opening. And I don't mean it as a bag towards Stern, but it's like you've got to, I think if they want to continue to capture the same audience that just sold out this Beetlejuice, which I think they do, they're going to demand more now. And it's just been this, it's been an escalation from Expo, I think. I think Winchester people are like, holy crap. They see Dune, holy crap. They see Harry Potter, holy crap. And then they see this and then Evil Dead before it. They're going to start going, man, there's a lot of games here where these companies are putting some serious passion and love into it. And like I said before, I don't think it's because Stern doesn't want to. I think it's because the engineers and designers can't. I don't think they can, guys, honestly, because I think they have such a massive factory. We're talking almost apples and oranges of organizations that can't. Especially overhead, yeah. Such an overhead is the word I'm looking for, Ralph. Right. It's bananas. Look at the size of Barrels of Fun compared to the size, although Barrels is getting bigger and Spooky is getting bigger, but they're not nearly as big with the 100 accountants that some of our friends say that they have over there. But no, I mean, you know. Stern is not, you know, the excitement that you see with Beetlejuice today, that does affect Stern. They're all paying attention to it. But they're actually, I think they're looking at a different market, you know. Right. Because the pinball market is small. I mean, the collector's market. And people are running out of room. Games are getting expensive. They're trying to hit some other markets. You can see that with their advertising. They've even said that. So they're really looking for something else where they can tap into a market. And it's going to be hard, and it's going to take years. And I think we're seeing a cycle, a shift that we've always seen in pinball. I mean, pinball almost disappeared on many occasions. I don't think it's definitely not going to disappear, but you're going to see there's going to be a major shift, and things are going to change. Like the next five years, you're going to see companies that are kind of unrecognizable. Well, you know, the other game we didn't mention is Predator also has – was also like pretty loaded up too, you know. So it's been a pattern. That really surprised us when we got to play it. We were like, whoa, this thing is really cool. I know. It's not such the best advertisement. It's way cooler than I thought, but it is reality, right? I know. I'm not going to put it on a fucking poster, but it's not a bad. It is so much better than you think it is, guys. It is. That you go, you know, what is Stern doing? Right? Like, you know, there's a bunch of Star Wars here. They're in the line of Winchester, and no one's playing them. What does that tell you? I'm not saying no one was playing them, but there definitely was. when I was filming my video at Expo, there was a time where it was the middle of the show and I'm in the booth and I was like, I think I'm going to talk about how there's no one here because and then I went because there wasn't. And it was crazy. And of course, it filled throughout the when the weekend started, more people were there. But if I were to gauge the overall like the flow of people from anything non-stern, it was way higher. Like Homebrew section was popping off. Winchester is popping off. Predator. People were people were going into the flipping out booth because they had a special Winchester or they had one other Winchester. So people were like trying to find it. And I just think that's the kind of excitement people weren't running over. I'm sure they were like, well, I want to play the new Star Wars because everyone wants to play the new Stern games when they come out. But that excitement was just not there for that. It wasn't even close. I think, boys, that this is good for Stern. Take this take, okay? Competition is good for you. Yeah, I agree. Especially when you're on the top of the hill. And sometimes you got to go, you know what? We just, we're getting our ass kicked a little. That's all right. Let's rally the troops and let's, you know, we've got bangers coming up. Right. We've got fallout. I don't care what people think. You know, Keith Elwin, fallout. That could be absolutely incredible. Transformers. I don't know. We'll see what it does. Pokemon. Yeah. So they've got bangers. I think in a regular, in a regular world, what you're saying completely makes sense, but this is pinball. And I know for a fact, I hang out with these guys, they don't see anybody as their competition. And in a way, they're right. I mean, they can produce more games in a week and a half than these other manufacturers can all year. Yeah, right. They don't look at those. That's not their competition. Their competition is cell phones, not even television anymore. Their competition is cell phones. It's things that are taking people's attention away from actually playing something cool like a pinball machine. That's their competition. They're not thinking any of these other – they're not thinking – I think that's a mistake though, don't you? Yeah, I think it's a mistake. That's a mistake when they come up and they say here's $10,000. That may be a mistake, but that's the way it is. All right, well, maybe they're listening. Jamie, though, there's a flaw in what you just said, though. You're like the competition will make them change. But here's the thing, unless I'm wrong, and Cale, keep me honest on this. I think the next three games you're going to see, two of those three games are probably close to done. So they can't change those games at this point. So for them to make change, if they do, first of all, fundamentally at the top, someone has to go, hey, guys, we're giving you more money to design these games. But that's a decision they have to make that's a financial one because they'd have to go, we're going to make less margin or charge more, which I don't think anybody could consume charging more at this point. I don't think they can go in that direction. So someone at the top has to be like, guys, I'm giving you more flexibility because the competition is starting to do things that people are excited about and they're less excited about our games. We can see it in the analytics and the sales and all that. But that has to be at the Seth boardroom, everyone making that decision level. And if they change it, when do we see it? Probably not for another year almost out, right? Because unless they really put a ton of money into these two games that are coming out, but we don't know because, I don't know, they haven't