# Episode 170 - Kojima Story 4

**Source:** Eclectic Gamers Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2022-06-26  
**Duration:** 69m 45s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://soundcloud.com/user-465086826/episode-170

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## Analysis

Dennis and Tony discuss the announcement of Jersey Jack Pinball's Toy Story 4 Pinball machine (LE: $12k, CE: $15k). They express significant disappointment with the licensing choice (Toy Story 4 instead of the original trilogy), criticize the sparse playfield relative to competing games like Godzilla Premium, and debate pricing strategy as a barrier to both casual players and operators. Despite approachable rules design, they argue the game is priced exclusively for high-end collectors, undermining its operator-friendly theme and mechanics.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Toy Story 4 Pinball limited edition is $12,000 and collector's edition is $15,000 — _Dennis cites official JJP pricing directly from This Week in Pinball's coverage_
- [HIGH] JJP has already shipped some limited editions and will produce collector's editions in fall — _Dennis states LEs were pre-built and shipped; CEs slated for fall production_
- [MEDIUM] The game features Tim Allen as Buzz via custom call-outs; Woody voice is done by Tom Hanks's brother — _Dennis relays this but acknowledges uncertainty about Hanks relationship; notes voice quality fooled him_
- [HIGH] Most people agree Toy Story 4 alone is a worse licensing choice than original trilogy or first film only — _Tony and Dennis both confirm universal agreement among players they're aware of_
- [HIGH] Toy Story 4 playfield is significantly sparser than Godzilla Premium, which costs $3,000 less — _Dennis performs detailed mechanical feature comparison; Tony agrees assessment_
- [MEDIUM] The game is designed for inexperienced/casual players with long ball times and approachable code — _Dennis notes JJP team wanted players to reach wizard mode; Tony confirms reports of accessibility_
- [MEDIUM] JJP dropped the standard edition because it wasn't selling well — _Dennis states 'I heard they were selling like dogs' but qualifies as hearsay_
- [MEDIUM] Pinball is now exclusively positioned as a high-end collector market, not accessible to casual/location players — _Tony and Dennis agree this pricing makes the game unviable for most operators despite theme/mechanics suitability_

### Notable Quotes

> "Toy Story 4 is a winner for the common folk. You're all crazy. This is going to sell well 100%."
> — **Unknown quote from someone Dennis knows**, ~33:00
> _Illustrates tone-deaf perspective on pricing accessibility; becomes a focal point for Dennis/Tony's criticism of who can actually afford $12k machines_

> "It's like if you call your boss because your car's broke down, he's like, well, why don't you just drive your other car?"
> — **Tony**, ~35:00
> _Analogy mocking the disconnect between $12k pinball pricing and everyday economic reality of 'common folk'_

> "I don't understand why I would pay another $3,000 for less of a game."
> — **Dennis**, ~43:00
> _Core pricing criticism: LE is $3k more than Godzilla Premium but mechanically sparse by comparison_

> "It's like opposite day."
> — **Tony**, ~44:00
> _Concise critique of backwards pricing strategy (more expensive, fewer features)_

> "This is a game that seems to be designed for a certain type of player, designed for fans of Toy Story 4. But they are not going to be able to play this game because it's not going to be operating anywhere. Nobody's going to be able to afford to operate it."
> — **Tony**, ~52:00
> _Identifies core market failure: theme appeals to families/kids, but $12k price means no location placement_

> "JJP saw people flipping games and they're trying to make sure that money isn't being left on the table."
> — **Dennis**, ~46:00
> _Articulates suspected business rationale: maximizing collector resale/flipping revenue at expense of wider market_

> "Sticking in 300 LEDs does not impress me... They're normal now."
> — **Tony**, ~45:00
> _Dismisses LED count as marketing gimmick; notes commodity technology not worth premium pricing_

