# Episode 103 - Roanoke Return **Source:** Eclectic Gamers Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2019-12-07 **Duration:** 77m 35s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://soundcloud.com/user-465086826/episode-103 --- ## Analysis Nick Schell, director of the Roanoke Pinball Museum, discusses his efforts to transform the museum into a competitive destination by implementing engagement strategies like fascination-parlor-inspired contests and live emceeing to convert casual tourists into active players. The episode also covers Spooky Pinball's announcement of Rick and Morty as their next title with 750 units planned, and concludes with a 20 questions game where Nick successfully identifies Sweethearts (Gottlieb, 1960s) in 8 questions. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Spooky Pinball will produce 750 Rick and Morty pinball machines, the highest production run for their current lead — _Dennis and Zach confirm 750 machines available, with Total Nuclear Annihilation at 550 units previously being their highest_ - [MEDIUM] Spooky can produce approximately 500 games per year based on current capacity — _Dennis states this understanding of Spooky's production capacity while noting the 750-unit Rick and Morty run raises questions about timeline or efficiency gains_ - [HIGH] Rick and Morty is designed by Scott DeVinci — _Dennis explicitly confirms Scott DeVinci as the designer, noting this is his second pinball game after Total Nuclear Annihilation_ - [HIGH] When Nick Schell arrived at Roanoke Pinball Museum nearly two years ago, approximately 20% of machines were completely non-functional — _Nick describes the condition tiers he found: lowest 20% not working at all, next 20% missing features, next 20% with cosmetic issues, top 40% in good/excellent condition_ - [MEDIUM] The Pinball Hall of Fame expansion will become 'the pinball mecca of America' once completed — _Hosts discuss the significance of the upcoming expansion anchored to the Vegas Strip, with Tony noting it could potentially be 'of the entire world'_ ### Notable Quotes > "I've got three on order... There are only 750 available. No, I've got three on order. There are only 747 available." > — **Tony (host) and Zach (host)**, N/A > _Humorous exchange about immediate pre-order demand for Rick and Morty, showing rapid uptake among even casual fans_ > "Keeping them running, it's like bailing water out on the Titanic. I mean, you just cannot stop or the whole thing will collapse." > — **Nick Schell**, N/A > _Vivid metaphor illustrating the operational challenge of maintaining 65+ machines in a public venue versus private collection management_ > "They're not really playing. They're just sort of, it's just a stimulation machine... But with this contest where people have some economic motivation on the line here, their dopamine receptors just go crazy, and they are transformed into players." > — **Nick Schell**, N/A > _Core insight about converting tourists into engaged players through competitive incentives and live emceeing, a community engagement strategy_ > "If we can leverage pinball into a new kind of entertainment paradigm like that where we turn it into a curated social experience, it does become something new." > — **Nick Schell**, N/A > _Philosophy statement on pinball museum strategy and future positioning within entertainment market_ > "I didn't realize that was the case... I went into this sort of improvisational pinball comedy act... the phone rings... he says, 'are you broadcasting right now?... This is Three Notch, the brewery restaurant across the street.'" > — **Nick Schell**, N/A > _Humorous anecdote about accidentally broadcasting via Shure microphone on default channel A1 to neighboring businesses, illustrating both technical mishap and community engagement_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Nick Schell | person | Executive Director of Roanoke Pinball Museum; formerly led Knicks North American EM Pinball Tour; expert in EM maintenance and museum operations | | Roanoke Pinball Museum | organization | Interactive museum in Roanoke, Virginia with 65+ machines dating 1932-2018; operated by Nick Schell for nearly two years; official sponsor of Pinball Hall of Fame expansion | | Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer announcing Rick and Morty with 750-unit production run; previously released Total Nuclear Annihilation (550 units) and Alice Cooper games | | Rick and Morty | game | Upcoming Spooky Pinball title designed by Scott DeVinci; 750 units planned; popular animated series IP | | Scott DeVinci | person | Pinball designer; designed Total Nuclear Annihilation for Spooky; now designing Rick and Morty as sophomore pinball effort | | Total Nuclear Annihilation | game | Spooky Pinball game designed by Scott DeVinci; 550 units produced; second run potentially planned before Rick and Morty launch | | Tim Arnold | person | Operator of Pinball Hall of Fame; working 90+ hours weekly on expanding museum; expansion anchored to Vegas Strip representing major investment in pinball's global profile | | Pinball Hall of Fame | organization | Las Vegas-based pinball museum expanding to become 'pinball mecca of America'; expansion being supported by donations including from Roanoke Pinball Museum | | Dennis | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast; enforcer of pinball terminology; knowledgeable about game design and EM history | | Tony | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast; interested in museum operations and player engagement strategies | | Zach | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast; owns all released seasons of Rick and Morty; has three Rick and Morty pinball machines on order | | Sweethearts | game | Gottlieb 1960s EM wedgehead with card theme; identified in 20 questions game; features small playfield described as 'size of a piece of toast' | | Charlie | person | Leadership at Spooky Pinball; previously indicated desire to maintain company size and not expand further | | Alice Cooper | game | Spooky Pinball title currently in production; production timeline influences availability of Rick and Morty | ### Topics - **Primary:** Museum operations and public-facing pinball venues, Converting casual players to engaged players through gamification and social experience, Spooky Pinball production capacity and product roadmap, Rick and Morty pinball announcement and pre-order demand - **Secondary:** Scott DeVinci as designer and sophomore effort expectations, EM pinball games and design (wedgehead variants, specific titles), Pinball Hall of Fame expansion and industry significance, Fascination parlor concept and contest mechanics as engagement tool ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.78) — Hosts express enthusiasm about Rick and Morty announcement and Scott DeVinci's track record. Nick Schell is positive about museum transformation progress and player engagement successes, though candid about operational challenges. The broadcast incident anecdote is treated humorously rather than critically. General tone is collaborative and supportive of pinball hobby growth. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Spooky Pinball may have increased production capacity or efficiency, or Rick and Morty production run will extend beyond 12 months, given 750-unit order against ~500 annual capacity (confidence: medium) — Dennis notes the production math: 750 units / ~500 per year = extended timeline or capacity increase; speculates efficiency gains from new facility settle-in period - **[community_signal]** Roanoke Pinball Museum implementing fascination-parlor-inspired live contest format with emceeing and social competition to convert tourist players into engaged tournament players (confidence: high) — Nick describes contests (e.g., first to 100k points wins poster) with live emceeing, notable dopamine-driven engagement increase, and resulting tournament sign-ups from participants - **[design_philosophy]** Scott DeVinci's sophomore pinball effort (Rick and Morty) anticipated to match or exceed quality of Total Nuclear Annihilation, with hosts expressing 'high hopes' for game quality (confidence: medium) — Dennis notes 'high hopes' post-Total Nuclear Annihilation and references Elwin's successful sophomore effort as model; playfield layout not yet revealed - **[event_signal]** Roanoke Pinball Museum officially sponsors Pinball Hall of Fame expansion, signaling museum network support and industry alignment (confidence: high) — Tony explicitly states Roanoke Pinball Museum is 'official sponsor' of Pinball Hall of Fame expansion, linked to broader industry support messaging - **[market_signal]** Rick and Morty pinball demand appears strong among core community, with multiple pre-orders placed immediately upon announcement (confidence: medium) — Zach reports three machines on order; hosts joking about rapid sell-down from 750 to 747 units; suggests rapid uptake within first hours of announcement - **[announcement]** Spooky Pinball officially announces Rick and Morty with 750-unit production run, largest production volume for current lead title (confidence: high) — Multiple hosts confirm 750 units available; described as exceeding Total Nuclear Annihilation's 550-unit record - **[venue_signal]** Public pinball venues require continuous daily maintenance and staffing (compared to private collections) or entire operation deteriorates; described as unsustainable workload (~70 hours/week without breaks) (confidence: high) — Nick Schell's direct comparison to restaurant industry requirements and personal experience at Roanoke; reference to Tim Arnold's 90+ hour weekly workload at Pinball Hall of Fame --- ## Transcript This episode of the Eclectic Gamers Podcast is brought to you by the Roanoke Pinball Museum in Roanoke, Virginia. The Roanoke Pinball Museum is an interactive museum dedicated to the science and history of pinball. Their mission is to cultivate curiosity in science, art, and history through pinball, while preserving and honoring its role in American culture. The museum is open every day except Monday and houses over 65 machines with models ranging from 1932 to 2018. Roanoke Pinball Museum, your world under glass awaits. Welcome to a very special episode of the Eclipse Gamers Podcast. Today is Friday, December 5th? No, 6th. 6th. The 6th. Mr. Tony. And this is episode 103. Yes. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis, and we are joined by a special guest. Versus a regular guest. No, all our guests are special. But this one is very special because he is in, all the way from Roanoke, Virginia, Mr. Nick Schell of the Roanoke Pinball Museum now. Yes, indeed. Welcome, Nick. Director of pinball. Do you have business cards? I do, actually. I feel weak. Because at this point we've got executive director, executive director, and I'm just a superintendent. Remember, it was the superintendent who got to control when the snow days were. That's true. He got his kids to school. What do you think an executive director of pinball does? Untangle Nintendo controller cords, clean the bathroom if there was an accident during business hours, have to restock popcorn and make popcorn. So it is, it's not as Wall Street as the title might. Yeah, I know. I mostly untangle feuding government officials. They're like, come on, guys. We're all on the same team. No, give me money. That's what it is. That and grant writing. That's what it's become. And I mostly stare at test results and go, why is that doing that? Get another sample and run it again because that doesn't even make sense. So really it's you two guys and then I'm just Mine's just a title only They're all pretty much titles So You've been on the show before This was back when you were doing the Knicks North American EM Pinball Tour I don't know if that was all the right words In the title in the right order That's fine if there's still a Google Cache or website out there about it But you went around on a Mission you were a man with a mission And that was to educate from masses of pinball enthusiasts on how to do EM maintenance. Indeed, it was a sharing economy, travel across the United States and teach people about their games and get them running, and then go on my way. So it was the Johnny Appleseed of EM pinball maintenance, indeed. Oh, that's a fun way to put it. And now here you are with your own station, if you will, or hub. we like to go with the hub and I heard a lot about hub and spokes today so we're going with a little hub and now we got and the people will be the spokes to your hub and we'll want to explore some of that in a little bit we have one news item that I figured we should go ahead and get out of the way everyone else has been touching on of course so and that is the announcement by spooky pinball that the next pinball machine that they will be putting out will be Rick and Morty which apparently is a famous theme I've not seen an episode of Rick and Morty. How many have you? Oh, yeah, no, I own all of the seasons that have been released so far. So do you think it's a good thing? Yeah, I think it's an excellent thing. Will you be buying it? Oh, I've got three on order. Okay. Because there are only 750 available. No, I've got three on order. There are only 747 available. There you go. I wish I had three on order. I wish I had one on order. I wish I had anything on order. I wish I had a place to put a machine right now. All you have to do is do a little bit of rearrangement. Isn't that Rick and Morty? I do a little bit of rearrangement. It's real easy. I talk to a lawyer. I hand over the divorce papers. No, no, no. No. Once it's there, just imagine. Be like, oh, it's beautiful. Well, yes, that's what I would say. Yes. And then you just have to carry that. Like, ask Nick, how do you sell pinball to the masses, Nick? You sell pinball to the masses? Conceptually. Not literally for profit. Well, you have to, of course, have a place for them to play and interact with them and then have communal experiences, I guess. Daddy-daughter bonding. There you go. That's great. How does that work with somebody who gets headaches from flashing lights and mobiles? Well, they just don't play at the same time. Okay. Or you clip the wire to the flashers. That's the fun of that. And the sound. You've got to shut off the sound, shut off the flashers. Just turn the volume down. Yeah. Easy. It's all easy. That sounds real. That sounds like a great plan. That's what separate rooms are for. She already shot down my plan to get bunk beds for the girls and move the girls from having their own separate rooms to living in one room so I could have a room to myself. That would have been pretty cool. I don't entirely blame her. That was shot down. I tried. I floated it out there. I was like, look at these cool bunk beds I found. No. Anyway, we haven't seen the layout yet, so there's not much else to say about Rick and Morty other than it, It is Scott DeVinci's game. Which means I've got high hopes. Obviously, coming off of Total Nuclear Annihilation, I think a lot of people have high hopes. And we'll see if he will, much like Elwin, have an excellent sophomore effort. It's got the possibility to be their best theme ever. Well, is it truly his sophomore effort? Because he also designed that Bagatelle game before. I think you answered your own question. We're talking about pinball. I understand that bagatelle is a pin game But it is not pinball There are many things that are not pinball Bingos are not pinball Horse race games are not pinball And bagatelles are neither baguettes or pinball Thus truly unworthy And this is why Dennis is the bad cop Versus the good cop Because you are the enforcer of the terminology I am the nice one on the show Unless you're not talking about this week in Pinball Podcast, I'm the really nice one. You're just the nice one. You're the nice one George Carlin talks about. You've got to watch the nice one. I don't remember that. No, I didn't remember that part of his bit. It's been a long time. It followed up with him saying a lot of words that I can't say on the show, talking about the loud, crazy one with lots of bad words that'll kill you. Anyway, that's all I have about this week in Pinball. All right, so 750 machines. Yes, that will be the most of their current lead, while they didn't put a limit on the run, is total nuclear annihilation, which sits at 550 currently. They had been talking about, and I'm guessing it's still intended at some stage, to do a second run of total nuclear annihilations. I don't think it was going to be a lot. I imagine it was going to be like another block of 50 TNAs or 100. That should make sense. And they talked about doing a few little different things. I had always assumed that the plan was going to be to do that once Alice Cooper's run was done and before Rick and Morty was ready and unveil Rick and Morty at TPF. Now, I guess that could still happen. I don't know when they're going to finish doing the Alice Coopers. The one thing that I'm curious about that we could conceptualize about right now is, so is Spooky hiring or are they going to be building Rick and Morty's for over a year? because my understanding was that they can put out 500 games a year. So they're doing 750. Either they've upped their capacity in some way, which I thought Charlie was indicating that he was done growing, that he liked his size. So either he did grow, his staff got more efficient, or this is going to be a run that will be longer than 12 months. Or it could be kind of a combination. Yeah, we could do an all-in part of the above. Since the new place was built, and they've had enough time to really get settled in, I'm sure efficiency is up. They might run a little long. But we're still three digits, so it's not, you know, it's not like that. It's still boutique. Yeah, exactly. And that fits with what I don't ever envision Spooky Pinball moving beyond boutique, unless there's some catastrophic shift in the market, like Stern got out of the game entirely, and it's like there's a vacuum, and then someone needs to fill it. But I can't really envision it. Yeah, I can't envision that at all. The market forces that would allow that to happen and let other companies survive as well is beyond my understanding. But I am a simple executive director. What do I know? So, Nick, most of the rest of this time, I think we're going to talk about you, the museum, EMs. Where would you like to start? Oh, my gosh. Well, so let's see. I've been at the museum now for almost two years, almost, in another three months. It will have been a two-year anniversary there. And this is my first time to run a public entertainment venue like this, where it's a nonstop cavalcade of tourists and kids and families and late-night people. And some people want to drink. There's all different kinds of groups that come in. And so I'm getting a crash course in kind of what Tim Arnold always hints at whenever you visit him at the Pinball Hall of Fame. And you see him come out of the back, and he's like, what do you want? His hair's all scraggly, and he gives you that 1,000-yard stare. And he's like, yeah, pinball's great. Yeah, yeah, 90 hours a week. And he's hardcore. But he does his homework. Tim really is. I mean, he's doing it. He has the Pinball Hall of Fame as a success, you know, because, I mean, he's got a million, two million, three million flush, something like that. Yeah, that expansion is a massive testament to his business savvy. Yeah. Oh, it's going to be the pinball mecca of America once it gets built. Maybe of the wild. Could be, the entire world. Certainly being anchored to the Strip makes going to Vegas that much better because, you know. So I think how much more tourist pinballers, a term that I know you are fond of, will encounter it because the fact that it is off the strip right now does suppress that casual turnout. Well, yes, the Roanoke Pinball Museum is an official sponsor of the new and improved Pinball Hall of Fame, as many of you are as well out there who have made donations to Tim. And, you know, once this is done, we all need to support him because this is the main portal through which people all over the world, because Vegas attracts people from all over the world in great numbers, well, this is their portal to pinball. This is going to be it. And so, you know, yeah, this is the big