# PNP 621-Harry Potter 5 Rad & 1 Bad **Source:** Poor Man's Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2025-06-05 **Duration:** 63m 44s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://poormanspinballpodcast.libsyn.com/pnp-621-harry-potter-5-rad-1-bad --- ## Analysis Orbital Albert delivers an enthusiastic five-positive-one-critical review of Jersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter machine reveal video. He praises the Mina Lima artwork, innovative layout with excellent flow, multiple high-quality toys and mechs (particularly the moving bookcase/staircase and Protego shield), and overall design execution by Eric Menyer. He criticizes unnamed elements but keeps criticism minimal, emphasizing the game represents a creative peak for JJP and will be a strong location earner. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Harry Potter has the most gorgeous artwork of any pinball machine, comparable only to Avatar (second) and Christopher Franchi's Elton John (third) — _Orbital Albert's direct assertion based on watching the reveal video five times_ - [HIGH] The layout has the most flow Eric Menyer has designed, second only to Steve Ritchie's Elton John — _Orbital Albert's comparative analysis of the trailer_ - [HIGH] The moving staircase mech is the best mech Jersey Jack has ever created and the coolest mech seen from any manufacturer in the last couple of years — _Orbital Albert's explicit statement; notes it rivals or exceeds the building in Godzilla pinball_ - [HIGH] The Protego shield mechanic (right outlane save) is the most innovative toy JJP has released in a very long time — _Orbital Albert's detailed description and comparative assessment_ - [MEDIUM] Harry Potter will be the best location earner and is essential for arcade operators to purchase — _Orbital Albert's prediction based on theme recognition and broad appeal_ - [MEDIUM] Eric Menyer is peaking creatively at the perfect time during Potter's release cycle — _Orbital Albert's opinion on designer career trajectory_ - [HIGH] Mina Lima artwork is renowned and trusted by Warner Brothers and the Harry Potter brand — _Orbital Albert's statement about their professional standing_ - [MEDIUM] Jersey Jack does not have reliability issues comparable to Pinball Brothers (Alien/Predator) or other manufacturers — _Orbital Albert's comparative assessment; notes he doesn't hear complaints about JJP breakdowns_ ### Notable Quotes > "I'm standing by what I said originally the Mina Lima artwork is absolutely gorgeous beautiful it's fantastical it's whimsical it's just so different imagine that pinball machine in a lineup of 100 pinball machines even the top 100 on pin side what pinball machine has artwork nearly that beautiful for lack of a better term and it would only maybe be Avatar." > — **Orbital Albert**, early in episode > _Establishes the primary positive thesis: Harry Potter has exceptional artwork design_ > "This is a W, a big fat W, okay? This is a good thing. This is a win for Jersey Jack." > — **Orbital Albert**, near end > _Explicit endorsement; uses emphatic language to signal strong approval after critical view of recent JJP games_ > "That bookshelf is absolutely incredible... by far the best mech we've ever seen from Jersey Jack and I'm very, very comfortable saying that. And then, more importantly perhaps, it is by far the coolest mech we've seen in a couple years from anyone." > — **Orbital Albert**, mid-episode > _Core claim about mechanical innovation; positions Harry Potter as industry-leading on toy/mech design_ > "That Protego is genius, that is the coolest toy I have seen outside of the bookshelf in a JJP in a very long time. Certainly the most innovative, the newest." > — **Orbital Albert**, discussing layout section > _Highlights the right-outlane save mechanic as standout innovation_ > "I don't know if a magnet's a toy. I've said no before. I've said yes before. In this particular case, I'll say it kind of is... the ball can only go left or right, but it depends upon the magnet. And I don't know if you're controlling the magnet. I think you would be. It'd be really cool if you were." > — **Orbital Albert**, discussing layout/toys > _Shows uncertainty about mechanic implementation details visible in trailer_ > "I think everyone can agree that that bookcase is so relevant to the movies. The bookcase really moves... when there's dementors or any bad guys coming, they change the staircases often for which staircases go where, and even the students don't know." > — **Orbital Albert**, explaining number one ranking > _Connects mechanic design to theme/lore relevance; shows thematic integration thinking_ > "When you get into a Canadian considering spending $15,000 US and that really turns out to be around $23,000 Canadian... you're looking at maybe 26, $27,000. Now you're going to add 10%... you're looking at around rating around $30,000." > — **Orbital Albert**, discussing pricing > _Highlights tariff and international pricing concerns affecting Canadian buyers_ > "I don't like the play field artwork as much. I think the play field is a little bit more safe, but it's still beautiful and still well done." > — **Orbital Albert**, discussing cabinet vs playfield artwork > _The one critical element; indicates playfield artwork is conservative choice compared to cabinet art_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Orbital Albert | person | Host of Pinball Nerds Podcast; Poor Man's Pinball Network founder; primary speaker analyzing Harry Potter reveal video | | Eric Menyer | person | Designer of Harry Potter pinball machine for Jersey Jack Pinball | | Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer releasing Harry Potter machine; subject of episode analysis | | Mina Lima | person | Artwork design studio creating the Collector's Edition and other cabinet artwork for Harry Potter | | Steve Ritchie | person | Legendary pinball designer; referenced as benchmark for flow design with Elton John machine | | Harry Potter | game | Jersey Jack Pinball's new release; subject of five-positive-one-critical review | | Avatar | game | Jersey Jack pinball game; referenced as having second-best artwork to Harry Potter | | Elton John | game | Jersey Jack pinball by Steve Ritchie; referenced for flow design and third-best artwork | | Christopher Franchi | person | Artist for Elton John pinball; referenced for artwork quality | | Pat Lawlor | person | Legendary pinball designer; referenced as fan favorite; noted for recent games being 'best of' | | Keith Elwin | person | Innovative pinball designer; referenced as consistently delivering innovative content | | Jack Danger | person | Innovative pinball designer; referenced as consistently delivering innovative content | | Wonka | game | Jersey Jack pinball game by Eric Menyer; referenced in flow comparison | | Dialed In | game | Jersey Jack pinball; referenced as having multiple interacting toys, compared to Harry Potter | | Toy Story 4 | game | Jersey Jack pinball; Orbital Albert's 'biggest mistake' - he praised it but community didn't love it | | Pirates | game | Jersey Jack pinball; Orbital Albert's past review | | Godfather | game | Jersey Jack pinball; referenced as having too many stop/go elements compared to Harry Potter | | Pinball Brothers | company | Pinball manufacturer; referenced for Alien and Predator reliability issues | | Godzilla | game | Pinball game; referenced for having impressive building mech comparable to Harry Potter staircase | | Warner Brothers | company | IP licensor for Harry Potter; trusts Mina Lima with artwork | | Poor Man's Pinball Network | organization | Podcast network founded by Orbital Albert; hosts Pinball Nerds Podcast | | Pinball Nerds Podcast | organization | Show where this episode airs; hosted by Orbital Albert | ### Topics - **Primary:** Harry Potter pinball machine design and aesthetics, Jersey Jack Pinball game quality and innovation, Pinball toy and mech design benchmarking, Artwork and cabinet design in pinball, Playfield layout and flow design philosophy - **Secondary:** International pricing and tariff impacts on pinball, Location/arcade operator purchasing decisions, Pinball designer creative peaks and career trajectories ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.87) — Overwhelmingly enthusiastic about Harry Potter machine reveal. Orbital Albert explicitly positions this as a win for JJP after being critical of previous releases. Minor criticism of playfield artwork (being 'safe') and unstated 'one bad' element. The positive elements vastly outweigh any negatives. Tangential diversions on unrelated topics (wildfires, lawn maintenance, family) don't diminish the core positive sentiment about the game. