# Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 37 - Holy Crap, Harry Potter! **Source:** The Pinball Network **Type:** video **Published:** 2023-05-16 **Duration:** 89m 1s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHUM_UBUj6U --- ## Analysis In Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Episode 37, hosts Joel, Travis Murie, and Tom Graff discuss Joe Kamakau's shocking Facebook post claiming Jersey Jack Pinball has secured the Harry Potter pinball license. The post was quickly deleted but screenshotted and spread across the community, causing significant speculation and potentially freezing consumer spending as buyers await more information about this highly coveted theme. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Joe Kamakau posted on Facebook that Jersey Jack Pinball has secured the license for Harry Potter pinball — _Joel describes the post being made and later screenshotted; the post was subsequently deleted_ - [HIGH] Joe Kamakau has been heavily involved in securing boutique pinball licenses for Stern, including Batman 66 and Beatles — _Joel provides background on Kamakau's licensing history with Stern_ - [MEDIUM] JK Rowling has expressed opposition to Harry Potter pinball machines in the past — _Joel mentions this as context for why Harry Potter licensing has been uncertain, though the specific incident is not detailed_ - [HIGH] The Harry Potter post announcement has caused distributors and consumers to freeze spending pending more information — _Travis reports receiving 25+ messages about it and notes calls from dealers; discusses frozen money in the market_ - [HIGH] Jersey Jack Pinball prices are typically $12,500 for Limited Edition and $15,000+ for Collector's Edition — _Travis cites these as baseline JJP pricing models during discussion of potential Harry Potter cost_ - [HIGH] Joe Kamakau responded to comments on the post, suggesting the account was not hacked — _Joel notes that Kamakau responded to multiple comments and his wife's account was connected, making a hack unlikely_ - [MEDIUM] The photoshopped Harry Potter machine image was likely created by Jack Danger years ago — _Tom observes the image posted was in a Stern cabinet and notes Jack Danger's history of photoshopping dream themes_ - [MEDIUM] Beatles was one of the most expensive pinball licenses Stern has ever paid for — _Joel references this as context for potential Harry Potter pricing, noting it was reflected in the game's price_ ### Notable Quotes > "Jersey Jack has secured the license for Harry Potter for pinball. No waiting, no speculation. They locked it in." > — **Joe Kamakau (via Joel's paraphrase)**, Early in episode > _The exact claim made in the now-deleted Facebook post that triggered the entire discussion_ > "Harry Potter is like the number one in-demand theme from everybody in the pinball industry that people want to see" > — **Travis Murie**, Mid-episode discussion > _Establishes why this announcement has such massive market impact_ > "What's going to happen is there's going to be a lot of people that collect pinball machines that are going to read that... it's going to freeze up a lot of money in the industry" > — **Travis Murie**, During market impact analysis > _Identifies the immediate business consequence of the announcement_ > "I have no less than 25 plus messages just about this from different people" > — **Travis Murie**, Market impact section > _Demonstrates the rapid viral spread and community engagement level_ > "I don't see how this hurts JJP at all I feel like it raises their profile" > — **Travis Murie**, During debate on impact to JJP > _Offers counterpoint to speculation that the announcement damages JJP's standing_ > "I would not put all movies in the same pin if they could do it I would split it up into a Trilogy or something with more than one pin" > — **Tom Graff**, Design discussion near end > _Speculates on how multiple Harry Potter games could be designed as a series_ > "I asked my wife I said if you could have any theme in pinball... without hesitation Harry Potter" > — **Joel**, Personal anecdote section > _Illustrates the universal appeal and demand for Harry Potter theme_ > "I don't think so the lowest end version of JJP game is 12-5 you know I'm telling you right now I if unless JJP is just not planning on making money there's a good chance the price of that game is going to reflect the price of the license" > — **Travis Murie**, Pricing speculation section > _Predicts significantly higher-than-normal pricing due to license cost_ > "I don't see it being any lower than 18.5 and I could see it easily being 20,000 per CE and it would sell out" > — **Tom Graff**, Pricing discussion > _Estimates potential Collector's Edition pricing range_ > "Let's all root behind JJP to make the best possible Harry Potter pin period so that we can all enjoy it in some manner" > — **Joel**, Closing thoughts on announcement > _Shifts tone toward unity and support for the announced title_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Joe Kamakau | person | Wealthy licensing specialist with long history of securing boutique pinball licenses for Stern (Batman 66, Beatles); posted the now-infamous Harry Potter announcement on Facebook | | Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Premium pinball manufacturer allegedly securing Harry Potter license according to Kamakau's post; known for high-end pricing and limited releases | | Gary Stern | person | Leadership figure at Stern Pinball; described as good friend of Joe Kamakau; mentioned in context of Stern's licensing strategy | | Travis Murie | person | Co-host of Triple Drain Pinball Podcast; dealer/distributor focused primarily on Stern products; offers market analysis on licensing announcement impact | | Joel Engelberth | person | Co-host of Triple Drain Pinball Podcast; primary narrator and moderator of discussion about Harry Potter announcement | | Tom Graff | person | Co-host of Triple Drain Pinball Podcast; tournament streamer at Fox Cities; discusses design and pricing implications | | JK Rowling | person | Author of Harry Potter; reportedly expressed past opposition to pinball machines using the IP | | Jack Danger | person | Pinball designer known for photoshopping dream themes; likely creator of the Harry Potter mockup image used in Kamakau's post | | Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; competing with JJP for premium market; Joe Kamakau's primary historical partner for licensing deals | | Zach Minnie | person | Host of 'The Pinball Show'; released mini episode and Patreon-exclusive content covering Harry Potter licensing history | | Jason Knapp | person | Owner/operator of Nap Arcade; shared Joe Kamakau's screenshot on his platform | | Eric Minyar | person | Pinball designer at Jersey Jack; recently designed Godfather; mentioned as potential Harry Potter designer | | Steve Ritchie | person | Legendary pinball designer at Jersey Jack; mentioned as potential Harry Potter designer candidate | | Pat Lawler | person | Pinball designer; mentioned as fourth designer option at JJP who is coming out of retirement | | Harry Potter (IP) | product | Highly coveted pinball licensing theme; considered #1 most in-demand theme by pinball community; subject of Joe Kamakau's announcement | | Godfather | game | Recent Jersey Jack release designed by Eric Minyar; mentioned in context of JJP's current production status and pricing | | Toy Story | game | Jersey Jack game mentioned as example of distributor inventory issues and market freezing when new licenses announced | | Foo Fighters | game | Recent release mentioned as in-demand title; referenced to show typical market patterns and second run expectations | | Guns N' Roses | game | Jersey Jack game mentioned as example of distributor shelf inventory problems | | The Pinball Network (TPN) | organization | Network platform that Triple Drain podcast aims to get partnered with; mentioned in discussion of audience reach goals | | Fox Cities Pinball | company | Tom Graff's streaming channel; working toward Twitch partnership | | Flipping Out with Friends | product | Pinball-focused streaming show; mentioned as platform where Joel streams weekly | ### Topics - **Primary:** Harry Potter licensing announcement and market impact, Joe Kamakau's credibility and motivations for posting, Consumer spending freeze and distributor inventory concerns, Jersey Jack Pinball's competitive position and pricing strategy - **Secondary:** Potential designer assignments for Harry Potter game, Historical pinball licensing precedents (Beatles, Batman 66), JK Rowling's past opposition to pinball machines, Twitch partnership and streaming metrics for Triple Drain hosts ### Sentiment **Mixed** (0.55) — The hosts are excited about the Harry Potter news and its implications for the industry, but tempered with concerns about market disruption, pricing uncertainty, and debate over whether JJP or Stern would have been better stewards of the license. Underlying tone is cautiously optimistic with healthy skepticism about the post's authenticity and timing. ### Signals - **[leak_detection]** Joe Kamakau posted unconfirmed claim that Jersey Jack Pinball has secured Harry Potter pinball license; post was deleted but widely screenshotted and shared across community forums and podcasts (confidence: high) — Joel describes the post as 'a very bold statement' with picture of Harry Potter machine in Stern cabinet; the post has since been removed but captured in screenshots shared on Pinball Enthusiasts, Pinside, and other platforms - **[market_signal]** Announcement has frozen consumer spending as buyers await more information on Harry Potter release timeline and pricing; dealers report increased inquiry volume (confidence: high) — Travis reports 25+ messages within hours; dealers receiving calls despite not selling JJP products; concerns about Q2-Q3 sales impact; speculation about pre-order lists that may already be full - **[sentiment_shift]** Community split between those celebrating JJP securing the license versus those wishing Stern had obtained it; debate over which manufacturer would design it better (confidence: high) — Joel describes 'JJP verse Stern Fanboys arguing who would have done a better job with the code' similar to Godzilla debates between Spooky and Stern - **[product_strategy]** Hosts predict Harry Potter will command significantly higher pricing than typical JJP games due to license cost, with estimates ranging from $18,500-$20,000+ for Collector's Edition (confidence: medium) — Travis: 'lowest the low end version of JJP game is 12-5...price of that game is going to reflect the price of the license'; Tom: 'I don't see it being any lower than 18.5 and I could see it easily being 20,000 per CE' - **[industry_signal]** Joe Kamakau's post and subsequent behavior raises questions about motivations, potential conflicts of interest given his long relationship with Stern, and whether this was ego-driven, sabotage, or legitimate announcement (confidence: high) — Hosts speculate multiple theories: ego, anger at Stern direction, sabotage of JJP, or drunk posting; unusual that he would help competitor while close friend with Stern leadership - **[community_signal]** Single Facebook post rapidly disseminated across pinball community through podcasts, YouTube channels, forums, and social media; multiple content creators covering the story (confidence: high) — Joel describes post being screenshotted and shared on Pinball Enthusiasts, Pinside; Jason Knapp with Nap Arcade posted it; Zach Minnie with Pinball Show released content on it; mentioned on multiple podcasts within 24 hours - **[product_concern]** Significant uncertainty about scope of Harry Potter license including which movies/books covered, whether new HBO Max series included, art source material, and whether license allows multiple machines (confidence: medium) — Tom raises questions: 'which movie are they gonna pick... if it's the new HBO Max mini series... are we going to be pulling video game assets from the latest Hogwarts game... could do it I would split it up into a