# Episode 67 - Screw Me Once...

**Source:** Special When Lit  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2019-08-27  
**Duration:** 49m 20s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://specialwhenlitpinballpodcast.com/episode-67-screw-me-once

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## Analysis

Special When Lit hosts Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb discuss industry news including Spooky Pinball's exemplary customer service on a defective Alice Cooper machine, American Pinball's production transition, Multimorphic boards becoming the backbone for multiple manufacturers, and most substantially, Dutch Pinball's prolonged crisis—detailing Barry's attempt to restart the company after settling litigation, reselling inventory to new buyers rather than original early achievers, and the hosts' deep skepticism about the company's viability given unsustainable cash flow dynamics and a destroyed reputation.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Spooky Pinball offered a full refund and resale of a defective Alice Cooper to resolve a door lock issue rather than repair it — _Dr. John's Spooky update segment; described as exceptional customer service_
- [HIGH] American Pinball is stopping Houdini production to transition to a new larger facility, focusing on Oktoberfest and game three — _Kaz's American Pinball correspondent segment_
- [HIGH] Multiple manufacturers now use Multimorphic P-Rock/P3-Rock boards: American Pinball, Spooky, Circus Maximus, and Suncoast Pinball — _Ryan Claytor's Multimorphic update; names specific games_
- [HIGH] Jersey Jack Pinball will comment on playfield chipping/rippling issues after Jack Gunnery returns to US on September 8th — _Industry Buzz segment reporting on official statement_
- [HIGH] Stern Pinball told This Week in Pinball that playfield chipping/rippling is not a widespread problem reported by customers — _Zach Sharp statement relayed in Industry Buzz_
- [HIGH] Dutch Pinball settled litigation with ARA manufacturer and now owns 30-40 manufactured games and warehouse inventory — _Barry's direct statement quoted in episode; confirmed litigation settlement_
- [HIGH] Dutch Pinball's Big Lebowski license was extended until December 31, 2020 — _Barry's quoted statement about license extension_
- [HIGH] Bill Webb expresses strong skepticism that Dutch Pinball will successfully manufacture additional Big Lebowski machines for early achievers — _Bill's repeated statements: 'I don't see it,' 'Not at this moment. There's too many variables'_

### Notable Quotes

> "the customer service from Spooky is so outstanding that Charlie quickly put it to bed with the offer he made, which is above and beyond what I think any other company would do"
> — **Dr. John (Spooky correspondent)**, ~11 min
> _Establishes Spooky's exceptional customer service as industry standout; positive manufacturer signal_

> "I think it's all a scheme. I do. I heard there's just been too many lies about this whole thing."
> — **Bill Webb**, ~32 min
> _Explicit statement of distrust in Dutch Pinball; strong negative sentiment from co-host_

> "the road to hell is paved with good intentions. At some point you got to shut it down."
> — **Bill Webb (quoting his father)**, ~35 min
> _Frames the ethical argument: intention is insufficient without execution; applies to Dutch Pinball's restart_

> "How are they going to sustain a business for six months... sustain a business that isn't profitable to begin with while you're waiting for these parts? I don't see it."
> — **Bill Webb**, ~37 min
> _Core financial skepticism about Dutch Pinball's viability; articulates cash flow problem_

> "Even if you could get all those made and walk away with your hands clean, you've generated no money to bring another game to the market."
> — **Ken Cromwell**, ~44 min
> _Identifies unsustainable business model where fulfilling early achiever obligations prevents future product development_

> "I want to be clear that I wanted this to work out. And it's simply because you never want to see anything like this in pinball."
> — **Ken Cromwell**, ~48 min
> _Shows empathy for the situation while maintaining critical analysis; acknowledges emotional stakes_

> "This reminds me of the movie Meet the Fokkers, right? Where he's like, 'Oh, Greg, I didn't know they made ninth place ribbons.' Dude, this is business. Either you succeed or you fail. There's no ninth place ribbons in this deal."
> — **Bill Webb**, ~51 min
> _Sharp metaphor for Dutch Pinball's attempted restart; no middle ground in business outcomes_

> "We saw the disaster of Highway Pinball and how it folded... they dangle a carrot. And when I say they now, it's Barry."
> — **Ken Cromwell**, ~49 min
> _Compares Dutch Pinball to Highway Pinball precedent; identifies pattern of false hope and manipulation_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Ken Cromwell | person | Co-host of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast; based in St. Charles, Illinois; engaged in garage-to-game-room studio conversion project |
| Bill Webb | person | Co-host of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast; recovering from back injury; expresses strong skepticism about Dutch Pinball |
| Charlie | person | Spooky Pinball representative; handled customer service on defective Alice Cooper door lock issue by offering full refund and resale |
| Dr. John | person | Spooky Pinball correspondent for Special When Lit; provides weekly Spooky industry updates |
| Kaz | person | American Pinball correspondent for Special When Lit; reports on production changes and code updates |
| Ryan Claytor | person | Multimorphic correspondent for Special When Lit; discusses P-Rock and P3-Rock board adoption across manufacturers |
| Barry | person | Co-founder/operator of Dutch Pinball (along with Yap); issued major statement about settlement, license extension, and restart plans |
| Yap | person | Co-founder of Dutch Pinball; no longer with company due to illness; stepped away by agreement with Barry |
| Jack Gunnery | person | Jersey Jack Pinball representative; expected to comment on playfield chipping/rippling issues upon return to US on September 8 |
| Zach Sharp | person | Stern Pinball representative; told This Week in Pinball that playfield issues are not widespread among Stern customers |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; praised for exceptional customer service on defective Alice Cooper machine; uses Multimorphic boards |
| American Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; stopping Houdini production to move to new larger facility; focuses on Oktoberfest; using Multimorphic boards |
| Multimorphic | company | Control board manufacturer; P-Rock and P3-Rock boards used by multiple pinball manufacturers for production games |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; recently released Jurassic Park code update; commented on playfield quality issues |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; addressing playfield chipping and rippling issues in Willy's Wonka |
| Dutch Pinball | company | Troubled pinball manufacturer producing Big Lebowski; settled litigation with ARA; attempting restart with family/friend funding |
| Suncoast Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturing newcomer producing Cosmic Carnival; uses Multimorphic boards |
| CoinTaker | company | Distributor handling resale of Big Lebowski games from Dutch Pinball settlement; secondary market sales |
| ARA | company | Manufacturer contracted by Dutch Pinball; litigation settled; held inventory and parts; involved in original manufacturing dispute |
| Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle | game | Spooky Pinball game; one customer received defective door lock; exemplary customer service resolution |
| Big Lebowski | game | Dutch Pinball machine; licensed from Universal Pictures through Dec 31 2020; ~200 early achievers never received pre-ordered units; games resold to new buyers |
| Houdini | game | American Pinball game; production stopped to transition to new facility |
| Oktoberfest | game | American Pinball game; focus of production after Houdini discontinued; recent code updates praised |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Dutch Pinball business crisis and restart attempt, Early achiever fulfillment and cash flow sustainability
- **Secondary:** Spooky Pinball customer service excellence, American Pinball facility transition and production changes, Multimorphic board ecosystem and manufacturer adoption, Playfield quality issues across manufacturers, Licensing strategy and Universal Pictures relationship
- **Mentioned:** Studio setup and podcast production infrastructure

### Sentiment

**Negative** (-0.72) — Episode is dominated by deep skepticism and concern regarding Dutch Pinball's viability. While hosts praise Spooky's customer service and acknowledge industry innovation with Multimorphic, the overall tone is pessimistic about Dutch Pinball's future and sympathetic to harmed early achievers. Hosts express doubt, frustration, and resignation despite wishing for a better outcome.