banner to wave. So we all got to definitely get behind them and support this because it's going to trickle down to, not that I believe that that's how economies necessarily benefit everybody, but that's a different discussion. all together. That's for our other podcast, the Eclectic Politics podcast. Eclectic and Reconomics. That's right. I don't know if, yeah, Reaganomics necessarily works for pinball, who knows, but certainly this will benefit all of us by raising the profile of pinball globally and nationally. So this is a really exciting thing that's going on. So anyway, Grown Up Pinball Museum, I'm getting a little taste of that. Last year I probably worked 70 hours a week without a break. And so, of course, a lot of it was turning the museum around. When I got there, I don't know how many of you actually see... Roanoke Pinball Museum hasn't really had a big profile. You know the Pinball Hall of Fame, Arcade Expo, Joshua Clay's VWF collection up in Ann Arbor. Pacific Pinball Museum. I mean, there's dozens of... Silver Ball. But Roanoke has always been like... So my goal has been to raise the profile to be at least competitive with some of these destinations. And that's required just a massive amount of effort to, I mean, rebuild everything on the floor. I mean, there has been, when I got there, the games were okay. I'd say the lowest 20% were not working at all. The next 20%, not all the features worked. The next 20% features worked, but the lights were out or the flippers were weak. Next 20% were mostly passable, pretty good condition. Maybe back glass was cracked or some other little things. And then the final top 20 were brand new games, so of course they worked. So it was really kind of a, it was okay, but it really wasn't competitive with Silver Ball, you know, Asbury Park or LRA Beach or any of these places. So I've been working to raise the profile, make our games bright and clean and proactively kind of rebuilding stuff. And now we've got a really nice collection, and it's flipping pretty well. But, boy, so what I've learned is just that it's like if you have a private collection and you're maintaining it in your basement, that is one thing. But keeping them running, it's like bailing water out on the Titanic. I mean, you just cannot stop or the whole thing will collapse. And there's really no one, you know, unless you, any of you guys worked in like a restaurant industry or anything like that? Yep. Tony's nodding and said yes. I have not. You just have to be there every day or it will come apart. Yep. Yep. That's where I started. Yep. So it's a frenetic, it's an entertainment public facing deal. So I don't know what your original question was. Well, that was a setup on terms of your experience of getting to the Romanoff Pinball Museum. And what I'll use is we kind of dived into that on the context of casual pinball players, tourist pinball players, the idea of turning them into actual players, or what you would, I believe, term as turning a tourist into a player. And you've been doing some interesting experiments. And I know your numbers have been improving since you've been tracking them. I don't know if they kept numbers from before your time or not, what your analytic range is. Whether you do a polynomial trend on that or not will be up to the listeners, I suppose. But, for example, you were telling before we went on air about Fascination, the parlor game that you have modeled and are now doing a variant of for nefarious pinball purposes. So could you just explain that? It's mysterious. Yeah, it is. Well, I mean, fascination. I asked Dennis, Tony, neither of you have heard of that before, right? No. I've heard of an EM called Fantastic. You have to say it like that. Fantastic. Yes. I like that game. It is? You do? Yeah. Fan of the middle pop? Yeah. Is that Norm Clark? Yeah. I felt like it. Yeah. Okay. Great designer. Yes, indeed. But, no, fascination, probably only a few people listening to this will even know what that is. And I think there's only one place left in the United States that does it. But what fascination? You. Well, that was my dream. I wanted to open a fascination parlor. And, you know, this is before I got into pinball. I was like, maybe we can resurrect this. But here's what it is, folks. It's like it would be so hip now to do this. It's like a, you remember, I guess you remember back in the, you guys went to Dave and Buster's and earned the ticket game, played the ticket games, right? We had some. We were more showbiz. Chuck E. Cheese. We didn't get a Dave and Buster's until about, what, 10 years ago? Yeah. So I've been there, but it's all cards and stuff now. Yeah, but there used to be this game called Poker Roll. It was like this sort of skee-ball game, but at the end of the field was like a five-by-five grid of poker cards. And you had like five little rubber balls and you roll them down and then whatever hand you get like determines how many tickets you win. You know, so what fascination is, it's a it's a room full of these things, maybe 24 or 30 of them. And there's an emcee at the end of the hallway. And instead of poker hands, there's like a blank sort of signboard with the tic-tac-toe grid. and the MC would call out, okay, we're going to, first person to get the big X is going to get the prize. And it is a gambling, part gambling, part ski ball, part you can drink. It's like a, you basically, so the game starts and the first person out of these 24 to get the pattern correct by rolling these little balls down, kind of like those derby games you've seen with the horse race. It's like that, but glorified to the next level. so it's this big competitive room full of people and you win a cash prize a little bit goes to the house the rest goes to the winner and then you have another game another pattern and there's lights and music and craziness and it's sort of like it's more fun than a slot machine because you have some skill involved and you're playing with other people and it's better than bingo because it's not just calling out the numbers It's your skill that's kind of involved. So, yeah. So I thought, you know, this seems like this could be like a hipstery kind of thing, but it must be massively illegal because, you know, you're gambling, and there's these old antiquated laws about pinball-type gambling parlors. So what I'm doing at the Roanoke Museum is, you know what, I've got a bunch of games on the floor. We just got a PA system installed and all this. So I'm doing contests that are kind of in the spirit of those old fascination parlors. For example, the other night, we had these little souvenir posters that we've had this custom artwork on. And I said, okay, the first person to get 100,000 points on either Captain Fantastic, Wizard, or Old Chicago will win our souvenir poster. And I say this over the crowd and those three games get hammered and people are screaming and they are so into it Like I never seen this level of engagement in well I mean pinball Sometimes even tournaments aren't this animated. We can be a lethargic bunch. Yeah, kind of just in your zone and whatever. It's so long. And we all have headphones in so we can hear your announcement. So people are just there. They're just cranking away on these games. And what I'm doing is, to come full circle to your original question, is we have to, we meaning you and me and everybody who's in the hobby, we have to both introduce new people to the hobby and we also have to just nudge them into being players from just tourists. Like the tourists who come into the building, they're there to press buttons and go, oh, this is pinball. And they look at the lights and they go, oh, that one lights up cool. And they play one ball and they go to the next machine. Oh, that one has a hand, Adam's hand. That's cool. Okay, whatever. And they're not really playing. They're just sort of, it's just a stimulation machine. But with this, with this contest where people have some economic, you know, motivation on the line here, Their dopamine receptors just go crazy, and they are transformed into players because now they're looking at the game like, what do I have to do to get 100,000 points? They're like, oh, yeah, those lanes. If you get both those, you get the double bonus. Oh, so you get the – and that's happening kind of organically. I'm not having to tell people that. And I will, of course, hover them and say, oh, and what's your name? Ben? Hey, Ben here. Yeah, I see he's got the double bonus up there, lanes A and B. So you're emceeing it. Yes, this live emcee. I'm giving them a kind of – I'm kind of curating the experience for people. I'll say, oh, hey, Elizabeth over there. Yes, she just got the spinner lit up. Yeah, that's 100 points per spin. And that gets people thinking about what they're doing. So if we can tilt people into becoming – nudge them towards becoming – That's an edit. No, pull your entire – everything. the damage is done. But they're becoming players. That's the good thing. Now, on the way out, I'll just say, we have a sign-up sheet for our tournaments and make sure if you've enjoyed tonight, we do play for money. And I'm getting sign-ups on the tournaments and then they're telling their friends and the social media things. So if we can make this a social experience that people are not able to have any other way, pinball has that opportunity. We just have to drive it. I don't think it's enough Just put the machines out and just hope that people get it. You know, they just, you know, they're competing with, you know, phones and video games and all this other type of attention. So if we can leverage pinball into a new kind of entertainment paradigm like that where we turn it into a curated social experience, it does become something new. And people are really digging it. Have you tracked your attendance figures pre and post this fascination aspect? No, this is too new. It sounded fairly new, but I was curious if it had gone wrong. Now, you've also been doing a pinball game show. Well, that's what this is. And that's all. Have you done any others, any other styles? So was it this where you had your PA system incident? Correct. Which Tony and I read about on