Trilogy' - **[rumor_hype]** Community speculation that distributor CE pre-order lists for Harry Potter may already be sold out despite game not yet announced officially (confidence: low) — Joel reads Facebook comments: 'I've been on a distributor's speculation list for six years for Harry Potter high-end model...they may already be sold out which is kind of crazy' - **[personnel_signal]** Discussion of which of four JJP designers (Eric Minyar, Steve Ritchie, Pat Lawler, or Mark) should/will design Harry Potter; Eric Minyar and Steve Ritchie mentioned as most likely candidates (confidence: low) — Joel asks 'is there any chance that this is the next game coming out I would be very surprised I don't think so'; hosts express preferences for Eric Minyar due to JJP platform experience and proven designs - **[manufacturing_signal]** Significant uncertainty about Harry Potter release timeline, with hosts speculating 3-5 year wait possible; context that JJP currently working on Godfather CEs with delayed shipments (confidence: medium) — Travis: 'the problem is it's not so much that and this could be three four or five years from now yeah we have no idea'; Tom notes Godfather CE shipments 'keeps getting pushed back' - **[content_signal]** Multiple pinball podcasts and content creators rapidly covering Harry Potter announcement including Triple Drain, Pinball Show, Nap Arcade, and multiple social platforms (confidence: high) — Joel documents rapid spread: 'Zach Minnie with the pinball show just put out like a mini episode... Jason Knapp with nap arcade got a hold of that he's posted it... it's created quite a discussion not only on Facebook but also on pinside' - **[licensing_signal]** Beatles license cited as historically expensive pinball license, reflected in game pricing; context that JK Rowling previously expressed opposition to Harry Potter pinball machines (confidence: medium) — Joel: 'when Stern got the license for Beatles they said it was one of the most expensive license I think it was the most expensive pinball license they've ever paid for'; 'JK Rawlings...for whatever reason has had it out against pinball' --- ## Transcript network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast all right Tom you are looking great man you are looking good in those see a thing no just kidding those are uh uh those are pin Shades yeah they are pin Shades yes oh you've never looked cooler never looked cooler all right you ready you ready uh you ready for this yes perfect all right Travis you ready oh please oh the grade for the audio listeners he's he's lifting up his drink for I'm taking that as a yes oh yes I'm ready sorry Joel please Lord let this button work we I just want to put this out here and Tom you know what I'm talking about here a lot of people email us and they're just like Joel is obviously the weakest link to your Trio yeah and we always try to defend him and sometimes he's full of [ __ ] like last episode where it's very hard to do it but you know what you came through with flying colors this week you're doing great the first two minutes are fantastic yeah right now this podcast yeah we try uh you know with the three of us we're clearly trying to get uh you know we're it's like an average demographic between the three of us is what we're shooting for we're trying to represent all of pinball so you know you guys are like professional and talented and have you know actual pinball skills and I I'm not so I I you know we average out and boom that way we can just we can reach the masses is that the is that the goal like we're trying to get partner on the tpn network that's right yeah yeah we're well we we're going to talk we can talk more about that but yes Tom is actually uh with his channel Fox Cities is is actually working very hard to get partnered uh on Twitch so we're we're going to talk more about that at the end with plugs but yeah help help a brother out uh just definitely watch Tom streams when he's streaming and uh I think we're close man I think we're close you flexing is that what we're like right like right now if you're listening to this go to Twitch right now and follow Fox Cities pinball yes like right now while you're still listening to us of course yeah don't click off this episode no Tom Graf what I think is funny is um I stream weekly uh with flipping out uh Tom you stream at least once a week with Fox Cities um neither of us are partnered in twitch but yet somehow Travis is actually partnered on Twitch from a past life from a past when you're back in Call of Duty days and now it's true yeah a lot of it's funny I've gotten questions about that in the past when people see me on the uh the pinball streams and they see the check mark yeah and I'm like yeah it's not from pinball yeah in a former life I was a Call of Duty streamer yeah new Neil and I were talking about that recently and he's like no Travis was a big deal like but I'm a big deal like no no no Travis had like 500 viewers all the time yeah it was it was wild Michael it was wild yeah I used to rub shoulders with like Tim the tatman and all that at the twitch cons and and now I do this now I'm with you people like Joel you know I know right yeah are you um uh were you sponsored by you know Mountain Dew and uh sweatpants I don't know I mean you and all your Bros I don't I mean yeah yeah it well it was [ __ ] it was like eight years ago I think now at this point eight or nine years ago I remember there was actually a sunglass company that sponsorship like Gamers no it wasn't doing Shades it's called like Gunner Optics or something like that everybody and then there's G fuel yeah and I I remember Ray kind of dipped into that world also but yeah so G fuel was a big deal and then um it was like a certain type of controller to like a scuff controller that was another thing too so yeah it was a lot of fun I just yeah played Call of Duty sat on my butt talked to people it was always the guy playing against you that killed himself with the grenade Philly here's the funny part Tom I was actually I was very mediocre at the game it wasn't because I was just like great it was just because I could not shut up while I played and I just talked all the time what's that it's because you're in a hot tub I was the Genesis of the hot tub meta yeah no I would love to uh I I do have any of your videos any I don't never mind you probably don't want the listeners yeah there actually is so I used to have a YouTube channel that had a couple thousand subscribers at the time and yeah I had tons of YouTube videos out but they're not around anymore that I know of but I might be able to find one there was actually one they ended up getting like 30 or 40 000 views and it was simply because my uh my son Carter at the time he was like maybe four years old and I made the mistake of going ahead and letting him get on the stream while I went downstairs to go get something real quick just to like hang out and have fun and he's playing against bots in every single time he got killed he would just sit there and he would just go oh [ __ ] like he would just he would just do that and that happened for like 30 seconds before I rushed back up to stop him so yeah that video went like mini viral so yeah that's his claim well if you find that let us know we'll post it on our Facebook okay we'll do anyways yes people come here for clearly the pinball talk but um no I just think I do think that's funny but between the three of us the two of us that actually stream on a weekly basis neither of us are partnered and the one guy who doesn't stream anymore somehow is which is comical but you get partners for life that's just the way it is lucky you it's tough man it's tough it is a grind there's no no we can do it though we're gonna push his ass over the hump he'll get there um well yes we will definitely talk more about that towards the end um but really the reason we um the reason we just had to record we're recording on a Monday night this is like the first Monday that I think we've ever recorded together which is really cool but I know I have some work travel coming up over the next two weeks they actually both Travis and Tom have some uh some big events that they're traveling for that we're going to talk about um but we decided to record because there was some pretty crazy news that was dropped yesterday um and we're going to talk about that so um Joe Kamen cow Joe Kamen cow he is I'm trying to think of the best way to describe him um some basically he has been involved um from a licensing side um with Stern for years now apparently he's good friends with uh Gary Stern and Joe kamakau I think is rather wealthy and has a lot of connections and I know he was heavily involved in securing the license for Batman 66 he secured the license for Beatles um so a lot of these boutique games Joe has been kind of the driving force to get the licenser to work with Stern well um what he announced on his Facebook was basically he said Jersey Jack pinball has the license for Harry Potter that's it like he's basically just a very bold statement and the reason that that's a that actually means something is because for years people have been talking about Harry Potter what if Harry Potter what if Harry Potter well Joe kamikow's been saying four years if anybody's gonna get that license It's Gonna be Me like he's been like almost boastfully saying that like I will get that if somebody's gonna get it it'll be me so everybody's reading into that well Joe gets it that means Stern's gonna make it this is I think it's kind of been a point of I I contention of his like I will get that license and apparently the other I don't know rumors or Side Story there is JK Rawlings the the author of Harry Potter for whatever reason has had it she's had it out against pinball like apparently she made a comment at some point in time in the past that she doesn't want there to be a Harry Potter pinball machine she doesn't like pinball I don't know if it's like that Association that's something to do with it like being in bars or something yeah so but she's kind of gone all over the place with her licensing of Harry Potter and changing this story and all that stuff so there was always that thing will there ever be a Harry Potter pinball machine there's always been a big question mark there because I don't know if JK Rowling says no Then no is no the other side of that is Joe's been like taking it upon himself if somebody's gonna get it it's gonna be me so for him a respectful um or a highly respected person within pinball within licensing to come out on his Facebook and boldly state Jersey Jack has the license for Harry Potter that was a big deal that was a that was a big deal that post has since been removed but that post was screenshotted and it was put on like pinball enthusiasts he was put on a few other things uh Jason Knapp with nap arcade got a hold of that he's posted it on his it's created quite a discussion not only on Facebook but also on pinside so and I know Zach Minnie with the pinball show just put out like a mini episode he mentioned a little bit of it and then the other bit is behind the patreon wall but he he went into the history of all that and some information there so one comment one Facebook comment has spurred all this so Tom what are your thoughts what did you what are your thoughts what came to your head when you saw that the first thing I thought was man I gotta go post this on Facebook [Laughter] it's a birthday uh the second thought yeah um I thought it was a really odd post like because because you know Joe is uh kind of over on that Stern brand first of all the picture was in a Stern cabinet which correct kind of odd there was a there was a picture posted as well and it's very clear like Jack danger has done this he's he's photoshopped a lot of dream themes over the years so I'm pretty confident this was photoshopped by him years ago and Joe just happened to pull it but just just what Joe said exactly is he said hey pinball fans here's the Scoop Jersey Jack has secured the license for Harry Potter for pinball no waiting no speculation