# Saturday Morning Spectacular LIVE from Automated Dec 6 **Source:** Kaneda Pinball Podcasts YouTube Lives **Type:** video **Published:** 2025-12-06 **Duration:** 50m 55s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCLZlLTCoDs --- ## Analysis Live Saturday morning broadcast from Automated Amusements featuring Jersey Jack Pinball founder Jack Danger in conversation with Kaneda and Todd Tucky. Discussion covers Harry Potter's massive commercial success (1,000+ Collector's Editions ordered), upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog pinball for mid-2025 release, Steve Ritchie's next game comparing favorably to Elton John, production capacity of 25-30 games/day, and licensing challenges including failed bids for Ghostbusters and lack of Matrix license. Also covered Winchester Mystery House and Beetlejuice sales performance, manufacturing improvements, and broader industry economics. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Harry Potter Collector's Edition had at least 1,000 units ordered — _Jack Danger directly stated 'At least a thousand' when asked about CE orders_ - [HIGH] Jersey Jack Pinball produces 25-30 games per day at maximum efficiency — _Jack Danger: 'we're doing about 25 to 30 a day' with good weeks around 150 units_ - [HIGH] Sonic the Hedgehog pinball targeting mid-year 2025 release (May-June timeframe) — _Jack Danger confirmed 'middle of the year' release when asked about timing_ - [HIGH] Winchester Mystery House had only 10 units available; all sold within an hour — _Distributor stated 'we only had 10' and 'They were all gone within an hour'_ - [MEDIUM] Stern only sold 200 Walking Dead Remastered units — _Rumor mentioned on stream but not confirmed by any official Stern representative_ - [HIGH] Beetlejuice had 10 units available at Automated Amusements; all sold — _Distributor stated 'we got 10 of them' and Mike sold all others_ - [HIGH] Steve Ritchie's unreleased game will 'give Elton John a run for its money' — _Jack Danger's direct comparison of Ritchie's game quality to his Elton John design_ - [HIGH] Jersey Jack is working on internet connectivity for all their games — _Jack confirmed 'We've been working on it for a couple of years' regarding game connectivity_ - [HIGH] Jersey Jack rejected Three Stooges license early in company history — _Jack stated 'I went to the Three Stooges' as first rejected license, confirmed by Todd_ - [HIGH] Jersey Jack had Matrix license but it 'has nothing' - just a movie poster lunchbox deal — _Jack Danger: 'I had the Matrix license' but 'It has a movie poster' with no assets for game_ ### Notable Quotes > "I mean personally I think we could make Harry Potter forever. It was the same way I felt Wizard of Oz." > — **Jack Danger**, ~10:45 > _Indicates extraordinary commercial potential of Harry Potter IP for JJP; suggests sustained production line possible unlike typical game lifecycles_ > "It's going to give Elton John a run for its money." > — **Jack Danger**, ~19:20 > _High praise for Steve Ritchie's unreleased game; Elton John widely considered one of Ritchie's best modern designs_ > "You don't hire Michelangelo to tell him how to paint the Sistine Chapel, right? Just let him loose." > — **Jack Danger**, ~20:00 > _Philosophy on designer autonomy; justification for extended development timelines on Ritchie's game_ > "Resist that. Resist that. Don't do that. Make it be perfect, right?" > — **Jack Danger**, ~18:45 > _Quality control mandate from leadership; addresses industry perception of rushing games to market_ > "There's always going to be something, right? And nobody caught it. And if there's not, you'll find something." > — **Jack Danger**, ~45:30 > _Response to AI art controversy on Harry Potter; deflects criticism by normalizing quality issues_ > "I didn't license Pokemon. I know, but imagine would that's the answer." > — **Jack Danger**, ~32:00 > _Direct dismissal of Pokemon license pursuit; indicates strategic licensing selectivity_ > "It took me 15 years, you know... Games in three months. Crap." > — **Jack Danger**, ~58:00 > _Reflection on accelerated game release pace; contrasts with historical production cycles_ > "Imagine $58 million and you didn't build one game." > — **Kaneda**, ~60:30 > _Reference to Robert Mueller/Deep Root Pinball Kickstarter failure; used as cautionary tale_ > "Pinball's not about that. Pinball's about making people happy. Give them a game." > — **Jack Danger**, ~37:00 > _Philosophy on collector engagement; justifies willingness to exceed allocations for customer satisfaction_ > "When I get a license, I want the cooperation." > — **Jack Danger**, ~50:30 > _Highlights importance of artist/estate cooperation on major licensed properties_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Jack Danger | person | Founder/creative lead of Jersey Jack Pinball; speaking on current game lineup, production, and licensing strategy | | Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Premium boutique pinball manufacturer; focus of interview regarding production, games, and business direction | | Harry Potter | game | JJP's flagship licensed game with 1,000+ CE orders; biggest seller and highest-grossing IP in pinball | | Sonic the Hedgehog Pinball | game | Upcoming JJP game targeting mid-2025 release; will run parallel to continued Harry Potter production | | Steve Ritchie | person | Legendary pinball designer at JJP; next game in development described as exceptional quality | | Wizard of Oz | game | Historic JJP game released 14 years ago at $6,500; featured hidden crystal ball monitor as surprise | | Elton John | game | Ritchie design used as quality benchmark; Jack considers it among Ritchie's best modern work | | Winchester Mystery House | game | Barrels of Fun game; limited 10-unit release at Automated Amusements sold out within one hour | | Beetlejuice | game | Spooky Pinball game; 10 units at Automated Amusements sold out; positioned as year-start release | | Walking Dead Remastered | game | Stern Pinball remaster; rumor of only 200 units sold; on order at distributors | | Dune | game | Barrels of Fun game at Automated Amusements; improved post-code updates; playfield mechanic named 'William' | | Automated Amusements | organization | Pinball arcade and distributor hosting the live broadcast; selling recent major releases | | Kaneda | person | Host of Kaneda Pinball Podcasts; conducts interview with Jack Danger | | Todd Tucky | person | Pinball content creator; participates in live discussion at Automated Amusements | | Eric Minor | person | Designer at JJP; working on next game after Harry Potter; transitioning afterward | | Mark Seiden | person | Designer rumored to be working on Halo game; mentioned as separate from JJP projects | | Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique manufacturer releasing Beetlejuice; compared as different business model than JJP | | Barrels of Fun | company | Boutique manufacturer; releasing Winchester Mystery House and Dune games | | Stern Pinball | company | Major competitor; pricing aligned with JJP now; Walking Dead Remastered mentioned as example | | American Pinball | company | Boutique manufacturer; Ryan McQuade reportedly pursuing Sonic license before JJP