social media. Would you be so kind as to elaborate for the audience who is not like, what are they talking about? Because for some reason they're not following the Roanoke Pinball Museum on Facebook.com. Which is their loss. Well, I didn't post about this on our course. They should still be following Roanoke Pinball Museum on Facebook.com. Well, it just so happens that some of you probably have a Shure microphone, those little wireless mics. And when they come from the factory, the default channel is A1. A lot of people will just pull that out of the box, plug it in, and start using it. Incidentally, my favorite steak sauce. Now we need to get you out of the show. You mass generic POS. All right. Okay. Now here's the thing. Living in Kansas, what are you talking about? I have to get out there. Make sure you understand this. Your steak requires salt, pepper, fire. You don't put things on steak. If it's a bad steak, you do. If it's a bad steak, go eat something else. Yeah. Too much work was done. But, wait, so A1, not the steak sauce, on the default PA system. Yes, indeed. The default was the people who set up our system for us had also left it on A1. I didn't realize that that was the case. And so for a few days I had been doing these little contests and tournaments. But then late one night I was kind of by myself and kind of testing the levels. And I went into this sort of improvisational pinball comedy act for a company of just me and a co-worker. And we were just kind of playing off each other about, you know, what would Eddie Vedder sound like as a pinball referee. And, like, no one would know what he said. And did I foul or not? And then another was like how to maintain your privacy and deflect people away who annoy you from Colossomy Bag University 101. So just – and all this – and then just sound effects and noises and kind of non-PC stuff. And the phone rings, and, of course, somebody says, hey, is this the Pinball Museum? Like, yeah. He says, are you broadcasting right now? I'm like, yeah. Who is this? He goes, this is Three Notch, the brewery restaurant across the street. Yeah? You're like, yeah, we can hear everything you're doing in here. And we're all laughing, and I can hear laughter on the phone. I'm like, oh, my God. This has been going on for days. This has been going on without knowing. So anyway, I walk over there. I'm like, hey, everybody. Of course, everybody's like, yay. Chip, do the thing. Do the thing. So, small town, pretty funny. Anyway, so now I'm that guy. But anyway, so we got that worked out. But if you ever want to have fun and you have a Shurmike, just drive through a downtown kind of club district, bar district, set your little Shurmike to A1 and just start da-da-da-da-da and just seeing what you get because you're probably going to get some. It's time to bust out the Tom Jones. Yes. drinks on the house don't say that don't say that anyway so hey you yeah you well then this is a surprise to you but you'll notice I have that notepad beside you that's because oh no you are a pinball expert we did not do this the last time you were on I know what this is I want to play 20 questions yeah that's what I thought I needed that's what I thought I thought 20 questions on our Game of Thrones podcast. For the listeners who do not always know what I'm about to do, on 20 questions, Nick will ask me a series of yes or no questions. It will be about a flipper pinball machine. It will be one that I know he has played, because I know all. My eye, lidless, wreathed in flame. If you do not get it by the 15th question, you may use your phone, phone a friend for Tony's laptop to borrow, and continue to ask yes or no questions, and I'm sure you'll get it by question 20 because you know a lot about pinball. I really enjoy listening to you guys hash it out, so this is great. Now, first of all, has anyone ever gotten it in one guess? No. No. Okay. I had a chance for it. So I'm going to try and just throw it out there just in case. I respect it. Okay. Is it 2001? No. Okay. That's question one. Okay. So we had to do that. and also you guys are asking the wrong questions when you ask is it, and this is not my question by the way when you say is it a Bally or is it a Williams, you could say is it from a manufacturer with a letter higher in the alphabet than M, then you have just ruled out Gottlieb and Bally and separated them I do like someone who's not yet won the game saying what could be done better it's fascinating Well, that's understandable from everybody listening to me fumble through my hood. It's a bold move, Cotton. Let's see what it looks like for you. All right. First of all, is it an EM? Yes. I knew it would be. Oh, that's nice. You should have known. That would have been great. You sound sad about it. No, no, no. This is great. I love my EMs. It's not out of family. I'm so sad. Thank you. I love my EMs. Now, here's the thing, though. It can't be a wood rail, right? You're not going to do that to me. because nobody knows all the wood rails. I mean, I don't even... I guess I have to ask. I have no idea what it is. Is it a wood railer earlier? No. Okay, thank you for not giving that to me. I have some standards. It's 1913 Melba Toast. That's my favorite wood rail. No, I said it would be a flipper pinball machine. Yes, okay, thank you. You're not going too far. All right, thank you, thank you. Come on, come on. I, uh... Rockola. Yeah, it's huge, whatever. skipping stone like across the river. That's the theme. You're not going to... All right. Okay, so I've asked two. One just rhetorical. No, you've asked three. I have. 2001. Oh, is it again? That's right, my first guess. Is it a wood rail? And the wood rail one is... That's why you have the notepad so you can keep track of what you have. I don't want to. I'm not going to. I won't sell you... Too good. Yeah, I don't either. That's my Wichita State University notepad. All right, so... I coached that. Let's see. What's the best way to divide and conquer the vast world of EM potential? Okay. Well, I have to probably... Well, it's either going to be 60s or 70s. That's 50-50 loss. That's not very good. Okay. How about... Is it a one-player game? Yes. Okay. Is it Wedgehead? Yes. It is. Yes. Yes, okay, it is a wedge head. That's question five. Okay. So, yeah, the community. Sometimes I... Anyway. I get some flack for picking on the wedge heads. Wedge heads aren't the best. They're not the best. They're okay. They're all right. There are some great wedge heads out there, truly. But if you only have wedge heads in your collection, then that's just... I'm just saying you're missing out on a lot of other good games that aren't wedge heads. But, whatever. Okay. Okay. They are special in their own way. So, wedge heads. Well, that could be anything from 1960 all the way up to 1978, I think. And got leaves. So, there's only about 200 of them, something like that. So, yeah. So, that's not. If only there were other things that could be used to narrow it down. I know. Okay. So, I know years are always. All right. Is it 1960s? 60s. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Great. Okay. Is it a card theme? Yes. Oh. Interesting. All right. Yeah, because Gottlieb had so few card themes in the 60s. Did it have a pinball in it? That was an excellent question. All right. Is it Sweethearts? Yes. Yeah. There you go. Wow, that was... Good job. Oh, man. Question eight. Yep. Blam, blam, blam, blam, blam. I picked it because I knew you loved it. Yeah, I called it Sweetheart. Sweetheart. Which, yeah, I had to look at the backbox because... And I almost guessed that as I first saw it. Because I only remember the play field in the upper portion, which is just those bag of tails, all those bag of tails. And as I recall, you once described it as a playing field the size of a piece of toast. Yes. I've shared that with you thank you I think that was on the slam tilt guys yeah probably was so 8th is an excellent placement so you did very well really good thank you very much in fact I'm going to our website where I keep the listings and you will be on there because Nick Baldrige was challenged to 20 questions when he was on the show and I cannot remember if you did better than him or not so I'm looking under my records to be able to see which cuisine reigned supreme. But it could have been six if I had just not thrown out the first one and eliminated it. 2001 wasn't a bad one to go with. I think that's my favorite. It took him nine. I used Sing-A-Long. The rare... That's probably going to be my only win against Baldrige in anything EM land, but still, I'll take it. You might be able to play him. I don't know, because I don't know how he plays. I'm totally expected. I've lost to you many times on EMs, and on non-EMs, for that matter. So I'm like... Yeah, we've been here talking about EMs before. I remember talking about Zale and Krinsky, and I know you were talking... Cosmos, is that a Zale game? Yes. And then Tony's favorite was Gator or whatever. What was it? Campus Queen. Which gator is a... That's right. That's the zipper version of it. Exactly. What was it about Campus Queen that resonated with you? Because it is... You've mentioned that one a lot. Yeah, it's one of my grail pens. And the reason is, it's the only pen that I've played where when I sat down and first started playing it, I was like, screw this game. This is the dumbest game ever. It's terrible. Why would you ever play this game? How all grails begin. That stupid grail. And then I played it again because it was a tournament and my score was terrible. And I played it again and I played it again and I played it again. And then I was out of the tournament and then the tournament was over and it was on free play, so I played it again and I played it again and I played it again. And I'm like, holy crap, why do I keep coming to this stupid game? And then I played it again and then I played it again. It's like, you know, I actually kind of like this game. Yeah, when it's trying to tell people which game should I keep What should I sell? I said, keep the ones you play. Good advice. Good advice. That's what I've had to do to start winnowing down my own assortment of games, which