they locked it in that's the exact post that he posted with a picture of the Harry Potter machine but um go ahead sorry Tom that's okay muc interrupted me anyway no uh I just I thought it was odd you know again going back you know his connections with Stern and and saying jjp got the license and to me it's like you're you're talking about a competitor getting a license that hasn't been announced so one that's odd two is it's like is this just you know somebody hacked his account you know and and put this in there that's possible um the other thing is it's like well was this a troll like maybe he's actually got the license and he's kind of fibbing about it and saying jjp has the license which again seems kind of undermining I don't know it's just it was really odd to me yeah an odd post yeah and to address the hacked account um he doubled down he there were a lot of people that actually posted or commented on that post and Joe responded to those comments so there were people are like I'm pretty sure this is just a drunk angry dude who's Maddie didn't get his way and then he like comments on it or people are like is this a hacked account and he commented nope well sure if it's a hacked account the hacker could say no but like if you actually clicked on his account like his wife was connected to it so that means they would have to have hacked her account as well I mean I don't know I I there's sure that could have been a thing but he actually he deleted the post but yet he was responding to the screenshot of the post it just seems odd but um Travis I know you had an interesting take on it as well but yeah I mean what what was all swirling through your head um as well as somebody that works with the dealer that sells primarily Stern products I when I saw that I was just like [ __ ] like instantly instantly because I mean I mean here's the thing that is somebody that has a lot of credibility in the industry and the reason why I was just like oh crap this sucks is because what's going to happen is there's going to be a lot of people that collect pinball machines that are going to read that that are going to hear about that that's going to spread around like wildfire because Knuckleheads like us are going to talk about it it's going to get out there on podcasts it's going to be on forums it's going to go everywhere and legitimately I've had no less than 25 plus messages just about this from different people so everybody's heard about it including people back in my old stomping grounds in Oklahoma and the reality is what's going to happen it's going to freeze up a lot of money in the industry people that were considering buying a pen there are going to be sidelined now because the fact is they if they see that there's potential to be a theme that is their absolute dream theme and let's face facts Harry Potter is like the number one in-demand theme from everybody in the pinball industry that people want to see and so if they realize that it's possible that this is coming out and this information is coming from a credible source and you're being told it's from Jersey Jack who commands the highest prices basically in the industry for what is it like a fifteen thousand dollars for a CE and twelve five for an Ellie I think is what it is and so those are just Baseline prices and with the Harry Potter there's no telling how much that would be so basically just overnight a lot of money just froze up I guarantee I know that we got several calls today alone asking about it and we don't even sell jjp products so I I don't know how it is for other dealers and what's going on but yeah when I saw that I was just like man this is this is going to be a [ __ ] show we need to buckle up because it's there's no telling how much money has instantly been sidelined from people that were considering buying a pin I mean we're we're just now getting Foo Fighter Les out right yeah and so we're kind of waiting for that second run to come and that was a very much in demand pin but we have noticed that there's been a little of a trail off from people buying which typically happens when you're entering the uh the summer months that's totally typical but now that this type of information is out there I I don't know like I'm very fearful that there's a lot of money that's going to sit there idle that's just going to wait and see and it's not like that this product is going to be coming out anytime soon right you know what I mean like I was just thinking it could be three four or five years from now yeah we have no idea but the problem is it's not it's not so much that and I remember we were talking to somebody about this today they'll remain nameless but one of the things that they mentioned in the same chat that you guys are in is well you know people will probably forget this they'll instantly forget it like when the next L1 pin comes out right which yeah which is fine and all but we're still several months out from that so what's going to be the short term ramifications on something like this that's my concern what's going to be the Q2 and Q uh Q3 ramifications on it there's it's going to happen that's it's just the way it is and I won't blame people for not putting their money out there won't blame people for sitting on the sidelines to get information but the reality is when people stop buying to wait for more information that might be information that doesn't come and those are cells that are lost that people aren't going to see until they choose to get off the sidelines and get back into the game and start buying new inbox pins again I mean from a business perspective it sucks so okay so there's a ton of different ways we can go with this so first off Joe Kamika why why the question is first off why did he feel the need to share this information so ego ego I'll just say it I I think it's ego I mean I I don't know the guy but if if he knew the information yeah I mean why else why else would you share that there's no there's no other reason because it doesn't hurt jjp it hurts Stern doesn't it don't you think it hurts yeah so if is one of his best friends and he's always done work for stern why now would he post something that actually hurts Stern does he not care anymore because Gary's out is he upset about the direction of the company I just or does he not care is his ego bigger than his his love of stern I so I don't understand yeah it hurts here's the funny part so I got an answer for that and then I'll turn it over to Mr Tom Graf so I've heard two different versions of this right so this means that people are seeing this from different angles and people are taking what they want to extract out of this some of the first messages I got was well he's just really pissed off at Stern isn't he and then the other messages I've seen well he's doing this to sabotage jjp sabotage their Godfather so it's like everybody has their own opinion on what's going on the only opinion I can give is based off what I know in real time with what it's affecting with what I do on my day-to-day but yeah I don't I mean honestly I don't see how this hurts jjp at all I feel like it it raises their profile I feel like Godfather cells were going to be what they are from the beginning just because of their pricing model they're always going to hit that Peak early on and then it's going to just have a big time Trail off that's the way jjp games typically have gone the past few releases so you know I don't know it it just makes me think that it gets them notice immediately it raises their profile to me Tom is agreeing with yeah oh yeah Tom oh yeah it's so okay so you said it doesn't hurt jjp I why would it well okay so why story if people think that they have the top tier theme why like why would that hurt I just think it I know as of right now I know there are Distributors out there like they made all the guns and roses games they made a ton of them so there there are new in box Guns and Roses sitting on the shelf and we've we've gone down this road before where if a distributor has a game sitting on a shelf he can't clearance it he can't mark it down there is a limited to Lo although it can go so when the used Market is below us MSRP it's really hard to move new in box units so there are gnrs sitting on the shelf we know for a fact there's a lot of toy stories sitting on the shelf there's a jjp problem or a dealer problem I see a oh well okay sure some dealers should probably take a little responsibility for that but because because jjp is a b to B business they're they're not you know what I mean they they somewhat do B to C so they sold out and they're they sold theirs in there it's the the dishes right so what like but that's why I don't think it hurts them at all I'm just saying I look at like when I look at Stern a lot they have a lot of games in their catalog that are in demand that if if they there's waiting lists there are people waiting on them they want them if if somebody posts like hey I just got a few of these they're gone they never get put on a shelf they got a lot of those games sure they have a few that that probably sell way better than others but I'm seeing if I look at jjp who's released a game it was like every two years and then now they're looking at every year and then the biggest the shortest turnaround has been between Toy Story and Godfather you got all these distros that have GNR on the Shelf they got a bunch of Toy Story on the Shelf they're now getting Godfather Elise on the Shelf the CES haven't even shipped yet apparently that keeps getting pushed back and now all of a sudden you're you're gonna throw out another amazing theme like I don't as a distributor I'd almost be worried because I'd be like well what's it gonna be is it going to be all the Harry Potter's it's gonna be Harry Potter one are you gonna pick the last Harry Potter are you gonna pick some random you know there's a new Harry Potter HBO Max series coming out is this going to be based on that you know like are we because the Harry Potter franchise is going to want to push their latest and greatest thing like Disney push the Toy Story 4 instead of the original Toy Story did they get the license and it's going to be another eight years before they actually get around to building it I don't know I mean there's a ton of questions but I know there were people that were holding on to money waiting for Toy Story really waiting for Toy Story and held on to it for a long time and then the moment it was announced they were like Toy Story 4 never mind and then they went to stern and bought something I mean I I mean sure any game could be a dud any game could be a dud from any manufacturer but I just to me I don't know there's a i i s I could see how it could potentially help jjp if there are people holding on money that's not gonna go somewhere else but there's so much question here that people are gonna get bored people are going to hold on to that money waiting for Harry Potter Harry Potter and then you're gonna say the next Owen game comes out and they're gonna be like dang that's really freaking good I'm gonna I'm gonna do that so I I see I I had not had the thought the immediate thought you did but you have it from a distributor standpoint of this Frozen money one announcement two three simple sentences on Facebook could immediately freeze you know I wonder how many Distributors have people immediately I did yeah no no doubt it did and this isn't to say like oh my God sky's falling like we're screwed for the next two years while everybody waits like no it's just right now as of today if say you you have saved up ten thousand dollars right and you're a casual you haven't collected like 10 to 15 you've maybe bought like two or three pins right you're thinking about buying something you're not quite sure how the industry Works in terms of cadence of bring out a new product or anything like that right to Market you're not sure when this game will come out well all of a sudden you're gonna wait most likely just to get more information I mean that's probably what's going to happen it's not to say that those buyers won't