# Episode 1106: "GET TO DA LAWYERS...NOW.... RUN!!!!"

**Source:** Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-06-20  
**Duration:** 25m 5s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-1106-get-131898805

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## Analysis

Kaneda delivers a scathing critique of Predator pinball's troubled launch, licensing violations featuring unauthorized Arnold Schwarzenegger footage, astronomical pricing ($15,500 all-in), and lack of character representation on the playfield. He also discusses King Kong's persistent mechanical and quality control issues with the animatronic gorilla, and condemns the industry-wide practice of releasing incomplete games at premium prices to fund operations.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Predator footage showing Arnold close-ups was released without 20th Century Fox or Arnold Schwarzenegger permission and is not representative of the final game — _Kaneda states they've been asking content creators to take down the trailer featuring Arnold, and that Pinball Brothers confirmed you play as Dutch with no close-up permission_
- [HIGH] Predator's total cost with Jungle Edition, tariffs, and shipping reaches $15,500 — _Kaneda itemizes: $12,500 game + $2,000 tariffs + $1,000 shipping_
- [MEDIUM] Predator has only five modes in the game versus Harry Potter's 96 modes — _Kaneda states 'there might only be a total of five modes in the game' and contrasts with Harry Potter_
- [HIGH] King Kong's animatronic gorilla continues having mechanical issues post-code update with inconsistent arm calibration across machines — _Kaneda reports reading community feedback about recalibration issues and inconsistent behavior affecting ball interaction_
- [MEDIUM] Predator playfield artwork is chipping off rapidly (reported at 50 plays) — _Kaneda references a user reporting artwork missing after 50 plays on a new machine_
- [LOW] Harry Potter Collector's Edition has sold approximately 3,000 units with 2,000+ more planned — _Kaneda speculates 'they've probably sold 3,000 CEs' and estimates 5,000-6,000 total_
- [HIGH] Pinball Brothers is not clearly stating production limits, only that they're 'aiming to make 800' units — _Kaneda critiques the ambiguous language as deliberately avoiding commitment to scarcity_
- [HIGH] Multiple recent games (Dune, King Kong, Harry Potter, Predator) are shipping incomplete with unfinished code — _Kaneda lists all four as 'incomplete' and criticizes the industry practice_

### Notable Quotes

> "He is not going to be in this game like that. They've gone on the record multiple places... you're not gonna see Arnold shaking hands with Carl Weathers. You're not gonna see close-ups of him. And yet, then we have this clip of him saying 'get to the chopper.'"
> — **Kaneda**, early segment
> _Core licensing violation claim establishing the false marketing problem_

> "For $15,500 all in, and you don't get any characters from the movie on the playfield, and that's good enough for you? Where's the outcry?"
> — **Kaneda**, mid segment
> _Crystallizes the value proposition complaint and double standard criticism_

> "The pinball hobby, it hasn't just jumped the shark. It's jumped the shark that jumped the whale that jumped the Michael Ocean."
> — **Kaneda**, pricing rant
> _Emphatic hyperbolic expression of market concern_

> "Maybe the reason why Godzilla is so amazing is Godzilla does nothing. He just stands there and doesn't move at all. And Sam Stern put this big gorilla into the game and it's having nothing but issues."
> — **Kaneda**, Kong segment
> _Identifies design philosophy problem with King Kong's mechanical approach_

> "You shouldn't launch a game until it's on the line. You shouldn't even launch a game until it's done. I'm serious."
> — **Kaneda**, production criticism
> _Core argument against pre-order culture and incomplete products_

> "The only reason they're able to do it is because we enable them to do it because people buy way too early. Those days are over."
> — **Kaneda**, market behavior analysis
> _Calls for consumer behavior change to force manufacturer accountability_

> "Sam Stern Pinball should have bought Bader years ago... Whatever it costs, buy them. Buy them. But did Sam Stern do that? No. They said, we'll make them ourselves because that's cheaper."
> — **Kaneda**, quality control segment
> _Specific strategic criticism of Stern's cost-cutting affecting playfield quality_