secured it | | Deep Root Pinball | company | Company associated with Robert Mueller; used as cautionary tale of failed Kickstarter ($58M) | | John Papaduke | person | Designer/Papa Duke; formerly at American Pinball; rumored to be driving bus; associated with Raza | | Slash | person | Guns N' Roses musician; provided extensive musical assets for JJP Guns N' Roses game | | Mike | person | Distributor/operator at Automated Amusements; handled sales of limited games like Winchester and Beetlejuice | | Albert | person | CFO at JJP; handles tariff impacts and manufacturing cost concerns | ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Manufacturing cost inflation impacting profitability; tariff concerns affecting pricing; economic uncertainty creating caution in industry (confidence: medium) — Jack referenced Albert (CFO) handling tariff issues; discussion of food/labor/material cost increases; general unease about economic trajectory - **[business_signal]** Jersey Jack operating at 25-30 games/day capacity with deliberate constraint to maintain quality; could theoretically increase but choosing not to (confidence: high) — Jack: 'we're doing about 25 to 30 a day' and 'We could probably go higher, but maybe the quality would drop' - **[community_signal]** Jersey Jack implementing internet connectivity for all games; working on feature for couple of years; will enable remote capabilities (confidence: high) — Jack: 'We've been working on it for a couple of years' regarding internet connection; explicitly confirmed 'Yes' to planned implementation - **[competitive_signal]** Stern Pinball prices now aligned with JJP at $13K+ range; Stern games experiencing significant secondary market value depreciation vs. JJP titles (confidence: medium) — Jack: 'Stern obviously raised their prices to be in line with your company now' and 'they're losing significant value now over the last few years' - **[design_philosophy]** Quality-first manufacturing mandate; leadership resisting 'good enough' mentality at game completion stage; extended development cycles prioritized (confidence: high) — Jack: 'Resist that. Resist that. Don't do that. Make it be perfect' and 'I want to make great games' not just good games - **[licensing_signal]** Jersey Jack rejected Pokemon license; maintains abandoned Matrix license with only movie poster assets; sought Three Stooges early but declined (confidence: high) — Jack: 'I didn't license Pokemon' and Matrix 'has a movie poster' and 'Three Stooges was a secret. Nobody was aware of it' - **[market_signal]** Winchester Mystery House and Beetlejuice extremely limited allocations (10 units each) selling out within hours; demand exceeds supply significantly (confidence: high) — Distributor: Winchester 'only had 10' and 'They were all gone within an hour'; Beetlejuice 'got 10 of them' and 'Mike sold them' all - **[market_signal]** Limited edition scarcity-driven pricing strategy; Harry Potter CEs at 1,000+ units held value; Wizard of Oz Standard Edition (112 units) not commanding premium despite rarity (confidence: high) — Jack: 'It's not about the rarity. It's about I want a game' and notes few Harry Potter CEs ever listed for resale unlike secondary market patterns - **[personnel_signal]** JC DeWin (animator/art director) transitioning from Jersey Jack to Dutch Pinball for Back to the Future project (confidence: medium) — Jack mentioned rumor of JC working on 'Back to the Future' and confirmed 'there might be some things he might have done' on upcoming games - **[announcement]** Sonic the Hedgehog Pinball officially confirmed for mid-2025 release (May-June timeframe) from Jersey Jack Pinball (confidence: high) — Jack Danger directly confirmed timeline: 'middle of the year' and 'May, June' when asked about Sonic release - **[product_strategy]** Steve Ritchie's next JJP game in final polish phase; Eric Minor already working on subsequent title; potential JC DeWin involvement on future games (confidence: high) — Jack: 'Steve's at a point right now with his game where you get to the end of the road and there's some little tweaks'; 'Eric's already on to the next one' - **[rumor_hype]** Walking Dead Remastered from Stern reportedly sold only 200 units; Status unknown but mentioned as 'rare' by operator (confidence: low) — Rumor stated on broadcast: 'Stern only sold 200 Walking Dead Remastered' but not confirmed by any official source --- ## Transcript Who said that about Utah? Let's Let's out him right now on live. Who? You want to jump in? I'm trash. No. Should we um I'm gonna go. Let's go find Todd Tucky. Who cares? The guy The guy that knows nothing about games. What is he a Twippy award winner? You know, you're not eligible. They They canled all the content categories. I want to be famous. All right. We're here at automated at automated. He's so tiny and I'm so fat. All right. So, let's talk. So, Winchester, did you sell any? Uh, yes. Well, Well, we we only had 10. We could only get 10. And Mike, I sold one. I could sold 50, but um Mike sold his. They were all gone within an hour. Did anyone here get a Winchester? No. No. Anyone here at Beetlejuice? Uh, we got 10 of them. 10? And Mike sold the I got one and then Mike sold all the others. Okay. So, um, I heard a rumor that Stern only sold 200 Walking Dead remastered. Do you hear that, Jack? Stern only sold 200 Walking Dead remastered. I don't know. I haven't sold one yet. I did have some people interested now. It's rare. They want to see it. They want to see the game. It's not. We have it on order. Yeah. It's just You think it's too much? I mean, the old Walking Dead was half the price. Did we need another Walking Dead? Well, I'm excited to see the TV screen and then they they have a few extras on the playfield. Yeah. Um I'm waiting to see. And we do have I have somebody interested in one, but they want to see it. Okay. So, we're going to wait until we get one. You know, there's there's not We don't have one here, right? No, I was hoping there's a there's a Dune here, though, right? There is a Dune. Okay. A Dune. How do you like Dune? I with all the updates on the code, it's a lot better. Okay. And I enjoy it very much. I love the worm. By the way, we learned that the worm is actually called William. William. His name, the mechanism is called William. Jack, you want to get in here? That's pretty good. We got another industry first here, Mr. Jack and Oh, you guys are came over. Can we talk to you, Jack? Hold on. Wait, Wait, wait. We're gonna Okay. Well, we're going to go back and forth. I've got to really back and forth. Back and forth. All right. Because he's the master. I'm not. I've been Jack. Jack makes the games. Shoot up and Jack makes the games. I'm sorry. We have a much bigger name on the other line. Yeah, we just we canled Todd for Jack. All right, Jack. How you doing? Chris, congratulations on Harry Potter success. By the way, there was just somebody here that was wearing exactly this. No, the same outfit minutes ago. Did you get his name? No, I didn't. He ran out. Is he eligible for a Twi? They They canceled my eligibility. Um, all right. So, Harry Potter, big success. Um, how many Can you tell us how many CES were ordered? At least a thousand. At least a