### Signals

- **[sentiment_shift]** Dutch Pinball's reputation deteriorates further as financial unsustainability becomes apparent; hosts shift from cautious hope to active pessimism about restart viability (confidence: high) — Bill: 'I think it's all a scheme'; Ken acknowledges 'emotional roller coaster' and repeated false hope cycles
- **[business_signal]** Dutch Pinball settles ARA litigation; now owns inventory of 30-40 completed games and warehouse parts; funded restart via family and friends (confidence: high) — Barry's statement: 'two weeks ago we managed to complete the settlement. This means that the lawsuit is off the table and all the games and the parts that are in the warehouse are now ours'
- **[product_concern]** Playfield chipping and rippling issues reported on Jersey Jack and Stern machines; manufacturers offer different assessments of prevalence (confidence: high) — JJP awaiting official comment; Stern claims not widespread problem via Zach Sharp statement
- **[manufacturing_signal]** American Pinball halting Houdini production to relocate to larger facility; shifting focus to Oktoberfest and game three (confidence: high) — Kaz: 'American Pinball announced that they are stopping production of Houdini. They are preparing to move to their new larger facility'
- **[technology_signal]** Multimorphic P-Rock/P3-Rock boards becoming de facto standard control system across multiple manufacturers, creating ecosystem interoperability (confidence: high) — Ryan Claytor: 'any machine they buy from any of these manufacturers has the same control system as the other ones' enabling board swapping
- **[community_signal]** Community trust in Dutch Pinball is destroyed; hosts note pattern of false hope and dashed expectations damaging credibility of future pinball startups (confidence: high) — Ken: 'they dangle a carrot... light at the end of the tunnel'; Bill: 'too many lies about this whole thing'
- **[operational_signal]** Dutch Pinball faces mathematical impossibility of fulfilling ~200 early achiever orders given cash flow constraints; games being built and sold for operating capital creates cycle where fulfillment never occurs (confidence: high) — Ken's detailed financial analysis: even with 100 buyers at $15k, insufficient profit remains to sustain business while fulfilling obligations
- **[licensing_signal]** Universal Pictures extended Big Lebowski license to Dec 31, 2020; hosts question negotiation process given company's troubled track record (confidence: high) — Barry's statement: 'I'm happy to report that we've extended the license for now it extended until December 31st of 2020'
- **[market_signal]** Big Lebowski resale market showing $15k price point; hosts question whether used/antiquated game commands premium pricing relative to newer competitors like Batman Super Allies (confidence: medium) — Speculation about 50-100 potential buyers at $15k vs higher volume at $10-12.5k due to age of game
- **[personnel_signal]** Yap, Dutch Pinball co-founder, steps away due to illness; Barry left as sole operator; signals instability at company leadership level (confidence: high) — Barry's statement: 'Yap is no longer with the company, he was battling or he is battling an illness. And he has stepped away from the company in agreement with Barry'
- **[industry_signal]** Dutch Pinball and Highway Pinball have destroyed trust in preorder model for new manufacturers; hosts note distributor reluctance to pitch preorders for troubled startups (confidence: high) — Ken: 'between Dutch Pinball and Highway Pinball, they've ruined the preorder model concept for a new startup company. Burned it to the ground'