> "I want to take a baseball bat to every single one of those toppers... we're not going to become the pinball content creator that is just a sales extension of these companies."
> — **Kaneda**, closing
> _Declaration of editorial independence and criticism of industry capture of media_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Kaneda | person | Host of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast; pinball media personality and critic known for consumer advocacy |
| Pinball Brothers | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer; developer of Predator and Alien pinball machines |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; contrasted unfavorably with boutique competitors on this episode |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Premium boutique manufacturer; Harry Potter developer; mentioned for comparison on transparency and production |
| Predator | game | 2025 Pinball Brothers widebody game based on 1987 film; subject of licensing violation and pricing criticism |
| King Kong | game | Stern Pinball 2025 game with persistent mechanical issues with animatronic gorilla and playfield durability problems |
| Harry Potter | game | Jersey Jack Pinball game; Collector's Edition mode discussed for production volume and value depreciation concerns |
| Alien | game | Pinball Brothers game; referenced as predecessor to Predator; compared favorably to Predator's mechanics |
| Dune | game | Recent release listed as example of incomplete game at launch |
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | person | Actor/public figure; likeness used without permission in Predator promotional footage |
| Godzilla | game | Stern Pinball title; used as positive design comparison (stationary toy design better than Kong's motorized approach) |
| Jason Knapp | person | Pinball media/journalist; interviewed Pinball Brothers about Predator licensing |
| Orek | person | Artist credited with Predator artwork |
| Sam Stern | person | CEO of Stern Pinball; criticized for manufacturing decisions and design philosophy on King Kong |
| Gary Stern | person | Stern Pinball leadership; implied criticism of company direction via 'Sam Stern' references |
| Bader | company | Playfield manufacturing company; suggested acquisition target for Stern to improve quality |
| 20th Century Fox | company | Predator film rights holder; implied to not have approved promotional footage featuring Arnold |
| Loser Kid | person/podcast | Pinball podcast; interviewed Pinball Brothers about Predator licensing details |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Predator licensing violation and false marketing, Predator gameplay and value assessment at $15,500, King Kong mechanical reliability issues with animatronic gorilla, Playfield quality control and durability across recent releases, Industry practice of releasing incomplete games at premium prices
- **Secondary:** FOMO marketing tactics and limited edition ambiguity, Harry Potter Collector's Edition production volume and value depreciation, Consumer behavior enabling poor manufacturing practices