Okay. More than a thousand. What's your What's your favorite CE? I like all three. Okay. I really I tell you what, I like all three. The Perpetual Salesman. Okay. So, the next game from JJP, I just have to ask. We We know it's Sonic the Hedgehog. Pinball machine. It's a pinball machine. We're all very excited. When When's the time frame, you think? Are we going to see it sometime next year? Yeah. In the middle of the year. Okay. So, around like summer, like May, June. Yeah. I like releasing things. We get the whole world uh to ourselves kind of. Okay. Nice. Show launches. Show launches they either go perfectly or they go disastrously, right? I've done both. And you're and so there'll be ostensibly two lines then because Potter you got you're going to keep making it. I mean personally I think we could make Harry Potter forever. It was the same way I felt Wizard of Oz. Yeah. You know I probably could have had a company if I was making 25 Wizard of Oz games a week. Yeah. I could have probably done that for the last 14 years. Yeah. Yeah. Is there ever talk of doing another W run because you could still sell them? I mean, people when I when I said years ago, my foot when I said years ago was Yeah, thank you. Um, the 100th anniversary, you know, if I'm still around. What year is that? 2039. 2039. We'll do a 100th anniversary game, right? Right. Yeah, because what you did the 70th anniversary was 75th. Okay. Um, but there's still demand. No, and I think you've confirmed no more pirates ever, which those guys continue to hold their value. Pirates of the C. You know, Mike had about four of them here once for for 125. Couldn't move them. Couldn't move them. And then that those same exact games were so everything sold out at the factory and then everything went crazy. 40 grand they were going for at one point. Yeah. The scenes. And what about The Hobbit? He's got a beautiful Hobbit in there. And I forgot how great it was. Yeah. Hobbit's the last great. If you didn't play Wizard of Oz in a long time, go play Wizard of Oz. Another great game play. Jack, right now you guys got next up um most likely Mark Ritchie. Is Mark Seiden working on another one? Mark Ritchie. Steve Ritchie. Steve. Why did I say Mark Ritchie? Mark, that's his brother, right? Is Mark doing anything over at Play Mechanic CGC? What do you hear in there? Does he talk to his brother? I think he's making Halo. Halo. That's the rumor. I don't know. Okay. So, Steve is up next. And is Mark Siden working on something new? Yes. Okay. And And Eric as well. So, you've got Mark started his his next game. Yeah. Okay. So, Eric's already on to the next one. Okay. How excited are you for the the next few titles? I mean, I know you're not going to say you're not you're going to kill it. Do you think the next three years of JJP are going to be sort of like a new benchmark for the organization? You know, I think so. I I mean, we're trying to continuously improve everything, right? I mean, we're not perfect. We're making games that I don't want to make good games. I want to make great games. You know, Steve's at a point right now with his game where you get to the end of the road and there's some little tweaks. Something not might not work all the time. Might work most of the time. Somebody else would say, you know, it's good enough. Yeah, it's good enough. It's pinball, you know, doesn't go up the ramp all the time. It rejects you. Death Star shot and Stern just shoot. He doesn't feel that way, right? He said if something's designed on there, it should be reliable and should work. So all those little things that you do at the end, they take a long time, right? And I told everybody on a call uh two weeks ago, because we do weekly calls uh on all the game development. I said, you know, at this stage of the game, it's easy to get um get the idea, hey, we worked on this long enough, it's good enough. Get it out of here. And I said, don't I said, resist that. Resist that. Don't do that. Make it be perfect, right? I'm going to go out there uh I think on the 15th or 16th something like that. I'm going to see. Have you played his new game? I did. And you've played all of his previous games. So, how does this game compare to his It's going to give Elton John a run for its money. Okay. All right. Yeah. Which one do you Is it got a little bit more Well, it's not done, you know. It's not But the sample that I took, um, it's a fun game. It's another game that you walk up to, you smile. Right. Right. It's a fun game. And Steve, you know, you don't hire I said it at shows. I said it many times. You don't hire Michelangelo. Tell him how to paint the system chapel, right? Just let him loose. Let him give him the time. We gave him the time. We gave him the budget. And you see what happened with with Alton John. It's probably the best game he's done in a long time in my opinion. I'm going to say that. Right. So we we heard just a couple weeks ago. So JP to win is is he still working with he's leaving JJP? You know, JP's interesting. You know, we have a great relationship with him. He still wants to do stuff for us. Okay. So, it wouldn't surprise me if you see him back on Eric's game. Okay. On Eric's next game. Okay. So, he won't be on Steve's game. No, I I think there might be some things he might have done. Okay. And the rumor is he's going over to work on a little Back to the Future. Yeah, it was a rumor. I heard that, too. Yeah. Okay. I didn't ask him. I talked to him the other day. You You mentioned earlier that you are always looking to continuously improve. What looking at your platform now what what kinds of things would you like to improve upon that you see area for improvement? I think the electronic system I think we can do a little bit better on that. You know years ago when I did the IO board I was being an operator I was very conscious of people repairing things in the field right and I did the through hole technology so it's big now everything's surface mount okay where it's very difficult to service right I didn't want to make you be married to me because you blew out a node board or something like that and you're charging all kinds of money for it I wanted you to be able to fix it right so we're going forward with that in mind. Okay. But we're going to bring, you know, it's it's 15 years, you know, January 1, 15th anniversary, right? Internet connection. I know you guys have like you you had Scorbit for a little bit, right? Is that something we might see ability to connect all the Jersey Jack games out there one day? Yes. Okay. We've been working on it for a couple of years. Okay. So, one day we're going to get internet connection into these games. Um, has there been a Has there been a theme that you didn't get that you wanted that you can talk about? Yeah. That I can talk about? Yeah. How about the first one, Jack? Oh, well, I guess that's true. In the beginning, I went to the Three Stooges. Yeah. No, No, no. Well, you know who you know who loves that Dr. Frightener? This Larry. Had you Larry the O guy? He's a He's a character. Larry came to Iappa and I listened to him for like 20 minutes and his son wanted to go to the booth and he finally walked away while Larry was talking. Larry told me