> "In so many ways, other than price really, it seems like it's a very operator-friendly game."
> — **Dennis**, ~51:00
> _Acknowledges game design suits location/casual play despite pricing blocking that market_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer that announced Toy Story 4 Pinball; known for premium-tier pricing and collector focus |
| Pat Lawler | person | Designer of Toy Story 4 Pinball |
| Joe Katz | person | Lead software engineer/rules designer for Toy Story 4 Pinball |
| John Yowsey | person | Artwork designer for Toy Story 4 Pinball; recurring collaborator with Pat Lawler |
| Tim Allen | person | Provided custom Buzz Lightyear call-outs for Toy Story 4 Pinball |
| Tom Hanks | person | Original Woody voice; his brother reportedly provides Woody call-outs for game |
| Toy Story 4 Pinball | game | Jersey Jack Pinball's latest announced game; LE $12k, CE $15k; major community controversy over theme choice and pricing |
| Godzilla Premium | game | JJP premium tier game at $9k MSRP; used as comparison point for superior mechanical features at lower cost |
| Guns N' Roses Pinball | game | Previous JJP game; featured Hot Rails mechanic; delayed release relative to film; CE run was doubled from this game |
| This Week in Pinball | organization | Pinball news/media outlet; provided deep-dive coverage on Toy Story 4 announcement |
| Zach Minney | person | Flippin' Out Pinball owner; presents collector perspective on high pricing strategy and resale value retention |
| Tony | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast; discusses Toy Story 4 Pinball criticism and pricing accessibility concerns |
| Dennis | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast; provides detailed mechanical feature analysis comparing Toy Story 4 to Godzilla |
| Wizard of Oz Pinball | game | Referenced as comparison for mechanical feature-dense playfield; commonly cited as benchmark for feature count |
| Toy Story (franchise) | product | Disney/Pixar IP; Toy Story 4 chosen as licensing theme despite original trilogy being more universally preferred |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Jersey Jack Pinball Toy Story 4 announcement, Pinball machine pricing and collector vs operator market segmentation, IP licensing choice (Toy Story 4 vs original trilogy), Mechanical features and playfield design comparison (Toy Story 4 vs Godzilla Premium)
- **Secondary:** LED implementation as marketing/pricing justification, Operator vs collector market dynamics and game viability at location venues, Game accessibility and rules design (approachable for casual players), JJP product strategy and pricing tiers (LE vs CE)

### Sentiment

**Negative** (-0.78) — Strong criticism of licensing choice, pricing strategy, and playfield sparseness. Tony and Dennis express disappointment and frustration. However, both acknowledge positive aspects (approachable code, operator-friendly theme) and avoid personal attacks on designers. Tone is analytical/disappointed rather than angry.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** JJP positioning exclusively as high-end collector market; dropping standard edition due to poor sales signals abandonment of operator/casual player tier (confidence: medium) — Dennis: 'I heard they were selling like dogs'; notes this was 'smart' decision but reflects strategic market shift. Tony: game won't operate anywhere because no one can afford $12k location buy
- **[community_signal]** Market accessibility concern: $12k-$15k pricing creates barrier for both casual players and most operators despite game being designed as approachable/location-friendly (confidence: high) — Tony: 'this is a game that seems to be designed for a certain type of player... But they are not going to be able to play this game because it's not going to be operating anywhere'
- **[design_philosophy]** Community consensus that Toy Story 4 was poor licensing choice compared to original trilogy or first film; game theme misaligned with IP quality perception (confidence: high) — Both hosts confirm universal agreement from players they know; Tony states 'I don't know anyone who doesn't agree'; even fans of the game agree original trilogy would be better
- **[design_philosophy]** Toy Story 4 designed for inexperienced/casual players with long ball times and approachable first-side wizard mode; conflicts with premium-only collector pricing model (confidence: medium) — Dennis: 'I guess you do a side as Woody and a side as Buzz... people without high skill would be able to get through one of those paths'; Tony confirms reports support this
- **[licensing_signal]** Toy Story 4 may have been only available licensing option from Disney/Pixar or Pixar-controlled; three-year gap since film release suggests licensing was constrained (confidence: low) — Dennis speculates Toy Story 4 was only accessible license; wonders if walking away would have been better strategy; notes surprise at release timing
- **[market_signal]** Game designed with explicit appeal to Toy Story fan families and casual/location players but priced out of reach for that demographic (confidence: high) — Tony: 'kids will know Toy Story. They're not going to have money to buy a $12,000 game, but they would have money to put money into one'; game won't operate anywhere
- **[market_signal]** JJP using LED and cosmetic differentiators (powder coat, RGB count) as primary LE/CE distinction rather than mechanical features (confidence: medium) — Dennis notes CE has 450 LEDs vs LE's 300, red vs blue powder coat, Pixar Luxor knob; minimal mechanical differentiation between tiers
- **[market_signal]** Toy Story 4 LE priced at $3,000 premium to Godzilla Premium despite demonstrably fewer mechanical features; community questioning sustainability of three-tier pricing model (confidence: high) — Dennis detailed mechanical comparison; both note sparse playfield relative to cost. Dennis: 'I don't understand why I would pay another $3,000 for less of a game'
- **[announcement]** Jersey Jack Pinball officially announced Toy Story 4 Pinball with two tiers (LE $12k, CE $15k); LEs already shipping, CEs coming fall (confidence: high) — Dennis cites official pricing and production timeline from This Week in Pinball coverage; announcement was official JJP reveal
- **[product_concern]** LED count (300 LE / 450 CE) positioned as premium differentiator but perceived as commoditized feature; not sufficient justification for $3k price premium (confidence: high) — Tony: 'Sticking in 300 LEDs does not impress me... They're normal now. They're no big deal.' Dennis agrees LED programming cost not worth price delta