### Sentiment

**Negative** (0.15) — Kaneda expresses strong frustration and anger throughout, particularly regarding Predator's licensing violations, pricing, and perceived lack of value. He is also critical of King Kong's mechanical problems and the industry-wide practice of shipping incomplete products. His tone is confrontational and dismissive of the community's perceived acceptance of poor value. He explicitly positions himself as a lone critical voice against a complacent market.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Pinball manufacturers deliberately vague on production limits (Predator: 'aiming to make 800' rather than 'limited to 800') to maintain FOMO while preserving flexibility to exceed stated numbers (confidence: high) — Kaneda criticizes: 'They are not saying it's limited. They're like, well, you know, the only limit to the amount of games is how many we can make. And so we're aiming to make 800. Like that's their verbiage. They didn't say they wouldn't make more than 800.'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Kaneda positioning himself as sole critical voice against complacent community accepting poor value and incomplete products; calls for consumer discipline (waiting for price drops and complete code) (confidence: high) — Kaneda declares: 'Kaneda's Pinball Podcast is going to wake all of you man babies up. This self-referential nickname or persona is going to be the only voice of reason left in this damn hobby' and 'we're not going to become the pinball content creator that is just a sales extension of these companies'
- **[design_philosophy]** King Kong's motorized animatronic gorilla design problematic compared to Godzilla's stationary approach; mechanical complexity creating widespread reliability issues (confidence: high) — Kaneda observes: 'Maybe the reason why Godzilla is so amazing is Godzilla does nothing. He just stands there and doesn't move at all. And Sam Stern put this big gorilla into the game and it's having nothing but issues. People can't seem to figure it out.'
- **[licensing_signal]** Predator promotional footage featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger close-ups and dialogue released without authorization from actor or 20th Century Fox; content creators being asked to remove footage (confidence: high) — Kaneda states: 'They've been going around to the different content creators that have put up that trailer that has Arnold in it. And they've been asking people to take the footage down' and 'There's no way that clip was ever approved by 20th Century Fox for them to send out'
- **[market_signal]** Harry Potter Collector's Edition achieving unprecedented production volume (estimated 5,000-6,000 units) due to unlimited production model, predicted to cause massive secondary market depreciation (confidence: medium) — Kaneda states: 'I heard they received thousands of orders. And I want to take a baseball bat to every single one of those toppers' and speculates 'they've probably sold 3,000 CEs... they're going to sell another two before they're done... 6,000 Harry Potter CEs out in the world'
- **[personnel_signal]** King Kong code update (.83) addressing NYC mode with creative flipper restrictions; positive software-driven gameplay innovation despite mechanical hardware failures (confidence: medium) — Kaneda notes: 'In terms of like the actual mode, there's like really fun stuff happening in the game. There's this one mode, I think it's the New York City mode, where you only get to use the left and right flippers a certain amount of time before you can use them anymore. When I read that I was like that is awesome.'
- **[market_signal]** Predator total cost-of-ownership reaches $15,500 (game $12,500 + tariffs $2,000 + shipping $1,000); significantly higher than comparable titles (confidence: high) — Kaneda itemizes: 'The Jungle package and you get the game itself, it's like $12,500. Then it's $2,000 for tariffs. So that's $14,500. Then you have to add another $1,000 for shipping if you want it air freighted to you. So you're $15,500'
- **[announcement]** Predator pinball officially announced/revealed; production timeline stated as August earliest with unclear parts sourcing (confidence: high) — Kaneda references the game reveal and criticizes the announcement timing: 'They're not even going to have this game on the line until August the earliest'
- **[product_concern]** Multiple recent releases (Predator, King Kong, Harry Potter, Dune) shipping with incomplete code and unfinished gameplay features; industry-wide pattern of launching unready products (confidence: high) — Kaneda lists: 'Dune, incomplete. The King Kong, incomplete. Harry Potter, incomplete. Predator, incomplete. Seriously, name me another product you buy that's this incomplete and is this much money.'
- **[product_concern]** Predator playfield lacks character representation from source material; no movie characters featured despite $15,500+ cost; compared unfavorably to similar-priced games (Harry Potter, Guardians of the Galaxy) (confidence: high) — Kaneda states: 'You're taking an iconic movie that everybody knows and loves... and you're going to make a pinball machine that has none of the characters from the movie on the playfield... If Sam Stern made Guardians of the Galaxy and none of the characters were on the playfield, you guys would burn Sam Stern down.'
- **[product_concern]** King Kong playfield artwork chipping off after minimal plays (reported 50 plays); animatronic gorilla arms exhibiting inconsistent calibration requiring recalibration post-code update (confidence: high) — Kaneda reports: 'I'm also seeing The King Kong playfields. The artwork is chipping off right away. A dude's like, I just bought this one and 50 plays and there's artwork missing' and 'If you updated your game to the new code, it recalibrated where The King Kong's arms are. And I'm reading everyone is having issues with this damn ape.'
- **[business_signal]** Pinball companies deliberately launching pre-order campaigns before games reach production line to fund operations; companies dependent on early deposit money due to weak sales on other titles (ABBA, Queen) (confidence: medium) — Kaneda theorizes: 'It just feels like all these companies have bills to pay and they need all that early deposit money to keep the lights on because nobody's buying ABBA. Nobody bought Queen.'