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## Transcript

 Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Hey, what's going on, Pinball Land? Welcome. It's Episode 67, and it's the special When Lit Pinball Podcast. I'm Ken Cromwell. And I'm Bill Webb. We're going to be here to inform and entertain for the next 45 minutes or so as we venture into Episode 67, all things pinball with a little frozen pizza. What's up, Bill? Absolutely. Not too much, man. Just recovering from a little couple of back issues. You're down for the count. You're on the DL right now. Oh, yeah. Doing some rehab. That was terrible. Yeah, threw my back out. It wasn't pinball related, though. It was work related. Oh, that's even worse. Yeah. I don't know if it's worse or better. Like, when you get an injury like that, it's almost like a medal or a badge of honor. Hey, I was moving this pinball machine and I'm hurt. And I wasn't moving anything heavy at work, dude. I was just in a funky position. Oh, that's what she said? Well, you know. Never mind. Yeah. But, I mean, you're here, and you're going to try to battle through the podcast. You're going to try to battle through the stream, which happens right after the podcast. Yeah, man. Yeah. Got to suck it up, right? Hope you're feeling better, man. Well, we're walking upright, so, I mean, that's a, you know, the other night, dude, I was literally walking like an upside-down L through the house, man. It was not good. You're like walking up the stairs backwards on your back and whatnot, like all Exorcist style? This happened Thursday, so no joke. I literally could not push my body up. Yeah. I mean, it was just so I literally slept downstairs on the couch and crawled everywhere. It was just terrible. See what happens when you take the labels off your Fanta and revolt for the lack of sponsorship? Bad things happen. It's the Fanta karma. I'm still waiting for someone else to reach out and sponsor this. Bill's looking for an orange soda sponsor. Now, I reached out to Fanta, and I don't know if I reported this on the podcast or not. I don't think so. Asking if Fanta would be interested. And Fanta's owned by Coca-Cola. Yeah. And asking if they'd be interested, not in sponsoring us, but sending some swag that we could proudly display on stream, since Fanta's prominently displayed on our stream all the time, because Bill's always seen with a Fanta. And after six or seven hours of consideration, Coca-Cola respectfully declined our opportunity that we presented them. But, you know, we tried. We didn't get a free shirt out of the deal. No, I thought at the very least, because I did include the address that maybe we'd get a free Fanta shirt for you. Yeah. Because you have been supporting Fanta, but it didn't work out. So, you know, my apologies to Coca-Cola. My apologies to Bill Webb. My apologies to everybody that was involved. And then I think that was discussed more on our Twitch stream. And right now, so I've been doing this garage to game room conversion project, right? Just saw it. And, yeah, so you just kind of saw the progress. Now, Bill's seen my garage beforehand. My garage beforehand looked like I had a hoarder mentality, and it wasn't really a hoarder mentality. I just had so many things because I'm into arcade repairing and restoration, pinball collecting, that sort of thing. I just had so many cabinets upstairs that it really took up a lot of space. So long story short, I've cleared most of that out. I've got a little bit left to get rid of. And I went ahead and I insulated and drywalled the outside wall of the garage because this is going to be a game room, but it's also going to be a recording studio for us, for the podcast, and for our Twitch streams. I put up like a fake, what is that, a fob, like brick wall panels to see if it looked okay. And surprisingly, it doesn't look horrible. So I think I'm going to use that as like the backdrop for some of the pinball machines. And then the opposite wall, which would be behind us on stream, I'm going to do a torch wall. And I'm going to get, you know, I already ordered wood from Home Depot. And that's getting delivered on Wednesday. And I bought a bunch of shiplap unfinished. And I'm going to take one of those weed burners that are on the pole. I'm going to torch the wood. I'm going to sand it down, and then I'm going to go ahead and hit it with some poly and tack that up on the wall. I've got flooring that's coming in next. Then the last couple steps, really, because the electrical was wired to the garage, right? I've got 220 running out there, and that was specifically to run the mini split, which is a heating and air conditioning unit. That'll be installed, and then we can move the machines upstairs and start rocking out of Studio C, so I'm looking forward to that. Studio C or Studio G? Why would it be Studio G? Garage unit? Studio C is for Cromwell. We got Studio B for Beatty, and right now we're just in Studio A, which was our thing. What happens if we stream at my house? It's Studio W. Okay. I don't know, Bill Webb? All right, just checking. Studio B squared? I don't know, something like that. In any event, let's get into the pinball news. Getting the news from around the industry in this week's Industry Buzz. Hello from Dr. John, and welcome again to this week's spooky update. All abuzz at the moment is Lockgate, which is an incident which occurred in the last month or so on Pinside. One unhappy customer received his Alice Cooper, and unfortunately the tab that goes on the door lock had been displaced in transit. When found, it looked like the screw had been stripped when assembled by Suzo Hap, and he was extremely unhappy that this could have occurred. There was a bit of giggling to and fro on Pinside, and Charlie finally stepped in and offered the unhappy customer a full refund of all costs if he returned the game, to which Charlie would then on-sell it. The customer took up this offer, and the game was resold within about a week to a very happy new Alice Cooper owner. I looked at this with disbelief, but the one good thing I took away from it is not that Pinside's full of made-up drama, or that some people whinge about the smallest thing, but more that the customer service from Spooky is so outstanding that Charlie quickly put it to bed with the offer he made, which is above and beyond what I think any other company would do. so there's a new owner for an Ellis Cooper a newly satisfied customer and we can move on with real pinball issues thanks for listening, catch you next week Hey this is Kaz your special and lit American pinball correspondent major news this week as American pinball announced that they are stopping production of Houdini they are preparing to move to their new larger facility so the current focus is on Oktoberfest and finishing up game number three. In show news, KleePen, the Cleveland Pinball and Arcade Show, will be on September 6th, 7th, and 8th. Dan and Barry from American Pinball will be on hand. You can come out and play Houdini and Oktoberfest. Also get some free swag. As far as Oktoberfest code, everyone has been joined the recent code updates and the team will continue to add new sounds, animations, and additional polish. For American Pinball, this is Brian Kosner. Hello again, Special Win Lit. I'm Ryan Claytor, your Multimorphic Correspondent. This week, I'd like to talk about the P-Rock and its successor, the P3-Rock board set, as they relate not to one-off games, but rather to manufactured pinball games. There are a number of companies producing games on the market today that are using Multimorphic boards in their production games. Just to name a few, American Pinball, who have produced Houdini and Oktoberfest, Spooky Pinball, who began using multimorphic boards starting with Total Nuclear Annihilation and Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle, Circus Maximus, the company developing Python's Pinball Circus and a remake of Capcom's Kingpin, and pinball manufacturing newcomer Suncoast Pinball, who are producing Cosmic Carnival. So not only does this help multimorphic with a substantial revenue stream, But even better for the consumers, what it means is that any machine they buy from any of these manufacturers has the same control system as the other ones. Which is really helpful because if a board goes down on one of these machines, let's say a wire comes unsoldered and shorts out the board. You can either go to Multimorphic.com and order a new one or you can borrow a board from one of your other machines. So there you have it. Multimorphic is not only developing their own revolutionary custom pinball platform with the P3, but also quickly becoming the backbone of the custom-built pinball community and even new pinball manufacturers. This has been your Multimorphic Update. I'm your correspondent, Ryan Claytor. Stay innovative. Jersey Jack Pinball will be waiting until September 8th upon Jack Gunnery's return to the United States to comment on the playfield situation regarding chipping and rippling of some of those playfields. We do have a new code update for Willy Wonka. Over at Stern Pinball, we've got a new code update for Jurassic Park that can be downloaded and played right