to license the NFL. I mean I uh I just don't think Three Stooges would have been a good call. So um you know there's there's rumors of like Okay, let me ask you a different question because I know you can't always speak specific themes. Do you really think, you know, seeing the success of Harry Potter, um, seeing the success of Beetlejuice recently, uh, would do you think like the 80s nostalgic sort of period is is really where this demographic gravitates towards? And I think Potter's what, like early 2000s, maybe late 90s, when 20 2001 was the first Potter maybe movie, but the books were out prior, right? Where Where do you think the sweet spot for this demo is? It's changing. You know, everything changes every day, right? We're all getting older. New people coming into the industry, new people coming into collecting. You saw ata um there were people at Aia that came looking specifically for pinball machines at the show. Um at Expo when they asked people to put their hands up, it was our first expo. I think about 40% of the room put their hands up. That's really good. You know, we have to keep spreading the word of what we're doing. People, most of the earth does not did not know that you there's pinball machines. To us, it's our lives. Right. Right. Look at you. You're all decked out in pinball stuff. It's our lives. But, you know, you don't realize that. I go somewhere and I say, "Pinball." And the guy says, "Paintball? Did you paintball? P you sell paintball guns, right?" No. No. A pinball machine. We We've got a question. Talk to somebody about your email address, jacket jerseyball.com. And somebody said to me in the bank the other day, Jack, we have a question here. Um, there's a rumor Sad Boy here who always gives 50 bucks every week. So, thank you again, Sad Boy. There's a rumor about Ghostbusters that might have gone from Stern to JJP. Is there any truth to that rumor? I know you I can confirm or deny that rumor. Okay. Would you rumor? I will confirm that. Would you like to make Ghostbusters? I don't know. Well, you know, some some things that were made already should just be laid to rest and done. You know, I I'm not sure that that could be remade, right? When you see like a a big property like Star Wars and you see the stop already stop doing Star Wars games. Stop. Stop making Star Wars in general. 14 Star Wars games. I guess that's a question like a a property that big that never really did have like a masterpiece game that people love. Is there ever any like why don't we see if we can finally make a great Star Wars game or not? I wouldn't do it. Wouldn't do it. I wouldn't die on that hill. Right. Right. You know what I would have done if I was John Bogen? I had to make a new game. I'll tell you off camera. Okay. Tell you what to do. All right. All right. All right. So, um Well, there was a rumor he was making Indiana Jones and it was finished and then they the licensing shifted hands or the ownership of the property and it got sh Disney is a percentage basis. um of of sale price is the royalty. Okay. So um and back in the day when there was only one company, you could give a licensed company like $5 a game, right? Today there's everybody you you don't have a pinball company yet. Not yet. But you're smart. I'm going to buy home own pen. But um really what happens is that with competition, you have a lot of people banging on the doors of the same people for licenses. You know, somebody called me yesterday from a license company and said, "Hey, so and so was over here last week looking at this license. Maybe you want to look at it." Yeah. So, what they're trying to do is they're trying to create an auction, right? You want me to bid against somebody and everything? Has that happened to you? Have you had to go in and either save a license you thought you had or have you outbid somebody? I mean, the Sonic was a license that apparently AP was pursuing with Ryan McUade's game. And you probably should have the license before you develop the game, right? Do you think some people make mistakes by publicly talking about their intent? Talk about it. Yes, you're season veteran. Well, you know, it's interesting, right? Because both telling people what you're doing. Don't telegraph that. Spooky. Spooky did it on Godzilla and American did it on Sonic. Um, so how do you think Pokemon's going to do? You know, light themes and do you think that theme's going to click with the pinball buyer? I didn't license Pokemon. I know, but imagine would that's the answer. Okay, so I didn't license Pokemon. Okay. Uh, let's see. So, two lines. Have you guys ever had two fully operating lines? We did in Jersey and it was We had one employee that could build uh three. Was it a day? One employee could build three. Believe it or not, even you you might be able to build one. Yeah. I mean, probably not. I I can't even tell you. I can't even solder. Um you don't have to How many currently right now when you guys are at your maximum efficiency, how many games a week is coming out of JJP? Uh we're doing about 25 to 30 a day. Okay. So, a good a good week around 150. Yeah. And you want to have quality control. We could probably go higher, but maybe the quality would drop. I'm just saying maybe. Okay. Not saying it would because I'm not running the factory and and just because, you know, I want to ask you every question. The there was it annoying having that AI art issue on Potter at the beginning. Did Did that just everyone listen? There's I'm doing this so long. There's always going to be something, right? And nobody caught it. And if there's not, you'll find something. Yeah. Of course. Of course. Um, well, Jack, look, we're we're super happy for all the success. I think everyone is um, you know, really excited to see what you guys have coming down the pipeline, you know, and Mike always throws a great party every year. Mike throws a great party and, um, so guys, if you're thinking about getting a game, I heard Mike's just found 10 extra Beetlejuices that he has unsold. So, um, call over here. You might have some pirate games, too. You don't know. Jack, do you think it's like wrong to just auction off games? Is that like just What do you mean how auction off? Like let's say you have a game like if you if you only made a thousand Harry Potter CDs or there there would have been a lot of people locked out. Do you There would have been a lot of upset people and I didn't want to see anybody that wanted a Harry Potter game should be able to buy one because now we have a game for $10,000. Yeah. We have a game for 12 and you can justify where that $2,000 is. That's right. Not like we made a game and it's 7,000 more and you and you put a label on it or a piece of somebody's furniture on it. Thank you. Oh, Gordon, I know what the hell you did. Yeah. You know, I can't justify that. And then you have the collector edition and our collector customers, they're very loyal to the company and we we appreciate that. Very loyal buyers and they have room a whole room full of all the CE games, you know, including look, let's face it, Emerald City limited edition was a CE before anything. And the gold smug is beautiful, too. I mean, there are playable artwork. So when we