been out yet. Right. I don't know. Am I off on that? They can't change fast. No, you're not. You're not. And when you see Spooky speak and you say, how has no one ever done this before? Right. And then they're good for $10,000. Creativity is off the charts. Okay. So for $10,000, which is cheaper than a Winchester Mystery House. and Winchester Mystery House is loaded to the T's. Yeah. And now you've got a spooky speak machine that you could literally have to say Beetlejuice three times to start it up. You could talk to the fucking thing throughout when you're playing it. You could talk to your goddamn pinball machine. What are we doing? What is going on? Do you know what? The most interesting thing to me about spooky speak, and I don't know if you saw the podcast we did with Bug, but he mentioned other ways that this is just the beginning and and one other way they're thinking about using this are you saying to talk about the service thing because that's really cool for you guys like really neat if you have if you have the you have the uh the play field up you're working on it you're soldering something and then like you want to test a switch you'll be able to say hey spooky go to the switch uh switch test menu so you're not because i don't know i mean ralph You guys have worked on machines. You know, you have one hand here. You're trying to mess with the buttons on the coin door to get to the menu. I was doing it the other day because the shaker motor had rattled one of the connections on Evil Dead. So the deadite wasn't registering on the left. And it was. It was a game of me, like, going to the menu and then going back to the play field and going and raising it. And it's actually hard to do when you're. You did a whole podcast about innovation. And this is what you're talking about. Like, true something nobody thought about yet. Everyone on the floor here is blown. All I'm hearing is spooky speak. Spooky speak. Can you believe they're doing that? How are they going to do it in a big arcade? How is this going to work? How is that going to work? And the excitement level is truly off the charts. It really is. I don't know if you saw the game. I forgot about it. The freaking Polaroid camera thing is cool as hell, too. When you hit the shot and it goes off. What the hell? And it has that weird sound effects. you know where like it it what is it like the flash gets ready you remember you remember those old cameras they have weird sounds um one of the coolest things you know already in the game you're not going you know you can start the game by saying beetlejuice three times but i don't know if you saw the gameplay there's one part where you like you get a ball somewhere it's like in a scoop or something and the multiball doesn't start until you say beetlejuice three times so it's It's incorporated in the gameplay. That's cool. Yeah. That's cool. I do wonder, though, maybe it will be interesting. Obviously not. We don't know the technical things. I don't know how they're going to do it in noisy. Like maybe you don't use that function in an arcade if it's too noisy. But either way, it's cool because I think the majority of people that are going to buy these are probably home buyers. So they'll use it. But who knows? Maybe it will work in a loud arcade. I don't know how you would do that. Well, I'll let you know right after TPF because one of those puppies from TPF is coming back home to you. Oh, cool. All right. Cool. So they got one of those Joe games. Oh, the Beetlejuice? Yeah. Oh, so it has the – Are you playing them now? No, it's at TPF. You're not saying it's not right now. TPF. Yeah, I got that. I'm at Houston Arcade. TPF in March, so I can't – I'm not going to get my hands on one until TPF. And I guess they won't have one. I think I'm hearing there's going to be some at Bash at the Beach or Beach. Oh, Pinball at the Beach? Pinball at the Beach, right. What's Bash at the Beach? Isn't that like a wrestling thing that happened a long time ago? That's WCW. That's when Hulk Hogan came out as a heel. Sorry. That's where Mason Rudolph had his debut. Yeah, he did. Deep Tracks. Sorry. But just an incredible launch. They own the day. Has anyone watched any of the Walking Dead remakes? Any of the Walking Dead? Was that released today too? It was supposed to be But I don't think it came out, right? Yeah I'm guessing they're going to just like Let Spooky have their day And then they're going to You know Do the stream Walking Dead stream I'm double checking right now Just to make sure they didn't post it But I'm pretty sure they did Yeah Good move Let Spooky have their day And Stern employees are saying there's only 1,000 of them. We did that. Exactly. Yeah. Right. You are correct, Cal. Do you think they'll fall further into complacency? Or do you think, like, I was thinking this all day today. I'm like, do they look at this and go, guys, like, do they have a, you know, that conference room that's right above the office at Stern that you can see that you can always see, like, Seth is in there? Did they have a meeting today being like, guys, this is nuts. this amount of stuff they put in this thing like we got to consider or do they go further into like complacency and we see even more like i don't know i mean i can't i know the answer to this because i've talked to they they don't even they don't even care yeah it's crazy though because the community clearly does they're doing their thing that they they've always done make these games that are great tournament games that are fun games that have like big ips attached to them They don't look at that and go, oh, we need to do that or we need to top them. But I wonder, like, it just seems that I could be in the vortex, right? Sometimes we get, like, in our little bubbles and that's all we see. But today, the community was losing their shit. Like, they were losing their shit. I was getting DMs like, did you see it? Oh, my gosh. The thing is, I can't tell you the last time someone texted me that, at least in the last three years. Oh, my gosh, you need to see this start. Maybe the only thing that I had some friends kind of freaked out about was the Dragon and D&D. But, like, no one's going, oh, my gosh, this is so amazing. So, to me, how many of those people that didn't get Beetlejuices that if Stern could make a game of equal, you know, quality inside, how would they sell 3,000 of them? Because they can make that in, like, to your point, they can make 3,000 in, like, a month and a half. So, you know, I mean, it feels like maybe they would lose a little margin, but maybe you'd sell more. Right. I mean, you'd sell more. So you're you're now your volume. So