is why it's like, you know, I'm down to eight now. I'm still stuck with, I shouldn't say stuck. That's really bad. Open is probably the next one to go. That's why it's in the garage. But it's like, I didn't decide. I gave it out to Casey Game Con for them to use in the tournament. So it's like, I wasn't going to do anything with it until after that, because I had already committed months ago. So it's like, well, now it just sort of sits there. But it's got the best soundtrack. Now that's one where, see, I thought about writing to Josh Sharpe, president of the International Flipper Pinball Association, and telling him I want, in the rules, headphones to be banned. I want sunglasses banned. I want basically everything that I don't use banned. No headlamps? No headlamps. I actually really liked it at our Kansas City Championship Pinball. I thought it was fun that one of the players was using the headlamp, and you could always tell where he was looking because of it. I found that really interesting. But I do not use a headlamp, so bam! Bam! And then, but the thing is, Jaxda opened with its default ditty, which when I got the game, it was turned off. So you have it. Yes. I have not seen, I think I saw it once at a pinball show, but I have not. Well, we'll load it up. You can take it to the museum right now. There you go. What do you want to take a look at? We can pause real quick. Yeah, yeah. Because that's a lot like, yeah, I wanted to see that one. Okay, so we've actually paused the podcast for a little bit, and that was because we had a surprise for Tony, and I'm going to drop the audio in right now. And then the distance vision thing as well. Yeah, so. Backs to open. Yeah, that is a good game. Oh, no. Oops. So, I forgot about... I forgot about... Surprise. Merry Christmas. It's your campus queen. You forgot about it with the camera running in your hand. Yeah, with the camera running in my hand. That's awesome. The back glass looks really good, too. You know which one this is. The one that he bought in Tulsa? Yes. Because I almost brought it up when we were talking about when you brought a campus queen up. Because I almost went to that auction, and then I was like, I can't. I can't do it. So you were worrying me with the last broadcast that you did. You were like, I don't have any room in my house. I was like, look, if it's here, life finds a way. And if you need some time, I've got enough space you can keep it here. Yeah, I've got spots. Merry Christmas, Tony. Thank you. That's awesome. You're ready. That was a nice subtle pull down, by the way, too. And I almost didn't come downstairs because I almost went and got a drink. And we are back. So now everyone knows that Tony is the proud new owner of a Campus Queen. Yeah. Tony, what are your thoughts? Congratulations, firstly. Thank you. And, I mean, how many people get their very first pinball machine is their grail machine? because I've said it in the thing. It's my grail machine for a long time now. So, well, thank you, obviously. And I've said it down below. I'm sure the other audio caught some of it and this and that. That's just, I'm just, I'm in shock and it's awesome. And thank you. And thanks to Dennis as well for conspiring to spring the trap. So, yeah, I suppose for now that the cat, or in this case the campus, This is literally out of the bag. Oh, the dad jokes are so heavy. That this has been in the works for months. Really? Since the summer. Really? Very few people knew for obvious reasons. First, made sure everything was coming to fruition. But Nick actually reached out to me over the summer and said, I've been thinking about, I have this campus queen that I got for the museum, but we have other stuff on the floor and do you think Tony would like this? Well I mean yeah it a grail but just let just let me know I mean you know he not looking to buy a pin right now or anything He's like, no, no, no, it would be, give it to him. That'd be the plan. He's like, okay, well, that does make it more affordable. So factoring that in, I think the odds are probably pretty good that he would accept it. You have no idea the fear when he heard a couple episodes ago, you going on and on about how you just could not have a pinball machine in the house. He's like, oh, my God. And I'm like, don't worry. Life finds a way. Oh, yeah. The dinosaurs have taught me that is there's no room to fight. This is different. This is different. This can be made to work. This can be, yeah. I knew it was actually the summer because when I was at Carrie Wing's birthday party pinball tournament, she always has a pinball tournament in conjunction with her birthday in the summer. when I was at that she mentioned that there was a campus queen nearby that she was going to that she was communicating with you about and so I took her aside during the tournament and her and I think there was one other area player and I told them actually I'm in discussions with Nick Schell out of Roanoke about getting Tony the campus queen from them so don't tell them about any more deals because the one they told me about was in Houston And that was what broke. It's like, I just can't go to Houston for a pinball machine, even though the price is really good. And they're like, really? And I said, nothing is set in stone yet. It's just we're in these discussions right now to see if we can arrange it. It's going to work out. It makes sense for the museum. And, of course, as part of this, as a thank you on our behalf to you and the Roanoke Pinball Museum for such a generous gift, we are making a major exception and Roanoke Pinball Museum will be listed officially as our sponsor for the next year. I've actually recorded a half dozen bumpers already Wow! That should be sufficient Everyone who has heard this episode at the start heard that sponsorship bumper before our music and I will rotate through those and that will be enough to basically do a quarter and then we'll recycle and they go from me just doing it clean to pretty goofy. So it ranges. They range from 30 seconds to almost a minute depending on the voice work. Where is the pinball at? I did not do that one. I did not do that one. However, the Palpatine is pretty bad. Let's just put it that way. I'll just say the museum has had no prior approval or input as to Dennis's impressions. This is completely his... I still maintain a certain degree of creative freedom with sponsorship arrangements. I would like to point out that for Zach Minney with Flip N Out Pinball, wanting to know what does it take to get sponsorship with EGP, you now know. And Tony also has Attack from Mars as a grail. So, hey, you want to know the terms, there you go. You see, the gauntlet has been weighed down out of Rowan. That's how it is. So, Campus Queen, Ted's Ale Game, 1964? 66, I believe. 66? Yeah. Okay. See, this is where I should have pulled it up. Of course, we were playing 20 questions. And I knew it was Camp is Good. It's like, oh, Gator. Oh, it was. Yes, you're right. 66. 1,125 units. So not a very high. I mean, back then you didn't have like 5,000 unit runs usually, but that's still not all that high of an amount. Of course, there was Sheba as well, which I've seen. And then the Gator, which is the zipper flipper. And apparently I see the IPDB has a notation that a special version was made for Germany. I don't know if it had a different name or not. No, but it was in German. German language is on it. Oh, like Clayfield. Okay, nice. Kugel im Spell. German back glass. And he knows German. That's also good. That's about it, because I can read it. He knew that much German. Anyway. I don't even know. This is why he's in town That's Awesome I'm just I knew we were shooting for early December And we finally knew what dates it would be And that's why I was like Hey Tony can you record the podcast And I was like If he catches on He's asking why is he in Kansas And you say well he's on his way to Dallas And I'm like Kansas isn't exactly You're just on a buying spree like you do. You have traveled enough that honestly I never even thought about it. It didn't even cross my mind. I was never worried that he would wonder why you were in the area because your pattern has been there is no pattern. I just go on where there are interstates. I wasn't overly concerned but the excuse is about picking up stuff from Dallas but maybe you were going to stop for another auction in Oklahoma and you just figured you might as well come and spend a couple days here because we're such a fun podcast. There's all sorts of easy excuses. And all that was really, it was like, cool, we get to see Nick again. Awesome. Plus, he was dropped no hints. I have not talked to him about Candice Queen since we had these discussions. Yeah, this is bad. And so it was all, we gotta go under the barbed wire here. Not the premiere of barbed wire, which would have been a terrible, you would now be sponsoring us. We wouldn't be sponsoring you. The center was like, don't give me that one. I had a bad experience with Pug Wars, so I still pulled the grudge. And then Kerry didn't mention anything. I can't remember who else was with us. It might have been I don't remember who it was. It might have been Nick or Steve or someone. Whoever it was, I just remember going, I think they said, cool. but I said don't let him know just don't let him know I don't know you know this is still we knew it was months out so it's like I don't if anything can't work out I don't want to you know plant a seed and then it spreads and then it doesn't work out the way it was it's better to just let it be a surprise and that was well the door opened up and I walked in and I didn't even notice it for the first time and I'm like what? and then I just just sat there holding the camera and I'm like Yeah. That went way too low, because I was like, I'm trying to keep it kind of out of the way to be like this parents on Christmas. Hey, look, we gave you up for adoption. I'm like, no. No, we adopted you. That's the one. That's the one. That's the happy one. So I guess this would be the bad time to point out that you have a full streaming rig that you could have literally just put down there and just had it. No, of