did what we did with the collector game, the problem is if if Mike has allocated 50 of them, let's say, Mike has 150 customers that want the game. So the customer calls Mike. Hey Mike, how you doing? You got a game reserve for me? Oh no, I didn't know you went to him. What do you mean you didn't know? I bought every game from you. You didn't know what you don't. And there's and there's this pinball's not about that. Pinball's about making people happy. Give them a game. It doesn't matter. And And by the way, I'll say this. There's only 110 um um let me pick a game. There's 112 LA uh standard edition version Wizard of Oz games. So that's pretty rare. How come they're not 50 grand? Yeah, it's interesting. It's not about the rarity. It's about I want a game. I want a game. Are we going to see unlimited C's on the next title? I'm going to keep the same formula. Okay. Okay. So, what's good? I mean, you know, then it it hard it's hard to limit what you're doing. I mean, I get that, you know, if you make 500 or thousand or something, you're going to sell out and you're happy. You know, you're happy, you know, doing that. And you have a company that's spooky is different than us. And everybody's different than us. Everybody's different than, you know, you can't you can't put too many companies on top of each other and say they're on the same path, right? Is there any ever the same path as anybody? Is there ever any concern? I mean, seeing I mean, Stern obviously raised their prices to be in line with your company now. I mean, you if you look at a Stern for 13, it doesn't come with a topper. You put the topper on it, all of a sudden you're right around your 15. Um, looking at those sterns, they're losing significant value now over the last few years. Is there ever any concern if I make an unlimited run? Right now, there's no secondhand value loss to my customers that there is a little bit of a protection of the the value of a game if it is limited to some capacity. Not if it's a bad game. It is true. I, you know, I said recently that I just don't think many Harry Potter CES will ever be up for sale. No. And how many Wizard of Oz do you see for sale? Right. It's like it's like your wife, right? If you love her. Oh, should I talk? I don't even I didn't even finish this analogy in my head. I should stop right now. Happy wife, happy life. Yeah. Well, Jack, it's always a pleasure. Happy holidays. Hope you had a great surprise. I didn't know I'd get ambushed today. No, you're you're here every year. I think we do this interview every year. Okay, I'm gonna swing back around to Todd and Todd talk about wealth of information. I'm going to I'm going to give away all secrets. Yeah, we're going to Well, then I'll sit here then and make sure uh switch sides of the table. Technically say the Three Stooges was a secret. Nobody was aware of it. I mean, it's a good idea you didn't make Three Stooges. Um I will I will tell you something that Jack did on the Wizard of Oz. Uh I mentioned it in the video I did. Did you know that Jack never advertised on his brochure? never told anybody that he put a little monitor inside the crystal ball. That was Jack's idea to give the customer a little surprise he was not expecting. So when they unboxed the box and they saw that crystal ball light up. Wow. That was like wow. Yeah. When we went to Aappa that year, um we had eight games in the booth and we had a yellow road carpet that John had made. And nobody knew that what was in the crystal ball. A kid had asked me at a show and I said, "Well, it's an it's an LED. You know, it's going to light up." That's what I said. Now, that crystal ball, only the player can see it. That's right. It's aimed at somebody about 5'8, 5 foot n and that was their secret while they're playing that game is to see the crystal ball. That's right. Magic. Pinball magic under. You know, I I miss the one thing I miss is the wood apron was just Gorgeous. That was beautiful. Just that was an homage to the wood rail games. Okay. That's why I thought we did that. Okay. How like Jack's off camera, but uh tariffs, are they just annoying you right now? Talk to Alber in my company. Okay. My CFO. Okay. Albert's probably not happy. There's some holes in the walls. Yeah. Yeah. Um Okay. So, we got Jack here. We got Todd here. By the way, Jack, you got a lot of great comments. Yeah. I mean, the people love you, Jack. They love you. I mean, you're the the greatest pinball salesman, even better than Canada. I just want to make everybody have a good experience. And you have Well, when you think legacy is sealed, when you think about what Jack brought out to market, it was 13, 14 years ago, Wizard of Oz. Yeah. And you look at the games that were available then and it was $6,500. I mean, a lot of these newbies forget like there. See, I think sometimes it's a blessing and a curse being in this hobby as long as all of us have is you you see, you know, the price increases. You see um the changing dynamic of the hobby, but in the end, we still just all want the same things in these games, these world under glasses in in experience. You know, Enzo Ferrari used to say this, I want to make a car that when you drive it, you say, I only live once. I need to own this car. Yeah, I mean and that is very much the aim hopefully of all pinball manufacturers, but and the lineups of J. I mean, I still got my Guns and Roses and I take grief from people that say the gameplay is not there, you know, and every once in a while I turn it off for a few weeks and then I turn it back on and I'm just like blown away. It's a beautiful game. You have friends that Yeah. My guns is in my office upstairs. Yeah. And it's in corner and it has the topper that Joe Duso did the apron. I put the game on and I put it in I pushed the button in jukebox mode. Yeah. Let it do it thing. Yeah. I just stood back. Yeah. It It will probably go down as still the greatest amount of musical assets ever inserted into a pinball experience ever. When I get a license, I want the cooperation. Yeah. Have you ever had Have you ever asked Slash to help you with another license? Cuz he like everyone likes him. Like they they just do nice stuff for Slash Godfather. Yeah. Yep. Yep. And he was doing something on two other games that working. Okay. I love that he's like Hector just asked he gave you 200 MXs, whatever that is. But anyway, I think I think that's Mexican pesos, baby. Okay. I it wants to know will they ever make Matrix? I had the Matrix license. You You still do? I had it. Oh, you had it? It has nothing. It has a movie poster. It's a lunchbox deal, as they would say. Look, a game like Top Gun, right? Top Gun license. Tom Cruz 15 million to say hello. Okay. So, what are you going to get? Well, you know, somebody said to me, "Well, Raw thrills. the Top Gun video game. Of course they did Top Gun video game because it's a video game. All you need is a name the name and you make your own jets, make your own scenery, make your own movie assets in their top doesn't matter. Kid just wants to sit down and drive and fly a jet. Yeah, my grandmother wants to fly jets, right? That's what gentlemen wants to fly jets. So they can make that license work because Steve said