jump back in I'm just saying that there are ramifications to words when they come from credible sources like that that you know somebody that's been behind getting themes that are big time themes for stern so yeah I mean that's just the result of it unfortunately but I mean I don't think it's the end of the world but you know let's face let's face facts it will freeze up money here and now I have a serious question oh oh let's do it Tom no joking around here Tom wait no you better be which movie are they gonna pick that's what I you know well here's the deal if it says if it's a jjp game and it's in it and Keith is is coding it he's known for just he's incredibly deep and complex codes he could probably fit seven movies worth of code in one game if but I hope yeah if they could do it I would not put all movies in the same pen if they could do it I would split it up into a Trilogy or something like that with more than one pin yeah yeah come out with a new PIN for like one per year or could you repeat your time and play against you can't turn on your second pin until you beat it yeah no I I mean sure if they have a big license I mean the the they well that's a whole other thing with the license we don't know if it's movies we don't know if they're getting movie assets we don't know if it's going to be like Caribbean where it's just no faces we don't know if it's if it's new art and going off to the books we don't know like I said if it's the new HBO Max mini series we don't know if they're going to be pulling video game assets from the latest Hogwarts game I it could I don't know I don't know any of that but I will say when I asked you know a few years ago I asked my wife I said if you could have any theme in pinball any pinball if I could buy turtles was my dream team if I could buy a game strictly for you what theme would you want me to buy without hesitation Harry Potter so there were so many people that bought Toy Story because it's Toy Story Tom bought rush because it was rush it could have been a one-pot bumper game it was the only one yeah and he was the only person that bought it yet but he would have I mean Harry Potter is an absolute dream theme for so many people and the price I mean if the the lowest the low end version of jjp game is 12-5 you know when they got the when Stern got the license for Beatles they said it was one of the most expensive license I think it was the most expensive pinball license they've ever paid for and it was reflected in the price the price of that game was a lot higher than the other games at the time I'm telling you right now I if unless jjp is just not planning on making money there's a good chance the price of that game is going to reflect the price of the license on theme alone they would sell out all their C's in like a second oh oh I bet I bet I bet distros already have CE pre-order lists like that's what's funny is reading these comments on Facebook yeah people are like I've been on a distributor's speculation list for six years for Harry Potter high-end model I mean they may are they may already be sold out which is kind of crazy I mean something a pen like that it's it would command a high price I I don't see it being any lower than 18.5 and I could see it easily being 20 000 per C and it would sell out no doubt yeah it's just I mean the truth is as of right now it's a huge question mark but just trying to react to what we've seen posted there are some people that are happy they're like thank God jjp got this we know it'll be it'll be a beautiful game they'll go all out with art they're gonna have it'll be an amazing magical light show there'll be no hesitation with Max like they will this will be an amazing world under glass and then you have other people and they're like no not jjp I don't want to deal like I don't like the rules I don't like like I wish Stern would have had it and it's like so now all of a sudden you got these jjp verse Stern Fanboys um arguing who would have done a better job with the code which is similar to like when spooky and Stern kind of had their little tiff on Godzilla and kind of see how that turned out so I I don't know I don't it just it's crazy how like three sentences can just like blower I mean if if you're a fan of pinball and you're a fan of just sitting back and just getting the popcorn out just watching it all I mean it's a grand old time you know because it's it's fascinating to see how people react to just like we talked about one Facebook post and to see what the Fallout would be of that it's going to be multifaceted so I mean it's it is what it is at this point and I I do I am happy though at least that there's people talking about pinball and there's people on both sides are like I'm for jjp I'm forced earned you know and then there's some of us that are like oh yeah we we like it all we we try to buy the pinball we can or play as much pinball as we can despite whoever's making it and so I mean I think at the end of the day everybody's gonna be happy with with the result I mean because you what other choice do you have you know what I mean it's not like somebody's going to get a license and then you know give it up to somebody else I mean it's like if somebody else makes a Harry Potter pin it's not going to be for like another 20 plus years if that yeah so yeah I mean I think I think the truth is the I think the right answer is all of us should be rooting for jjp to make the best Harry Potter pin possible like there's no there's no reason to be upset about it I mean if that's true there's no reason to be upset about it like I wish this or that because none of that matter except we are you know this is all a first maybe maybe maybe but it doesn't even if we have been us complaining about XYZ isn't going to change it if if they're if this is the truth is it if this is the directory of how this is going to go you know hey it sounds like there's actually going to be a Harry Potter pinball machine that sounds great that's going to be great for pinball in general that's going to bring new people into pinball for sure and yeah let's all root behind jjp to make the best possible Harry pip Potter pin period so that we can all enjoy it in some manner um I do think an interesting question though for both you guys is there are three designers right now at jjp there's Eric minyar there's mark I forget I don't know his last name he did the Metroid game do you know does it strident my pronouncing it right yes he did the Metro Metroid Homebrew game and then there's Steve Ritchie so Eric obviously just came out with Godfather is there any chance that this is the next game coming out I would be very surprised I don't think so the question I mean we don't know this could be four years down the road but if I'm gonna what I'm gonna ask you three or you two is which of those three guys would you want which if you could pick the designer there's four people there's three designers that's why I was thinking out of those three four designers who's the fourth Eric Eric minyer Mark and Steve Ritchie that's it oh yeah Pat Lawler Pat Lawler damn it he's retired Pat's coming out of retirement everybody so I will say Wiki please do you guys care do you do you guys have a preference on who you would prefer to design that game I would prefer Eric just because of his experience okay I mean interesting Tom yeah um I mean Steve Ritchie's great and everything but uh I I I'd prefer Eric to do it okay what about you Travis uh I would prefer Eric right now just because he's proven his designs under the jjp platform like I I don't know like obviously Steve Ritchie designs they've been hit or miss past few years but you know overall in his whole entire career it's a lot more hits than anything else I'm just curious how is the way that he likes designing games I'm curious how that will carry over with the jjp platform yeah so with that unknown variable it's like it's hard to say well I you know I want to see that but it it could be theme too like if jjp had Top Gun I would say I want Steve Ritchie to do it sure so you know if I'm basically just purely off theme and just thinking that way you know I'd like to see Eric have a crack at it I agree I I would pick Eric and it's nothing against Mark I just haven't seen anything of Mark like I've seen I've seen that Droid I've seen Metroid but it's just like I don't know about you but if I was if I was brand new a brand new designer to pinball and someone but he says okay you get the biggest license and the highest demand license right now on all of pinball good luck on your first go piss in my leg is what I'd be doing what do I do yeah I just that's the thing with Mark that I I have I would I have no idea but if I'm between Steve and Eric I when I think what what's going to be best for Harry Potter what's going to be best for pinball and bringing people in outside I would assume amazing toys and Max is really what needs to be focused on here um and between the two like that Pinball Magic between the two between Steve and Eric Eric has proven that he creates some really unique new Innovative toys in Max and pinball once again not discrediting Steve but if Steve's the king of flow right exactly it's different styles when I think of Steve Ritchie I think of hard-hitting Fast Pace right yeah but when it comes to something like Harry Potter I want to know the story like I want to feel like I'm immersed in that world and if you're going to get immersed in a world like a world quote unquote under glass it's not going to be something that's just completely flow-based you're going to have some stop and go you're going to have a lot of mechs you're going to have stuff like that so that's I don't know to me that's what I view the theme as because otherwise we end up something that was like Toy Story to where it just felt kind of bare even though there was a couple of cool things in it but that was one of Toy Story shortcomings according to a lot of people and that's why the Godfather and in terms of its layout has been very well received because it's much different to where it tries to create a certain world under there sure yeah and I I read a very interesting post and this is once again it's all speculation but it's um somebody said somebody said um apparently Steve Ritchie's been begging for a Harry Potter pin for years and he was really pushing that and driving that with Stern and he was really upset about Led Zeppelin and them pulling Mex out of his game and so he was sick of being controlled by the bomb so that's why he reached out to jjp because clearly they put more in their games and um now is that a credible Source yeah this is all speculation but he's saying here obviously Jack must have promised him Harry Potter and so this is Steve leaving you know this was probably the main reason why Steve left Stern is because jjp I don't know I mean it's all speculation I remember everybody what you just listened to was pure speculation speculation so dude on on crediting Joel with the reason everybody I could read the post uh yeah I mean hey if it's on the Internet it's fact right but it's just I just said it I am I I didn't I mean I don't know Steve Ritchie at all but I have no idea if he's a huge Harry Potter fan but obviously whoever does play better Joel whoever whoever does the game Joel you um you would want them to be a big Harry Potter I just I I agree with you I think I absolutely think um Eric has the ability to just knock it out of the park to kill it just based on the types of games he's done and the way that he's he's designed game so far but then again hey if how crazy would that be if Steve Ritchie's first game at jjp is actually Harry Potter even though right now the rumor is it's Elton John which is no you know what I mean like because he's he's been over there now for what close to a year and a half so obviously at least and you know bacon in the oven for a while so who knows what he's gonna come out I I don't know but I Tom you've had Godfather now for a little bit I mean what's your you've had Godfather you also had uh um Pirates of the