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## Transcript

 uh welcome everybody to canada's pinball podcast the only pinball podcaster whose ego is bigger than his checking account all right we're going to talk about what's going on in the pinball world Predator is out. We've seen it now for a couple of days. There's a trailer going around or some gameplay footage that is not accurate. This is crazy that this thing is circulating. It's crazy that they sent this footage out and now it's out in the world. Arnold close-ups get to the choppa. They don't have permission to use his likeness like that, yet it is out there in the world and people are ordering this game thinking that that is going to be in the game. Get to the chopper or get to the lawyers, ladies and gentlemen, because there's no such thing as getting like half of his assets or half of his likeness. and I think this is going to blow up in their faces. It's going to get crazy. We're going to talk about this game. We're going to talk about my feelings on this game. We're going to talk about whether or not we're seeing enough for the money. When you add up everything, like the Jungle Edition, you add up the total MSRP, you got to add in the tariffs, you got to add in the shipping cost. I'm going to give you the total number of this game and OMG, are you getting enough? And then I just want to look at this game and say, hey, did they nail it? Like, did they nail this theme? When you think about what this theme is, what that movie's all about, have they nailed it with this game? There's a new King Kong update. Problem with Kong, we're going to talk about it. The problem with Kong is Kong. It's the physical King Kong mech continues to be the issue everybody's having with the game. And that's really sad. When you think about it, maybe the reason why Godzilla is so amazing is Godzilla does nothing. He just stands there and doesn't move at all. And Stern put this big gorilla into the game and it's having nothing but issues. People can't seem to figure it out. And then we're going to talk a little bit about everything else going on in the pinball world. But let's start with Predator. So I'm looking at this game. I've watched the footage. I've seen the Arnold close-up footage. Let's just start there. He is not going to be in this game like that. They've gone on the record multiple places. Jason Knapp, Loser Kid Interview. They've said time and time again, you play as Dutch. We do not have permission to show you close-ups of Dutch. So that means there might be some clips where the entire gang is zoomed out and shooting at the forest or the jungle, if you will, and they can use that footage. But you're not gonna see Arnold shaking hands with Carl Carl Weathers. You're not gonna see close-ups of him. And yet, then we have this clip of him saying, get to the chopper. We're seeing him close up with the machine gun. Everything in that clip is a close up of Arnold. So here's what I'm hearing happened. I'm hearing they sent that footage out, most likely to a distributor in the US, most likely maybe like a month or so ago. And maybe they were still trying to get some of those assets lined up and couldn't make it work. Now, they have not come out and officially said that footage is not going to be in the game. But what they've been doing is they've been going around to the different content creators that have put up that trailer that has Arnold in it. And they've been asking people to take the footage down. Why do you think that is? They haven't come to Kaneda because they know Kaneda is not going to take it down. It is the big wallpaper image on my Facebook page. And again, it's bait and switch. I don't know how they even allowed this to go out ever. If you did not have Arnold's permission and you don't have permission from the movie studio to put his likeness into the game in that fashion, then how could you do this and send it out? Once again, amateur hour. The game itself, the launch itself was another amateur hour moment. We all were expecting a 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time launch of the game. And about three, four hours before then, everything leaked out. And then the stuff that leaked out and was being shared wasn't even all finally approved by the company itself. All right, so we've got the marketing element of it. I just think if you ordered this game and you think Arnold's in it, get ready to be disappointed. You're not going to see much. Even in the interviews, I'm getting a little tired of the ambiguity around this whole game. Like the same thing happened with Alien and you play as Ripley for the first eight years and then they made the Ripley edition. I think they're trying to kind of dangle the same hope in front of the buyers that, hey, if you buy this, who knows, one day there might be more Dutch in the game. I would not bank on it. Arnold is 10 times more expensive than Sigourney Weaver. And so I don't think you ever going to see like a lot of Dutch clips in this game And you know how I feel No Arnold no dice That is why I not ordering this game Now even with no Arnold I still would not order this game and I going to give you my reasons why right now. I just think this pinball community and I don't