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## Transcript

 Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, June 26th. This is episode 170, and I am Tony. And I am Dennis. And we are back, but we are not together. We are remote. I have a head cold or I'm on the backside of a head cold. I feel a lot better today than I have the last couple of days. My sinuses are finally like, hey, you can be okay now. So just to be safe. I mean, it's not I didn't have COVID or anything like that. It was just a head cold. But you've got like work to do and stuff. So you can't risk being sick. You're an important person. I'm heading out. I'm heading out this evening out west. So I have a three-day conference that I'm hosting. And I thought, well, you know, you shouldn't be contagious anymore if you're in your recovery phase. But let's not take a chance on it because I'll probably get sick at the thing anyway. Right. I'm hoping not. But you know how Concrete is. It is Concrete. No, you didn't get Concrete out of Texas. I did not. Not COVID, though. I tested five times. You tested so often that you've got scar tissue inside of your nose. My nose was bleeding the last two of them. Hey, it said scrape vigorously. Well, yeah, but you're not supposed to use like a fingernail or something. And then I've got a meeting not as far away, but on Thursday back west, not as much west. And I was like, oh, my God, this week sucks. This week already sucks. But you've been busy, busy, busy, Tony. I have been between my normal work stuff, my own personal hobby stuff. We've been doing driver's ed with my oldest And extra driving on top of Driver's ed The cross country Stuff still With me still walking As best as I can I've got swimming lessons Starting next week for the youngest So it's just Every day's got something going on But I did get to teach my oldest How to change a tire Since she picked up a nail Yeah that's a i mean i'm trying to remember if i ever i know i've done tires before i'm trying to remember if i ever actually had any like help on how to do one i can't remember i remember one time i wanted to change a tire and the you know i didn't have a breaker bar with me i couldn't get the lugs off and i had uh i thankfully had a air compressor so i was able to it was a slow leak so i was able to get home but i was just like yeah we uh so what so what happened oh we were out driving, and I made her drive on some gravel roads, which she absolutely hated, and we'd apparently picked up what looks like a really big staple, and I noticed when we got home that the tire looked a little low, and then when we went out the next day, it was completely off the rim flat. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. Well, hey, good learning experience. You know, I learned how to drive on gravel roads because I lived on one. Yeah, I think it's an important skill to have, and it also helped that I was able to take her out to busier two-lane roads and get some speed because she'd never been anywhere where she actually had to drive fast. I don't think she'd ever gotten into a vehicle up over, you know, like 35 or 40 at that point because all of our driving had been residential and in town and in parking lots and stuff. So we got out and we got doing, you know, 60s and stuff like that. So get her more comfortable with the drivings. now does she enjoy driving with you more or your or your wife the instructor she she she said it was easier to drive with the instructor so uh wife bought a car and and now she's gone from hating driving to loving driving and wants to drive all the time so she's always driving off and doing stuff it's always an adventure with her now it is it's the car does look nice yeah I don't know. I'm a buy the cheapest piece of s*** you can, and then when it falls apart, buy the next cheapest piece of s*** you can kind of driver. But I can see the joy of having a nice vehicle, as I make you bleep twice already in the first seven minutes. Well, that's what happens when we're remote. So I can see the point of having a nice car. Well, the nicest thing I've had with my, because the last two vehicles I've purchased were not used, is there's so much less maintenance. So that's probably the big thing that I, with all my other vehicles, they all got to a point where I was like, if I was on an extended drive, I'd have to start wondering, well, what if this part breaks or what if this gives out? And am I going to be able to do it? Am I going to have to find someplace? Am I going to have to call someone for a ride? And I never really worried much about that after I got a new vehicle. even when the uh one started to go out because of course i drove it enough my last one i think i put about 230 000 on it and you know it started to have issues after 100 000 and then a lot more issues after 200 000 but it was still really reliable so it wasn't always like oh the alternator is