Caribbean at one point and you had gnome now that you've had all of Eric's games at a Wonka too he's had all three of Eric's games so do you I I don't know I think that says a lot that you I I like Godfather okay I really do both code in layout all of it yeah yeah the layout's really good have you gone to the kill screen like Carl does no on the daily I'm not Carl level no not yet okay Carl over where you break the game so I'm like this damn game and I throw it across so Tom you are you are still playing within the confines that the coders planned for that's what I'm hearing yes Travis here's me and the Joel's on the floor hey I'm in that room though I'm in the world I'm crawling on the floor but I'm there Carl's like oh there's a limit nah oh let me let me find that he's literally doing math that's blowing up the code but ah freaking Carl um real quick shout out to Carl this is a side quest shout out to Carl and pinquest man pin pin Slash pin Slash pin Slash God pin Slash over the weekend was incredible um I don't know if anybody streams you actually realize how hard it is from a technical standpoint to do everything that Carl did um not only from a technical standpoint of getting a beautiful stream with all the audio combined video all that crap but then to also organize the competition to keep the players I mean it was just it was run so incredibly well it was so incredibly entertaining all different levels I will say watching the first round if anybody has if this is a big question mark for anybody pin Slash is a head-to-head tournament that Carl runs every year virtually there are people Global here's a guy in Hawaii competing against people here in America there was people over in Europe blueberry Johnson yep there was somebody comfy I think yeah yeah there was a there was somebody I think even Australia all these people starting up their own streams he's pulling it all together doing these head-to-head competitions it was incredible and um I will say during the first round I was thinking like I think I could I think I could have possibly won like maybe one of these rounds not the whole round but it's like I I think I could have competed a tiny bit were you drinking that night uh just saying when the race is like beat Gigan I'm like I can do that I don't want to beat Gigan I can do that you know I would need to be or you could do the challenges okay that's what I'm saying qualified to be in this I know but I'm saying if I would have gotten in I think I would I just I don't think I would have just got wrong almost like one of those guys at the sports bar that's watching the game on TV if that was me yeah I could have totally threw that 100 mile bro I'm just saying first round round one challenges or tier one challenges I felt like okay that's something that I could play there once we got in the second round you're talking about that you saw hottie play and you were like I could take you hey that's nice but shout out to somebody pulling you out no hottie did admit he he had the challenge which was uh what was it it was two uh secret combos or something one of the challenges was you had to find two secret Combos and then do something he admitted afterwards he goes I didn't know any of the secrets it was literally just flipping around the Playfield hoping to hit a combo oh my God but okay we have to do this Joel sure you and hottie please we gotta make it happen you guys have your own pink classes behind you yes we gotta give Joel a shot right Tom I agree I don't know he's like I wasn't done the first round I think we should set him up with uh zmac yeah right I said round one round one round one round two is when all the people in the with the buy showed up and that's the secrets yeah but those guys all of a sudden I was like holy cow these Asher it's like okay these are a little more this is something else and then you get to the like once you got way further in the competition and they're doing tier four battles and it's just like holy crap these people are so freaking good like there's they don't miss shots and they know exactly what they have to do and time it perfectly it's just it's a whole nother level and and that's no offense they were top 24 qualifiers no offense at all to you know numbers 24 to 10. but geez those top few people are on a whole nother level I mean it is insane their abilities so yeah that was a side quest those boys are good yeah there was uh Stephanie Stephanie was in it as well yeah she did a great job but um I don't know it was just what an incredible event to watch check out IU pinball on Twitch it's there I guarantee he'll wrap that all up it'll end up on YouTube if you haven't seen pin Slash go watch it it is truly an exciting way to watch pinball so that was a side side conversation but yeah to wrap up Harry Potter it's it's nothing but speculation right now kind of like we I'm saying the the truth or what we we what we think we know I just I thought we were done with Harry Potter well it was a side or I'm just saying to wrap it up it's what we think we know he's really strong I just lost like three minutes of time there well we think we know is Jersey Jack has the license when they'll use it when it comes out I don't know what it means who's doing it I don't none of us know any of that all we think we know is that Jersey Jack has the license so my takeaway is if that's true that means there is a Harry Potter pinball machine on the horizon which is exciting for everybody in pinball in general and no reason to complain and get upset or frustrated that who I don't none of that matters we should all be rooting that they make the best possible game possible because that's what we all want so any other final thoughts on that well said Jill that fence is awfully warm I would love to like throw in a Harry Potter quote I don't know it I don't know any of them I like the I like I haven't read any of the books I watch all the movies but I am so far from a super fan I got nothing yeah I don't I got nothing I've watched them I just I don't know it'll be a wand shooter handle yeah they they made a bunch of books out of the movies too don't they that's the other they made books with you thanks for correcting me though I appreciate it I'm here to keep me in line it's oh God that sounds you're an effort Tom Graf so I'm looking at the to-do list here uh oh here we go real quick check this baby out what is that that is oh [ __ ] that is an official triple drain lunch I got a lot of fingers hear that wow I know it's glossy you actually had it made this is one of the samples this is one of the samples it actually happened um it's a lunch box it's everything you think there is no thermos um I will say I am I'm very happy with how this came out the print quality is good it's not exceptional it's good but it's not exceptional they're selling it well good job but what I will I'm just being honest as somebody in the printing industry because this is printed directly on the middle um so they lay down yeah this is garbage don't so where else is it supposed to be printed if it's not printed on the metal well another way you could do it is print it on like a label and then put the label on on the thing no you don't do that that is like a sticker it would be a sticker but you can but you can have them laminated they can be like fully waterproof that is a very common thing that's crap so I'm kind of impressed that he's like worked very hard and he knows everything about a lunch box right you would be in the craziest how much time I've spent researching freaking lunch boxes I'm pretty sure probably at least 30 hours there there's a whole different budget Avenues I could have gone and I was very close to pulling the trigger on actually getting a company that would make us 24 ship them all to me all that stuff but luckily I found a website the website is Zazzle and they do a bunch of one-off custom stuff and so they had lunch boxes so I had one made and I do like it so what I did is I set it I set up an official triple drain Zazzle store we will share the link in the show notes and we'll post it on our Facebook page um but we have our lunch boxes we also have the golf towels the golf towels with the little clip so for all you tournament Players that actually think that's a good idea you have a chance to buy one clip it on your belt loop clean off that pinball machine with the towel not your T-shirt and then turn around and flip off both Tom and Travis with your Clean Hands it'll be awesome I can't [Laughter] just imagine Joel's wife like wondering where is he at it's 2 A.M he's not in bed no he's he's researching lunchbox she goes to his office and she's like I'm gonna look at a search hitch history it's like nothing but lunch box lunch boxes golf towels we also have a small towel if you want to put just put that in your pocket instead and then I did a there's a triple drain bottle opener so yep that's what I that's how I've spent my time is finding odd merchandise that we could customize with our logo and the Hydra thing oh my God you're doing great Joel if you go to zazzle.com I can search triple drain you'll find it otherwise you'll find the link feel free to buy them I don't know and once again if you get a lunch box bring it to look how professional Joel is and through all this yeah get them signed I'm excited about them it's so dumb no I mean I'm happy that you're happy we have this right now with my camera right now as of right now there is a better chance that people will get the triple drain lunchbox before they get the gtf lunch box and that I just think is hilarious so but I will I will still be buying a gtf lunchbox whenever they're officially released I will give you this Joel The Lunchbox does look pretty dope those colors they look really good thank you yeah yeah and another promise that I will make to anybody listening if you go to zazzle.com you can get there are so many products like anything you can think of there are so many products including if somebody wants a custom pickleball racket you can get it what I'm saying is if so I am getting a a triple you wouldn't pick a bar if you want it that is what I'm telling you if anybody is watching all you have to do is email me at triple Jane gmail.com with the link to the item you want and I will customize it and add it to our store so the finally something useful that I know exactly okay so Joel you convinced me there is something that's pretty cool there what about the LED signs I've looked at them I've looked and we can actually have like the triple drain you could have a triple drain LED size 150 bucks but you could have one why aren't we selling those I'm just he wasted enough time to get the four items that are up there but I'm telling you if anybody for whatever reason is a big enough fan of this show that you want whatever it is whatever it is that you see on zazzle.com email us at tripletrain gmail.com and I will I will make it happen underwear we got everything you want curtains shower curtain like uh bibs I mean any it's absurd what's on that website um so whatever I'm all for it but I'm proud of The Lunchbox and please if anybody buys one bring it to a show and I would love to sign it just because I think that's hysterical that anybody would buy whatever so that's enough of my plug but yes we'll share the link Travis are you gonna get a lunch box and bring it to Europe he won't get it in time it took like over a week damn I could draw the logo on a lunch box Travis I think will be getting in time for Europe and this was actually patreon there was a patreon question about this they wanted us to to to talk about the difference between the comfy the Snuggie and the Huggy I don't know I don't know I comfy is what you want but Travis found a new product a new comfy that is an American flag comfy that I hope he buys and takes two this is a great transition where would you take that Travis why would you buy an American flag comfy or would you take that and wear that you would wear that I'm going with Tom Graf to go play in the European pinball championships the European pinball