understand it. Whenever a new game comes out, I always like to say, hey, how would people react to this game if Stern launched this as Predator. How would people react to this game if Jersey Jack launched this as their Predator game? How would the community respond? And I think some of these boutiques get looked at with such a different lens and people are so much kinder when they get served up something like this game. But people, think about how much money this game is. If you get the jungle package and you get the game itself, it's like $12,500. Then it's $2,000 for tariffs. So that's $14,500. Then you have to add another $1,000 for shipping if you want it air freighted to you. So you're $15,500 for a game, people, for one game. And how are you not going to judge this against the best Stern has or the best Jersey Jack has. And so just on price alone, that's bonkers. The Alien Ripley edition was like $7,995 and you can go get one in a box today. This game is almost double the price of an Alien machine and that game's got Ripley in it. But then I'm looking at the gameplay and nothing in it is that exciting? Has anything you've seen so far been exciting gameplay? Has any of the layout made you go, wow? And yet I hear people saying like, oh yeah, it looks like it's a great layout. I mean, seriously, what are you comparing this to? Put it next to King Kong. Put it next to X-Men. Put it next to Harry Potter. Put it next to Elton John. What gameplay are you seeing? When I'm watching the gameplay of Predator, I'm like so underwhelmed by everything they are showing. And everybody, remember, they're the ones making the video that's designed to get us excited. Did anything in that gameplay get you excited? Did you see crazy combos? Did you see a lot of speed? No, like you saw nothing, nothing. And they had months to get an exciting video together. So they showed you nothing exciting. And yet people are like, oh yeah, it looks like it's, no, it doesn't. It doesn't look exciting to shoot at all. And I think there might only be a total of five modes in the game. Five modes. Harry Potter has 96 modes in the game. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but okay, so there's that. Like from a gameplay standpoint, I just didn't see anything to write home about. And then I look at the game and the theme and its predator, and I'm asking myself, okay, let me look at the creativity level of this game, and did they innovate anything into it that's really exciting? So think about the movie, people. Go watch the movie. The whole thing with Predator is about his camouflage. Like that is what this movie was always about. For the first half of the movie, you don't even see the Predator, right? You see that camouflage and it was like nothing we'd ever seen before. Remember back in those days, this was like movie magic. And so in this pinball machine, were they successful in even trying to create some sort of predator camouflage where just his eyes light up, where you see a little bit of a mirror effect? No, there's nothing. it's just a cheap like mcfarlane looking toy that for some reason just starts rising up like he's coming off a toilet bowl and he looks like he's waving to his kids that he just dropped off at daycare and he's just always there right he's always there he's not even a bash toy i think they listed him as a bash toy and so i just don't understand when you see stuff like this at least an alien, the alien tongue comes out like the movie and grabs the ball. What does this predator really do? And after that, name me another mech in this game that does anything that interacts with the ball whatsoever. The helicopter looks so cheap. The helicopter in ABBA was way better than this. The Gatling gun's a neat effect, but it's not interacting with the ball. It's the coolest part of the game, but hey, it's not like it's firing pinballs out of that Gatling gun. And then what else is there in this game for $15,500 all in 15, five ladies and gentlemen, I'm just here to say right now that the pinball hobby, it hasn't just jumped the shark. It's jumped the shark that jumped the whale that jumped the ocean. We are looking at the most expensive pinball that has ever been. The fact that this game is 15-5 all in. And the other part is this, they're not even going on the record to say we're only making 800. So the only chance this game has at having any value whatsoever is if it's somewhat limited. And they are not saying it's limited. They're like, well, you know, the only limit to the amount of games is how many we can make. And so we're aiming to make 800. Like that's their verbiage. They didn't say they wouldn't make more than 800. They said they're aiming to make 800. And again, it's sleazy, wishy-washy marketing. And I'll explain why. Because these guys know They know that the number one thing that has been driving sales all these years is FOMO And especially on a boutique level where you need to create as much FOMO as you can to get those early orders And if you don't get them early, you might never get them. And remember, these are all non-refundable deposits. And so for them to come out and not really be clear about how many they're going to make in total is a total failure. They know what they're