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Pinball Brothers' Predator sales difficulties attributed to poor reputation from Alien's reliability issues and marketing failures; tariffs, missing Arnold Schwarzenegger license, and previous problems create perception barrier (confidence: medium) — tons of people had problems with Alien and Pinball Brothers in the past...some people had got like three or four boards and just everything that could go wrong would be wrong...And then there's tariffs and then there's the fact Arnold's not on it - **[sentiment_shift]** Some community resistance to Collector's Edition artwork among movie-only fans (those who haven't read books); Mina Lima's illustrative style diverges from traditional movie aesthetic (confidence: medium) — I think the people who are the most disappointed are people who only saw the movies never read the books...Mina Lima is not only renowned...people might not necessarily right away recognize the CE art - **[competitive_signal]** Harry Potter positioned as location operator essential purchase due to theme recognition, broad appeal, and expected strong earnings performance (confidence: medium) — If you're an arcade, you absolutely need to get out and get Harry Potter...This will, without a doubt, be the best earner - **[design_philosophy]** Harry Potter represents Eric Menyer's peak creative output with optimal balance of flow, innovation, and theme integration (confidence: high) — Eric is peaking at the perfect time because he's peaking during Potter... probably the most flow that Eric's ever put in a machine - **[licensing_signal]** Warner Brothers maintains strict creative oversight of Harry Potter IP on pinball; Mina Lima trusted as approved artwork partner (confidence: high) — trusted they are by the brand and by Warner Brothers; Mina Lima artwork is fantastical and whimsical, signifying IP holder approval of artistic direction - **[market_signal]** International pricing (Pro ~$10k USD, Premium ~$15k USD, Collector's Edition beyond) with significant tariff and shipping impacts on Canadian/international buyers (potentially $30k CAD total for CE) (confidence: high) — Canadian considering spending $15,000 US...turns out to be around $23,000 Canadian...adding 10% tariff...shipping...you're looking at around $30,000 - **[announcement]** Jersey Jack Pinball officially released Harry Potter pinball reveal video; Orbital Albert watched and analyzed it in detail (confidence: high) — Jersey Jack released their newest pin by Eric Menyer; full reveal video discussed with 3,600+ views at time of recording - **[product_strategy]** Multiple cabinet artwork variants (blue Triwizard Tournament vs red/pink variant) with distinct color palettes tied to theme symbolism (confidence: high) — right-hand cabinet, the first one we saw, that's in the blue with the Triwizard Tournament as opposed to the one in the pink and the red... red is used for all of the wands, for the red, for red is evil and dark and bad, and then bluey green is used on the right hand side - **[product_concern]** Playfield artwork design is more conservative/safe compared to cabinet artwork; not matching the artistic boldness of cabinet Collector's Edition design (confidence: medium) — I don't like the play field artwork as much. I think the play field is a little bit more safe, but it's still beautiful and still well done - **[product_concern]** Jersey Jack has not demonstrated unusual reliability issues compared to other manufacturers; mechanical complexity of Harry Potter staircase not expected to compromise durability (confidence: medium) — I don't ever hear anyone in the past saying that they break down exceptionally more than...a stern or something like that; confident that Jersey Jack's been doing this a long time - **[technology_signal]** Harry Potter features innovative mechanic implementations including moving staircase, Protego shield save, and Quidditch pitch with unique ball entry/exit patterns (confidence: high) — moving staircase mech is the best mech JJP has ever created; Protego shield mechanic brings ball back from right outlane via button press; bookshelf with multiple ball tracks - **[licensing_signal]** Audio licensing restrictions present in Harry Potter (no unmuted movie dialogue in reveal video despite showing clips) (confidence: medium) — I'm assuming if there was non-muted clips, they would have played at least one second of like Hermione going, Expelliarmus! But we didn't see any of that --- ## Transcript All get around, he's on the rebound Hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby Pinball now to rejoice He's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee Miffed with syrup and honey Homestead life with his family And a random tangent Stories of his boys He's on the poor man's pod network We're gonna get more listeners Welcome back Pinball Nerds to episode 621 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name's Orbital Albert and I just finished watching the new Harry Potter trailer from Jersey Jack Pinball five times in a row, and each time I wrote down something new that I thought was rad to present to you today's episode, which is much more fun than yesterday's episode. Sorry I had to slog through that. I do have two quick updates about that, but I'm going to save it to the very end of the episode because today is about positivity. Today is my favorite day of the year is always new pinball day. Of course, yes, any day where you win a pinball tournament might be slightly more fun overall, but the anticipation, the build-up, all the podcasting. You can't catch up to the content for a week before and after a new pinball release. And I love that because I get bored very quickly. So let's just jump right into it, okay? As promised, Jersey Jack released their newest pin by Eric Minyer, the designer. And I will just be the first person to tell you right here, I'm standing by what I said originally the Mina Lima artwork is absolutely gorgeous beautiful it's fantastical it's whimsical it's just so different imagine that pinball machine in a lineup of 100 pinball machines even the top 100 on pin side what pinball machine has artwork nearly that I'll say that beautiful for lack of a better term and it would only maybe be Avatar. Avatar would be like a close second. Christopher Franchi's Elton John, maybe a third. I don't know. So now we're suggesting that... Like, I've been pretty harsh on Jersey Jack in the past. Nobody's ever called me a Jersey Jack... What do you call that? Shell boy or whatever, right? No one's ever said that about me. They always said, oh, you're too harsh on Jersey Jack. Okay, I don't necessarily love the flipper feel as much as a stern, of course. Definitely as being a poor man, the poorest of all the poor men, most likely on the Poor Men's Pinball Network right here. I definitely can't afford Jersey Jacks. I can't even afford used Jersey Jacks, okay? But I do like to play them on location. I was a pretty big fan of Dialed In, which I was one of the rare people who was one of those. And I love Pat Lawler. I did like Pirates. I didn't love Pirates. I liked it a lot. I've never got to play Toy Story 4. Probably the only pinball content creators never played Toy Story 4, would still like to play it. Obviously, you know, that was probably my biggest, I won't say it's my biggest regret, but I'll say like my biggest mistake, the thing I was the most wrong about is I thought people were going to love Toy Story 4. I thought it had two or three unique, fun, interesting shots. I thought it had two or three toys that would be really fun for like a younger audience. I thought it had decent flow. Obviously, it's really easy to beat. Like a good player could beat it their first or second time playing it, especially depending on which mode it's on. But I was the only person who didn't absolutely love Toy Story. And it doesn't make sense to me because they had, they got all of the, you know, they got all of the artwork. They got all, I get people want Toy Story one or two, but anyways, we're not here to talk about Toy Story. Let's talk about the top five most rad things. Before we get into that one bad thing, I got to be mostly kind, but a little bit critical. That's what I've done here on the show for almost a decade, and I'm going to continue to do so. That's right. I'm associated with no distros. I'm associated with, I don't sell any merch. You can't buy any Pitmuller's Podcast merch. But what I do do, wait, did I just say do-do? What I do do, like my puppies do their do-do, what I do do is I just give you the straight up goods truth. So let's just get into it. Number five on the list is all of the toys and mechs. And I've been very, very, very tough on JJP in the past for having toys that are like near mechs, but not actually like interacting with it. I have been a little bit rough on Jersey Jack about the coolest, most innovative thing in the entire pinball machine of Avatar. Well, the artwork, I would say the artwork, but I'm just saying from a mechanical toys mech standpoint, is the scamp. And we don't want the scamp to be like, hey, have you heard about how cool this scamp is? What you'd rather be talking about is how incredibly awesome all the toys and mechs are inside this. And this isn't my one bad, but I will say, I don't know, was it Voldemort that was there? It didn't look, I don't know. I don't know. It didn't, the Voldemort didn't look like 100% like how I remembered it, but maybe they trying to make Voldemort more like in the book as opposed to more in the movie. That would make sense. But then they used the movie characters for on the play field. So I don't know. But that mech, Voldemort's mech, you like shoot it between his legs basically and the ball goes like underneath him. It's kind of akin to a bash toy because there is a stand-up target right there. And again, this one doesn't necessarily interact with it, but it does not look like a cake topper. It looks much higher quality than that. I don't think you can order like light up lights like that on anyone else. but the Whomping Willow, that is actually attached and will move to the pop bumper you're physically hitting. So that is akin to an actual bash toy. In fact, you're bashing the piece that's attached to the bottom of the Whomping Willow and you're seeing the Whomping Willow move up and down. So that's no different than any other bash toy you would see. Of course, we don't always consider a pop bumper with something moving on it a bash toy, but there you go. I thought that was really neat and interesting. Then there's the Cauldron. Okay, that Cauldron lights up. there's going to be someone who's going to mod it to have smoke coming out of it. And don't get your minds out of the gutter. This isn't going to be forest fire smoke, okay? And remember, only you can prevent forest fires. So, yes, that's the way. Here today, even in Nova Scotia, I am so far away from Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the middle of Canada. Like, literally, we have Chicago between here and there. We have Toronto. We have Detroit. We have New York City. Like, I am really, really, really far away from all these wildfire fires. and they're warning us to like basically if you're going to be outside for several hours you need to either wear a mask or like put a cloth over your face