just to put this in perspective, it's kind of like, OK, let's take Ford and then Ferrari. Right. And like like if we went out and. You know, I don't know. I don't even know what they make anymore. So like a Ford, what's a Ford sports car like a Mustang or you're talking about something like a Mustang? And then somebody shows us a Ferrari, and we're like, Ford, you better be paying attention. You know, look at this. You know, that's not even on their radar. Yeah. And I want people listening to realize, like, obviously I love Stern stuff, and not like I'm trying to backpedal. But what I think here, though, is that, like, they probably could just stay the course doing what they're doing. and I think they'd probably still be fine, which is kind of crazy. So to your point, I think there's enough loyal fans. But at the same time, I start thinking, well, how much does this start to chip away at those loyal fans? And then does the amount of units they're going to sell? Because the location ones are always going to buy them, right, pretty much. They're probably guaranteed an easy 500 games get sold to locations easily. Well, I don't know. I'm not getting a Walking Dead. Oh, yeah, that's right. You said that. No, you're not. but you know how many distros are going to reach out to you now oh they already have yeah we we had we had distros reach out to us um with like hey we'll hook you up i had one distro say we'll give you a walking dead to partner up and we were just like just on principle alone we don't even want to see the damn game well you guys have one you have the pro so yeah we have the pro and so i mean right now there's no difference in the rules it's just um i'm hearing it's wasting i don't know i didn't nobody actually told me that but that's just a rumor this is just a port of you know this rules yeah sam right so sam over to spike three it just a it just support right port right now They haven had anything extra added What is cool just like on Metallica they had to change the geometry slightly to fit in the different because there's an extra support on the back of the play field or something with spike cabinets. So they had to do the same thing with Metallica, but on Walking Dead, they had to move the ramps up just slightly to fit into the cabinet. So that combined with the Spike 3 flippers, Spike flippers, those ramps are going to be easier to hit, probably easier to hit over and over again, which is going to – And the same thing – you saw the same thing with the Metallica remastered, which is going to bring an interesting gameplay to this. I bet it's fun as hell to shoot. But right now it's just like – it's the same rules as the old game. Well, and you know what I was thinking for you guys? I forgot about this. I don't know if the crossbow – because there is no non-crossbow version. I feel like you guys put Evil Dead in tournaments. The crossbow might be weird long-term, maybe for reliability. You guys would probably have to mess – maybe it's fine. Maybe it wouldn't be, but I think it would slow the game down, right? For you guys, like in a tournament setting. It's been so long since I've played a Walking Dead premium. I don't know. As an operator, of course, you want less moving parts. So that is kind of like a deal, an issue. You should just keep buying sterns. You'll be all right. They're not worried about that anymore. Right. Wow, Jamie. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm a little more worried about the ramp that lifts up because over time those things always have some issues. But I think it will be fine. I think it will be fun as hell. I don't – everybody complains about the art. I don't – I think it's kind of cool because it looks very different. I think especially – Yeah, I didn't mind the art either. Jamie and I were going back and forth on text about that. We were talking about the art, Cale. and you know for you so let's say you did get a walking dead remastered and it's not at the corner it's in the middle or you put it right where your other walking dead is no one's gonna see that shit on the side anyway they're just gonna see the back by you know and it looks it does look really pretty right when i looked at that shot the playfield shot when i looked down i'm like dude this looks cool yeah this looks very cool too yeah i had no problem with their art i didn't think it was you know use those terms that people were saying lazy or saying color palette or any of that shit i liked it i i thought it was good right yeah i thought it was good too i mean the only thing is like i can see where but if it's a remaster then you're thinking about it a little bit different way i mean the initial one had like the super gritty which did probably match the color palette of the movie or the shows more but yeah um but i'm okay with like because it's a different thing it's supposed to be like hey we thought about doing it a different a different way so So initially it did kind of shock me because I was maybe thinking they would have just taken the original grayer, darker tones and just reproduced that. But I wasn't one that flipped out about that. I think actually as I look at it, it looks pretty cool. And Sterns, they're trying to reach masses. Like I've been saying, they're trying to reach a different market. And I think this is how you do it with the color, the orange and teal color palette that is very appealing to our brains for some reason. They just gave you all of it right there. And, you know, it's like a movie poster. I mean, that's what it looks like. And I think this would attract, in an arcade, that's where my expertise lies, this new Walking Dead is going to attract more casuals than the other one. Yeah, just because it's like, you could almost argue that the, like, actually, the other day when I was finding it, because I think you guys moved it around, It's hard to find because in a dark room, it is so dark. Like this one you kind of have, it's going to pop a lot more. But that fits the show, the very muted color palette. And I think that's why people complained, because the art does not fit the show. And then you have on the other side of the coin, the art Christopher Franchi did for Beetlejuice very much fits that movie. It's a very colorful movie, lots of contrasts and darks, the black and whites. and just a rainbow of colors everywhere. And that's why that fits. But in The Walking Dead, people were just complaining because this does not remind me of the show that I used to watch or still watch. There's so many spinoffs now. Yeah, there really is a lot. That show jumped the shark right around season four or five. Season one was the best. Just watch that