to me, Richie said to me, "Hey, my brother got the license. Why can't you get the license? Yeah. I'm like because we don't have any assets. That's why we can't make a game. Yeah. Okay. So, no no Matrix, no Top Gun, um no Ghostbusters. So, what's left? The world is there's a lot. You know what I would love to see? Just more Fifth Element. Any comedies, Jack? Like, um I mean, The Office would be great, but I didn't want to game. He didn't want a game. Springsteen didn't want a game. Really? Cattyshack. What about Catty Shack? Catty Shack. You got a lot of states to deal with. Bill Murray, it's the it's the estates because when somebody's dead and somebody gets control of your estate. Yeah. Uh and they have a different idea than an actor had, you know, somebody might have thought it was real cool to have a pinball. Yeah. And they're just saying, "Well, I need uh I need $500 a game or something." Okay. Did um what about Barbie? You think Barbie would sell? I think it would. I do too. I've been saying Barbie and K-pop Demon Hunters now. I I have have you seen K-pop Demon Hunters yet? Yeah. I I stumbled on it. My daughter was watching with one of her friends and it was about a quarter of the way in and they're watching it in the house before it went to the theaters. Yeah. And I sat down. I said, "This is a great movie." Yeah. It's amazing. I loved it. And I said, "Why isn't this at the theater?" And then they they put it and it became the number one uh movie movie in theaters. for my industry friends based on that. I mean it's so there is going to be a K-pop redemption. Let's see. I'm trying to see if there any questions. I can't any more guys. Somebody gave you 10 10 bucks. 10 bucks. Who we got here? Is that we got 10 bucks here from the truth. Kareth. Kurth. Kareth. Kareth. All right. Um, so we are now approaching a new year and we're looking at Beetlejuice at the beginning of the year. It looks like a Jersey Jack game number what, Jack? 12 or 11. Losing count. Lucky 13. Is it 13? Okay, so we've got Spooky Beetlejuice, which is I think Spooky's around like 13th game. Games in three months. Crap. It took me 15 years, you know. Yeah, Dutch is still on game. Dutch is still in game number one. Like um I guess we got Beetlejuice, we got what's the rumor is either Transformers or Pokemon from Stern sometime at CES first week in January. Then we're looking at Raza, the return of John Papauke Jr.'s I heard he's driving a bus now. Have you heard this this? He's apparently I went to see I went to see uh Robert Mueller on American Greek. Yeah. What did Robert Mueller ever go to jail? Thought he did. People following the case. I haven't followed him. Did Blueberry when he Blueberry Johnson, that guy? He's like, imagine. Imagine Imagine $58 million and you didn't build one game. Yeah. If the guy took the money and put it in Apple, he could have stolen the 58 million and given it back. Yeah, that's what I don't get. I mean, anything centaur. Well, did you see that new I just saw another There's Robert Muellers everywhere in every industry. Netflix wire this director that's 47 Ronin 48 million and the dude just starts buying Ferraris, Rolls-Royces and buys a $600,000 mattress for his bed. Wow. And And so they blow through all 48 million and he's like, I'm I'm doing it. I'm making the show. And they give him another 11 and he just goes and blows it on more dumb [ __ ] It's like and not a single episode is completed. It's It's unbelievable that you know to be able to hoodwink people to that level. But Robert was an evil person to do that. Yeah. I mean while we saw Haggus when you see some people like right now like do you think that there should be more for both of you guys like more companies coming in or you think we're good now? Like we got in the water. We're good now. Okay. Do you um do you think like we're going to see any more closures from some of those smaller companies next year? Like we got Pinball Brothers, Padretti. I think once we get over this electronic or this economic hump, we'll be okay. It's a weird economy, right? Because I feel inflation's through the roof. Wages haven't gone up, but we haven't really had a true recession where where the markets have crashed. Like the markets have been very strong for some people. Um, but the cost of living is through the roof. The cost of manufacturing is going through the roof. Everyone's just feeling in uneasiness now. I looked at a menu, right? You go to like we went out last night. The things that used to be $27 are now $37. Yeah. It's And you know what changed? Well, the cost of food changed, cost of labor changed. Yeah. Cost of pizza box changed. Yeah. I mean, all these things went up. I [clears throat] should mention that Jack very generously took us out to dinner last night. Oh, really? Where'd you guys go? Hey, you didn't have to mention it in front of me because you're a great guy. Gusto. Mucho. Gusto. Gusto. It was very generous. Are you staying local, Jack? Right now, or did you drive? Oh, nice. Okay. All right. Can Canadian didn't get the dinner invite, guys. Now, now that we know it's public, well, like I'll Friday before day. Well, there was only 13. I'll bring you guys to Roan Seafood on the Thursday. We'll bring the whole family out like But to point of like, yeah, when we go out now like and just for now, you got like these little people. I love it. I love it. They're getting bigger, more every day. They're amazing. They're not slobbering all over. They could go to a restaurant and actually have dinner. Just feed them first. Get some chicken nuggets and fries. They They can last about a half hour at the table before it's Let them have their little iPads. This is what they play with. Scotty Pinball said, "I rent I will rent a party bus if J-pop was the driver." So, I heard John's got like this long burly beard and is like just kind of just off. I mean, talk about But Roz is coming back. We're still not done remaking John Papa Jr. ideas. So, Roz is coming back in uh April, May 33 by Dutch Pinball X. Then we're gonna get apparently it's gonna be nice. Elwin might be working on Fallout. Do we like that as a I've never Fallout. So I don't even know what it is. Do you know what Fallout is back exactly? No. Neither do I. No. 35,000 foot view. Yeah. It's, you know, the ominous titles of Stern recently, The Fall of the Empire, The Walking Dead, and Fallout. You it it In my way of thinking, I never named something as a negative, right? Yeah. You know what? No good gophers probably could have sold more. Yeah. If it wasn't called No Good Golfer, pretty pretty decent gophers. You got a hit. Well, Well, they managed to get around licensing Catty Shack because everybody thought it was the Catty Shack pinball. Yeah. Wasn't there like a vacation pinball machine, too? That wasn't Vacation America by uh Chicago Gaming. Actually, something interesting to note. When that game came out, it was very cheap. The brand new, right? It was $17.99. Uh I I thought the wholesale price was 15. It's supposed to sell for 3,000, right? Something around there. But But it had the lockown bar had two latches and everybody says, "Oh, this is so cheap with the latches." And now that's what we have. Not for