course. In fact, I did consider that, except I just figured it would be easier than I would know. I mean, I could stream the game. Actually, when I mentioned over Thanksgiving when getting stuff and cleaning the garage out and my dad had asked me about coming over to work on something, I told him about this. His suggestion was I set up the same streaming rig and then let Nick have a computer and just turn it and point to what appears to be a photo of Campus Queen, and then it actually be, no, no, that's your Campus Queen. We're streaming it now. That's pretty good. That's a pretty cool idea. But it's in Rona. I don't want to move it. But it's still in Rona. We have to get it to you. Meanwhile. Was this the game, Wizard Grail? Or the idea would be like, is this the game, looking at it, and then you see Nick appear in the camera someplace. Like, where did Nick go? I thought he was near the bathroom. It's like, nope. Oh, I guess he must be downstairs. What a miracle. that's just yeah that's so we only have one more segment we still have one more thing this is an idea uh that i thought would be interesting to talk about nick's glorious idea of course and you wanted to have a little discussion about audio headspace and this came up in the context of that there's a difference in experience related to sound when you're playing a game like campus queen an electromechanical game be it one like that one with bells or be it one with chimes versus and your emphasis was very much i i'll see i put down in my notes solid state but it's actually modern like especially once the early 90s hit uh dmd era hit and there started to be all this music and call outs what do you mean by that because you clearly favor one over the other meaning em noises that you think that the audio headspace that em creates is and i guess my impression from what you told me the other day was that it's more conducive to a good social environment than what happens around modern well it's different um okay so audio headspace what does that mean well let's just start with you know your five senses you know touch taste smell whatever uh the most important of the five senses relative to pinball is sound if you play a pinball machine and it's making no sounds, it just is unplayable. Tony seems to do well with his headphones. I love headphones. But you are hearing something. I'm hearing something. Now, I have talked to people who put headphones in with nothing playing just to drown everything out. I tried it once. Really messed my phone up. Real bad. So you have to have something kicking around in your head on an audio level that connects you to what's going on. And I think that sound is the most important element in pinball of the senses that engage you because it's a little theater that happens in your mind. And so what you hear is what even when you walk away from the game, those noises, those call outs, they still kind of rattle around in your head a little bit longer than something you see or something you touch. So why is this relevant? But pinball, we talk about the social aspect of pinball a lot. You know, it's better than video games because we're all on our feet and we're all kind of rubbing elbows with one another. And we're playing this game in this kind of social environment, right? That's kind of one of the advantages that pinball offers is that it's kind of social. Well, that's what Tony always cites from tournaments. His favorite part is the social experience. Yeah, and it is. It's a social experience. and just fixing them and part trading and buying and selling aside, the actual playing of kind of a multiplayer game. You take your turn, I take my turn, you get a little smack talk, I get a little smack talk. And I do prefer playing multiplayer to single. That's why when I say I am looking for a zipper flipper, I only name multiplayer ones. I don't want a single player. Exactly. I favor multiplayer too for that very reason, is that the multiplayer aspect of it is a much, much stronger social experience than waiting for one person to finish their entire game, and then the next person plays their entire game. So they cycle much better. Sorry, sweethearts. Yeah. I mean, the one-player games are fine, but they're great. But if we're talking about the social dynamics of pinball, the audio that you hear is kind of the glue that kind of holds it all together. So let me explain. If you were in an arcade with a bunch of pinball machines, and let's say they're all Sterns, let's say you have your Iron Maiden and Star Trek and Ripley's Believe It or Not and Monopoly, then everybody's in their own sort of audio world. Like Tony's going to be on Star Trek completing the Save the Enterprise, and Dennis is going to be on Iron Maiden doing the one minute to two minutes to midnight. So everyone kind of, even though we're standing together and playing pinball and we're all in the same room, the game itself is sort of dividing up our attention a little bit more than if, for example, they were all EMs. EMs don't have their own soundtrack. They only have the chimes and bells. And so a room full of EMs is a more harmonic thing. They're all operating in harmony. And so everyone's sort of headspace is shared with EMs in a way that it's not quite done with moderns. So, for example, if I have a room full of EMs and I'm playing one Led Zeppelin song, everyone, some part of their brain, is in the 70s, you know, is in that zone. But if I do the same with everyone playing moderns, they're still, they're in there. One person's in space, one person's in fantasy, one person's in whatever the theme of the game is. And it's just not quite, it's still social, but there's degrees. We're splitting hairs here, but there is a difference in the social experience. And another thing that EMs have that the moderns don't is that five-ball game, much quicker ball times. So if you're playing a multiplayer, there's much more movement among the players, much, much faster back-and-forth action. And those scores tend to stay within the same range. Whereas a modern, you could have one good ball that elevates you 20, 30, 40 billion points ahead of the next person. And you're waiting five minutes to get your turn. And you're like, oh, I'm never going to catch them on this game. So it's already blown. But EMs, it's like this tight tug-of-war thing. It's always within reach. And it's always kind of maybe one turn away. And so everyone's attention is focused and is still involved and engaged in the game. So the sounds of an EM and also the dynamics of the quick ball times make it a higher level of social exchange for that reason. That's my finding. What do you think about that, Tony? When we first brought this topic up before we started recording, I was like, eh, I listen to my music. But the way you describe it, it actually makes sense. It's when you're, I think it works better, like you said, with the EMs because they're all there. Everything is because of the shared dynamic. I think that makes a lot of sense because it's kind of like if you walk into an area, because obviously there's not a lot of areas around here that I've been in where there's just lots of EMs to get the feel. But it's like if you walk into the slot machine section of a casino, they've all got the same kind of sounds going. Everything's going the same. And everything, even though it's a lot of stuff going on, there's still a harmony to it. Where when you walk in and everybody's playing pinball machines, but they're all on different machines, it's like, oh, I hear the Beatles playing over here. And there's Willy Wonka over here. There's Elvis over there. And it doesn't mesh the same way. And I can actually see where you're coming from with the right machines with everything sounding the same. Even though it's all the different sounds at different times and all over each other, it all melds together and do a nice thing that kind of brings everything together that you don't get with modern machines. I actually think you've got a point here. I think you have a point. I don't agree with it. Not wholly, at least. I think this is one of the best arguments I've ever heard for an advantage that electromechanical has over modern gaming. And that would be it was it wasn't just the sound, though. You had the emphasis on the shorter ball times back when it was where you still had, roughly speaking, the idea that a game was still going to be three minutes long, but instead of three one minute balls, you're going to have five forty five second balls and it was going to keep things. And I agree with that. That does keep it moving. One of my least favorite things about playing modern games competitively, especially long players, is they are long players. Do you really want to be in a four-player game on Lord of the Rings? It's pretty tedious because most people aren't actually going to stand there and watch because you'd be standing a really long time watching Frodo try and beat Shelob. But on the other hand, obviously, the dynamics of our overall pinball market are very very different now if you are going for theme immersion bells and chimes will never give it for give it to you and if audio is as important as you say it is we cannot have wild on the glass theme integration with that sound package not possible you mean well that's with one person and the immersion in general now you could talk about like playing Zeppelin over the PA system and getting everyone into the theme of the 70s, but that has nothing to do with the pinball machine in and of itself anyway. No, and it's not a self-contained. That's true. You could curate the music to match your, like, oh, well, I play 60s music in the 60s room with the 60s pins, but you're forcing that. That doesn't have any direct thing to do with the theme. No, but that's okay, because the way you're framing it is that everything has to come from the machine like a jukebox, and that is not my argument. Mine is that it facilitates a larger inclusive social sort of headspace that, yes, you have to curate it as you play music over it, whatever. But everyone is included in an environment that they just feel a little bit that much more connected than they