and put it away. And then say, that's enough. I'm re-watching it I'm through season 3 Shut it off I actually I never I did never watch to Negan coming in So I gotta at least see what he's all about And then I'll take it Then shut it off I heard after him it gets kind of stupid Yeah I missed all that So Jamie tell us what's going on at the show Okay So yesterday was move-in day But I love move-in day, just like at TPF is a great move-in day because I can get a pass and walk, and then they turn all the games on, and I get to play them. Yeah. And the Austin Pinball Collective, which is a new collective out of Austin. Not hard to figure that one out, boys. They brought Big Trouble in Little China and Sonic. Oh, nice. Very cool. And a redone Ali, Ali, Muhammad Ali game. It plays unbelievable. Barrels did bring two of each of their titles. Not enough because the lines are crazy. Because people are dying to play Winchester and Dune. They want to play these machines. And Portal, they've got three Portals. So I got to play Portal again. And there is Chris Turner's here. Got to see Chris. I got to see Mike Vinikour. I got to see Brad. Oh, Mike's there. Yeah. You know, Mike's going to hang out with us. He told me. He told me. You already know. Yeah, he told me that he gets to stay with you. And I said, I got to get an Airbnb, for Christ's sake, and you get to stay with him. But I'm allergic to cats, so I couldn't stay with you anyway. When's he coming in? Is he coming in sometime? I think he's coming in a couple of weeks, he said. I think it's just like next week. Yeah. Oh, nice. He's totally pumped. He's so excited to hang out with you guys. So, yeah, he asked, you know, we always go to Waffle House because he doesn't have any Waffle Houses in Chicago. So we take him there and we and we take him to In-N-Out. Yeah. And he was very excited about meeting Serge. He said, please invite Serge to Waffle House so we can all hang out and chat. Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait to see him. So, yeah, the expo is going strong tonight is Bow Wow Wow. okay i want candy is going to be performed at least three times i heard because i don't think she has any other songs so we're gonna watch wow wow and then i saw scott denisi came up to me and this this this fame shit whatever we've got it's kind of weird for scott denisi to come up to me and said i saw you across the hall i had to come and say hello i'm like you came to say hello to me scott yeah holy shit you're famous you're a big deal man i told you i keep telling you i know i'm not gonna tell you anymore uh but i'm scott denisi is saturday night and the cool thing he's doing like a little concert thing right yeah he's gonna dj yeah that's awesome is this in the same hotel that's always been in well they moved hotels this is the marriott west chase in the West. How many years ago? It's been like six, eight years, six to eight years. I think so. That's the one. The last time I went was probably like six or seven years ago. But it's small. It's not like a, it's not like Expo. It's not as big as Expo. No, not nearly as big. It's not nearly as big as TPF. And that's what I like about it. It felt real cozy. Yeah. Yeah, Yuka Heights have a great booth. They've got the only Evil Dead on the floor, and they have another Harry Potter. So those are getting a shit ton of plays. Again, people are playing Big Trouble in Little China, and there's some really cool games. You know, I put a ton of time on Black Rose today. It was fun as hell, and so I hadn't played a Black Rose in a while. But the Expo is going really, really well. It's so good to see everyone. And the fact that I don't have to stream tomorrow night. See, now you can enjoy the show, Jamie. Isn't it the best? It's a gift that just keeps on giving. Because I don't have to answer to anybody. I don't have to do anything. I get to see Scott Danesi and I get to enjoy Saturday Night at Expo. You don't have to charge batteries. It's so funny. The guys that took my place, Carpool Pinball, shout out to Carpool. Check them out and watch the Space City Open on Twitch. they call me last night and they go hey you have any batteries no sorry boys I'm punched out I'm gone pull the rip cord I'm out I gotta go to this next year it sounds like you talked it up you said it's a really fun time I think that the three of us with Rachel would have such an incredible time here that But you would be – it's such a different show, okay? You've got – the three shows that I go to, I would say Rob Burks is a complete industry show. All right? You go and you see all the industry people from Chicago because it's in Chicago. TPF is very similar to that where there's usually a game launch or there's big seminars and all this stuff. There's not a lot of seminars here. All right? You know what the seminar is? Get your ass on the dance floor and we're partying the bow-wow-wow. And then there's an in excess cover band. Tonight there's an in excess cover band at 8 o'clock. Oh, wow. Who doesn't want to see that? One thing I remember, and I went to it twice, but it seemed like the floor never closed. Like we were partying until like 5 a.m. Do they still do that? Absolutely. Tonight I think they'll go. I usually punch out around 2 or 3. But if you don't punch out early. But the games are on that whole time? you can play yeah oh that's cool man yeah okay he's blaring music we're in the corner so we're so far away in in this section that they blare all night they blast all night and once i stayed up till four in the morning and he ordered 95 grand slams from denny's yeah uh chief christianson who runs the show so great they that poor denny's crew was cooking up some fucking grand slams and that shit people were dancing and eating waffles with their hands it was ralph i have never seen anything like it we were partying until like four and five a.m i gotta go they had live entertainment and and keith passed out captain's hats and lightsabers and lays and everybody's wearing them just swinging stuff around and like everybody's dancing like people that don't dance you just oh yeah yeah it's just great it's an absolute party i'm gonna make sure i release this tonight so that anyone that's not here can get their ass here because it really is an absolute blast yeah let's get this out it's timely this is i'm gonna put this out tonight boys uh but yeah thank you it it really is a blast and everyone has been so nice uh from brad Brad Albright to all these people that I've gotten to see here. What's his name? Tim Kittrow? Yeah. He's on fire. Shoot your scores. He's boom. Yeah, he's the boom shakalaka guy. He's the boom shakalaka guy. And so he'll walk up on stage during Scott Danesi and he'll just go, boom shakalaka. And everyone goes, fuck that. Didn't he do voices for Revenge from Mars? Isn't he the voice in that game? I'm pretty sure he is. I have no idea. I know he does dog soccer. He's definitely revenge for more. Well, isn't he World Cup soccer, too? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's sorry. I know that's that's I don't know. Shit code. Thanks, guys. All right. Where are we going? Let's let's take this. Me and Ralph haven't had a conversation. We want to bring you into this. OK, we spent a little bit of this podcast having some criticism on Stern. and some other criticism of some. We have both. All of us have done some criticism of other companies. Do you ever think about the impact of our criticism? Do you ever think about you laid down in bed that night and go, maybe I shouldn't have shit all over George Gomez bike? Because I did. I was like, I mean, maybe I shouldn't be so mean to George. It gave birth to the list now. Now we have that Amazon cart so George can go on there. Gentlemen, if you don't follow Roger Ralph, you need to follow him on Facebook. He made an Amazon wish list for anyone that wants to start a podcast. Stern, I hope you're listening. And Spooky Luke. I mean, come on. He did your podcast, but he was eating some crazy stuff. I'll give him a pass there. And the list is not just to clarify. The list is not just for people who want to start a podcast. If you are an industry person. Yeah, if you're an industry person that's going to do a podcast. Yeah, when I first saw Bug, and he was using like a microphone on his laptop, I was like, man, I'm going to have to do some real magic. And I did. I had to do a lot of post-production. And he did a good job because it definitely didn't sound – it probably sounded horrible before what you did to it. So it definitely improved it a lot. 100%. And, Jamie, I do think it's important that we critique things. Yeah. You know, because now, you know, next time Loser Kid does something, they may be like, okay, you can't, like, always force somebody to use some kind of equipment unless you're going to, like, mail it to them and are they going to know how to use it. But to know how to do a little post-production, which we've all done, even the stuff built in the Riverside you use. But that's the important thing, just to make sure there's some consistency. But at the same time, yes, there's been many times when I've said something and I'm like, man, should I or shouldn't I have said – but that's been my whole life. I'm shocked for you. That's true. No, but you go to bed – no, but Jamie and I were saying that when we do it sometimes, there are times where we're literally like we can't go to sleep because we feel like maybe we could have been – not that him and I are – the whole conversation wasn't that we're afraid to be critical. It's just sometimes in the delivery of it, if it's like a little too harsh or it could have been pulled back a little bit, we'll feel bad about it. Like we will actually – and I might even – I might call Jamie obsessively and be like, dude, I know what I did. What I said was okay. Right. He's like, well, it's already published. What are you going to do? And I'm like, yeah, yeah. But was it bad? Scale of one to ten. And then I mean, the thing, the absolute the king of this whole talk is like me talking about Dune. Right. I mean, I like I grilled Dune like a cheeseburger. And and now you didn't get a Winchester because of it. Right, yeah, and that's totally fine because I think – the way I think, I have an audience that relies on me, like operators that rely on me to talk about reliability or any aspect of these machines, and that's what people like. they like that I don't sugarcoat something, you know, you know, that's what they want. So, you know, I'm not, I don't regret anything I said. And at the same time, David, like, learned from the experience, you know. Yeah. And he's told you that. He's told you that. Yeah. And also, at the same time, there's so many people that were listening to think that, like, I have some kind of problem with barrels or i don't like David Van Es him and i chat i mean like and he doesn't take it that he doesn't take that criticism as like i don't like him or i don't like the company yeah a normal logical person wouldn't right like you hate me because you said something about yeah the quality of my game right 100 but some people will process it that way one of the examples i gave ralph kale was like i'll use brad Brad Albright right brad Brad Albright did art on portal did art on winchester did art on monster hockey league of the last three that it's done right pretty unbelievable art package right i have gotten to know brad Brad Albright now let's say i didn't like portal and i didn't like winchester and it kind of looked like star wars no offense to them on star wars but you just did it i just did it you just did the thing But Brad is the sweetest, kindest individual I've ever met in my life. I know, right? Like how could you just go, Brad, that's a mess? Yeah, that's a hard – but at the same time, you have to give your raw opinion on stuff. You do. You do. People are listening to us because we're not full of shit, right? And this is why somebody would call us a shill. Yeah. We really don't. And, you know, it's interesting because this is how this will be processed. Someone will watch this, and they'll hear the thing I said in the beginning, like, he used to love Stern. Now he hates Stern. And I'm like, well, no, I don't hate them, but they really – I'm going to put out a reel. I'm going to put out a reel, and it's going to be titled Ralph Hates Stern Now. But it's a weird turn. It feels – we all felt it because we were saying similar things. It feels weird to me consuming all this, not feeling like what they what what I would feel like if I was a designer at Stern, knowing that, oh, I couldn't put the cool things in my game. But, you know, because they all watch all this. They're looking at the Beetlejuice launch. If I'm a designer, I'm going to be kind of pissed because I'm like, man, had I not stripped, we'll use Star Wars. Had I not stripped Star Wars and put the things I wanted to put in it, it would have really been a world under glass. But it's not. And I think it's starting to like you're almost seeing it come out like the frustration come out in little ways online when you start looking at what people are posting and saying. Yeah, and I think that's why you're seeing a lot of, you know, stern employees sending out resumes. Yeah, that's kind of weird. I don't know. Where do they post them