now. And when asked for a similar comment regarding playfield chipping and or rippling, Zach Sharp of Stern Pinball told Jeff Patterson of This Week in Pinball that it's not a widespread problem reported by Stern customers. And finally, as we see the Big Lebowski pinball machines arriving and being unboxed in the United States, Barry from Dutch Pinball is offering additional information regarding his plans for the company moving forward. And that's kind of where I wanted to transition to, Bill, if you don't mind. We'll start off with a little Dutch Pinball update. Now, for those of you that aren't up to date on what's going on, Dutch Pinball was a company that really started, I want to say, four or five years ago. They offered the Big Lebowski as a pinball machine that was going to be on the market. Fast forward nowadays, you have about 200 people that put in $8,000, $9,000, never received their game because of an issue that was going on between the manufacturer, ARA, and Dutch Pinball, the company, Barry & Yap. What ended up happening went to litigation. It was found that Barry and Yap owed money to ARA. And in order to pay and settle that lawsuit, they sold the games that were being held that had been manufactured by ARA. There's like 30 or 40 of them. And they did not go to the original purchasers. They went to new buyers to generate new money to go back into the company in order to hopefully facilitate the early achievers, which were the people that put money out in the first place and did not receive their games. So in essence, the games were resold to new buyers that were originally paid for by the original early achievers. Now, this is an update that Barry, because Yop is no longer with the company, he was battling or he is battling an illness. And he has stepped away from the company in agreement with with Barry. So Barry issued the following statement, Bill, and he says in the and I'm going to quote this. In the last update, I informed you on the settlement I've reached with our former manufacturer. and two weeks ago we managed to complete the settlement. This means that the lawsuit is off the table and all the games and the parts that are in the warehouse are now ours and also fully paid for. With this first round of financing, we're now ready to getting things up and set up again to build games. I'm very happy with the trust of Cointaker, and Cointaker is the distributor, just side note here, that is selling the Big Lebowskis or sold the Big Lebowskis for the second chance market. Yeah. He says, I'm very happy with the trust of Cointaker and some of my very close friends and family who made this possible. He goes on to say, due to the holiday, three weeks at ARA, we had limited access to the warehouse, but fortunately, we managed to get the games out and some of the parts that we needed to finish them. Last week, the first games were shipped. The rest of the games are now ready as well, and they'll be shipped this week. I know it's a bittersweet moment, but it's also the start of a new beginning. We can now truly focus on the future. On Monday, next week, the holiday will be over, and then we can start with the transport of all the parts. We're already checking the list of parts, and we're taking stock of how many parts we have to build games. Some parts are here for 200-plus games, but some other parts were bought, quote-unquote, lean, and this means that we have to order the new parts as we progress. In the next weeks, we'll be busy preparing everything for production, arranging our production facility, counting parts, putting all parts in our inventory system, checking the assembly, instructions and sorting things out, the tools needed, etc. We will start small and we'll expand over time to build more games. We have a couple of locations in mind where we want to restart our business. We still have to decide which location is best, and we hope to get this figured out this or next week. And then finally, he says, another thing I want to inform you about is something that I get a lot of questions about the license from Universal Pictures. I'm happy to report that we've extended the license. And that's for the big Lebowski, right? Yes. for now it extended until December 31st of 2020 I keep you informed on how things are progressing in the coming weeks And if you have any questions please let me know You can always email or call me Kind regards, Barry. So we're not going to dedicate a whole episode to this, but I think it's important to talk about because we have been covering this Dutch pinball situation. And just when you think that they're dead in the water, something resurfaces. And now you've got games that are resold, not to the original buyers. And then you think, OK, well, now this situation is kind of come to an unfortunate. You would think you would think an unfortunate close. Nine lives doesn't describe this situation. No, no. So there's a lot of questions. And first, let's let's take it from from the top or let's take it from the bottom or let's take it from any way that we can. First of all, the license for the big Lebowski was extended to December 31st, 2020. Great. I mean, do you really care, though? Well, I find it fascinating that after everything was said and done, and I imagine that some people had probably reached out to Universal at some point saying, listen, your name is on this. This is your license. I did not get this game. I was kind of ripped off. I still don't have my game. But yet they were still able to retain the license for the Big Lebowski through Universal Studios. And what kind of smoke did you have to blow up their butt to get that license and retain it? I guess money talks, but isn't money – Okay, but money talks. Yeah. Okay. But here's the thing here. with that money talking, that money should be going to build the other games for the people. Well, the counterargument is this is preventive measures, or this is measures being taken, survival tactics, in order to get these games to these early achievers, which we can talk about down the road. But what I'm trying to figure out is, one, how much was the Big Lebowski license? They had a couple million dollars to start up with, so it makes sense that they could have attained it. after everything was said and done and after all the problems that had transpired, what conversation was had where Universal thought it was a good idea to extend the license? And if it's not a good idea for them to extend the license and they just didn't care, they just wanted the money. It makes me wonder what licenses are out there where people that hold the license, the licensee, they don't really care. They just want to get some cash. I'd like to get a list of those licenses because then, I mean, I'm sure there's some diamonds in the rough. Big Lebowski kind of has a cult following. Oh, absolutely. And it's a popular movie. how about this bill uh he he with help from family and friends him extending the opportunity to restart the company is now uh something that could come to fruition what are your thoughts on that i i think it's all a scheme i do i heard there's just been too many lies about this whole thing first it was a board issue then the truth came out then blah blah blah blah i'm so over this situation and i'm pissed because i like the game i know you do all right so you know let me put that biased off to the side yes i do love the game but with all the crap that's gone down and how many people got burned i'm just out if you really wanted one and i know that you did if it was a clean purchase i know you could have gone in on one and i know it just wasn't something that doesn't sit well with me it doesn't sit well with you and and i guess into your point and i and i agree with you whereas the trust factor is not there from the very beginning and even if there were not any ill intentions the the the way in which barry and yop carried tried to run this business was a failure yeah but you know dude so i have an analogy for that all right okay i'm quoting my dad here the road to hell is paved with good intentions at some point you got to shut it down so let's just say they actually do find a warehouse they have enough parts to make 50 games right so they make 50 more on top of whatever they've produced you know some of those lead times on parts can be three to nine months out depending on what you're talking about how are they going to sustain a business for six months you know let's just cut you know split the difference at six months between three and nine sustain a business that isn't profitable to begin with while you're waiting for these parts i don't see it i i don't know i don't see it happening maybe i'm wrong maybe they're going to make all these people whole and life and that's the hope Right. I mean, this is one of the few situations, a few times that you you hope to be wrong with your intention or with your intuition on this. I mean, because I would love for this to all work itself out. But things that you're saying right now make absolute sense to me as well. I mean, so friends and family helped with sounds like a bailout. Absolutely. To avoid to avoid, you know, any type of further litigation or to avoid a huge debt. I can