doing. They're trying to move the goalposts just in case demand is more than they initially expected. But that's sleazy. It's like when Jersey Jack made the Yellow Brick Road Edition. He did the same thing. He's like, this game is limited. Well, how many are you going to make? I'm not going to tell you. We're going to see how many orders we get and then go from there. At least with Harry Potter CE, they're going to make as many as people order. It's not limited. It's also the reason why Harry Potter CE gang is going to be so readily available. more people are ordering CEs than the other two models combined. It's going to be everywhere. I heard they got thousands of orders. And so, yeah, cool. Buy it for 15. And if the game is amazing, I'm going to go buy one for 10 in six months. That's how it's going to be. I'm over it, right? I'm over it. I'm over them showing a clip that has Arnold in it. They let that clip out the door. There's no way that clip was ever approved by 20th Century Fox for them to send out. And yet they did. Now, look, maybe I'm wrong and maybe they own just that clip. But as someone who works in marketing and does licensing deals with actors, it doesn't work this way. You can't just buy that. I don't think they had permission. And again, I think it's bait and switch. And I think they're in for a world of hurt for people who might have ordered it based on that clip. And I think they're going to have to give refunds when they come clean about what's actually in this game. The other part about this game is the artwork. As an art package, Orek did a good job with what he had. But everybody, come on, wake the F up. You're taking an iconic movie that everybody knows and loves with some of the most iconic actors everybody knows and loves, and you're going to make a pinball machine that has none of the characters from the movie on the playfield, and that's good enough for you? Where's the outcry? If Stern made Guardians of the Galaxy and none of the characters were on the playfield, you guys would burn Stern down. And yet I hear people saying, hey, the artwork looks good. And that's my point. Imagine Harry Potter with no characters on the playfield. And yet when this company does it, they get a pass. Well, they're not going to get a pass from Canada. Canada is going to wake all of you man babies up. This grumpy weirdo is going to be the only voice of reason left in this damn hobby. Everybody needs to wake up. This is over $15,000 all in, and you don't get any characters from the movie on the play field. That is the easiest hard pass ever. Everybody, pinball isn't cheap, but for this much money, you better give me everything. Because if you're not, I'm just going to go back and buy a game that has everything in it. And good for us because there's hundreds of games that have done it right. Okay, so that's just where I'm at. This game, weird launch, the tease took forever, and the final product in my mind is gonna come and go. It's gonna be yesterday's news real fast. The other part is this, they're not making them right now. They're not on the line. So why they reveal it? And when you hear them, they're like, whoa, we're in production, we're making the cabinets. Is that really when production begins when you're making cabinets? They're the same cabinets that you probably have been making for Alien. It's just the same wide body cabinet. Don't tell me you're in production. I mean, seriously, at what point does production start? When you put it in order for some screws, can you then tell people the game is in production? It's not in production. It's not. You know, you shouldn't launch a game until it's on the line. You shouldn't even launch a game until it's done. I'm serious. I am so serious. Why would anybody buy anything new in box when you know the prices are going to plummet and by the time the game is done, you can get it for so much cheaper? Why is everybody so impatient? And you're not even going to get it anytime soon. They're not even going to have this game on the line until August the earliest. And they're saying some of these parts are special to make. What part? What part of this game is so hard to get an order for? And as a company, it's your responsibility to figure out the timeline on your vendors and your parts. And you shouldn't even reveal a game until it's on the line. It's freaking predator. You know, you're going to sell them. It's not like you have to take money now. And again, it just feels like all these companies have bills to pay and they need all that early deposit money to keep the lights on because nobody's buying ABBA. Nobody bought Queen. And I'm just over this. I'm over it. There's too many companies executing properly for this to get a pass. And when you talk like this, you're like, oh, you're the Debbie Downer, Kaneda. It's Friday in the summer. Yeah, it is. Wake up, everybody. Common freaking sense. All right. Oh, Kaneda, calm down. You're going to give yourself an also. You're never going to win that seventh Twippy Award if you keep talking like this. Let's talk about King Kong. New code is out. New code. I I think it's like .83. People are liking the new code a lot. In terms of like the actual mode, there's like really fun stuff happening in the