otherwise would in a room full of sterns. Right. And I don't disagree. But where I think the challenge, where I take issue with the point is, though, that you do have a lot of pinball players that want to celebrate the theme itself. And that's what modern games give them. Well, I might be more about shots and geometry than I am about theme. I understand that other people aren't going for that same reason. They're going because they love Willy Wonka or they love the Beatles and they want to feel that. Now, maybe that's where we say, well, that stuff's good for the home environment and we want something different out in the social environment. And we could obviously have that sort of discussion. And then what I think is interesting is what about when we get into that middle ground area? What if we talk between modern and EM and we start talking about the world of Fathom and the world of Space Shuttle? And where are we still? We don't have bells and chimes. We've got bleeps and bloops and maybe some real basic sound effects. and where does that integrate in? Where the games did start to sound different, at least from manufacturer to manufacturer, more so than they, you know, they obviously did to a degree in the EM era as well with the different bells and such. But, you know, you started to be like, oh, no, that's definitely mid-'80s. Oh, no, no, no, that's definitely late-'70s sort of thing. Where do you feel that fits in? Or does it not? Is it like the redheaded stepchild? Well, that's a good question. It really is, so the electromechanicals have a human-machine connection that is part of the experience as well. It tightly bound together and again I getting the philosophy but if you think about everything that happens in an EM is almost like it a living feedback system So every little click has a you know you score a point you hear a click you see the real turn There is this mechanical heartbeat sort of that's actually necessitated by the score motor. The score motor itself sets the rhythm that they're all kind of set to. So if you have 5,000 points, it's ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, one, two, three, four, five. this is going to reset and it's going to run the da-da-da-da-da. There is this rhythmic component that's built into literally the CPU of the game that everything is metered out to. That beat, like the beat of a story, the beat of a theater play, the beat of the game, feeds into the player experience. Whereas the early solid states, they don't have a heartbeat. It's more of a, you know, 2,000 points, eat. You know, there you go, whatever. But that is still something I think that everyone can connect with because I think once you get into soundtracks, once you get into music, and once you get into kind of callouts that have like voices that are really extensive, I think that starts to partition your attention away from the group and more towards it being more like a video game. And that also happened with the advent of technology. As our games, pinball machines, became less mechanical and more electronic and computer-based, it's kind of siphoning off our attention and monopolizing it in the way that our phones are doing today. It's just we make our tools, and then our tools make us. And so is it that the form of our pinball machines is following its function? So I guess, and they don't have to do that. That's the thing. I think that's what Denise figured out with Total Nuclear Annihilation, is that he created a modern machine that has a techno heartbeat. So it's almost like an artificial heart, you know, instead of a mechanical one that's turning, that beat. And it affects people differently. When they play that game, they kind of go into the TNA zone, you know. Well, they did give it a speaker to overpower all the other modern machines. I mean, we have, I mean, well, I do have one. We have one in a, what are we up to now? 13-game collection at 403 Club. You hear TNA on everything. It doesn't matter how many players there are. And it's fine. And it's not like they haven't turned up. So imagine if a whole room was full of games that had a TechnoPulse to it. Would people be connected? I think, I guess I'd have to experience it. Would they all be too layered? Would there be too much bass going on? I mean, like, do you want, I don't know. but audio is the sense that kicks around in your head more and longer than, like when you watch a horror movie and you hear somebody being ground up or whatever, it's like the sound of it sticks with you longer than what you see, because you can just, ugh. And so those audio environments we're creating with our pinball machines kind of affect how we connect with one another. So I guess that's really, so yeah, Yeah, so those early 80s machines are interesting. They had droners. I don't know if you remember Hot Doggin' and Flash, these games that they just... They kind of build, like Meteor does that too. Yeah, a lot of those, and I wondered if those were done... I always assumed they were done deliberately to invoke anxiety. Yeah, it's to up the pressure and to make you go... And maybe lose your ball or whatever. But I think those are neat. Those have their own kind of life to them, yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. If you have a room full of ballets, old ballets, is it more or less sort of social than EMs? I do think EMs, because they're reactive, because everything is just by its form, it gives you feedback. every little click, every little pop, every little relay, the rhythmic of the motor itself, gives you the strongest sort of kinetic haptic connection with what's happening inside of your game, the game you're playing as well as how it's working inside. You know, it's literally the most, gives the most sort of kinetic feedback. And so that enhances it a little bit. it. But yeah, with Scott Danesi's TNA, we could design games, modern games, that are a return to form, that have maybe techno music is the pulse of it, but it could be stripped down, not be so call-out sound effect based, and more atmospheric, and have maybe goals that build on game to game or something like that, or maybe even games that goals that can jump from one game to another, who knows. But that social aspect, I think we've got to be careful as we move forward that if our pinball machines are just too, creating this bubble around each player and then excludes everyone else outside of it, then it's really kind of a glorified, at least socially, kind of just like a glorified video game on the phone now. That's way more talking on the subject than I probably intended to put in. Well, it was your talk. No, I will. You did insert back when you introduced it and you were going through your arguments on the social aspect of EM. I will take one other issue, though. It wasn't an audio one, so I didn't want to raise it originally. I do not agree with your statement that EMs keep the scores close together and moderns do not. That is completely dependent on the style of the EM and many a bonus-heavy game that required you to do the thing, and the thing did not reset. if you didn't do it on ball one, you never could catch up to the person who did. But see, EMs have enough randomness in them that... See, I could beat Keith Elwin on an EM. I can probably never beat him on a modern. Yeah, but that's not inherently that the scoring somehow had less variance. throughout this game. That's just completely dependent on the game. So if it's a game where you just make shots and you get points for the shots, I agree with you. If it's a game where you have to hit particular lit things, do those things reset? Can you grind at them ever again? Or is it something that you need to do it, and then once you've done it, the only thing left is a 10-point option? And there are games like that as well. They use them in Pinberg. And it's like, okay, well, if you got the thing on ball one, you now have an advantage, because Did that carry over on, is it a one-player? Remember, these could include single players. Is it a one-player game? Are those bonuses carrying over from ball to ball? I agree that it's less common, but I don't want people to think that EMs somehow are inherently score-balanced because they are not. But what happened differently, I feel, in the modern era is the advent of software programming to allow almost rubber banding. The Mario Kart syndrome of the blue shell. what Gottlieb Premier was renowned for. Let's give Mystery Awards that are essentially catch-up features. And they weren't the only ones to do it. I know everyone loves to throw Premier under the bus, but let's not forget Bally Williams and Bugs Bunny and the score-swapping at the end. Oh, man, that's ridiculous. Or Police Force. Police Force is a perfectly good single-player game. As soon as you go multiplayer, it's like, what's going on on Ball 3? Oh, crap. That's what's going on. No, I was just A simple sound of agreement So let's just say That I created this a while ago If Sounds don't make a difference Imagine Joker Poker, you've played Joker Poker Of course, to many it's the greatest System one that Gottlieb did Though you assured me I like the solid state version But would it be a better game if It sounded like this Shoot the ball. Oh, you got the king. Oh. Ow. Oh, my goodness. Bonus. Bonus. And then finally. It'll never end. People are crashing the cars right now. No, people are dying. Stop it. Then drain the ball. Oh, no. We apologize for those with headphones on. That's actually surprisingly similar to Jack's. Oh, maybe that's it. Which we did not turn on when we went downstairs. So a lot of those, yeah, 88 to about 92, those games in that period had these insane, clinky-dinky soundtracks that are just over the top. Just for an attempt to compete with video games. Yeah, I guess. That's what I was assuming. That was always my guess, is that that's what it was. Well, that's what they were losing market share to. Right. So what do you do? You emulate your competition. And that's about the only way they could emulate it. And quite frankly, I mean, I don't think there's any argument that those sounds are better than Bells and Chimes. Bells and Chimes are always