understand the thought process from that point being I'm given a second chance and I'm going to make good. But to me, when I'm just kind of running some basic numbers, the company is going to require additional funding. And it's not all going to come from selling new games at $18,000. Because what happens, how do you sell those games until they've been manufactured? Because at this point, they're in absolutely no position to request a preorder or to run a preorder model. because largely between Dutch pinball and highway pinball, they've ruined the pre-order model concept for a new startup company. Burned it to the ground. So for this company now to generate additional income, unless there was a huge amount of investing that had happened between family and friends and they had a silent investor that's going in, I don't know what silent investor would put a lot of money based on how the company was run in the past. I just don't see where these games would be built unless there was another influx of cash. And then when those games, let's say you build another 10 games, right? You still have 10 games. Let's say they funded 10 games to be built. They had enough parts to build 10 games. Right. And let's say they had enough parts for 10 games minus a couple things and minus the cabinets because we know they don't have cabinets for the games. Okay. So let's say they need to put another $3,000 in to make another 10 games. So they need $30,000 for another 10 games. And I'm just throwing this out there. When those games get built, guess what? They're not going to the early achievers because those games need to be sold in order to generate more money, in order to make more games that need to be sold, in order to generate more money, in order to make more games. And then finally, at the very end of the road, when potentially enough money has been made to start facilitating the early achiever orders, what's the drive to do that anymore? Because the market's tapped. There's no more interest in the game. and I doubt that there's enough money left in profit to make 200 games for the early achievers. Well, all right, so let's think about this. Totally agree with you, but here's the other thing too, okay? So let's say there's a – how many people do you think right now would buy the Big Lebowski? I'm sure there's a handful. Throw out a number. More than a handful. Throw out a number. I think – what do you mean? Like with a pre-order concept, they're just people that are interested in buying the game? Dude, we have a warehouse full of Big Lebowskis sitting. Depending on the price point, I think that – $15,000. Let's go $15,000. At $15,000. $15,000. Okay, so at $15,000, I think you lessen the buyer pool. I would say maybe $50,000 to $75,000 would sell at $15,000. Now, if you got closer to $10,000 or $12,500, I can see that easily doubling or tripling. But at $15,000, that's a lot of money. That's what Batman Super Ali costs, though. At this point, it's kind of an antiquated pin, man. I mean, it's got an LCD, but the pin's five years old. Oh, it is. You know what I mean? It's not like it's anything new and groundbreaking that we haven't seen. So let's just say you found 100 buyers at $15,000. Okay. Right? Fair enough. And you could find, you know, and you've already bumped it up $3,000 from the initial price now. Yeah. Right? So in theory, you could probably get those other 80 games built, right? Or get close, maybe, depending at $12,000. Is it 80 or is it like 200? I don't know the exact numbers. But here's the thing. Even if you could get all those made and walk away with your hands clean, you've generated no money to bring another game to the market. Well, and that's the other thing. It's an unsustainable way of doing business. It is. And then you also have to take into consideration this guy's going to have to pay himself. He can't work for absolutely nothing. I mean, he's going to have to pay bills. But he already got paid, which is the pisser in this whole deal. But let's just say, and again, we don't know any of this. So this is pure speculation, but I think it's not far-fetched speculation. It's not shock value speculation. I would imagine most of the money that was given, that couple million dollars, is gone or spoken for. Maybe it was spent with the best intentions, but like you said, those intentions don't always lead you in where you need to be. I just don't see – you talk about a sustainable business model. It doesn't make sense. The losses have to be cut, and you would actually, in my opinion, you'd have to start brand new with something else, and you'd have to wipe the slate clean. And that's unfortunate for those that are still holding out hope. And that's who I feel sorry for. Yeah, I know. Hopefully it wasn't a huge hit to him, and this was just a lot of play money, but still. This reminds me of real estate. I sell you a piece of property for $15,000. I still have a copy of the deed and sell it for $15,000. You get burned. That dude gets to keep his property, and I'm not going to jail for fraud? Right. How does that work? I don't know how it doesn't work. Now, Dennis Creasel, on the last episode of the Eclectic Gamers podcast, he recommended that maybe litigation for those that have not gotten their games isn't. something that should not be considered because at this point if you're pretty certain you're not going to get anything even pennies on the dollar is something back and the moral victory of litigation is something that you know might let you rest your uh head on the pillow and sleep the sleep of the just when we go back to the situation though you know barry says there's parts to make 200 new games but then there are parts that need to be ordered so what what vital parts are there what parts that are common parts like rubbers and stuff like that for slings i mean that are being considered. He's looking for a new place to manufacture the games. Now, unless you've got a lot of staff, that's going to be more overhead to get like a manufacturing, you know, facility set up facility. You would imagine that he said start small. So that makes me think that you're building out of a basement or building out of a garage or or maybe renting a small space from a larger space in order to get the line rolling. Does he have employees? Does he have friends and family that now have a financial interest in the company are they going to be put to work in order to see those dollars have a return on their investment to donate their time to not make a not make a dollar back exactly so i don't see it either and then uh and then you know finally it's this will they have the audacity to put a pre-order model in place for people to reserve these games and if they do what distributor out here is going to present a pre-order model and with a straight face be able to ask for money for this company to come up. I want to be clear that I wanted this to work out. And it's simply because you never want to see anything like this in pinball. We saw the disaster of highway pinball and how it folded. And that was so unfortunate. Now, we went through this a couple of times. There's been like this emotional roller coaster with highway pinball. But it seems like when stuff hits the fan, they dangle a carrot. And when I say they now, it's Barry. And there's always this silver lining. there's this light at the end of the tunnel. And if you just hang with me on this, we are going to make this happen. And that would prevent me, I think as an early achiever from, from trying to, to get into some type of litigation against Barry, because where I might with my mind, think that there's no way that it's possible with my heart. If I wanted that game. And if I thought that I was being a supportive friend, that maybe I would be treated differently. Maybe I would be taken care of because I was a supporter. and I just don't know that that is going to happen. The reason that we're bringing this up on this podcast is because we have a pretty good, close relationship with a lot of our listeners. There's a listener that I know that contacted me that had an opportunity to buy a Big Lebowski on the resale market, the ones that came through CoinTaker. He ultimately decided it just wasn't worth it. I just, I don't see where this goes. Let me ask you this. Do you think that there will be another 10 Big Lebowskis ever built? Fresh, right now, as is. No. I really don't. Not at this moment. There's too many variables that have to come through for them to put this together. And they couldn't make 80 to begin with with $2 million. So how are you going to do that, dude? Without that million startup Exactly dude you starting up your funding again with some parts and you need money This reminds me of the Fokker movie right Where he's like, oh, Greg, I didn't know they made. Meet the Fokkers? Yeah. I didn't know they made ninth place ribbons. Dude, this is business. Either you succeed or you fail. There's no ninth place ribbons in this deal. Yeah, I get it. And right now, we're all pinning hopes on a ninth place ribbon that they're going to come out and, you know. I get it. Listen, I'd love to dream and speculate and think that they're going to make it through. I'd love to see everybody