out? Indeed. Indeed.com. Wherever you need to get your resume out. Are people calling you for tech recruiting? No I haven got a tech recruiter I haven heard from a coder at Stern although that not the type of silo I tend to recruit for But no I haven seen any Stern resumes I haven't seen him on LinkedIn recruiter. No one's open to work on LinkedIn. So, but I do feel like, I do feel like in the times where I am critical though, this is for Kale, like if Jamie and I were similar, like I end up feeling bad because I usually have a personal relationship with someone that I said something about. And, uh, it's hard because some people do get like actually offended by it or take it personally and i don't think with us being our whole thing here this podcast is to talk about pinball and how we're feeling on game releases news tournament play whatever and sometimes you're just sometimes not everything's a hit and i just think in this in this point in time it's a weird turning point where it just feels like all these other games came out and there's so much more attention to detail going on so you can't you can't ignore it anymore i think is what where it feels let me tell you this funny story because anytime i think about man should i not have said this should i not have said that the only times i really like hold back is when somebody gives me some real inside information is like hey you can't repeat this yeah you know i've never signed an nda in my life but if somebody tells me you know and everybody like David Van Es like so many different people in the industry have said hey check this out but don't tell anybody please the friend da we call that yeah my my word my word is bond all right um but anytime i think about man i really shouldn't have said it and and you guys think about this also do you remember when joe camico posted on facebook about how like stern dropped the ball on harry potter and you know all this stuff you know they they dragged their feet or whatever he said is like, whoa, shots fired. Right. But then I go back to, I remember when I was hanging out at CES with Joe Camico and, and Jody who would handle licensing for Stern and everything was fine. You know, there were hugs and handshakes. What's up. So it's like, you know, it's all business, you know, it's just like, it's really no big deal. And tomorrow's another day and we're all going to learn and improve. and I'm going to learn to be more quiet. No, you're great. That would be a crying shame if you wake up with that epiphany. The roundtable would be very devastated. So you brought up Harry Potter. You brought up Harry Potter, and I'm sure everyone watching this knows that there was an episode that we all did that we had to take down. And it was weird because in the moment of the things I was saying, I was so stoked because I'm hanging out with you guys, and I'm just running my mouth at all sorts of stuff. And I knew after I like laid down the pillow that night and went, I think I said stuff that definitely I shouldn't have talked about because I was told not to talk about it. And then like, sure enough, in the morning, that's when the phone call came like, hey, Ralph, we want to talk to you about a couple of things. Because I don't want to. In that case, I had I had worked with them and I didn't want to like break any trust. I do want to be. So I but I was just stoked. I was excited talking to you guys. And I just got a little too excited and said some stuff I wasn't supposed to. So that's a good segue, Gale. This is a good segue. Didn't you just get in trouble with CGC? Oh, come on, dude. Me? No, I did. No, him. Oh, yeah, he did. Oh, no. I mean, can we talk about it? Well, who cares? Who cares? I'll say certain. Do you know the story? I only know that you got yelled at a little bit. So there's a part in my expo. There's a spot. in my expo video where I'm like, hey, I'm here in front of CGC. There's not really anything new. You can play Cactus Canyon remake and the Medieval Madness Merlin edition. I was like, but there's something brewing over at CGC. And then and then I have a little animated Halo guy pop up on my shoulder and it plays the Halo music theme song. And so I don't know. They didn't like that. They They were like, what the hell are you doing? So, but is that a surprise to anybody? I mean, not to me. I mean, Nap talked about that forever ago. So I'm like, go get mad at Nap. Sorry, Nap. Yeah. We're going to start shit with Nap again. Jason out the room. Jamie. But I think the only reason they reached out to you, Ralph, is because you had a relationship with them. Yeah. Yeah. Because, I mean, we can just say it right now. that is their next game after after they're finished with these um the merlin what are they called the merlin uh there's this mini madness edition and then they have that cactus canyon kit and i can tell you this they are very excited about it this game is supposed to be badass ass. Very badass. And I am here for it. Me too. I know, Jamie, we did talk about Halo in a prior podcast and you weren't as excited. I am pumped. I want to hit the start button and hear the lo, lo, lo, lo, lo. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be awesome. I did a very poor job at that soundtrack thing. No, it was good. I just want the sword. I told you I just like the sword. I was that guy. So give me the sword. I think it's going to be cool. Who knows? When do you guys think that's like spring maybe at that they move slow you think they could do it by tpf march no no i think you'll see it at the next expo oh you think it'd be that far out really oh man all right well that's something to look forward to you think of the next expo the dutch will be ready to with a back to the future by then i think that'll be because imagine a back to the future halo and something else expo that could be pretty cool speaking of uh back to the future i got i tried to release, I tried to be like Kale and get some good inside information, so I got some inside information that they were going to release some stuff about Back to the Future, and they didn't do anything at Expo, and I should call out the person that gave me this information. Yeah, who is that? Was that Enzo? No. Yeah! It was Enzo! Oh, no, alright. I love Enzo, but Enzo comes up with the most, the craziest things. I'm like, Enzo, there's no way that's happening. like there's no i'm ratting you out enzo you made me i look terrible i love enzo but don't go to him for game rumors and stuff it's always wrong sorry enzo i love you but it's always we love you we love you but definitely wrong and so it's like there's gonna be 16 flippers on the new star wars i'm like no no that's