better. Bells and Chimes, I mean, while I've devil's advocated a degree of it, I'm thinking about pinball very holistically. You've got different sectors, sectors that didn't exist in the 70s. Right. It used to just be something you went on location and played casually. There weren't tournaments. There weren't private collect, not of note. and now we've got private collectors who want high-end games you've got high-level competitive players you've got people who go out and play socially and all sorts of weird mixes in between and they all want different experiences and i mean obviously it's like a venn diagram they're overlapping circles but it's not like how it used to be but regardless of that if you stick in the sound effect of bells or chimes and many a movie maker does it with a modern game and then just overlays a sound effect of the em era you know instantly what that is even if you never grew up with pinball you know what that is and that's pretty powerful to say that that sound is so iconic what is the end of our intro music but when i told the fiverr sound guy who was doing my sound i said yeah we do video games but i also like some pinball sounds in there what did he stick in. Well, it's like, sounds like them all to me. Yeah? Because nothing else quite sounds like it. Bagatelle sure don't. That's why people like Time Machine. They want to get to the 1950s and activate those chimes. Which is the most common thing I hear about people like about Car Hop from Premiere. Oh, it's got chimes in it? It's got a that or bells or something where you can put it in the 50s mode. And fire, same thing. You've got that bell at the top. A terrible game. Yeah. Go, bell. So, I don't know. Maybe I'm... The bell in Black Knight. That's true. Black Knight's got one. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Well, so I would say people probably... I don't know if you have any other topics, but just to... That was all of them. Definitely turn your tourists into players. That's right. A good way to do that is to fascinationify your lineup of games. I'll be curious if anyone reaches out. And feel free to reach out at collectivegamerspodcast.gmail.com. If any of you, you know, route and you try something, a game show concept. Be it Fascination or this gives you an idea to do something else. I don't know how you do Pinball Jeopardy, but maybe there's a way involving the machines. Yeah, I mean, anything to get that kind of interaction going more than even just tournament play. Because even in tournament play, the interaction's a lot tighter. Because most of the stuff I have seen that tries to drive people to play pinball has been high score challenges. But it's often been more in that, you know, they do it in a way, like a selfie way. Take a picture and win a beer mug sort of stuff. Yes. Or like how selfie leagues were, which started with a noblest enough intent. People are trying to find ways to play competitive pinball when they didn't have to fit it to a schedule. But it's also extremely asocial. Do you guys use the Pindigo app? I do. I've got it and I've put scores on it I like it because it keeps tracking my high scores that's what I do and I do go in and I look at other people in my friends list and see and try and make sure they're not beating me and then if they do I put my game on easy I assume they did 5 balls so I'm still better that's my logic alright actually I try and write when I need to I try and put my conditions in the note so people know what I've played on it Again, it's mostly useful for comparing against myself, but I know I'm going to say it's not. But it's still neat to see what people do and what they can achieve. There's an app called PinQuest that's come out, which is what sabotaged me regarding that market trend segment for buying market trend shirts. and that is an idea of someone who thought if i create this tool that vendors can buy into and use my app where they can people can go to their location and put up a high score they submit that to get it verified and submit it through this app and then that could be used as their evidence to get prizes but it's all for the individual to do it by themselves it's not designed to encourage me it encourages a social interaction it's it's to drive market really it's drive quarters. It's not to drive social interaction between players because everyone gets to do it on their own time. Which is the same thing as the selfie league. Everyone gets to do it on their own time. That's the whole idea behind the selfie league. Selfie leagues weren't devised so that people wouldn't interact, but more so that it's like, Tony and I have never played in the league here. For the longest time, the league has been, was on Wednesdays at 9pm and I cannot justify driving 30 minutes one way to do something that will be at least two hours if I have to get up before six. I wake up at four every morning. And they have responded. They now try and do events at seven in the morning. And I've heard their numbers are much better now that they've offered that. Choice is powerful. But if you offer too many time slots, then everyone's going to be by themselves, and it's not going to be social at all, and that would kind of defeat the purpose of their league. So I never ask them to make time changes because I don't think they should be accommodating around me. They need to do what's most popular. I do know nine wasn't the most popular. That was more driven, I think, by the people who organized it found that most convenient. Right. But that's something you have to factor in, too, because who's going to do the work to organize it? Because that ain't no nothing. Yeah, I have somebody working on our team who is, thank goodness, he's got a match play events, you know, savviness. And he's a pinball guy. and Ben. He's put together the roanoakpinballleague.com which I recommend at least adding to your bookmarks because we will be doing IFPA tournaments soon. We have done some local tournaments. They have not been IFPA yet, but we're about to get into that. And we're about to also start up local leagues. But my goal is to try to make a critical mass of social experience that has a high engagement level. Try and not really do the selfie, do your own thing, but really be a glorious experiences with, you know, that economic motivator of winning something or maybe even betting what you've won on another challenge or, you know, like having bystanders and announcements and prizes and engagement and people watching, maybe even stream it, you know, like just to create kind of that experience we used to have. You know, we were kids, we'd go to the skating rink, you know, and then spin the wheel and maybe you'd win something. Then everybody would be like, ooh, maybe it's going to be me. And that hope of winning something. I'm just, I'm seeing some energy at the museum that I have not seen in a long time. And people are really hungry for it in this era of, you know, loneliness, smartphones just kind of pulling away all of our attention. and it just seems to have all the right combination of pinball. Like you said, arcades were not places you wanted your kids to go back in the day. They were really kind of people smoke and drink and just kind of, you know, here's your quarters, kid, and just hang out. They were not really family places. But now, you know, we have new technology, but yet we still have these old games that we can keep running and kind of use them in new, interesting ways. So that's kind of what I'm experimenting with at the museum. And I think, I don't know, I see something here that could become something kind of special. So I'll keep you guys updated as to what's going on with that. Yeah, that's definitely interesting. Yeah, we wish you the best of luck. It sounds like things have been going well. So, yes, keep us informed. And those who want to follow along, now that Rono Pinball is a sponsor, or I have it embedded in the episode of the show notes. But Roanokepinball.org is your main website, so people can go there to always find out about the latest happenings. If you're out on the East Coast, because, of course, the East Coast is all really, really close to Roanoke, you should go to the Roanoke Pinball Museum, which is in Roanoke, Virginia. Not to be confused with the other Roanokes. How many other Roanokes? I don't know. I was warned that it's important to stress that it's in Virginia. It's in Roanoke, Virginia. It is. There's one immediately east of Or west of In the DFW area, there's a Roanoke, Texas So You're definitely not at that one And I get asked that sometimes, oh you're back I'm like no, no, no I could see Springfield confusing people But anyway Now for those that are confused that want to reach out to us I gave the email address, but again That's eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com We're also at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast We're available on Twitter, Twitch, and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. Yeah. And that's it. We'll actually be back in a week because we have to get back on the regular schedule because I record another podcast this weekend anyway. So I assured them this would not cut in. I'll still do both. There was concern. They're like, why are you doing this weird podcast? I'm not telling you. You have to wait. You have to wait. You have to wait. It's interesting. That's all I'm saying. It's interesting. Someone reached out because they're gathering. One of the other podcasts is actually gathering other audio and they contacted me and was like, are you sending anything in? I said, no, I wasn't planning to this year. And they're like, why? And I was like, well, I'm actually recording a lot of other stuff right now and I have no heart to do it. Because I was just like, I've been having to keep redoing my little ad plugs because I don't like how they're coming across. And it's like, no, I have plenty of time. Don't be interested. This first one is the worst one because it's the most meaningful one. But anyway, until then, that's Nick. And that's you guys. Bye. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 9842bfc1-f23b-46c2-8825-37f2d7fabfcb*