that already ordered one get made whole, and I'd love a chance to own one one day as well. Yeah, me too. You know, I mean, we can wish in one hand. This is nothing personal with Barry. I don't know Barry. I've never exchanged any type of correspondence. I've never had a conversation with Barry. My gut tells me that he's probably a good guy that made some bad decisions, and he's put himself in this hole. This is just a gut feeling. And we're all guilty of that. Put himself in a hole that he can't get out of, and instead of just walking away and apologizing, I don't know. It's just been one mistake after another. I don't see how this comes out with another – with the potential of having a good ending. And this is what has to happen. It has to go to contract manufacturing. Okay? Yeah. Something has to happen. And for me – Right. And if I'm Barry, and I haven't – this is just springing into my mind. I go to a company like American Pinball, and I say, listen, these are the parts. Let's reverse engineer this so we can see how it's going to make sense for you to put this on your line. They're moving into a brand new facility. They are already open to having a third line for contract manufacturing. There's a built-in demand there. Arguably, more Big Lebowskis could sell on that third line than total amount of Oktoberfests that have sold. Now, if it makes financial sense for them to make some money and Barry is able to even make a couple hundred bucks a machine because at that point, he's just turning everything over. and then if there was a little bit of money that was put into like a pot that would go towards early achievers. Now, again, it's not American Pinball's – it's not for them to correct a mistake. They tried to do that before with Magic Girl, and that just didn't work out. I appreciated the effort there, but that wasn't a smooth transition, and I think that set that company back a little bit, and they took some heat for trying to – and that's where I'm thinking, do they want to get involved into another mess? No, but here's the thing, dude. I mean, American Pinball was contracted to make said games, right? Raza and Magic Girl. So all the Magic Girls had problems. It wasn't their responsibility to make sure the game actually would function. It was just their job to put it together. And I'm not even sure what they actually were hands-on built or if they just allowed use of the facility. I bet you they built it. I don't know. The quality control was not in their hands because it was not their design. It was not their engineering. I'm not sure. They had to put it together. In any event, it needs to go to contract manufacturing. Somebody else has to take it. And somebody else has to – there's no more business, in my opinion, for Dutch Pinball. It's an idea that you need to sell to somebody else, and you get a residual pay on every machine that's sold. And if you have any type of decency with that residual pay, I would hope that you would consider trying to figure out what you can do for the early achievers, the 200 people that lost everything. And if it was just a bad business decision and you chalk it up as a loss, chalk it up as a loss. But you need to walk away from that. You need to not try. And again, this is my opinion. You need to not try to come up with another idea being further back than you were initially with the $2 million upfront startup funding. At this point, it surprises me. That being said, we hope for the best. We do. And we'll keep following the story because it seems like every couple weeks now something's coming out that makes you wonder. And yeah, there's no ill intentions. I really would love to see this work. I would too. But, you know, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you can't call it a horse. You know, I mean, that's just kind of how I feel right now with this. It's wishful thinking. It might be good intentions. But in the long run, I think anybody that has any type of a business background can look at that and say that there's no way that that's going to work. Unless there's some hidden variable that hasn't made itself apparent, I don't see what happens. Now, we transition over to clear coding, right? So we've heard stories right now. We've got some chipping. We've got some rippling going on on pinball playfields, and it's not just one manufacturer. So, and again, the rippling is what you're seeing around some posts that are tightening the clear coat, which makes it look like there's like waves coming out, like if you drop the stone in the water, that kind of rippling effect that's spreading from the point of origin. That's what you're seeing on, you know, surrounding posts on different parts of playfields. And we've seen it now with Jersey Jack pinball. There's some reports going on, although not widespread reports, according to Zach Sharp with Jurassic Park. I wanted to bring attention to a conversation that happened on Monday, and this is today, earlier today, on This Week in Pinball. And so Zach Menne had the guys on from the Poor Man's Pinball podcast. Now, Ian Haberman, he works for a company, and he's in the industry, so he had a lot of information to offer regarding how the clear coats are made and how it's like it's a two-party proxy. Now, what he's suggesting is that the ratio of hardener versus clear is off, meaning that there's not enough hardener mixed with the clear. Leaving it soft. So it leaves it soft, and it's never going to cure. Now, we had a similar conversation like a month or two ago when we were talking about Bondo. For anybody that's worked with Bondo, you've got the Bondo agent, and then you've got the hardener. And you have to mix the hardener in with the Bondo. and if you don't get that right, if you don't add enough hardener and you Bondo up your cabinet, Bondo will cover those surface holes, it's always soft and you can push your thumb in it and it's like cement that hasn't fully dried and it'll never dry to the point where it's hard because there's not enough hardener in there. So when he was making that statement on This Week in Pinball podcast with Zach Menny, it made a lot of sense to us because that was something that we were considering too. The solution isn't correct. as far as making the clear coat where it needs to be. And I want to jump in here, too, because when I think of how he described it, I think of like fiberglass resin. If anyone's worked with fiberglass resin, you know if you don't add enough fiberglass glycol, ethyl, or the – Polyethylene glycol? Yeah, the catalyst that goes into the fiberglass resin. Okay. It stays soft forever and smells. Right. Or if you add too much, dude, it hardens too quick. It gets hot. And then it gets brittle, right? And then it cracks. Exactly. If you do too much, it can crack while it's curing. Exactly. So it's like, what do they call it, dry ice, where you can dip something in dry ice, and it becomes so frozen that you can just crumble it in front of your very eyes. So, I mean, I think what's going to happen, one of two things will happen, right? Either one, we've seen the ending, or we're starting to see the end of clear coating pinball playfields. Maybe we see another method of play field manufacturing that does not require the use of a clear coat. We've discussed that as well, like doing reverse printed on the back end of some type of Plexi or polycarbonate or Lexan. Now you're opening yourself up to kind of scratching and that sort of thing. So who knows? Maybe it's the lesser of two evils. The other thing is we just get the solution of the clear coating figured out so that we don't have any more play field issues because it seems like lately things are hit or miss with playfields. Majority of the time, playfields are okay. Dimpling is something that we've all just gotten used to. I'm still not sold that every pinball machine dimples like it does today, and it's just going to even itself out over 45 million plays. I'm never going to own a machine that long that's new to even itself out. But the dimpling doesn't even bother me anymore. It used to bother me in the beginning, but I've just accepted it. What I am finding surprising, though, is that I'm finding now more and more people that are not advocating the pinball companies not correct the clear-coating issues, But now there's becoming people that are just having a general line of acceptance for those flaws, and they're not going to let it bother them anymore. And for me, I cannot go to that extreme where I know something is flawed, and I'm pretty confident something can be corrected, but I'm just not going to let it bother me anymore. I'm a playfield stickler. If I open up something new out of the box, I don't want to see rippling that's going to lead to chipping out of my pinball playfield. It's just completely not acceptable for me. Yep. And it's not that I'm right and somebody that does accept that as being part of pinball is wrong. It's just my standards are set differently, especially for the new in-box pinball machine. You know, that was part of my hang-up with buying the Ghostbusters originally was just because of the clear-coating issues. Or not the clear-coating, the ghosting. That was a scary time, the ghosting. Yep. The