that's damp or like god forbid wear a scuba apparatus i don't think it's that bad i think if you're up near toronto and montreal it's actually it is actually getting that bad where you're supposed to limit your time outside to only like half an hour to an hour but i know new york city's going through it i'm sure chicago um like everywhere like like like basically the only people not dealing with wildfire smoke when I looked at the smoke forecast. I'm actually going to the smokeforecast.com. I'm going to look up the smoke forecast more often than the Carl Weathers at this point because I don't want to be outside cutting seven acres of property and lawn and maintenance for six hours when it's smoky and gross out, right? But I do like to be out there when it's sunny so I can have my shirt off and I just, I slather myself up with essential oils that bugs hate because I don't typically use DEET unless I have to. And also the more bites you get earlier in the year, the more used to it you get. But I get myself all slathered up. I take off my shirt. Okay. So I can get lots of vitamin D from my autoimmune disorder. And I listened to pinball podcasts. The headphones that I used are two part. They prevent any more hearing damage. I've seen like 1200 bands live. Uh, so that's not entirely true. I haven't seen 1200 bands live. I've seen 1200 concerts. Some of those bands I've seen 10, 15 like the matadors 30 times but that's not what we're here to talk about today we're here to talk about how incredible how awesome all of the toys that we're seeing we have not seen we have not seen a jersey jack pinball machine this packed since was i am completely okay with saying that arguably dialed in has nearly as many toys that kind of interact with i don't even think so no i think was i think was still had maybe slightly more toys that interacted with it but just off the top of my head. I'm not looking at it right now. I will say number five of my top five rad and one bad number five is easily all these toys. And let's not forget about the old bookshelf. That now that toy, not only does it interact with the ball, it interacts with the balls so many different ways from so many different levels, but I might be talking more about that later. So let's just leave that for now. I'm just going to say toys and mechs, especially the ones that interact with the ball. No cake toppers here, thank God. Woo, that's great. Let's get into number four on my list of most rad things on Harry Potter. So number four is the layout. It is the perfect combination. And I can tell, hey, I watched the video five times. I'm pretty much a professional about it now. No, but I watched it and my thought was, wow, this has got the perfect mystery of stop and go and lots of flow. It feels like Godfather was too much about the past, had too much going on, did had quite a few, there was quite a few things that did stop and slow down the ball quite often. This is not only Eric Meunier's, I'll have to see the gameplay, they could have fooled, sometimes they can fool you in the trailer a little, but I'll have to see the gameplay. but it appears to have the most flow of any Eric Meunier or even, I don't know, you know, Wonka, nah, dialed in, nah, probably the most flow. Oh, maybe not as much flow as Elton John, okay? I mean, he is the king of flow, Steve Ritchie, right? So I would say other than Elton John, this probably is the most flow that Eric's ever put in a machine. It's also the most flow that, you know, it's the most slow other Nelton John we've ever seen from Jersey Jack, and at the same time, it looks fast, incredibly fast. The ball speeds are fast, and all the times that the balls slow down, it's very, very quick. So I didn't even mention this in the toys. I could have. I don't know if a magnet's a toy. I've said no before. I've said yes before. In this particular case, I'll say it kind of is. There's a ball path where the ball is returning towards your flippers and all of a sudden there's a fork stuck in the road. Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go. At the second time. I used to know all the lyrics to that song. Anyways, there's a fork in the road and the ball can only go left or right, but it depends upon the magnet. And I don't know if you're controlling the magnet. I think you would be. It'd be really cool if you were. Okay. And, And oh, just to go back for one second, this could actually go in flow or this could go in layout or it could go in Toys and Mechs. It's a little bit of both. But when the ball goes to the right out lane, you can press a button. It appears or maybe both flippers at once or an action button. Sorry, Jeff Deolos. No, you don't love those. But you can press a button, it seems, or do something. And I don't know if you have to load it first or whatever. And what happens is Protego comes up. Now, for those of you that aren't Harry Potter nerds or didn't see the movies, no big deal. There's tons of nerdy movies. I mean, I'm just going through Lord of the Rings for the second time ever, and I wasn't a huge fan the first time, but I'm starting to become it now. So now that I'm an adult, not watching it as a kid, I'm getting more of it, and I'm getting more into it, okay? Into it. Not in three it, all right? So I'm getting more into it, and what happens is if someone shoots a spell at you, I'm going to try to say this in muggle language, someone shoots a spell at you if you can chant the spell protagio quick enough i'm probably not quite pronouncing it right i haven't seen the movies in a couple years i've only read it in the book mostly but if you press that quick enough what happens is this cool little mech comes up and it's like a wall and it blocks the right out lane from going out and it brings the ball back to the in lane that is genius that is the coolest toy i have seen outside of the bookshelf in a JJP in a very long time. Certainly the most innovative, the newest. We're seeing a lot of innovative stuff coming from Jack Danger, always innovative stuff coming from Keith Elwin. Some people have said that Pat Lawler's last few, which this will happen in any career, but his last few pins were a little bit of a best of. Some people would say that also about Steve Ritchie. But no one is going to say that about Eric. I think Eric is peaking right now. Eric is peaking at the perfect time because he's peaking during Potter. And you'd want to peak during Potter if Pickled Pete wants a pepper. And I don't know how that happened. But man, I am in a great mood. I got all my dental work done for the summer. I feel like school's out for summer. Oh shit, Hayden's sleeping. Okay, hold on. School's out forever. Okay, sorry. Now my son's sleeping. But it is like, it is like, it is 1.30 here. He should be getting up soon. He hasn't been on night shift for two days. He's slowly shifting his body back over to day shift. So he'll probably be getting up soon, but I'm sorry, Eden. Anyways, thankfully, Elowen is sleeping at my feet. I don't like to say his name because then he thinks we're going for a W-A-L-K. But Mr. Draco Franchi's over there, cut it up by the door. I gave him both a nice long walk and some lunch before I started. So hopefully we can get all through this. But that will depend upon me not going off track. So let's get back into it. The Protegio is in the book, I believe, and I know for sure in the movie, it's used basically to prevent a spell from hitting you. It's like a shield. Just think of it as a shield. So very similar to actually what we saw in Dungeons & Dragons, with that shield that comes up when you're shooting the dragon right between the flippers, this shield is further over on the right-hand side. So that is part of what makes this, basically, this layout so incredible. I did say here that I was talking a little bit more about that magnet and I thought that was neat I think from the setup point of view there's no time wasted with lower playfields I'm going to talk more about the upper playfield in a second but the upper playfield strikes me as being very quick you don't stay up there very long it's like the Jaws upper playfield it's nothing, thank god it's nothing like some of the longer playing ones we've seen over the days and something else that I also found really interesting with this is just how strange it is to me that people don't like the artwork like I don't understand how people could not like the artwork Mina Lima is not only renowned and it doesn't matter how many Instagram followers they have I've heard people say oh they don't have very many no it matters how gorgeous the artwork is and how trusted they are by the brand and by Warner Brothers. And I think that we all expected to see the cab that we saw on the lower two end on the arcade and the wizard. But when we saw the collector's edition, it was so different from what we thought we would see that it was like shocking. And I think a lot of people who I think the people who are the most disappointed are people who only saw the movies never read the books Now you got to go read the books Now I had seen some of this artwork at Comic and stuff but here in Canada we got the same I not going to lie kind of boring artwork that we got in the UK where it was written, and here in Canada. We didn't get that fantastical, like, I actually do own the very first, it's really my wife's, but I do own the very first Harry Potter ever. I might even put that up on my eBay store. It's a Canadian version, but it's the first edition, first edition, first edition. like pre-Oprah even saying anything on her show. So anyways, let's get back into it. My computer is giving me grief right now, so I'm going to have to go off the top of my head. Yes, so, okay, I know 3, 2, 1 off the top of my head. I don't need my computer to work better. It would be nice if it did. But number three is the artwork, and I'm not just talking about how beautiful the cab is, and I've said it before, and I'll say it again, and I'll keep saying it and screaming it from the tops of the roofs, how