no enzo that's not happening it's not doing that i'm just kidding he's gonna get so pissed at me he's gonna be pissed so i love you i love you you know i had dinner with melvin rachel and i did uh with canada with canada yeah so did he give you some juice let's go uh nothing i can talk about oh but it's friend d.a is worse than a real mda no but here's the thing but we have the friend d.a right here no we were talking he never said don't repeat any of this but it's just kind of like an understood thing yeah you know he's a good guy i got to meet him a bunch as well he's nice it was very interesting to learn you know the inner workings of just the industry and you know he was there were rumors that he was talking to stern about building the game that's absolutely true he told me the whole story and that seems like a total no-brainer right because the demand for this game is it'd be nuts but there was there was some caveats and i you know i'm not going to get into it but that made it not uh appetizing okay yeah that's too bad i can guess coming from the business world i would guess i'm not gonna say you don't say anything can i say it i would guess that all right if if i'm dutch and i come to stern knowing how stern operates these days they probably wanted a way higher cut than what dutch was comfortable with and then they were like we can't do that and that that's what my guess is it was i think it'd be that simple i could be wrong that's what i think possibly well and it was probably something more complicated than that. Okay. So then it would probably be licensing related. Like maybe there'd be a I don't know, something like that. We can move on. You're really good right now. Who is this guy who's not filling the beans? But the fact that they're even like entertaining that, I think, what was the last game they built for somebody else? Was it Medieval Madness? Or would you consider... That Stern built for someone else? Yeah. I think Medieval, like the first runs of Medieval Madness, you know that were built at the stern factory i didn't know that okay i have no idea and then and then i guess you could consider the kapow game to be you know like the batman 66 i i guess you could kind of consider that to be like a contracted thing well then all those collaboration games are kind of contracted right but i guess that's a little different like supreme and all that but i guess those are like yeah i don't even think they do that anymore i looked on the website and It said like that section of it was closed. Yeah, what was that program called? It was like exclusive. It was on there. It's still there. Yeah, they never took it down. It was some kind of like collab something. I'll see if I can find it really quick while we move on. Should we talk about the weird, like somebody's dicking around with a Stern website and accidentally leaked the X-Men stuff? Yeah, it has to be a mistake, right? well i so at first kale sent that over i'm like no no that's fake because it the shooter rod literally was a black shooter rod with a sticker on it i'm like there is no way that that's real right so then surprise so then i start digging and and you look on the website and it's like there with broken links i'm like oh crap so that means someone there probably launched it too early then i go into the because i'm part of the uncanny x-men owners group and they had clipped it these people are crazy like do people sit at home and just like capture the internet because they it was posted like forever ago well i think people use you know those services they're free services or websites where you like do grabs it'll do like grabs if something changes yeah you you drop a link in there and if there's a change to that page you'll get a notification so someone's doing i mean there's probably a lot of people doing that but it was it had all three of the things it had the topper which you sent me and i was like there's no way that's the topper either but i don't i I don't know, man. What does that topper do? Here's what it looks like. It has those little slats. Do those turn? I'm completely making this up, but this is what I think. I think it's like when you go to the future, it changes the image to a different image. So you're seeing the past and the future. That's what I think. I think it does. That's the only reason for those little slats. I'm making that up, but it looks like that's what it does. Like it rotates, so I'm guessing it's two different scenes within the game. But if that's all it does? Yeah, it could be three different scenes if it's a triangle. Oh, good point. But even so, is that like – But it's stern, right? It's got two sides to it. So I'm getting $1,500 for a rotating picture? Like that's what that is, right? Yeah. If that's what it is. That's what we're speculating it is. That has to be what it is, yeah. They waited forever to do the Uncanny X-Men accessories. Like, I don't know. I just wonder who like how do you mess that up I don't know like you must feel like a shithead because the website takes forever to update and so like now it's still there but with broken links yeah funny what's going on over there what is going on everyone's messed up I don't know I mean yeah Beetlejuice has a topper yeah did you see that topper The topper looks so cool. I love that they use these models with hair. I mean, the thing looks freaking sick. Yeah. I mean, that is an extra cost. And that's, you know, I think starting with the Labyrinth topper. Dude, that thing is cool too. These toppers knocked it out of the park, some of these things. And even the flat plastic one you get if you don't buy the topper from Spooky. It's pretty cool, too. They at least include one. So if you don't buy the topper, you still get a topper. So they're still giving you a topper. For how much money? Ten grand. You're still getting a topper. Ten grand. It's crazy. Ten grand. With a topper, with sculpts. Dude, you know what? Someone said there was a comment. This is kind of messed up. So you guys know how there's the magnet ball sleeve between the flippers? Yeah. There was some dude in a chat thing, and he's like, well, at least someone knows how to use a magnet to save balls between the flippers. They were bagging on Star Wars. I did figure out how to do that Jedi ball save, though. Oh. So when it's lit, it's not a button press. You, like, rapidly pulse it, and the magnet starts grabbing it. So I finally figured the thing out. Is that kind of like the Rick and Morty save? Kind of. I don't know much about that game. Yeah. You know what, like, swirls the ball? It swirls the ball and it pushes it to the outside. So the cool thing is you start, like, if