ghosting and then the cabinet issues. Absolutely. Honestly, I got a Jurassic Park. Let's hope that we don't have any issues with it. I mean, there's been people talking about having issues with their game, but so far, so good. Fingers crossed. But if you get some rippling on your play field, what will you do? This is a brand new one, new in box, and it's my first new in box. So, yeah, I'm probably going to do something about it. Okay. Well, I mean, you contact your distributor or you contact the manufacturer. I mean, what can you do at that point? Contact everybody. Because I agree with you. I mean, that's something that's really not acceptable. I mean, certain flaws, you know, as we heard in the news, the one guy that bought an Alice Cooper, the door lock screw was. Yeah. So John was talking about the screw that holds the lock mechanism on the Suzo Hap coin door, which is not even manufactured by Spooky Pinball. It's outsourced. Suzo Hap. Not that they couldn't send you a brand new coin door. Well, not even the coin door. That lock is like $1.50. Listen, I agree with you. But, I mean, dude, a brand-new coin door, if you were fearing scratching taking the old one off or whatever, and Charlie took the game back, I mean, dude, nothing but love for him. Because, you know, if I were him, I would have probably told the dude, listen, you know, I mean, certain things I would agree with you are unacceptable, but this is a very, very minor thing. And no pinball machine in my eyes is ever perfect. Well, I do know this now. I'm very confident because if at any point I get a new spooky pinball machine and I don't like it, I'm just going to simply loosen the screw on the inside of the coin door and bitch on pin side, and then I fully expect Chuck to take it back so I can get something else, right? No, no, no, no. Okay, I didn't know that. No, no, no, no. Hey, but hats off to Charlie for doing that. I think he did that to kind of make a point, whereas, I mean, the joke was on the buyer at that point for complaining about something that is so ridiculous. And, you know, some people have gripes about it. A lot of people will say that my gripes about play field issues are ridiculous. So to each his own, I suppose. On a 20-year-old machine, I'm a little more liberal on that. On a branding machine that I just bought, I'm not going to be as liberal. But, you know, I mean, here, I got a Munsters. That game is used. Guess what? You know, if it does something stupid, I'm kind of, I'm screwed. I knew that going into it. Okay, whatever. I accept that responsibility. You know, when you buy brand new, that's why you pay the higher price. So you have that little piece of comfort knowing that if something happens, you'll get made whole. Yep. So, you know. I'll say this. I'll go on record as being very upfront and honest about this. I've got a lot of respect for the pinball manufacturers. I've got a lot of respect for the employees. I've got a lot of respect for the pinball figureheads that are working at those pinball companies. And I will not lower my standards. And depending on how companies react and try to correct this problem will really dictate where my money goes in the future as far as buying new in box. And it's as simple as that for me. There's no reason why I should have to take a hit. I'm the consumer. Okay? So when I get something, I've got expectations. And if it does not meet my expectations prior to me purchasing, guess what? I don't purchase. But it's not for me to take the hit as a consumer that's putting out the money. Guess what? I've got a job, and I've got a family, and I've got financial responsibilities. I shouldn't be the one that asks to take a hit on somebody else's problem. That's just the way I look at it right now. Yeah, and I mean, honestly, going back to the companies that are building these things, no one wants to put out a substandard product. No, nobody does. Everyone's trying to come with their A game on this stuff Because it's more and more competitive now Than it's been in 20-30 years Have we ever seen a playfield issue That's gone uncorrected ever? I mean no, at some point maybe it's been extended Across multiple titles But eventually it gets corrected And I would be confident that it will be corrected And if it can be corrected Then we going to see a new way to manufacture playfields That just the way that I looking at it And we see what happens But are you ready to play Drain It or Save It I am It's time for this week's edition of Drain It or Save It. Drain It or Save It is brought to you by Lermods.com, offering you custom quality play field mods and lighting for your pinball machine. L-E-R-M-O-D-S. Visit Lermods.com today. And Bill, the first item on the docket for Drain It or Save It today, Jurassic Park will outsell Ghostbusters when all is said and done. I know. Right? Yeah, I get it. Go ahead and explain it. I'm just laughing in my inner battle. So Stern Ghostbusters is speculated as one of the most popular, if not the biggest seller for Stern Pinball in the modern day era ever. But Jurassic Park, the latest release, seems to be selling like hotcakes too. Does Jurassic Park outsell Ghostbusters? Although we'll never be able to confirm it, in your mind, does Jurassic Park outsell Ghostbusters when it's all said and done? Drain it or save it, Bill? I don't know, man. I will save it. I would bet that Jurassic Park might outsell Ghostbusters. Wow. You know what? Okay. Family-friendly title, and it's stretched upon a couple of decades now. I could see it go in the long haul. Okay. I don't even know what to say, man. I can make a really good argument for draining it, and I can make a really good argument for saving it, and I think I've got to come back to this because I'm just thinking about it right now, and I'm not sure if I can drain it or if I can save it. I think I stumped myself. Well, dude, you put me in the quandary here of putting me on the spot because I own both of them. Okay, I'm going to drain it. And the only reason why is because of so many different titles that are currently being offered in pinball right now and with the used market being there, I think Ghostbusters was released in a time where people were... Competition was less. Competition was less and people were still wowed with what they saw with Ghostbusters. So I don't believe that Jurassic Park isn't worthy of outselling Ghostbusters. I don't know that that actually happens. So from a unit-to-unit basis, I would drain Jurassic Park outselling Ghostbusters. But I would not be surprised if I'm wrong. The second item on the docket, you're going to love this. Play field clear coating is coming to an end, Bill. Drain it. Drain it or sit in it. I'm just draining that. So it's not coming to an end. No. They're always going to clear coat playfields? I don't think you're going to change the dynamics of a pinball machine going from wood to plexiglass. Dude, plexiglass or Lexan or any other alternatives are going to be way more expensive. So if your game goes up another level. Is it going to be more expensive, though? Absolutely. When you think about it, like clear coating, I mean, everything becomes more efficient. Years and years ago, LED lights were pretty expensive, and now, I mean, they're just like dirt cheap, just like an incandescent light for the most part. Okay, all right, but let me touche you on this one, okay? Okay. A half-inch piece of birch, 50 bucks, right? And it's less than that, but let's just... A four-by-eight sheet. Four-by-eight sheet, 50 bucks. How many playfields you get out of that? Four. Okay. All right, four-by-eight sheet, a half-inch plexiglass. All right, well, I'm not saying you use plexiglass. But, I mean, maybe you've got another version. Maybe there's some type of direct digital printing you can do on, like, metal, like a thin aluminum surface. I don't know. I'm just saying. But you're draining it. I'm draining it. I don't think we'll ever have it. Okay, I'm going to drain it too. Because if it's not broke, don't fix it. But right now it's a little bit broke. So we need to fix it or we need to replace it with a new way of doing it. And we'll see what happens, obviously. But I'm going to drain it. I think that the clear coating process on wood playfields have, for the most part, have performed well over time. And there's no reason to expect that they can't any longer. We just need to figure out what's going on with the clear. and correct it. So I'm also going to, I do believe that we're going to see an alternate method to play field presentations, though. And it may or may not have clear coat. And I think that we will see that within the next few years. I mean, we're already kind of seeing it with some of the hard tops, like the reverse print. But I think we'll see something that's new and innovative coming out pretty soon. Finally, Bill, at some point, drain it or save it, right? We're going to see a Stern Vault Edition that originally had a DMD and it's going to be replaced with LCD technology. Drain it or save it. I'm going on a wish here, but I'm going to say save it. Save it? Wow. Like, what example would you like to see? What Stern DMD title would you like to see vaulted with LCD