gorgeous the right-hand side cabinet, I'll just say, because depending on where you're looking from, it could be the left, but from the very first cabinet that we saw, the one that has 90,000 views on the Jersey Jack page, I believe, and even the other side only has like 50,000 of the cab, right? So it's like, people agree with me. It is stunning. It's got almost twice the views. Now, it was shown first, so there's something to be said for that. And both sides of the cabinet are great. Like to me, the right-hand cabinet, the first one we saw, that's in the blue with the Triwizard Tournament as opposed to the one in the pink and the red. It really makes sense because I believe in the movies red is used for all of the wands, for the red, for red is evil and dark and bad, and then bluey green is used on the right hand side on the cab and on the flipper and in the artwork. So it's really cool how they did that. I wasn't sure how they were going to tie the ends together with having one cabinet green and one cabinet red, but it totally makes sense because the flip, you know what I mean? And it just softly comes together. So I like what they did with the color palette. I'm going to give the play, I don't like the play field artwork. You can probably hear Ellen, Elowen itching herself there, like two feet from the microphone, but I don't like the play field as much. I think the play field is a little bit more safe, but it's still beautiful and still well done. And you still have Hermione, Ron, and Harry Potter right in the middle, which are the three main protagonists, right? No one argues about that. I mean, you could toss in a Dumbledore there. That would have been cool. But hey, short of that, I think that they did a terrific job. I cannot believe that for $9,999 US, plus possibly a small tariff, depending on where you live in the rest of the world, but let's not muddy the water of such a beautiful release day with talking about such things like politics that we all hate, or at least I have grown to recently. and let's be open and honest and say if you were going to spend $9,999 US you'd probably spend 10% more so I don't actually think in this particular case if you're in Canada or Europe where they just have I believe it's the blank 10% I'm sorry it's hard to keep track I don't believe this will stifle that now when you get into a Canadian considering spending $15,000 US and that really turns out to be around $23,000 Canadian. And now you're talking about adding shipping on top of that, which is going to be far more. So you're talking about probably about 1500. So, and then with taxes, you're looking at maybe 26, $27,000. Now you're going to add 10%. Maybe they add the 10% first and then they add the taxes probably. So either way, you're looking at adding 27, you're talking about around rating around $30,000. I paid $87,000 for my house, my 2000 square foot house with seven acres. I have a freaking river. A river ran through it on Homesteadia, our property. Like, okay, I call it Danielle's Creek to make fun of Dawson's Creek, which Danielle and I both loved growing up. So I know it's a little bit emotional and sappy, but I'm a dramaturg. I'm sorry. Dawson, I love you. He was sick for a while. He was very, very sick for a while. But anyways, James Van Der Beek, right? Like the main character, he was very sick for a bit, but he's doing better. And I've listened to his interviews and they're very motivational. So go check that out if you're a big fan. But the point is, this artwork is absolutely gorgeous. I would love to own it. I think that as you get into the $15,000 one, it can really become, then the tariff, especially if you're getting to Australia, is it 20% in Australia? It's so hard to keep track. It's so hard to keep track. I don't know. And then now a lot of the steel, we just, Canada just went from 25% on steel and aluminum, which obviously both of those are used in every pinball machine. Well, most of the steel and aluminum that the United States gets that's not made in America comes from Canada. So I don't know which ones of those specifically are being sent directly to China or hop, skip, and a jump through America, then there, then back to America. So I don't know. But that, honestly, going from 25% to 50% on a good chunk of your components in your pinball machine, that could throw a bit of a wrench into it further up the road. But for now, the prices have already been announced. So I would say this. If you're an arcade, you absolutely need to get out and get Harry Potter. But wait, why? Why do you need to do that? This will, without a doubt, be the best earner. And someone would say, well, maybe not the CE art. Because if you only watch the movies, you might not necessarily right away recognize the CE art. Well, you're going to see the big sign that says Harry Potter on the back glass. You're going to see Hermione. Hermione. You're going to see Hermione. and Ron and little Harry Potter. You're going to, sorry, that was horrible. I'm sorry, Marc Silk. Hopefully you're not listening. But you're going to see them all there between the flippers, wide-eyed and grinning, just like you would in the movies. I mean, everybody, you're going to see it on, you know, everywhere. It's going to say Harry Potter. But who is going to put a $30,000 Canadian or even a $15,000 US after taxes, after shipping and everything else? Oh boy, hold on. L-O-N. Oh, gosh. Okay, Elwynn had a tick crawling up her head. So I'm going to throw that down into the end of my ginger ale. Sorry, tick, you're going to die. Die, tick, die. Okay, anyways, I don't know. Maybe he'll just get more powerful. He's going to turn into Superman. He's having some of that Canadian dry, diet Canadian dry. Why is it called Canadian dry? It's so wet. I don't get it. And why would anything dry be like what you'd want to drink? Okay, hashtag marketing fail. All right, let's keep removing here, okay? So my second favorite thing of everything that I saw here today, okay, was, you might have guessed it from me speaking earlier, the bookshelf. Oh my God, that bookshelf is absolutely incredible. that bookshelf is I don't want to say the coolest mech I've ever seen I haven't decided if I think it's cooler than the building in Godzilla the building in Godzilla is pretty freaking epic arguably the coolest toy I don't know that Doctor Who, that big building Expelliarmus no I don't know probably Kong might still be the greatest but this is by far the best mech we've ever seen from Jersey Jack and I'm very, very comfortable saying that. And then, more importantly perhaps, it is by far, I mean, it's the coolest mech we've seen in a couple years from anyone. And I did write this down. I do think that that building mech is, I will repeat for the record, I do think it is cooler. I do think it is more fun. I do think it's more unique. I do think it's more interesting. It looked to me, and we didn't see a ball go in the upper one, but it looks like there's not one but two. So I wonder if the building goes up or down or if just there's those two different tracks, it looked like such a, I think I'd call it a bird's nest of different stuff going on up there, which is really neat. It's just going to look, it will look much like the artwork, very whimsical with the ball spinning around and coming out of there. And, well, I had, I could have, I didn't know, I should have probably put this in the layout. But I really like the Quidditch pitch up there. I think I mentioned that as well. It looked like it didn't stay up there for long. How the ball gets in there and how the ball exits were both very interesting. You know, there's upvux going here, there, and everywhere. Kind of like I was saying with Dune, one of my favorite things is you don't really know where the ball's going in and where it's coming out. So that certainly is something very fun. I'm just heading over to YouTube. I'm going over to Jersey Jack right now. And I think, I hope that you guys don't think this is a little bit of a scapegoat. but I think what my number one thing that I'm liking is, is the fact that my computer will not type. This is wonderful. Okay, I have to use my streaming computer to go over to Jersey Jack. I have no clue why. Can you believe halfway through your podcast? I guess when you're using a $50 used Asus laptop from you bought off eBay a year ago, you know, these things can be expected. But I know you're not gonna like my answer for the number one most rad thing. I know you're not, okay? I think everyone can agree that that bookcase is so relevant to the movies. The bookcase really moves. You see it in almost every movie. That's how they, just so you guys know how important it is and what the relevant of the bookcase is, okay? The relevancy of the bookcase is that when there's, I don't want to say, when there's dementors or let's just say the bad guys, when there's any bad guys, when the serious black is coming from them, even though he's not, but they think he is. Death eaters. If anyone bad or evil, any bad guys in any of the books are coming for them, what they do is they change the staircases often for which staircases go where, where, where, and where. And even the students don't know. And that way, if a particular bad guy is trying to get Harry Potter or Hermione or whoever trying to get somebody, he gets lost and doesn't know where they're going. And it's kind of like a really beloved, fun, interesting part that everything in the castle is just always moving and switching. and that was, I had guessed that, and thank you to my listener who let me know that there was, and I was right about this, there is a mech somewhere in the middle of the playfield that spins and moves and the balls move. I guessed it might have been Hogwarts or a tower, but it was a bookcase. Or sorry, it wasn't a bookcase. What am I saying, bookcase? It's a staircase. Isn't it the staircase? Okay, I'm an idiot. Sorry, sometimes I can be a moron. Jersey, Jack, Pinball, Harry Potter. This will be interesting to see how many