out which is like something that had to be done on all my other vehicles well see that's something that's about the time i buy them is i think all of our i i think like i think the last I don't even know how many vehicles that I've owned all have over 200,000 miles on them it's pretty much like where they're at when I get them well I have not been doing as much I've not been teaching any driving I've not been buying any new vehicles I haven't been having to bleep myself it's been very very solid I started a new game I guess it's probably arrived in other places as well but Xbox finally got Fall Guys so I've been playing Fall Guys isn't that that weird it's the one where you're like a walking bean and you're like playing the TV show Wipeout wasn't that the one that was the like huge Twitch deal like last year or the year before before Among Us took over? Yeah it was the pandemic hotness and then Among Us usurped it but I think Fall Guys was a unlike Among Us which had been out a few years I think Fall Guys was a newer game So it's on Switch now. I don't know if that was brand new or not. I saw some people discussing the latency and how they sort of solved issues with that on Twitch. It has full cross-play. But, yeah, it's free to play. Oh, nice. You can get season passes and stuff if you want to. You know, you can buy outfits, basically. But otherwise, yep, you're, like, in these groups of 60. You can play it in duo mode, squad mode. So you play with three other people. You can play it by yourself. and the different modes are neat in the sense that like if you're in a squad mode with and i've done a few of those games where you're with four people and i just get grouped with them on like you might not finish a race or you might get you fall off which would disqualify you but if your team got through or someone on your team got through you might get to go on because it depends on how fast they did it and stuff so it can help out so yeah they're like races uh there's puzzles there's uh you know jumping things but all the buttons are are walk jump and grab it's been fun so it's like baby's first battle royale game yes but it's hard oh gosh like winning i've i've won twice and both of those instances were in group modes like one time our squad, the four-person squad won last night, and then I was in a duo mode and won a couple days ago. That's it. I've never won on my own. I've gotten to the final round before, but yeah, because, you know, there'll be a big old beam, and it'll just sweep you right off the map, and then you're cheering for a beam guy that's dressed up like a pimp. And I'm just like, come on, pimp guy. Don't lose to the guy who looks like a piece of sushi. Pimp beam. Pimp beam. And pimp beam won, which means I won, even though I got wiped out in 10 seconds. I consider it a moral victory. It's a moral victory. Yes. So, before we move on to our segments, and we don't have a whole lot, at least not in pinball. Well, we got a big thing, but it's really the only thing to talk about. But we had a couple emails, and one of them I'm going to go ahead and cover now before we move into the pinball segment. This is from Scott Goldberg, and this one's mostly targeting you, Tony. I'm being targeted. You are. Just dodge. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge an email. And he wrote, boys, the consistency, candor, and humor are appreciated. I never miss an episode. Recent highlights for me are when you two throw out the buzzwords of our times. Web 3.0, Tony. NFTs. Blah, blah. The walking story you told this past episode was gold. I had to replay that part. Thank you for all the content The friendship you share makes the podcast what it is Well thank you Scott Yeah thank you very much And that I don't have a good walking story Because I was The last time I was on the front side Of getting this head cold So I just kind of Meandered slowly And it wasn't hot because it was like A front had just come through So I don't have a good story It's slow fat guy wanderings at that point I mowed yesterday It was hot out, and I didn't like it. I probably should have, but I was like, you know what? It is like my sinuses are just absolutely full, so I'm not going to do it. It was enough to go out and change the tire on the car yesterday. Yes. Well, I didn't want to, but I thought it's going to actually be, because it wasn't that tall. But I thought, I'm not going to want to do it when I get back from the conference. And that's what broke me. I was like, I got to do it now because I'll feel really pressured to get it done this next week. And I'm not going to want to do it. Even if I don't get sick, I'm not going to want to do it. I'm going to be too tired. It's time to hire a company. You know what? I'm too cheap still. But I might reach that point. I'm one slipped disc away from reaching that point. You get the random guy who comes over and mows the yard every