Championship it's a thing yeah it's a thing they got pinball in Euros they have internet and everything over there it's really cool so is this something you just signed up for or did you have to qualify for it what's the big deal about the European pinball Champions because you guys are not European we don't have to get into all that but no so it basically you just you sign up for it but I think the way that they did it because it's the week before ifba which is the world championships for I think it's like the top 80 players in the world or something like that okay they they had it to where they wanted the EPC event to be close to if bus so that way more of the top American players would play in that so it would give everybody an opportunity to get to play against each other and there's a lot of European players over there as well obviously since the European pinball championships but no I think it's I don't know how many players are in this Tom is it 250 something or is it 256 I think is that right yeah it's somewhere around there so the EPC is actually a bigger tournament than the world championship in terms of size yeah I mean if you want to go off Prestige just alone it's like IFA is like the main thing just because you have to be a certain rank that you have to achieve throughout a calendar year in order to qualify for it but no EPC is like the main pinball tournament over there for Europe and the the world championship that is for last year then yeah of 2022. okay got it so you guys are going over there um anything particular that we should know um I don't know cool format cool challenges I don't I mean what get me excited about this the European pinball Championship so the format Travis is in group A1 Bank yay I'm literally first I'm the first player listed Joel which you know what that means you're number one exactly I'm the top ranked player in the whole thing that's not true no it's not I just happen to be the first one listed but so it's basically heads up qualifying to where you have 16 people in each group You'll Play Everybody once and then the top four from your group will go on to finals and I believe there's how many groups are there Tom I don't even know a lot one two three four five hopefully it's no more than ten 256 divided by six yeah that's when Travis starts yeah so 16 right 16. okay because there's 64 that go on to finals then I think finals is a heads up also so you're excited yeah yeah it would be cool I mean the way that they're doing they have different banks so like my group is in the a bank and Tom what what uh what bank do you guys have for yours uh B I'm in the B Bank okay so I'm the only American in my group are you really yeah which group are you uh D2 I got vigo's the leader of our group I would like uh shout out to jorgeous Morgan there is a pure Pierre or pure in a Lars or cuff did I hear that I can't pronounce these words did I hear that Keith Ellen was traveling he was coming and participating this year but he's not doing EPC he's doing world the world championship though yeah nice but I'm assuming is like raid a gonna be there in Asher and some of the American players in the EPC is uh let's see John Del Zappo Ryan O'Neal uh Steven Bowden laserless nice yep you got him Sexton you got Colin you got Tom you got Jason zoller Terry Wing Zach you're in trouble Leslie shout out to everyone in trouble it happens yeah Escher Bill Mason Andy Bagwell yeah there's a lot of people a lot of people so it's really George it's you and all your pinball friends yeah he's flying over and hanging out in Europe for days basically but the thing that some of us were talking about too that we were kind of not worried about but we were just like yeah sure hopefully we don't end up in the same group because you're traveling halfway across the world just to play against each other all over again so I was hoping to be able to play against more of the European players and people that I haven't got to meet yet is um that's what I'm most excited about yeah is uh what's his name the the the the what's his name is there no number I think it was number seven in Josh's new rankings the the guy that is yep he's actually in Josh's group I believe so Josh is yeah because Josh was saying he's gonna kick his ass yeah right right Gohan is cool so are you gonna like fan Fanboy out and get pictures with them and stuff shake his hand not wash it he might charge you five bucks that's exciting that's cool and I I hope somebody's streaming it do we know who's streaming any of this jdl jdl perfect unfortunately what's that the time zones so that'll be oh it's only like eight hours ahead so you know a little bit of time travel but just a little bit no big deal all right well that's cool so EPC the so it's a big tournament and and um but then so that's your warm-up basically and then following up with that you you guys have worlds so is this kind of worlds do you don't they alternate right isn't it uh America and then Europe they go back and forth back and forth so World's last year was in Florida right well it's America then International so it could be in Canada it could be like in Europe it could be in Australia but last year's worlds was in wasn't it in Florida Florida yeah yep far away land known as Florida I don't remember particularly but did was that did that were those good for you did I don't know is is worlds like an intimidating thing is that I mean that's supposed to be the best of the best right top 80 players in the world this would be a Tom answer this is gonna be my first one but Tom played in last year's it's [ __ ] hard especially when you don't play good yeah well yeah I feel like that kind of goes hand in hand well you actually here's the thing Joe you probably actually remember worlds from last year you're just forgetting right now it's that was the place where Elwyn and Escher uh yeah at the end and then you were pissed because wasn't their brand new bar closed yeah because because freaking last call happened 50 minutes before closing time a bar that's now out of business right shut down yeah so yeah you get what you deserve last 50 minutes before closing time is Carl going is Carl gonna be there at Worlds no unfortunately not he signed up but then he had to bail out Carl I know that's good for everyone else that's they have a better shot yeah I mean yeah just as a legit shot to win and compared to anybody else well this is exciting is excellent uh what's the format of Worlds is it like is it is it a mixture kind of I don't know there was that whole like the papa ticket where you have to play one modern one this one that what's the what's the layout here so the ifpa worlds tournament it's it's a match play and you play groups groups of four each round three games and it's a classic a mid-tier and a modern game okay and if they already released the list of the games yes you can go to the ifpa website and uh you can see the list there there's a lot of them it's like 20 plus Banks of three games each oh wow okay is Foo Fighters there I think so yeah it might be Galactic tank force there no no but there was for other tournaments there was a Godfather Pro listed so I'm excited for the pro what that is yeah so the weird part about Europe is that they have I guess they have a lot of reskinned games as well so they're under different names and I'm still trying to figure that out like eight ball is a different name and it has a spinner at the candy cane it was something stellar and I was like oh is it like Stellar Wars and yeah it was just something no it's not it was very confusing but we do we didn't go over this we do have our banks for uh EPC because the way that they do that they give you a list of games that you will play that's in your group and they're different from everybody else because there's only like four groups that can play in the same bank so you already know like you already know exactly what you should focus on because you're so like EPC I have Royal Rumble getaway uh High Speed 2 Aerosmith Avengers Shadow attack from Mars Indy 500 rush and Last Action Hero like literally the best bank in the entire world you're good at a lot of those games I you know I know if I F this up it's totally on me no excuses no excuses yeah and Tom has what were you Tom I have uh Bank B which is Lethal Weapon 3 World Cup soccer 94 monsters Pro Godzilla Pro Twilight Zone Fish Tales Congo Led Zeppelin and circus Voltaire you're you're good at a lot of those games too so okay guys it's a good bank now you might like this Bank Joel they have Tommy Terminator 2. Iron Man did I do anything for you Jurassic Park Pro NBA fast break I like that Dirty Harry scarred stiff no totan I mean and start wars Pro start wars yeah I think they mean stars but maybe it's a reason you wouldn't that's like by far the world yeah yeah there's a lot of other games here you can pour one out for Bank D participants yeah bummer uh you did mention um Rush there are people are getting their Rush accessories there are people getting expression lighting kits no yeah apparently uh apparently there is a thing before you plug in your expression lighting kit check the node board because apparently there was a bunch of it a bunch of them sent out and the dip switches on the Node board were wrong it was causing problems I don't I hope it didn't fry anything but um I have a buddy of mine that got his and he put out a video and he shared that and apparently there's a whole post about it but just to double check I'm not trying to so you're saying that you're saying that same guy had a Topper on this game he has his Rush topper as well yeah so it's a dip switch that's on the Node board yes shout out to uh Balls of Steel Sterling has his already done in Georgia um he uh yeah he said that was a thing where the he had somebody else that got one and it's like I don't know he he said it's like one Whatever dip switch one was wrong two was wrong and three and four are right or something okay so PSA check your dips double double check it or at least ask your distributor like do you know but it's just I don't know if it fried anything but they somebody apparently installed them turned it on and a whole bunch of stuff didn't work and they come to find out the the dip switches on the Node board in included in his expression lighting kit was set wrong now I just hope that the instructions that they give for this are a little bit more clear than the Led Zeppelin expression lights that was a beast getting those on because you didn't realize that you were supposed to basically get the play filled out either and they didn't really say that until you were like really deep into having wires everywhere okay now check out the plate yeah yeah yeah what Tim Sexton actually made a video I think it's on Stern's YouTube page that showed installing it and they showed it with the Playfield out I think they had encouraged you to take the Playfield out in the video yeah yeah but it's so apparently expression lighting kits there are some already out there I don't know if you happen to be somebody on order hopefully you're getting those soon and then Rush Hoppers there are people that already have gotten Rush Toppers unfortunately Tom you are not one of them um but I do know at least in the little video that I saw um it looks really good um those gears move a lot um and it's just a very animated topper so that'll that'll be great for our podcast yeah that in your Led Zeppelin topper how unique is this situation though that they are basically for now or probably for ever but they're not producing any more Rush pins yeah unless they just suddenly change their mind yet the main accessories that everybody has been waiting for are now coming out and some people that were waiting for these accessories to come out before actually going out and buying a rush they might be scrambling around trying to finally trying to find one yeah it's like it's it's interesting that those accessories come out like right at the same time that Russia's new inbox are getting much more difficult to find I would agree um but I will say from my