views there is by now. 42 minutes ago, 3,600. I'm not going to play the music because I don't want to get in trouble. I muted the music there. Yeah, so they are showing three people who look like they're in Harry Potter. Kind of, but not really. I guess the one girl kind of looks like Hermione. I think the video, by the way, the video is just really, really, really well done. And now that I'm watching the video, I am reminded of the fact of how much I do just like... No, it's not a bookcase. It's the staircases. I was correct. Sorry. Wow, there's just so much going on. The car's on top of the Whomping Willow. The artwork looks great. Everything happening on the screen looks great. The code seems neat. The inserts are telling us that there's already... The code's already... It seems like the code's already pretty frickin' far. There's just so many sculpts and mechs. and I think that they hurt us. When we complained about the cake toppers, this is the opposite of the cake toppers. This is like all custom, all beautiful, all the time. It doesn't look like there'd be many things to break down on it as well, which is obviously good for being on location. I'm gonna go ahead and say it right here. This is a W, a big fat W, okay? This is a good thing. This is a win for Jersey Jack. I'm seeing like real Voldemort clips on there. Now, I don't want to trigger Canada here right now. We just started talking again recently. But I'm assuming if there was non-muted clips, they would have played at least one second of like Hermione going, Expelliarmus! Or something. But we didn't see any of that. We just didn't see any of that. But wow, even the one habit trail that does fall. Yes, the top part of the staircase is used as well. This is just... Okay, mechanically, I guess you could say maybe the staircase would be the thing that would break down. You'd think. But I've got to be confident that Jersey Jack's been doing this a long time. I don't ever hear anyone in the past saying that they break down exceptionally more than, you know, I don't know, a stern or something like that. I'm just trying to think. I'm trying to think of the companies that are known for reliability issues. I know tons of people had problems with Alien and Pinball Brothers in the past, and that's part of the reason why people are uncomfortable even considering buying a Predator is how many issues they had. I heard horror story after horror story about Alien that like some people had got like three or four boards and just everything that could go wrong would be wrong and trying to troubleshoot it. The people at the company don't really know much about Bimbo themselves. And it just, it seemed it's, and then there's tariffs and then there's the fact Arnold's not on it. And then it's, there's the fact that honestly, it's probably now the biggest marketing of the fail. It wasn't how Jack Winarian announced Harry Potter. It wasn't that Dune launched with low code. It's how poorly Predator has been launched. If you think that when the largest pinball title on planet Earth, Harry Potter, is coming out, and they're showing the most beautiful cab on planet Earth, and you want to compete against them by showing a little two-inch portion of an inlane, I think you've got to give your head a check. Like, you've got to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're going to put down the brownies. I'm going to save two ciders for later to get ripped. I'm going to put away the old sugar, the most commonly used drug on planet earth down. I'm going to put down my Cinnabon. I'm going to put away my hot pocket and I'm going to really think, wow, if I'm going to blow people away, do I show them a two inch portion of the in lane or would it be better to show them nothing? And the answer is nothing because showing them that little tiny tidbit of horrible artwork that showed you nothing and told you nothing turned more people off and killed FOMO faster than it built it, and faster than Jack could kill a higher percentage of FOMO even in Harry Potter, and faster than releasing Dune with code so bare it's like a desert. You could just shout into the code, into the machine, and you'd say, Dune, Dune, Dune, Dune, Dune. It's not there, there, there, there. Now again, everybody work at Barrels Fun seems very competent, very nice. I believe the code will get there, like I believe the code will get there in X-Men, but I don't know that to be true for sure. So listen to the first rule of being a listener. Play before you pay. This is the way. Because every single person who played Dune went, okay, I liked the shots. That's what I heard from everybody. I liked the shots. They're a bit tight, but once you got used to them, they're really fun. They're really interesting. I love the toy in mech on Dune, the giant protruding butthole. But what they didn't love was the lack of code, the lack of callouts. Again, that's kind of a coding thing. They didn't like the lack of code and the lack of callouts. And imagine if they had just waited two or three weeks or two or three months, especially to get out of the way of Harry Potter as well, and they had released closer to Christmas when they had 40 50 60 more callouts 30 40 50 more code They would have sold David David Van Es I love you I know I asked this question on Dirty Pool Pinball podcast with Jeff there. Oh, and by the way, Jeremy Burchell just interviewed him. Go check that out. I'll try to remember to drop a link, but it is Harry Potter Day. I don't want to ruin it too much. But Dirty Pool Pinball, who I kind of jokingly said is the new Jack Danger. I don't really think it's the new Jack Danger. Nobody could be Jack Danger. I don't think anyone can stream as good as Jack Danger. I guess what I was saying is he's young, he's progressive, he's fun, he's outgoing. And the man can read chat while not missing a shot. I don't know how he does that. I don't know if he's using AI, if he's blowing it up on a screen, if he's got a little headset and his wife is reading it through him from the background. I have no clue, and I don't care. But he's killing it. So go check him out. I agreed with almost every take the guy had there, except for he wants Conan. Who wants Conan? Nobody wants Conan. You know what? I don't know. I don't want Conan as a theme. That's just me personally. Going back to what I was saying, I think that Jersey Jack has, without a doubt, the number one rad. And I know some people aren't going to like this, but the number one rad is, for the first time ever, Jersey Jack is firing on all freaking cylinders. Eric Minier is doing a project he loves that he's passionate about for the first time ever since he's worked there. so to compile upon that he is a i remember talking harry potter with him in his live streams while talking about craft beer and and pinball and other stuff but i remember talking about how good harry and again this is like seven years ago maybe eight years ago i don't even think it was after i moved to the coast so it'd have to be closer to about six years ago when he was streaming all the time from his house and and i he would be having like a sierra nevada ipa and i would try to have an ipa for my fridge. It closely matched what Eric was having. And I would sit there and basically, like, I don't know why, but there would only be sometimes four or five, maybe ten people, fifteen people at max on a Friday night like in there chatting with him. I guess he had only created one pinball machine by then and far less people use Twitch, but that would be cool if he still livestreamed. I don't think that occurs. Someone send me a link if he does. If he secretly still livestreams, that would be really cool. Strangely enough, I would always hop in the livestream with Escher Lefkoff, who for many years, and is still one of the easily, like probably if he lived in North America, could be or would be right in there with the top two or three but I think he's down to fourth or fifth now or something but uh incredible player and I would go in his steve-o pub twitch channel and quite often it'd be like me and escher or me and like two other viewers but they wouldn't be talking and um much like escher much like jack danger much like ray day when ray day is another person when he's streaming it's it's so fun to go in there and even though he's an incredible coder an incredible player. Top five, top ten player in his right. In fact, for us, I'm not going to use the term older guys because Ray is significantly younger than me, but I mean, he's older than, I don't, I'm not sure how old you are, Ray, because it's kind of hard to tell, but I would guess that Ray's got to be older than, you know, the 20-year-olds that are winning all the time, or at least the 22, 23, 24, 25. I think Ray is around 30 to 35. I have no clue, but that's what I would guess. So, hopefully I didn't offend you. I don't want to ever offend anyone ever again on the show. Jeez Louise. I am in this to praise pinball and how much I love pinball. And yes, from time to time, be mildly critical on other content creators that are extremely rude or belligerent or delusional. But at the same time, I don't want that to be the main focus of the show. The main focus of the show is not like how to play better with Steve Ritchie. Of course, I'll give you little tips or tidbits from time to time. The main focus of the show is to make you laugh, is to maybe give someone who's somewhat newer to pinball a little bit of insight into what's happening in the whole thing. I'm pretty much the only pinball podcast that really talks inside baseball about what's happening between all the companies, between all the content creators, between all the podcasters, the Twitch channels, the tournaments. I love it all. The only thing you don't hear about on my show is fixing pinball machines. Because frankly, when I try to fix them, if one thing's broken, by the time I try to fix that, two things are broken. I literally have done that before. But I think what Jersey Jack did here best, the most rad