technology? Ghostbusters. Yeah, me too. That would be pretty sweet, man. That would be pretty sweet. I'm also going to say this. I think that it happens. Now, this is the other thing, too. With the LCD technology, when you go out and get a color DMD, you've got the LED board version or the LCD version. So Stern could very easily put an LCD in there and make it look like a DMD, and they could colorize their own games. Or they could even put some video in there that takes the place, kind of like an extended DMD that you would see like CGC. Now, I don't see them doing that, but I can see video assets in the shape of the DMD to make it look like it's fitting in the speaker panel. So I wishful thinking on my part also, but I do think at some point we do see a Vault Edition that does have some form of LCD technology because I don't think we see too many more DMD offerings from Stern as far as Vaults go. All right, but let's spin the wheel of speculation here, of ideas or dreaming. Okay. So let's say they re-release Ghostbusters. They fix the flipper gap, right? Obviously, hopefully by then, any clear-coat, well, you know, the ghosting issues would be solved. And no cracking of the cabinets with LCD-playing animations from the movie or very similar. It'd be killer. Tell me that that would not just clean up, dude. It would clean up. Anyone that has a Ghostbusters, myself included, would feel like we have an obsolete, inferior product as far as that game goes. Right. And I don't know that Stern ever, but I don't think they want to have a customer ever feel that way. But, I mean, for somebody that's passionate about the game, I can certainly see people upgrading their existing Ghostbusters. That's one game where I would love to see that. Absolutely. I would love to see the corrective measures being taken for the playfield dimensions and add some modern technology. And, again, with that being a pretty largely popular game for Stern, I don't know if it makes sense to do that or not. But we'll see pretty soon. Actually, we might not ever see. No. But for Drainer to save it this week, Jurassic Park will outsell Ghostbusters when all is said and done. Myself and Bill, we both, what did we do? We drained it. We both drained that, right? No, I saved it. Oh, okay, and I drained it. I drained it. Playfield Clear Coating is coming to an end. We both drained that. And Stern Vault Edition with LCD replacing a DMD, we both saved it. So before we end this episode, Bill, let's hit your corner here. Let's see what's going on. People like to stop by Bill's Corner. They'd like to know what's going on in the life of Bill Webb. What's up, Bill? Let me see here. Vice, 33 weeks pregnant, so we're getting close. It's the final countdown, it feels like. Jurassic Park, the original one, sold over the weekend, so that was good. I did not move said game, though. I actually contacted a friend, and he moved for me. Said game, yes. Yes, so he'll be getting a burrito lunch at some point for helping. Very good. And I read a story on Facebook over the weekend where a guy had an Addams Family pinball machine and a Bally Playboy from the 70s that were stolen from his house on July 6th. And I'm speaking from personal experience here. If you've got any sort of large collection, call your insurance guy, get a quote, get them insured. You can't protect them from everything, but at least you can be made whole if something does happen. Yeah. From everything I've heard, hobby insurance, especially for pinball machines, is pretty minimal as far as the investment goes. And it covers a pretty wide range of dollars there. So for somebody that's got the extended collection or a valuable collection and value is in the eye of the beholder, getting some hobby insurance is probably not a bad idea. Yeah. Don't rely on your homeowner's Ryan Policky. I really would just suck it up. Exactly. Here, for what you have in pinball machines, if you're going to gripe about the $200, I think mine's like $200 for the year. Right? Which, you know, does it kind of suck? Yeah, sure. But 200 bucks is nothing. What would suck more? I mean, that's like a mod. That is exactly what it is. Yeah. So literally, you're protecting your assets for a very minimal amount of money. You can't protect, you know, the cars that my wife and I drive are not overly expensive. They're not too crazy, right? Well, Bentley and a Jaguar are pretty nice, though. Man, they're three years old, and they're coming up at the end of the lease. I'm kidding. but uh you know the pinball machines are insured for more than the cars that we drive and you know the insurance on my cars cost a lot more than the insurance on the pinball machines yeah drain it or save it bill pinball machines are more important than your car once you're retired no the car is still more important all right so drain them just checking so for the the minimal you know pennies on the dollar for the day you know everybody please get your things insured Make sure you're going to be okay if something happens. Fire, flood, theft, whatever it might be. Yeah, right, right. Makes sense. Makes sense. I did want to make mention, for those of you that were interested, you've been following my progress here with the Meteor, the Stern Meteor re-theme. Now, Brian Holderman, he's the artist that did our Pinball podcast t-shirts, and he's done a lot of work within Pinball for companies like Stern and Pinball shows and whatnot. I've got a limited run of the re-themed Meteor Translites. These aren't meteor alternate trans lights because the pins go in a different direction. It's still space themed, but it's not going to be meteor anymore. So what we're going to do is the art's going to be revealed soon, right before Expo in October, if not sooner. We've got 25 trans lights that are going to be autographed and numbered, signed by Brian Holderman. So there'll be 25 of those available. And then there's going to be another limited run of trans lights that do not have signatures and do not. and they're not numbered. So if you want a piece of pinball art and this project appeals to you and you're a fan of Brian Holderman and if you don't know who he is, I absolutely recommend checking him out. If you have the means, I highly recommend checking him out. He's one of my favorite artists. The autographed numbered translights are going to be $150 each, and then the translights without the autographed and the limited number is going to be $99. The money that we're actually driving for that goes back into the project, and that's going to fund the rest of the artwork, the restoration of the machine, and bling it out because the machine is going to be going to pinball shows. I don't make it to a lot of pinball shows, but I'd like to be able to kind of share the machine. So for those of you that are going to different shows and want to foster the game and bring it along, that'll be fun too. And it's just a fun project, just a little way for me to get a little bit more involved in pinball and something that's within my skill set and hiring out the artwork, which is absolutely outside of my skill set. Brian will knock that out of the park. I wanted to thank LearnMods.com for sponsoring the Drain It or Save It segment. If you want to contact us by email, it's SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast at gmail.com. And if you want one of those translights, email me at SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast at gmail.com. Let me know if you want a signed or an unsigned version. It's just a general interest list. There's no preorder being taken, and you're not responsible, but it gives me an idea of who to contact first before they go up for sale at Expo. You can also find us on Facebook at SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast. And, Bill, they can find us on Instagram. Yes, specialunlitpinball. Finally, if you want to see a stream on Monday and Tuesday evenings, either or normally, you can go to twitch.tv slash flip, the letter N, outpinball. So Flip N Out Pinball is the Twitch channel. We stream the newest games and titles given to us by Zach and Nicole Menne at Flip N Out Pinball. It's a fun time. Come join us and chat because we have a huge group of people that are within the pinball industry, in the pinball media, pinball podcasts, pinball personalities, and some awesome listeners and awesome viewers that are there every single week. So come check us out there. That's always a fun time. And also, the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast Twitch channel, which is actually Special When Lit Podcast, is going to be making a comeback here shortly. And we've got some new content that we'll be uploading on our own channel. That's going to be a little bit different. So you might be able to get involved in a little bit different way. But for right now, check us out at FlippinOutPinball on Twitch, and we're always going to be there until Zach kicks us out. For Bill Webb, I am Ken Cromwell. Everybody have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And don't forget to take some time out of your day and play some pinball. So long, everybody.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 91bacc8d-bbe2-49aa-9524-44bd0da0a77c*