me. Patches except Jack. And Jack still has the um coffin lock. I think I'd like to get rid of that. Why? Because if they're not adjusted on the old games the right way, the bar is loose. Adjust it. My G&R1's a little at times, you know, I'm like shimmy shaking it a lot to get it close. All right. Now I have to tell Jack Fran she loves him. So Chris, he gave him 20 bucks. Christopher Franchie loves you. Hey, Chris. Um, you know, and Chris has worked with you on a few titles. He worked on Elton John. I still think Franchie's cabinet should have been the CE, but that's just me. It would have sold more CES. Um, and did Godfather work with you? But it worked because he sold a lot of platinums and he sold a lot of I look I I think I can't find a new one in the box. Harry Potter's phenomenal. I still might give Elton the edge on the gameplay. There's just something about that upper right flipper shot on that game that is just I made that shot like 10 12 times in a row. It It's so good. If you hit it right, it's just right. I love when people are like, "There's no pose is just right and you can time it." People People when people say there's like no mess in like there's literally a ginormous piano under glass that he's banging on the keys. There's no mechs in it. That would have been a flat plastic before about Steve's game where the point was he was at that point the same time with Elton John and they couldn't get the head to move and they couldn't get the hands to work the right way, right? Somebody from the factory calls me up and says, "Listen, you need to tell Steve that head's not going to move and the hands aren't going to move." You go to Steve Whisper, you know, you know, you can talk. I said, "All right, fine." So I called him up. How you doing? Good. Everything's good. Any problems? Yeah. You know, we're working through this thing all members. Why? What's the matter? Nothing. Just solve it. I want his head to move and I want his hands to move. You'll figure out how to do it. That's great. Have a nice day. Yeah. I love it. How was that? No, it's it adds such a nice dynamic to to that world in that game. The one we have in the showroom's been hammered on for two years. We've had zero trouble with Elton. We have another 20 bucks here. Look, we're making more money here. Yeah, it's going back on tour. Really? Isn't he blind? No, he's not blind. He's very healthy. He's going on tour next year. It's going to be called the Once Around Sun tour. He's going to have guest guests with him. He's going to start off in LA Roger Stadium and he's going on tour for a year. Oh man. I mean, this these guys are making more now than they ever made. Stay home. How's it going to stay home? No, I know. Well, it's just it's addictive. You know, you love them so much. I got to get the hell out of here. All right. So, Jack, we have a question here. This is a good Has there been any talk on making the mummy game? Like some Universal monster the mummy based on the Brandon Frasier? Yeah, the Brendan Frasier mummy or old mummy. I would think that Australia that would be a lot of licensing too. Didn't Tom Cruz make a version of The Mummy that was terrible? Am I making that up? No. No, he did. I thought it was okay. I didn't think it was that terrible, but the I need something that's gonna sell all over the world. Yeah, The Mummy. Yeah, The Mummy I don't think would sell. Yeah. Well, like I mean Dracula. How about an Uncle Buck? I would love Uncle Or maybe you could select between different movies. So, I would say like different version the Well, not sure. They're dead. They're dead. John Cameron. What about Ferris Buer's? I mean, all the all the John Hughes classics. Breakfast Club, Ferris Buers, Uncle Buck. But Breakfast make a pinball machine. Is that a pinball machine? No. But But definitely um Ferris Buer would be a good one. It's like somebody offered me somebody offered me a car. Yeah. The other day, right? What do I do with it? Make it so you're driving an old one and you go somewhere in the world and driving a new one. That's not I don't know. Is that Is that a game? Yeah. I would like I do think commies like I would love a Zoolander. I just always think like something that could make its way into dudes man caves and like it would be like you'd want to walk up and play it. Smoking the bandon. I don't know. Maybe. What do you think? Thank you for doing this. I mean but that's old. Yeah. Maybe if you combined smoke that get in here. You got to get Jackie Gle in state. You got to get Bert Reynolds. I bet you they would all agree to it. How we doing everyone? Mike, thank you for hosting. There's the man. Automated services. Pinballs.com, right? Yep. This guy can get you anything. I except for Beetlejuice right now, right in Winchester. But um Mike, thank you again for hosting the party. Have you guys like It's our pleasure. had a wonderful party so far and it's still going on till 5 tonight. If you're local, come on down. We're here at 5 o'clock. I always miss the group photo. What time is the group photo? Do it early because do it early. We can't have We can't have Chris not be able to It was actually snowing earlier. AI center. Yeah. That's it. Yes, we're going to do drone shot. Jeff from Arcade Hollywood is filming a lot of drones. Chef, say hi. Get in here. What's up, everybody? How's it going out there in Canad? Yeah, it's good. It's good. Look, we are we are staying warm inside. It is cold out there, but this it it didn't snow too much. Just a little little on the ground this morning. The um Well, look, I'm going to go walk around a little bit. I'm going to grab this, leave you guys back here, get a coffee, and go see some games. I want to really want to play Dune. This is like the only place I can find. Oh, we got mic here. More mics. The place is filling up, but there's plenty of food. There's plenty of fun. That's important. Yeah, everybody's having Should we go do a lap of this place? Let's do it. And one lap around at least four hours. Get people's weird looks at this outfit. All right, let's do it. Should we turn the jukebox backs on and get some more? The record player call. We unplugged the He has this available for sale. A Sebring. I call it Sebring because that's how Steven King called it in one of his movies. The alternative alternative universe. Is there a Steven King pinball machine? No, there should be. But it was a great a great short story about a Sebring jukebox. Okay. See, Todd, no one's buying that jukebox. No, No, no. The rumor is Todd Todd doesn't know anything about gaming is the new rumor. So Frank is critical. Not my Frank. Gaming is gambling. Listen, you should know that Frank is the inventor of the battery board. No way. Saved 4,000 games with his battery. Really? That one that you attach it on? Yeah. Yeah. I had one of those in my Lord of the Rings. Did you? Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Frank has made the the Did you? I was going to, but the problem was Well, what? I went to Legal Zoom and they're like, "Oh, it's going to be like five grand." Okay. I put the deposit down. I draw up all the diagrams, all the paperwork. Pat attorney says, "No, it's like 12 to 15,000." But my biggest kicker was you have to do it, apply for it within a year of releasing it to the public. So, I lost out timewise on Okay. There's been a few copies. Good to know that. Franks is the best. All right. Frank's is the best. Only buy Frank's battery saver. He's off. We're going to let you go yet. Yeah. Yeah. I'm off. I'm off. All right. Let's Let's walk around. much work. Um, I'm going have to like walk backwards. I can't turn it around on my laptop. Star Wars. Star Wars. I mean, Potter looks amazing. Have to like let me just do this. All right. Are we back? Yeah. Did that work? Okay. All right. Sorry about that. Sorry about that. We frozen for a little bit. Um, always always a it's always a great pleasure to talk to Jack to um, you know, be amongst the people. I I always say this, this is a this is a hobby about being amongst the people and it it's just um a real pleasure to see all the games that I talk about a lot. Don't always get to see them and you know Mike's got like I want to say at least like 50 games back there. So what I'm going to do is you know let's talk for like 15 minutes that I'm going to go um play some stuff and then I do need to get back home and I'll tell you why. Because if you're planning to come here, the main thing is is I need to um I don't want to miss my kids the s coming to he's coming to town today. I think I'm going to miss that part of it, but it's like a whole winter market in the village with the hot chocolate and everything. So, as much as I love my pinball family, I I always don't ever try to miss memorable moments with my family family. Like last night we watched the Late Late Toy Show on RTE. If you're Irish, you know what I'm talking about. Um, so yeah. Oh man. Yeah, the community is everything. Um, no, we have to sign up to RTE online. So I um look I think when you look at what's happening in pin right now it it's and and you seeing Harry Potter again every time I see Harry Potter man it's just like wow you know it it is a wow that's even a level above G&R I think it's a level above Elden so I think you know the next game from Steve Ritchie is gonna just it's gonna be like here how much Beetlejuice wow just has that wow factor that pulls people in. Dune is gorgeous. You know, I just walked by it. Um, it doesn't have the same wow wow as Potter. It I mean, again, this is just aesthetic. The The real issue I see in all of this is like whether it's Dune or Potter or Beetlejuice, the Stern games are just looking like they just don't look they don't have the wow anymore. And it's not because like all Sterns are cheap. It's just these recent Stern offerings just don't pop like they used to. I'm sorry, but if you were to put a Batman SLE next to all these games, it would be like whoa. Ghostbusters. Whoa. Like I I just think the Star Wars when you see it, it's just it's just underwhelming. And I don't think Stern can keep coming out with underwhelming after underwhelming game. And like I don't think there's a Walking Dead remastered here. So I heard they only sold 200. I'm sure they sold more than 200. Frank back. Frank, where are you? Are you coming? Frank, I can't stay all day today. Are you at like a hockey thing? Are you coming to this? But look, it's if you're not wowing, you're like you're in Sedona. Oh man, it's um and that's it. I think Stern's got its work cut out for it. I think JJP, we got some good news today. We got news like that JJP's next game is going to be unlimited CE, so there's not going to be a FOMO to get on a list anymore to get those games. Um we got some information that no Top Gun, no Matrix. We got some information of um Yeah. What else do we uh uncover? New New computing system coming maybe from Jersey Jack that JP Dwin might work with them again in the future that someone new is probably working that JP Dwin might have been working on Steve Ritchie's game. So here's what I want to do gang. Um, I hope you guys This is like I'm going to I'm going to make this a little bit of a shorter show because I do want to just go play and talk to people and hang out. [snorts] Uh, I I hope hopefully you felt like this was a a great show today. I I felt like it was a great show today. I want to go back and thank um everybody who gave a donation here. Thank you guys so much. I really do appreciate everything you guys do. Uh, I will say this. The, um, let me tell you one funny story that just shows you how crazy people are for Beetlejuice. I had one of my listeners reached out to me. Dude, someone did this to this guy. They like, they found his email address and they made an email address that was like one number off from his and they emailed a the distributor that he had his Beetlejuice spot at and said, "I want to give up my spot." And then they swooped in and bought it. Oh, no. I think it was like, I want to give up my spot to this person. So th this person literally made up a fake email address, told the dealer to transfer his spot to like a new person at MSRP, and then that new person took it and scalped it for like or four or $5,000 over by faking someone's email address. Like that's crazy. Now, what's so stupid about it is the games aren't made yet. So, whoever did that and made the fake email address, See, here's what I feel bad about is I I that guy that paid like 5,000 over like now doesn't have a game. And I hope he gets his money back. I hope we out the guy that did this. It's absolutely fraud, but I hope we out the guy that did this. I also think you know like like it's you know what's funny is like it could never happen to me if I because I'm Canadada pinballgmail.com they would know that Chris would never give up a spot at MSRP. They like Canada would never give it up for MSRP. So Josh Kush Josh, did we find out Josh is on Facebook right now. Josh, did we find out did we find out who did it? Did we Did I'm so cur This is such an interesting story. I I mean I've heard I just, you know, just when I thought I I I've heard it all in this hobby. I've never heard of that happening. Absolutely [snorts] nuts. So that's the thing is like well Josh doesn't want to give up his spot. So I I it would have been much different if if like the game was made and the game was shipped. I think it was someone that reached out to me to buy it the first day of listing. Okay. Crazy Crazy story. Josh, I'll call you back today and get all the details. But anyway, I want to go play some pinball. So, guys, thank you so much. Um, it's Oh, wow. wow. It's bright. The real world is bright. Um, I'm going to go play some machines and maybe snag a piece of pizza, but I want to have like a normal meal today. I don't want to I don't want to have like pizza for breakfast. And, uh, we'll be good. All right. So, God bless everybody out there. Say a prayer for Tux and everybody else out there who's going through some tough stuff. Man, it's it's life is very short and we need to look out for each other and take care of each other and get ready for some fun Canadian news coming up sometime hopefully before the the new year. All right, love you guys. Be good and thanks for hanging out. _(Acquisition: youtube_auto_sub, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-06-06 | Item ID: 9f3c4200-aa62-449a-b7b1-5aa6332d8903*