you have the Jedi ball save and you start pulsing it, it'll, like, grab it. And sometimes it'll shoot it back into the shooter lane. And then sometimes it will hold it and throw it up. So I've got it almost consistently working. Because before I'd just bash it and I'm like nothing would happen. It would never work. I went through, like, 100 games without the thing working. So software-wise, if it doesn't work, do you still get a ball save? No. Oh, really? So that's where I like the pro better because I played the pro when I was at your guys' place the other day. And I like that because it acts like the lifesaver thing in Jaws. It's just, yeah. It's a lifer. If you notice on Beetlejuice, you don't have to do anything special. It just does it. It just does it, right? Yeah. Is that what it is? I didn't see that. So it does do it. JP's like, we're going to cancel. Can you check out? What are you checking out? Why? What did you say back? I'm not checking out. I'm not checking out. I'm just nodding my head by mistake. It was a mistake. I shouldn't have nodded my head. Was it because we said magnet? What word triggered you? It's not the kale. It just makes me laugh. Ladies and gentlemen, he makes me laugh. I'm sorry. I love him, and he makes me laugh. What else is in the notes? We're concerned about you when you leave your body because we don't know how to summon you back. Is it like Jamie Juice, Jamie Juice, Jamie Juice? How do we get you back in your body? No. That's gross. It's actually gross. Why did I say Jamie Juice? It's disgusting. I don't know. I have to upload this, ladies and gentlemen, this evening because we want to get this out Friday night, right? Yeah. So I think I'm going to cut this a little short if you guys don't mind. Is that okay? Yeah, we're good. We covered a lot of stuff already. Yeah, a little over an hour. We covered a lot of stuff. That was the sweet point, right? The sweet spot. Yeah. The fact that we did three hours on a live once is still ridiculous, and people wanted more, which was insane. But that was a lot of fun. I do have a quick plug My shirt, start a mode Oh, it's this one, dumbass Are you on Silver Ball Swag? Is now on Silver Ball Swag No way, are you really? Yeah, I am on Silver Ball Swag Congratulations So congratulations, I should sell at least two t-shirts I'll buy one, Jamie I'll buy one, Jamie Good job, Jamie hold on here's one that's my espn oh there it is you don't think the phones are ringing like the spooky spookies for your shirt i'm pretty confident i'm pretty confident that i should be able to sell over under five so that'll be great i think you'll sell them jamie we'll see i got my first super chat the other day two boys from stringer wow nice i'm monetized on youtube now kale i'm monetized on YouTube. And I got, you know, I don't ever turn that stuff on. I don't know what that is, but I got my first ding, my copyright ding today. I talked to Ralph about it. You did? Yeah, so the Deo song gets blocked by, I think it's BMG or whoever owns that song, and it demonetizes your video so you can't make any money, and then it blocks it. I don't know why. It blocks it from Russia so anybody in Russia can't watch your video, which I don't know what that's about but uh but i get that a lot it blocks russia a lot so i don't know i don't have a big fan base in russia right now currently but i'm working on it trying to get it better all right so well gentlemen thank you so much i'm gonna upload this do a quick no real need for editing thank christ and uh professionals we we are very good i missed these two and people are already i'm wearing my electric bat jacket everywhere right oh nice and you can go to electric bat arcade.com, right? Slash shop. And it's a really fantastic hoodie. They send it straight to you. She did. She sent some swag in there too, which is really nice. She didn't have to do that. But I'm walking around and people are like, did you just move to the bat? Is that what happened to you? No, I just support them and I love them. It costs more to board my dog than it did to go and get the Airbnb and flight to go see them. Why would I not go see these guys? We appreciate the support. I do have one thing I need to show you. This is going to piss Ralph off. And then we'll close the town. I already know what it is, and it did piss me off. I've wanted this for so long. Now I don't know. Now I don't want it. This is a Stern Army jacket. The jean jacket. The jean jacket. The Stern Army jean jacket. You guys probably have these, right, Cale? You have them, right, Cale? Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm not a Stern Army. I'm just a JBS show. But Eureka Heights is Stern Army, and he's not a jean jacket guy. So guess who got it? This guy. Can you say what your wife said? I was wearing it for my last podcast, Kale. All right? And I'm wearing the Yankee hat with a black shirt and the jean jacket. And she goes, Janine walks in the room. She goes, oh, gosh, you're starting to dress like him now. I said, who? She said, Ralph, you look like Ralph. Get out of here. I laughed my ass off. That's the best shit ever. I'm like, Gene. She bagged on you. No, she stood on me a little bit. But that's okay. That's all right. Flattery. Look at him. He's gorgeous, ladies and gentlemen. Why would I not want to dress like this guy? Right. That's awesome. You're welcome. All right, let's shut this down. Thank you so much. Check out Retro Ralph on all his channels on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook. as well as the Electric Bat on Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Electric Bat Arcade. Great things coming from these two individuals constantly. Not only pin pals, but his stream on Chewy's Tournament is fantastic. And, by the way, you need to start streaming your – maybe the Chewy's Tournament one day could be not just classics. That could be something fun. I know you were talking about that. Yep, we talked about doing that. The only reason we didn't do it, we do it the last Sunday of every month. The only reason we didn't do it last time is because Serge had plans. And if we do something like that, I want Serge to be there because we need him to explain, like, the deep rules of, like, a modern Stern. Yeah, yeah. Nobody's going to know him like he does. Yeah, he's a savant. So that's it. I just put out a new podcast with Pirate Jessica, Pirate Princess Jess, and that was fun. That was a fun conversation as well. All right, boys. God bless you both. All right. Have fun at the show, Jamie. Thank you, guys. See you next time.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 5dddf8b0-803a-47f0-aa9b-8bb8188c6baa*