thing is that they're firing on all cylinders. Sometimes, like in Avatar, the artwork was great, but there wasn't many mechs or toys. Or a lot of the mechs and toys that are there, they may interact with the pinball machine a little, but they're all just cake toppers you can order from China for a toonie. So it's like two bucks. Sorry, if you live somewhere outside of Canada and you don't know much about our terms, $2. dollars okay you got a lot of those cake toppers we've seen in the past on a couple jersey jack machines you could get for a buck or two and we're not seeing that here we're not the opposite of that i would be absolutely shocked if someone else made that uh staircase mac obviously they didn't that is custom made in the house it looks very high quality it looks beautiful it looks cool it looks fun i like i like the max the max aren't my favorite part but i like them i think they did I'll give the staircase toy an A++. Everything else, like B. I'm not going to say, oh, the cauldron is an A. Obviously, it doesn't go down in through the cauldron. The cauldron's a little above it and it goes below it. But you know what I mean? Even the Whomping Willow, I'll give that a B+. Because at least a Whomping Willow is actually going up and down on the thing that you touch. So it is interacting with the ball directly in that particular case, as opposed to hitting a drop shot target and over a couple inches there happens to be a toy moving, squiggling around a little. And I was glad to see there was no scramps. Because if they started it by, Jersey Jack Pinball brings you Scrap 2.0. It's a scamp on top of a scamp underneath a scamp. And in the lower play field, you don't hit any buttons. You just scamp to the left, scamp to the right. Scamp all day till you're gonna go fight. Yeah, scamp, I like the scamp lamp. I don't even think that's a real song. I just made that up. Pretty bad, wasn't it? Yes. Okay. All right. I've started singing. This means I must end the show, but I will tell you I've never, ever in almost a decade of covering every pinball release out there other than Pinball Adventures, who would even bother talking to them or covering any of their BS because they're the worst pinball company on planet Earth, which sucks because they're Canadian. But, well, wait, Deep Root was the worst because they ripped off tons of people, but Pinball Adventures, close second. Well, wait, no, wait, no, wait. Deep Root and Haggis are the worst, and Pinball Adventures is the third worst. Well, what about Home Pin? Oh, my God, I'm going to do a whole episode on the worst pinball machine, the worst pinball companies of all time, and why. But then I'm being negative, and I want to be positive, so let's just get into being positive again and say this. The animations look great, and they look custom. The artwork looks great, and it's very custom on the CE, perhaps too custom for some people who like, I don't know, a square peg in a round hole. You know what I mean? Like people who are normcore. Like people who love Insane Clown Posse. No, I'm just kidding. That was a little under the belt. That's not fair. People who are just very like, just normal. And they just, they're very like, you know. And I get that. That's okay. If you've only seen the movies and you're just too busy. You have time to travel around the whole world all the time, but you couldn't possibly read the Harry Potter books. The thing is like, you probably did have time to read the Harry Potter books because you're stuck in airports all the time. But that's not the point. The point is the books are better than the movies. If you've only seen the movies, go back and read the books. When you get a chance, you don't have to read like a thousand pages a day, even if you're a super slow reader. You can read a couple pages here, a couple pages there. Well, you're taking a poop, okay? Well, you're on the way to work if you're not the one driving, okay? Well, you're going to bed at night. Well, you're listening to my pinball podcast. Now I go off topic so much it's hard to even pay attention to which direction I'm going in the first place. but that is to say jersey jack has never made such a complete package as this beautiful machine and i know people will call me a jersey jack show for this and i know there's flaws i know there is flaws in the machine obviously we're going to hear if there's no synced up clips and we don't know about that yet um i think there is i could see some people complaining about maybe the valdemore thing. I definitely could see. I've not been on Pinside. I did read like two comments on Facebook Jersey Jack before. Actually, I was the first person to comment on there, but I read two others after I hit the enter button. And I do like getting to be first to come up with my ideas for this. I think that the one bad thing, and I've said this before and I'll say it again, thankfully there is a $9,999 one. If you're getting that to put that on location, I almost guarantee you you're getting a money printing machine. If you've ever considered getting into putting machines out there and you don't have to go get a high interest payday loan and you don't have to use a high interest credit card, if you have a very low interest home equity line of credit or a HELOC or a second mortgage or you thankfully have a pinball machine you can sell to get one of these, I would sell it and put it on location. If you ever wanted to see if putting a pinball machine on location in your area could work this is jersey jack's like here you go make money i'd be shocked even in a crappy laundromat or you know like a not too busy bar if you couldn't break even on your ten thousand dollars or at least break even on the loss of your pin in just a couple months if not a year now i'm not going to say like oh in three months you're going to get ten thousand plays which equals ten thousand dollars of course not but let's say in three to six months from now, Jersey Jack, and I don't know this to be true, I actually think they're going to hold their value the best, the $9,999 ones. But within two to three months of them coming out, let's say they are down to eight grand. I don't think they will be, but let's say six months after they come out and there's lots on the market, the market's flooded with the arcade version, the $9,900, right? Let's just say it was, and it was down to eight grand. In those six months that you would have owned it, there's no way that you wouldn't have got $2,000 plays. So I think that if you're a big arcade, you're probably going to get an arcade version. You're going to get a wizard version, put them on opposite sides of your arcade. If you own two arcades, you're getting one of each, maybe one of each for each arcade. And like I said, even if you're a small time operator and you only have two to four pins, this is probably what you're going to get. I know even Cause, shout out to Cause, a fellow tribe member here on the Poor Man's Pinball Network. He said for River City he's going and getting one. And I think you have to. If you're a family entertainment center, like these will do everywhere, these will do well everywhere except for maybe perhaps a gay bar. Understandably so, if you have the author of the, you know, the books is particularly, you know, going after them, then I can understand them not wanting to do that, right? So I don't fault them for that. I'm just suggesting everywhere but a gay bar and let's be honest gay bars are not like I don't know maybe they're like one percent of locations for pinball machines I think like 50 to 60 percent are in a family arcade or what do they call them fex family entertainment centers and or barcades right and then all the other ones it's like maybe five percent a laundromat five percent in a little small like back of a gas station or like a highway stop or something you know what I mean but like a good 50 to 60 percent are going to be going to barcades, every barcade. I can't imagine, even if it was a Stranger Things themed bar, I still think Harry Potter would get more plays than Stranger Things will get. So this is a win-win-win. Jersey Jack, are you listening? No. Let me switch that and reverse it. Jersey Jack, thank you for listening. Because I have been saying, and tons of other content creators have been shouting from the rooftops, you need a lower end version for arcades so it's even though their jersey jack may make will make the least money on the arcade versions even if they only broke even on them which i highly doubt but even if they only broke even on them it's smart to get those out first it's smart to have a lower end version because 99 of the people who are going to bump into or see or find a jersey Jack Harry Potter machine will do it out in the wild. They're not going to do it at a friend or family member's house. That's maybe one or two percent. It's just it's not going to be someone just like going across YouTube and they just see a pinball video and they go oh yeah I'm going to watch a pinball video. This is going to be someone at a concert, someone at a birthday, someone at a graduation, someone out for an anniversary, someone out you know for a Friday night with their buds for drinks and they're going to see Harry Potter and they're going to be a big fan and go well geez, I didn't even know they still made pinball machines. And honestly, I'm not going over there to play that Hot Wheels. I'm not going over there to play that John Wick, but Harry Potter? Yeah, I don't even know how to start this machine. I'm going to go ask the bartender. I'm going to go get money. I'm going to ask someone else playing. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to watch the quick video on the stern right beside me. You know, they will figure it out and they'll jump through hoops and they'll do it. And I think this is a turning point. This is a TSN turning point this is a unicorn event not just in pinball podcasting and youtubing and twitching and content creation this is a unicorn event for each and every pinball nerd listening to me where when you see a newbie or a newer player i don't even want to use newbie i don't know whatever i'm over not offending people i'm using the term newbie i'm sure if it offends you let me know and i'll try not to say it for you okay but like i'm saying it in a nice term if you're newer to pinball you noob no I'm just kidding see if you say it like that it's a little bit rude but if you say newbie depending on the context I think it's fine okay let's not let's everybody's getting offended a little bit too easily right now take it easy can we joke around a little bit so if you're a newbie to pinball be welcoming be kind don't speak poorly about leagues and tournaments and tell them to never go to one and that it's horrible you know what I mean tell them oh by the way there's this league that's very open and welcoming. 90% of players will be more likely, probably 95% of players would be more likely to go to a welcoming league and go check out a whole bunch of pinball machines and be introduced to the scene as opposed to just going, yep, I'll spend $27,000 Canadian or $30,000 equivalent European or even $18,000, $15,000 American and buy a pinball. Of course they wouldn't. They're going to want to go meet the scene. They're going to want to go talk to people, they're going to want to talk to other people who said, oh, you waited six months to buy a Jersey Jack and you saved four or five grand. Well, yeah, maybe if I wanted to buy an arcade edition, I'll wait five or six months. And other people go, well, yeah, but with this particular Jersey Jack, it's doing so well that the chances of it actually dropping in value is pretty low. And then, you know, that's how you get into the scene. Usually that's how I came into the scene going to like a Youth Opportunities Unlimited. I was trying to support a local charity that two of my friends ran. Well, it was my good friend's mom, actually, Megan. But I was trying to support them, and it turns out that Jay Eats, who's actually neighbors with Mike Dimas from Pinball Shenanigans, said, hey, we could raise some money for Youth Opportunities Unlimited by having this pinball thing. And I said, oh my God, I loved pinball my whole life, but I can hardly ever find it anywhere anymore, and I only get to play it a couple times a year when I'm out of town, out of London, because there's hardly anywhere to play. Sure, I'd love to come to this. And believe it or not, this is really dating me guys. This is how long I've been in the game. I went to a ACDC, no KISS. It was a KISS launch party that also had ACDC at it. Whichever one is the most newest, I think it is KISS. So I went to the launch party for KISS. Think how many pinball machines have came up since then. And that was my introduction to pinball people. So I know I hear other content creators say oh I hate tournaments and leagues are the worst and I can stand groups of people getting together and having fun and celebrating the hobby we all love and it like when people are battering down on leagues and tournaments that are content creators they don't understand that a large portion of the people who are purchasing pinball machines are people who got involved coming in through leagues that's how they even found out about people are what are you more likely to do would you like to come to a pinball night where you get to learn about pinball machines for five bucks and be introduced to the community and all the different pinball machines? Or would you like to spend $15,000 on, of course, you're not going to spend 15K. You're going to come out to leagues for a while. You're going to come out to some tournaments. You're going to go see some private collections. You're going to have friends in the industry long before you commit to spending $15,000. So to Kaneda specifically, who's the one who does it the most. Sorry, Chris, I'm calling you out, even though, you know, we're getting along better, which is nice. We're still frenemies, but we're getting along better, which is really nice. No, I have not subscribed back to him, okay? I choose not to do that for right now, but I will say that if I do subscribe to Chris, I'm being objective, and I'm allowed to do that. I do find him very entertaining, at the very least, even though he does contradict himself a fair amount of times, as do I. I am neither nor perfect, nor am I a good penball podcaster. I've admitted that many times. You're supposed to think of this like a blog, okay? You're supposed to think of this as just, I'm just a regular dude, because that's all I am. I didn't go to podcasting school. I've never been in news journalism. I don't know. I've done like acting roles. I acted in a craft beer television show. I didn't have like opinions. I wasn't a critic or a reviewer. I don't have any professional radio training, okay? I worked in Nestle Ice Cream Factory making drumsticks and Haagen-Dazs, okay? I made Smarties. I made Coffee Crisp. So wait, oh no, people outside of Canada won't know what Coffee Crisp is. Oh no, I have to over-explain everything so someone doesn't go on a 40-minute rant about something I said because they don't understand my language. Jeez. Okay, for everyone listening, Coffee Crisp. It has no coffee in it. It's just a chocolate bar made by Nestle. I don't know why they only make it here in Canada. Not sure. But it's a chocolate bar. No one get mad. It isn't anything like Colombian white coffee. No, it's nothing bad. Okay? This is a joke show. We're all having fun here. How do you like your coffee? Crisp. All right. there's a joke only the Canadians got. So I think that Jersey Jack has a winner on their hands. The biggest issue is how long will they limit it for? And this is where we come into the one bad. The resale market on the CEs has been so poor, I believe, yeah, I can't prove this has sold, but I believe there is people attempting to sell Godfathers now for four to five grand less. Maybe, I saw someone report six. I don't know if that's true. Six grand less than they were. So if they were 15, they're now like nine. So nobody wants to buy a $15,000 Harry Potter and sell it for nine. If they promised there was only 1,000 CEs, I would say, guys, take out your savings bonds. Take your money out. No, don't take your retirement money out, but cash in all your goodwill, sell all your other pinball machines, and buy as many CEs as you can, because this would be a ticket to the moon. This would be bigger than Bitcoin 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Okay, but because they're not limiting it for a certain amount of time, I actually truly believe that it is possible that the version that holds its value the absolute best will be the $9,999 one. Now, I wouldn't be shocked if both lower end ones do well with holding their value. And when I say well, let's put a number on this. I don't like it when people are vague about this. I don't like it when people aren't descriptive. okay I want to see it stay within 10% within a year of coming out so if I buy a stern machine for six thousand dollars I want it to be worth five thousand four hundred a year later I think 10% is a reasonable amount to lose so if I buy a fifteen thousand dollar jersey jack machine I would like it to be worth approximately if I haven't put it on location if it doesn't have ten thousand plays if I haven't overdone it with rainbow puke mods or something stupid that look junky and tacky like you made it in a stupid 3D printer to try to increase the value of it, but it really just makes it look hokey, okay? If you've been tasteful, if you haven't put too many stupid mods on it and put too much money into it, if you haven't overplayed it too much and if you've kept it in good condition, it should be reasonably within about 10%. So 10% of 15k would obviously be $13,500. And I think that's a reasonable expectation if they don't make these for too long, I will say Jersey Jack. Now, Ken, you're not there anymore. Whoever is in marketing at Jersey Jack, wherever is listening, are you listening, Jersey Jack? Please keep this at less than 90 days. I think 30 days would be the sweet spot. If you say you can order these right till Christmas, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. That's too long. You'll get more sales, but it will tank your values. And the last thing is you want is your future purchases. Everyone in the market saying, oh, well, now the last five Jersey Jacks have all lost money. Do you want them to say that, or do you want them to say, wow? Well, even though a couple of, you know, even though Toy Story 4 and Godfather have dramatically dropped, in fact, a listener was just writing to me that he got a Toy Story 4, I believe it was a CE, like the high end, I think, for 9K. So, like, he saved himself a buttload of money and got a really cool Pat Lawler, which I think is really cool, no one else likes, but I haven't played it, so I don't know, I could be wrong. but the one bad thing is if you love that CE art as much as me your fear is that they're going to print this to the moon and they're going to go all the way to January 1st and they're going to turn it into a from a collectible to a common and we don't want it to be a common the last thing you want is your most expensive version to be the one that's printed the most that is not how it works it's a pyramid scheme guys it's supposed to look like a pyramid like at the top it's thin and narrow and it's rare no i'm just kidding uh but seriously if first of all they've all got to be numbered and you have to be open and honest if it's a collector's edition you've got to tell us how many but i think the thing you're for i think you're getting dollar signs in your eyes going oh how much can we make by making it unlimited and all you need to say is even if you limited it at and i would hate for you to do this because i think they limited one of the gnr editions at 5k that's just too much but even if you limited it at the ce version at two and a half and you said but i'm sorry the