game. There's this one mode, I think it's the New York City mode, where you only get to use the left and right flippers a certain amount of time before you can use them anymore When I read that I was like that is awesome We need more of that in pinball The amount of creativity that should be in these games and the software drives so much of that creativity. I love stuff like that, but there's a big problem with Kong and it's the damn gorilla. They can't figure out how to get this guy and his big arms to move correctly. If you updated your game to the new code, it recalibrated where King Kong's arms are. And I'm reading everyone is having issues with this damn ape. And this is a problem. It's like everyone's having inconsistent issues with him. It's almost like no two games are the same. How can you make a mechanical thing work for everybody if there's so much inconsistency with where his arms are? Are they touching the glass? Do you give him full range of motion? Is his arm stopping the third ball the way it's supposed to? Is his arm crashing into things and creating wear and tear? I'm also seeing King Kong playfields. The artwork is chipping off right away. A dude's like, I just bought this Ellie 50 plays and there's artwork missing on his game. $13,000 and it's 2025 and these pinball companies still can't figure out how to make a quality play field. Stern Pinball should have bought Bader years ago. You're the number one pinball company in the world. This company is making the best quality playfields in the entire world. Buy them. Buy them. Whatever it costs, buy them and then have him scale up his process to make all your playfields the best playfields in the world. Did Stern do that? No. They said, we'll make them ourselves because that's cheaper. And now you're getting what you're paying for. You're getting playfields that are falling apart right away. And yes, there's a little bit of some of this is just silly. Like this guy was showing images of his King Kong hands. He's like, my Kong hands are falling apart. And it's just like little scratches on this plastic King Kong's fingers. And I'm like, if you think you're going to buy a pinball machine in which a steel ball is flying around plastic and wood, and you're never going to see any damage at all, those people need to just quit the hobby. We've all also turned into the biggest OCD losers on the planet, the way we go over these machines now with the magnifying glass and any little thing drives us crazy. And then we complain about it on pin side. I mean, my guns in roses, I put the washers down. I don't care. Like I don't care. And some of the artwork missing people is like a centimeter, a centimeter of art is missing. And these gentlemen can't stop staring at it. It's crazy. You know what the best thing everybody can do? Just don't buy new in box. Just wait it out. Trust me, wait it out. All these games are coming out now. They're all incomplete. Dune Pinball, incomplete. King Kong, incomplete. Harry Potter, incomplete. Predator, incomplete. Seriously, name me another product you buy that's this incomplete and is this much money. You can't even name it. And I know people are like, well, this is just the way pinball is. It's like, no, the reason pinball is this way is because people continue to support companies that release incomplete product. If everybody said, hey, we're not buying it until the game is done. Guess what they would do? They would finish the game, at least get it much more finished than they do right now. A lot of us are keeping the lights on for these companies. We're actually reinforcing, I think, a bad behavior, which is putting a product out in the world that's not ready to be released. And the only reason they're able to do it is because we enable them to do it because people buy way too early. Those days are over. You used to be able to do that because you didn't lose much money or you made some money. now everybody's losing. I can't wait to see what Harry Potter CE value is in a year. And everyone's going to be like, I should have listened to Kaneda. I mean, the dude told me I would save $5,000 if I waited. And I love that people are like, there's no way, dude, they've probably sold 3,000 CEs of Harry Potter, 3,000. And they're going to sell another two before they're done. And if they get this code right, there's going to be like 6,000 Harry Potter CEs out in the world. And I want to take a baseball bat to every single one of those toppers. Everybody, have a great Friday. The sun is out. Cars and coffee this Sunday. I think I'm going to get the demon out of storage. And we're going to just toast to all the pinball people that actually still have standards and want characters from the movie on the playfield. people that actually want to wait till a game is done before you buy it and hats off to everybody out there that is just enjoying the great games you have instead of chasing all this new stuff no we're not going to become the pinball content creator that is just a sales extension of these companies we're going to call it like we see it Kaneda out You are the one I know you are You are the one I know you are You are the one

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 6a5d8bc5-1c67-4672-ba17-203467b93682*