week. Yeah, where are the kids? Aren't there supposed to be kids going around pushing their mower around being like, for $20, mister, I'd sure like to take care of your swell yard. Isn't that how they talk? Well, I don't think $20 would buy them enough gas to mow your yard at this point. I did see – this was months ago on Reddit. I saw someone share this. It was a doorbell cam, and it were these two kids. kids i we're talking like maybe uh 11 to 13 would be what my guess on their age and it was the winter and they were going around offering to shovel driveways and this person they go hey will you can we shovel your driveway for you and the and the woman who answered the door goes yeah yeah no i i'd love to hire you to shovel the driveway and they go great that's awesome and And then she's like, how about 20 bucks? And they're like, $10 each? And she goes, yes, yes. Let me go ahead and get the money. And she walks off, and the little doorbell cam's recording. And this one kid's like, we're effing – he didn't say effing, though. We're effing rich. And the other kid goes, yeah, these rich people, they don't want to shovel their driveways. They want people to do it for them. They've got all the money. And this other one's going, let's do a really good job because she's so rich. And the guy's like, yeah, except one of them made fun of the other one for being too short or something. There's a whole kid thing going on. Oh, God. I'm like, where are they? I'll give them $20 to mow. That's probably like exploitation. The size of my yard, that's probably exploitation. I give them $30. I was going to say, your yard is like huge, especially the backyard that you can't even get a rider into. So whoever you hire has to be able to take a push mower back there because you can't even get a rider into the back. You know, life is sacrifice, and I can be their sacrifice. All right. So anyway, that's all I have for you. So let's go ahead and go to pinball, Tony. I know you've been looking forward to this because we've been talking about this via the messenger tool online for ever since the day it was announced. Which was the day after our last episode because – I think it was Tuesday, wasn't it? Tuesday after our – however, it's – I'm not sure when the stuff leaked. The stuff leaked. I don't know. Anyway, it happened really recently after the last episode, but what can you do? That's our fate. We know this. We knew this going in. Yeah, I put out, I put together a beautiful, lovely Instagram post with all of my thoughts and dreams about it. And then there was so much background noise that you could barely hear what I was saying. and I was unable to get it cleaned up enough to make it worth posting because instead of using my normal mount that I have for my phone, my phone was just kind of propped up, and it was just you could vaguely hear me in the background and then just the motor and vibration. Yeah, so I never got to hear it, but I heard it was good. It was gold. It was absolute gold. It was gold. You were weaving some gold? That's a Zach Mini expression, that he just weaves gold. Well, we'll weave some gold now, Tony. We'll do our best. So for anyone who has not listened to any other Pinball podcast since this announcement. What is wrong with you? Yes. You're going to be shocked to learn that Jersey Jack Pinball unveiled their latest game, Toy Story 4. Pinball. I still can't. Yeah. Well, don't you worry. We'll discuss that. But let's hit some highlights. And I do have a link in the show notes for people that want to read up on this. It's to This Week in Pinball's deep dive on Toy Story 4, Pinball. So there are two versions, a limited edition and a collector's edition. The design is Pat Lawler, the lead software engineer who I believe was responsible for most of the rules is Joe Katz. As usual, the artwork is done by John Yowsey. That's who Pat always likes to have do his artwork. Pricing, the limited edition model, which is the more common model, and they can produce up to 5,000 of those, is set at $12,000 U.S. The collector's edition, which they doubled the run count from Guns N' Roses to 1,000 units, is $15,000 U.S. The limited editions, they had already built a number of them and have already shipped them out. The collector's editions are slated to start being produced at some time this fall. They all have the official licensed art package. They all have a 27-inch backbox LCD. They all include a 10-inch sort of tablet-style, what they call carnival game LCD in the play field or above the play field, kind of where the ramps are in the upper left. There is custom speech done by Buzz and Woody. That's a little misleading. They did get Tim Allen to do custom call-outs. Woody is custom call outs are done by Tom Hanks's brother, which I guess Tom's brother does all of the marketing, like toys and stuff, like all the product stuff. Supposedly they sound the same. So most