arcade is unlimited that those two and you would actually drive just as many sales to jersey jack yes you'd make a lower margin on the lower ones because some people when you i think you would sell out of all 2500 ces i don't know if you'll sell out of 2500 if you don't limit it but if you limit it to 25 i can see them not limiting it and only selling like 1,800 or 2,300. And I could be way off, but don't limit it to 5,000. That's just too many. I think the perfect number would be between 1,500 to 2,500. If they came out today and said, that's it, we're ending it at 1,500, you'd see FOMO go through the roof. If they said they're ending it at 2,000, you'd see FOMO be probably 50% higher than it would have been if not for the next two weeks. If they said they're limited at 2,500, now they say they're limited at 5,000, that's not going to move the needle much. It's just not. We already know they did 5,000 of a GNR. Okay, and Harry Potter is arguably a much bigger title, although not in that demographic necessarily of, you know, 45 to 65 year old men is a primary buyer. However, overall in the world by far, by like by multitudes, Harry Potter is a much bigger brand. It's much in the public's eye. We still talk about it. We still joke about it. We still use sayings from it. here in my house I'm looking over and I can see all the books sitting on my bookshelf like I read through them every summer I try to watch the movies every winter um it's just it's ingrained it's ingrained in her my wife's name my wife was on roller derby okay and I'll tell you this do not piss her off I have seen her elbow and lay out people she was even playing in a Toronto wild card tournament and she laid out a girl so bad they gave her a double red card Eric Stone can't even get a double yellow card man uh but anyways I don't know why I brought that up she's just very good at roller derby and she's also like like she's strong like she's athletic and strong and uh don't piss her off that's all I'll say because she's got an elbow like you've never seen but her roller derby name was Hermione Danger okay so obviously like do you know do you know what I mean? Like, like obviously our family's ingrained in it. Our dog's name is Luna Tuna Elowen Agar. The first name being Luna, like Luna love God. Okay. And then we have Draco Franchi, Draco Franchi, like Draco, like Draco Malfoy, who's often misunderstood in the book. And it turns out in the end he was good, or at least kind of. So both of my dogs are named after Harry Potter. Okay. And although I wasn't invited, I don't know if some of you guys, I did not get an invite to check my email this morning. Although I was not invited to go to Harry Potter. I don't think anyone else was. I wasn't going to make a big deal. If everyone else was and I wasn't, it's totally fine. Because if you're going to be open and honest, like I am, sometimes you're going to get arrows shot at you. It's just going to happen. When you say things that pinball companies don't like, yeah, maybe you don't get as many invites and maybe you'll get what I got. I got quite a bit of money sent to me yesterday. Shockingly, someone wants me to get a new microphone. But they said, please, please, please don't share my name. They didn't say I couldn't share the message. They said they love my show, but they'd want to hear me get a new mic, which is fair enough. And they gave me a substantial donation. I got multiple donations yesterday. So thank you to everyone who donated. That was very generous. You didn't have to do that. I didn't ask for donations. I don't even think I've dropped my PayPal in for like two months. So I don't even know how people found my PayPal. But if you're listening right now and you think whatever the hell happened to me this week was really not rad, like multiple people who wrote me, feel free to fire me off of PayPal and I'll share it with my family. And it was a rough week. If someone grabbed me a 2-4 beer, that would be rad. I think they're like 34 bucks for like a 12 pack of like decent craft beer here or like I don't even know if there's two fours of craft beer but basically someone wanted to PayPal me some money you can go ahead and do so it's angryalpacatea at gmail.com I went through a hell of a hard time and my wife's argument was you should probably put your PayPal out there because after people realize how poorly you were treated and I had multiple I think at at least three content creators reached out to me and one of them, one of them, you made my day. I'm not going to say who you are. You made my day. You sent me a long message. You basically, I'm not going to say who it was, but they called, um, they called one of the content creators that were making fun of me, specifically the one saying I had schizophrenia. They called that person a doofus and said they had stopped listening to their content a long time ago. and most other people in the industry just don't listen to them. Okay, so look, it doesn't matter who's right or wrong. I mean, it does, but it doesn't in that I don't care. I'm just not going to mention those people anymore. I'm not going to talk to them anymore. I want nothing to do with either of them. And if either of them come into live chats where I'm hanging out, whether it be on YouTube or on Twitch or on Facebook, and either of them are degrading me or being mean or rude to me, I'm just going to try to avoid them. I'm going to try to continue to do what, when I get congratulated by multiple people, several people said, well, the one person in particular said, I cannot believe how calm you were yesterday. If someone had treated me or said to me and, and ridiculed me like how you were, I would not have been able to stay that calm. And this person is known for being far, far, far more calm, level-headed and reasonable than I am. So I thank you to everyone who thanked me and applauded to me. I also played it for both my sons, just a little, like five minutes, so they could get a taste and a flavor. My wife, I played, I made her listen to a bit more. She was like, oh, God. She's like, this is your most boring episode. But you're being reasonable, but it's boring, Albert. I'm like, I know it's boring, but I want to show people I can be boring and reasonable. Yes, I can also be boring and reasonable, just like many other boring and reasonable podcasts. That's not my shtick, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's a place for that. Let everyone listen to whatever they want to listen to. If you want to listen to a pinball podcast that goes off topic and talks a little bit about tournaments, let them go off topic and talk about that. But I wanted to keep today 99% positive, and I think I have. I had a great time. I love you. I'm in love with you. I'm here for the long run, okay? I love pinball more than I love anyone on planet Earth other than my wife and my children and perhaps a couple of my besties. and my dad fine I'll throw my dad in there I used to barely like him but he's slightly better now my my poor dad has to listen to me talk about pinball and he's just like oh son please and then I go you know what that's what the pinball podcast for is for me to go off topic and talk about how much I love pinball this is no matter how much just forget about the fact that you don't like the c-art work I know those people that just can't stand it they're like oh it's too it's too different it's too unique i need normal pinball art it needs to be normal uh the one is almost too normal and the other one is almost too eccentric i like them both i the ce is just incredible they that's their best decision artistically if you remember with elton john they put the nicest artwork on the middle one with francie's one and then they put the nicest switch that in reverse she was very confusing and then they put the really cool topper on the other one and then but everyone wanted francie's art with the one with the cool topper and then it It was a whole shtick. But they nailed it. They did it right this time. I don't care what any other content creator says. If they're telling you anything other than it's overpriced, really think about why would they be saying that. Really other than just to be anti-disestablishmentarianism and just get clicks and be negative and rude? Or just to be the one person who hates it? I don't know. But Jersey Jack, every single person who works there, take a bow you deserve it this is your best pin you've ever made aesthetically toys and mechs it looks like so far it's definitely going to be as far as a mixture of not just flow because remember you just want flow all day you want a mixture of flow and a little bit of stop and go when are you going to have a sip of your craft beer or buddy or cheeseburger while you're playing come on am I the only one who sips on craft beer or maybe has a little snacky while we're eating no I'm not Laser Los, he's smart. If he's going to be eating his Cheetos all day, he'd grab some... That could have got me canceled. I almost said Asian Sticks, but I didn't. What are they called? Chopsticks. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm not going to get canceled. I'm going to go before I get canceled again for the 15th time. I'm mildly uncancellable. At least I try to be. Because I'd be authentic. I'd be authentic? Is that... I don't think that's the proper sentence. But I tell it like it is. I'm open and honest. And I have a fun time. I hope today not only were you entertained and slightly informed, but most importantly, I hope I made you laugh at least once. I hope I brighten your day. I hope I burned some time. That's all we're here on Earth to do. So enjoy every moment of it. Get out there and play more pinball. And yeah, go ahead. I'll let you go watch that incredible pinball reveal of Harry Potter by Jersey Jack five more times. Until next time, PetModerns, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe being critical but kind. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 765f73e0-ffe9-4f84-9b56-38b04da20c02*