own selfish standpoint I'm glad they're getting out because hopefully that's one less thing in the way between me and a Godzilla topper so I'm I am I'm really I don't know I I don't want to fall into that thing though of like setting my expectations to be unrealistic and then whatever the topper is it's like oh I don't think I don't know I just I hope it should be blows fire it's fine don't worry about it what's going to come first the Godzilla topper or the Cactus Canyon SE for you what do you think I hope the topper I I'm trying to be realistic um I'm I have a Cactus Canyon SE Plus on order and I I just assume those aren't going to be made until the Le's are done and right now I think there's like 1250 less and I think I'm seeing they're in like the mid sixes so it's like we're halfway we're halfway done with with what about well I like I said I hope apparently Pulp Fiction is supposed to start what was it they said Q3 and they're supposed to have two lines going but either way I'm just in my head I'm thinking I'm probably not seeing an sc plus until the end of the year at the earliest that's my thought which is which really sucks because I sold Deadpool and I'm like sitting on money and I don't like that I wanna I would rather have a game buy some lunch boxes yeah it'll be fine yeah um so what I'm going to do here real quick is um shout out to all our patreon supporters really appreciate you guys I posted earlier today that um we were recording tonight and there are some people that commented on that um so a bunch of people had said Harry Potter let's talk about Harry Potter um and then somebody posted yeah cause he said I want to hear your opinion on the online battle between the snuggy comfy and Huggy comfy all the way I don't own the other one thousand percent not even close but William here said Harry Potter and Matrix rumor Matrix has been a rumor for a while but it says it also seems that the Godfather CE production dapes keep moving back now late June or July any news on why I don't know that he said I've also ordered with a deposit of a gtf signature edition yeah I know I'm crazy I hear those don't go online till June or July sorry July or August which seems to contradict their earlier statements rumors thoughts any idea why I mean um obviously Foo Fighters Ellie's aren't fully out those seem to be pushed back gtf is getting pushed back okay um Godfather CES that really surprises me that those haven't come out I haven't heard any particular reasons why um I don't know any thoughts on on I don't know manufacturing is hard I mean getting the materials in and hitting it all together at the same time it's a difficult process it's sometimes it's almost as if you're trying to hit a moving Target yeah and you get it everything in that you can you get it on the line and you get it out and you try to go to the next thing and that's I mean that's the big difference between Stern and everybody else that Stern has multiple products that they can fall back on and keep running you know different pins different themes whereas these other companies they may not have that ability they might have one to two different themes tops at any given time so if they don't have the parts in nothing's coming off the line that's just what happens unfortunately well I mean that's just that's just my guess manufacturing is just hard with gtf being delayed what I will say is I'm I think it's a good thing I think the gtfs that have been out in the wild there have been issues that people have found um and so if that means hey let's let's pump the brakes for a second and address you know like those stand-ups in front of the tanks let's create a hardware fix for those you know maybe we can adjust code or figure out the ball lock was having issues so you know what at the end of the day I know Dave fix had had preached the value of getting games on location and using them as a test run kind of situation sure all these there's a bunch of games that have all sold but if they're using this as valuable data of hey we got a bunch of routed games a bunch of games that were on the show what do we need to tweak before we get the signature additions out there um I think that's probably a good thing Godfather though I am surprised because there's a lot of Distributors that have them in stock they have less sitting on a shelf and they haven't shipped the first CE yet that's that that surprises me I would have thought that I've already happened by now and then the Ellie the Foo Fighter Les I don't have a good answer there I mean I the fact that they transitioned from making Les to immediately making some premiums and then coming back to Le's all I can point to then is whatever game specific part is different and at that time all I can think of is expression lighting or you know the green powder coat did they run out of invisa glass I don't I mean I don't know it's but it's got to be something with that right um so I don't know I I don't I don't I don't have a big conspiracy theory or anything behind that um we should check the forums and go off that yeah both what they're saying and then the last question from the one the only Josh Roop he said I'd like to hear your thoughts on the used market prices um I don't know I I think it's interesting you had made a comment earlier Travis about uh um that moving into summer normally you start to see sales decline um there's a lot of used games on the market and I think that is is a lot of that's because there was a whole bunch of new games announced at the beginning of the year so a bunch of people are trying to make room for that but are we gonna see prices start to dip down from I mean everything went nuts with covid but are we ever going to be a point where things start to come back down and supply and demand I will say for my own selfish reasons I've really I've really thought about buying a Monster Bash I've really thought about buying a Monster Bash and to see I understand cgc games are unique um but like uh an sc an sc was originally like 7 800 well that 8 000-ish dollar game covet hits boom now it's a ten thousand dollar game so these games there's a bunch of them out there that are somewhere in the 10-5 range but I'm saying like hey can we bring that back down can we bring that back down a little bit but I know demand wise they're not making any more of them or maybe if they are it's going to be yours so I don't know is that realistic to think that that games might you know over the next few months come down I don't I I have no Financial forecasting yeah it's hard to tell I think that you would most likely see games that were made in the 90s and early 2000s kind of level off way before you would see games post 2010. level off that's most likely what you'll see happen and it just you know there's Ebbs and flows to it it definitely depends on all the new games that are coming out depends on time of year once you get around to quarter four you might see prices like really fluctuate then because you might have some people trying to hold out and sell something or higher then you might have people that are just simply trying to unload something quick they could turn their money over and they're seeing an easy sell so it just depends like I end up having to do that with Toy Story I think I had it up for like 9 500 and it just sat for a week nobody even touched it as soon as I lowered it down to I want to say it was like 8 600 or somewhere around there 8 700 I forget exactly like literally that's where everybody that was a sweet spot and everybody's like okay I want to go ahead and get it and that was way less than what I paid for it because I paid over 12 for it so I mean it just is what it is it's sometimes you're going to take a wash on a pin and sometimes it's you know sometimes you're going to go up but for me personally the way that I like to approach pinball in my personal life is that I don't really worry about what's the resale value going to be like I just worry about do I want to play this pin now do I think I'm going to have fun with it and do I think I'm going to get the value and the utility out of it that I want to and I think if you if people approach it like that without worrying too much I think you'll have a lot more fun overall but I do understand why some people are very very aware of the cost and very aware of the price and they want to not it's almost like a game for some people and a challenge to where they don't want to lose money necessarily and they want to keep building up which is understandable too but I think if you're if you're in like your position Joel because we were talking about this earlier if you're just on that fence and going both ways and you're like I'm not sure if I should get this because it might lose I would just I would encourage people just to make the assumption that you are going to lose money on your purchase but go into it knowing that you're going to have fun and if you decide that you want to sell or trade a game later on you break even fantastic yeah that's probably a healthy healthy way to approach it but it is weird it's weird having I mean maybe it brings us back to the initial conversation where you're like okay if I have this money that I'm saving for Harry Potter do I just sit on it for the next few years or do I play with that money play other games knowing that none of these games are Keepers and they're going you know as soon as Harry Potter's re announced I'm selling this so that I'll have my funds ready for Harry Potter's I mean that's where I'm at with Cactus Canyon I'm in but I know I got a long time before I get one so sure if somebody listening to this is anywhere near Indiana that wants to sell me a Monster Bash for somewhere in the nine thousand dollar range I'd probably take you up on it but um I mean once you down yeah once you think about it I mean you got to kind of if you really want to get into the Weeds about it you want to think about okay if I have to travel somewhere how much you know yeah is that going to cost for gas am I going to buy food while I'm out how much is coin drop you know I mean those are all things to consider like what's your time worth because it might take you 20 minutes to go you know dry like we talked about this before like there's a Godfather that's about 25 minutes from where I live but the coin drop is two dollars now Granite considering how much that pin is actually worth that's really not that much but when I'm thinking okay I could drop 40 coin drop on it but yeah I'm gonna have to take like an hour drive basically all the way around it's like you know that's just kind of the way that I think of things also like what's what's my opportunity cost by having to travel by having to do coin drop and you know I if you think about if you're going to play it two thousand plus times yeah yeah I mean that would have been over a thousand dollars in coin drop for you most likely yep I get it I don't know I say just get a pin Joel I know just get a pen like well why do you need a Monster Bash though you got three bangers right behind you uh that's good why can't you just play those it's good just be happy with your bond 60 Joel uh it is a pretty great game uh and I will say TNA is back in the house which I love I love that that's back and Foo Fighters has been just an absolute blast um I will say one of the issues I have right now though is I um uh and I meant to bring this up at that last episode I took some of the money that I made selling Deadpool and I did what I would consider a smart decision for my family and I'm trying to share this as an encouraging thing because this was hard for me to do I bought a golf cart I bought a I bought a golf cart and the reason I'm bringing this up is I remember back to when um Ken Cromwell was doing the uh slam tilt no it's I think it was whatever it was his podcast that's it and he had said he sold one of his games so that he could finish I think he bought a hot tub and like finish an area for his family and he said you know it's really hard for me to give up something that I know I like for the better of my