people are cool with that. That's not a world I'm aware of. I heard some of the voice and it sounded like Tom Hanks to me. So it was good enough of a sound like to fool me. There are the carnival games that I mentioned that appear on the LCD in the play field area. There are 12 games included. One of the pinball, there's a video pinball, virtual pinball mode called Tiki Party Pinball. The hot rails, the lighting effects on the sides that were in Guns N' Roses, they brought those back. I'd say the main toy is probably this jump ramp that lifts up, and it's flanked by a couple of individually up and down, I guess, automatically controlled posts. But it's a jump ramp that you can launch the ball off of. There's also a spinning wheel over on the left-hand side of the game. They brought back one of the Hobbit Bash toys and made it Gabby Gabby, which I guess is the villain from the show. I don't know. I've not seen Toy Story 4. They call those little pop-ups, as I look through this list, the Benson pop-ups. I guess that's because they represent the Ventriloquist, which I assume that's his name. There are some super spinners. I believe those are Opto spinners. There is a RGB LED marquee stunt deck There a ball diverter setup going on with the ramps and stuff There's a three-ball ball lock with a drop target over on the left-hand side near the spinner. And then a few other things in the games is there are some stand-up forky targets on the right. It's got four pop bumpers. It's got a saucer. It's got a scoop. It's got one mini flipper in the upper right, and it's got the two primary flippers. It comes with a shaker motor and visiglass. It's, of course, got the built-in camera like we're used to with JJP games and a few other little bits and pieces. Collector's Edition has a red powder coat chrome armor. It's got radcals. It's got 450, over 450, individually controlled RGB lights. And it's got a Pixar Lex Luxor. I don't know. It's got some sort of ball shooter knob that's associated with Pixar. the le version only has over 300 individually controlled rgb lights and it uses a blue powder coat so i'd say that's the that's the main stuff uh there are a few other things uh involving the collector's edition as well but i don't uh i don't see a point really going through them other than it also has additional custom speech by bow peep the bow peep character oh fancy so tony there's So much here, and it's not yet clear to me whether or not we're going to get one of these on location. I'm sure we'll end up playing it at a show or something at some point, but for the time being, it's important to note to the listeners that we have not played this game. Correct. I've not done anything that would be considered location pinball in a while, actually. Last month, I think. Yeah, not since May. Things have just been not worked out that way. But, yeah, sure. I hope we get a chance to play it. I'll be 100% honest. I'm not that interested. I was interested in the concept of a Toy Story pinball machine. And I think, like a lot of people, I felt, if anything, betrayed as it drops as Toy Story 4. Betrayal, that's a strong sort of trail. The Toy Story franchise is such a big cultural touchstone, and it has so much going for it, then they turned around and dropped its Toy Story 4, the one very few people watched and is by far the lowest rated, and some fans absolutely hated it. it's just like, ow. It's like, could you not get the licensing to do the entire franchise or to do just the first game? Was the only way to get it was to do four, which is even worse because it didn't come out until three years after four came out? Well, and, you know, my initial guess would be that they thought it would come out sooner, closer to the film. But of course, we discussed that when Guns N' Roses dropped and it was like Guns N' Roses ended up coming out just a few months after when Toy Story, the movie Toy Story 4 came out. So I was a little surprised that that was the order they went in. I'm assuming that the Toy Story 4 game, for whatever reason, was just not ready yet. But, I mean, at this point, with the Hot Rails going in, and Hot Rails seemed very GNR-oriented, I'm guessing that at least changes were made if it was not yet, let's say, not even very far along. It was just sort of surprising to me. It is surprising that how could it, I mean, there's not like there's anything that feels to me in this game that should have delayed it three years. when they'd been talking about it for so long already. Now, have you seen this movie? I saw parts of it. I've only seen the first Toy Story movie. I haven't seen anything else. I've seen all of them except for this one. I've only seen parts of this one when my kids were watching it, but my kids are old enough that they don't really care about Toy Story. Oh, they didn't run and say, Daddy, please buy us a $12,000 pinball machine? Toy Story is not a touchstone