family or the betterment of my family but this is this was a smart decision for me and my family and I remember when I heard that years ago I felt bad for the guy I was like well that sucks but it's probably the right choice and I will tell you I sold Deadpool I had this water cash I told Nicole my wife I was gonna buy another pen with it or I was thinking between this and this and this and she goes what or or you could use that money and you could buy the family a golf cart and I'm like okay it's probably like and that's the thing at the end of the day I do think I made the right choice Debbie Downer I know I do think I made the right choice I will tell you having a golf cart it is a ton of fun and my family is truly enjoying it and seeing them enjoy it is really cool so all I'm saying and maybe this is like a support system but I'm just telling you for all the pinball owners out there if you're in a position you know making a Smart Financial Choice for your family is does pay off so I don't know Travis raising his hand maybe I have some questions obviously you drive a golf cart around but I'm curious like what do you guys do no we have a Kroger which is a supermarket right right next door we have two parks we can drive to a splash pad the golf cart to the grocery store yep do you go through the drive-through and I have gone I have gone through the drive-through multiple times I hear that like here comes that guy again it's so great I'm telling you my like the neighborhood I'm in and I'm not in a golfer you need to get that lunch box use that as a third order I'm telling it's it's a the creepy pinball guys back the whole town next to us is like a golf cart like it's all the neighborhoods are connected in a way that you can all get to golf courses um it's not like we're in a ritzy area it's just a thing that there's there are a lot of golf carts in our neighborhood and it just and I will say the Carl Weathers's really gotten a lot of poor neighborhoods all roll around in golf carts for sure there's there's a lot of um like there's a lot the Carl Weathers's been really nice so like to throw the kids there's we have seats in the back so the kids and my like the four of us just drive around the neighborhood we have a speed credit yeah yeah you knew it we bought it of course from another person brand new talks to his neighbor hey you see I just sold a lemon to that big Ogre over there maybe that's the one thing where it's like this thing falls apart I know where the dude lives he's not far yep do you have like the Fast and the Furious type rims on it no everything pretty it's a pretty standard golf cart it's really like this LED lights or anything like that no no I tell you I've had it like two weeks so yeah I told my kids I told my kids I have a three-year-old and a four and a half year old my daughter's four and a half and I had I was walking them over when I went to pick it up and I was like guys Daddy bought a golf cart and they're like oh cool and because I've seen them driving around and I was like guess what color it is and they both guess blue and I was like No it's it's red and they're like well can we get a blue one I was like no guys it's it's red so we get in the car we get in the car of cart and I'm driving it home and I was like all right guys so what we should give it a nickname what should we name it and my daughter goes blue star it's like it's a red golf cart yeah it's a red golf cart so so uh we're just I don't I'm trying to remember she says she said blue star I thought she said blue spark but either way we I don't know we just gotta lean into it at this point but and no my daughter's not colorblind so um I'm surprised you just haven't put like the triple drain logo on there yet uh you know yeah like a magnet decal on there slap that on the front of it I don't know why I brought it up I'm just saying I know this is a great hobby this is a fun hobby but I know it's an expensive Hobby and um there's no shame in selling a PIN to do something for the betterment of your family and luckily Tom and Travis both have families that like pinball and play their pinball machines so buying a new pinball machine for them is actually a fun thing for their family unless you sell their favorite pinball machine and the two of the twins haven't talked to you in two weeks so dude it's been horrible they're still well aware because there's a Toy Story there's a big empty spotter back there my daughter asked me literally just two days ago so when it's coming back so she just thinks it's like somewhere else and it's coming back at some point daddy where's Tony I'll talk to her you know there's a Santa Claus yeah oh my God [Music] there's always there's always that that's okay I'll find another pen to replace it with I don't know what I don't know why yet but something's going to come along and when I throw a pen that's a kid-friendly theme for children heavy metal yeah that might work I don't know well what well I guess there's a Scooby Doo I mean that's kid-friendly fish [Laughter] I mean I don't know of a kid-friendly game that would stay in your collection that I don't know for all the reasons you sold Toy Story you're going to run into the same thing with a lot of the other kid-friendly games I mean it happens like you you play if you have several pins in your collection you just what I tend to do I bounce back and forth from everything so for when I got done with tpf I didn't even touch my Godzilla until maybe last week and so I barely even played it and I was just playing stranger things the entire time so now recently I've been playing Godzilla and then switching over to rush since I finally got that fixed I just been bouncing back and forth between those two and then I started playing our Stern Pirates again after not playing it for over a year because my kids start talking a lot of trash and I had to put him in his place so there you go all right well done Travis um that's all I have I know we we wanted to squeeze an episode here because we thought it was important news and then we knew we were going to be kind of radio silent for probably the next two weeks um but we'll probably have a lot to talk about um in the next episode so yeah we should probably plug it up and well we have a big thing to plug so you said we were going to wait until the end of the episode which is Tom and Tom Fox Cities pinball everyone uh for those of you that don't know for you to become a twitch partner there are three requirements you have to have and they deal with the number of days yeah sex appeal no uh the number of days you stream the number of average viewers you have and then the number of what is it um hours it's days Days average viewers yeah you need 12 days 25 hours 75 viewers average yeah average so the problem is um Tom crushes it when he kill when he streams his tournaments he gets I mean he kills it there um the challenge is when he does solo streams it's just it's hard within pinball to keep 75 average viewers um it's just it's a challenge to do so what I would say is if you see Tom in Fox Cities Pinball streaming do yourself a favor watch it um and even if you can't watch right there just pull up the browser and Let Her Fly go eat a sandwich so Tom do you know when you're um because you've been streaming a lot you've technically hit the metrics but you have to stream a few more times before you can apply again so do you know when you're um when you're streaming again yeah so I have a lot of stuff planned this week which you know depending on when the podcast gets released we're recording this Monday hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday yeah so tomorrow night I'm doing pin skins which is an objective uh uh uh it's a Ping golf tournament based on objectives nice it's just four of us it's Eric Thorne Neil uh Matt McCarty and myself nice so we're gonna take each other's money and uh we're we're each putting five bucks per hole yeah I know Big Spenders right but uh you know just uh it adds up yeah it does yeah it does and you'll Neil needs to go to college so but uh and then on Friday we're doing we I've been doing flipping Fridays for about a month and uh at District 82 and uh and so so I'll be streaming that and that that is going to have a lot of people because the next day I'm streaming the ladies flip Wisconsin and there's over I I think there's like 55 60 ladies signed up for it um so big big tournaments two tournaments all pretty much all day long Saturday at 9 00 A.M and then I'm going to Lumberjack Johnny's on Sunday and I'm streaming their knockout tournament nice a lot of tournaments yeah so Tom's putting in work um but yeah definitely if you can support them um and the perks with being partnered deal with um some of your upload bit rate you also they the streets everything yeah yeah so yeah I I implore people if you're listening to this or watching this like help Tom out as much as possible because he I know he won't brag on himself but he works his ass off completely I've seen it behind the scenes I've seen it in person I've seen it as house I've seen him set up it's amazing the things he does and this right here it would help out tournament pinball incredibly if we could have another partnered streamer that streams tournament pinball because obviously Carl reached that yeah and he's able to cover that and so having more coverage for this it just expands the game of pinball even more it expands the hobby even more so it's so damn important and that's why I'm pushing it and I actually told who's one of our patreon supporters um that uh I I said to him if I reach partner he wants to do a bond 60th heads up and he has one and I have one so yeah that could be really cool I would show up for that that would be fun that would be really cool so I said if if that happens I will drag my game to Lumberjack Johnny's and we will stream it that's awesome yeah and the truth is Tom has met the credentials before he's applied before and uh and really what it comes down to is they want to see consistency they want to see consistency I am the door right now that's why we're making a push here we're making a push so yeah like definitely it it works if you get on the stream and you just keep a browser up all weekend like just do it for one weekend support as much as you can there's a lot of people in pinball that work their asses off and something like this would definitely help out tremendously pinball in general I'd help out Tom and he's he deserves it he's earned it he's worked his ass off for it so I would really like to see the community turn out and help get us past the Finish Line on this bad boy yeah for sure uh anything else you want to plug Tom no that's good enough Travis plug away man yeah you need to go watch Fox Cities Pinball twitch and that's all I got just be sure and be there telling you do it we'll be happy and yeah other than that Joel oh yeah uh I want to plug Fox Cities pinball um on Twitch definitely uh definitely a good time there um and then I stream every Wednesday night on The Flipping Out Channel on YouTube I'm not streaming this week or next week because I'm traveling for business but um yeah two weeks ago my brother and I streamed uh Foo Fighters and Ray day was on with us and it was a it was a blast having him explain this explain the rules even more and being able to to ask him questions in real time and he explained a bunch of the little things that I I hadn't caught on my own so uh that video is online you can go to the flipping out Channel and click on the live Tab and you'll see that that video um which was a ton of fun um but yeah check that out check out our merch on Super Bowl swag check out the new stuff on Zazzle we'll post that z-a-z-z-l-e we'll post the link to that and then um patreon thank you for all the patreon supporters we really really appreciate you guys and the um support you've been giving us but that's that's it that's all I got um like always Tom you've got the last words I love you all foreign _(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 9754a7b9-5e1c-45dd-bc3c-49b0d0b2086f*