for my children. Okay. So I did not have to deal with explaining to them that $12,000 for a pinball machine. I mean, come on. Toy Story 4 is just so bad. Let's start with that. Well, we've started with the thoughts on the license, and I concur with you. Actually, I don't know anyone who doesn't agree that this would have been more appealing broadly to just about anyone if it had either been all four of the movies, the first three of the Toy Story, the trilogy, or just the first movie. Right. All three of those seem universally agreed upon. Even people who love this game seem to universally agree that all three of those licensing scenarios are better than doing just Toy Story 4. The split seems to be some people think doing Toy Story 4 alone was still worth going for the license. I wonder if there would, and by wonder, I speculate that there would have been a better license pick if they truly could not get original Toy Story incorporated in some capacity. I agree. I think if you went in trying to get a licensing deal and you could only get Toy Story 4, I think they would have been better off walking away. Yeah, I just think there's been something else in the Disney Pixar stable that they, I think, could have fully gotten the rights to that would have worked better. Yeah, I agree. But then again, this is pinball, and people will spend money on it regardless. Even if they don't like it, they're going to spend $12,000 for the lowest level of a game that is not. Let's discuss that. Now, here's a quote from someone. I can't say who. Because I can't say where I've read this quote, but this is a true quote that someone I know wrote about after they played Toy Story 4. They wrote, and it's not Zach, I'll tell you that too. They wrote, Toy Story 4 is a winner for the common folk. You're all crazy. This is going to sell well 100%. For the common folk. Exactly. The common folk who can drop $12,000. You are too far down the collector rabbit hole if you think common folk spend five figures for a pinball machine. That's just, I mean, that is so out of touch. It's like if you call your boss, because we've been talking about new cars, if you call your boss because your car's broke down, he's like, well, why don't you just drive your other car? I mean. Why don't you drive your German car? it's just there's just no context it is just such a difference of thought uh and a different way of looking at things that especially with where we are right now uh i paid four dollars and 65 cents a gallon for gas yesterday when I got gas. And to think that the people who are doing that, the common folk who are doing that so they can go to work and pay all their bills also have $12,000 just sitting in their pockets to buy a subpar pinball thing. And so let's, because obviously, and who knows what the, the person had their motivations and perhaps they, They regret now choosing the phrase common folk because I'm now using it as a weapon. But even hardcore collectors had to take a step back on this because of what you pointed out to a lot of people. Even if they love Toy Story, Toy Story 4 is a subpar theme compared to other themes that are readily available. But here's the analysis that I cannot help with. I totally see, and we discussed this on the Pinball Show, Zach Minney's perspective about if a game is not going to lose much value, though, So in his view, he doesn't care if he's paying $8,000 for a game or $12,000 for a game because he'll sell it and get his money back. So it's a wash to him. But – and I'm like – I acknowledge that. But obviously there are two factors. One is on the flipper sort of side, it's still – you have to have a certain amount of liquid capital to be able to buy a $12,000 game. A lot of people don't just sit around with $12,000 readily available to spend. but they might have $5,000, you see, for fun stuff. So that's where it's a question about how much cash are you tying up in games. That's part of it. But that's everyone's own individual experience. Here's the thing, setting that aside, because we don't know if the value will hold long-term or not. Yeah, I would guess the CEs probably will because the true LEs from other companies seem to be holding fairly well. It's still something of a gamble. Of course, we don't know if things always will stay up or they'll fall down. But here's what, for me, Tony, on pricing, what I end up going back to and is, let's look at the LE. So I'm looking at the pictures here on this week in pinball of the play field of the LE. And now I'm mentally right now, and I'm sure you can do this too, I'm mentally looking at the play field of Godzilla Premium, which retails MSRP $9,000. I don't understand why I would pay another $3,000 for less of a game. Oh, yeah. No kidding. I mean, it is a very empty play field comparatively, and I don't – It's like opposite day. It is. This is always – like people would look at Woz and be like, look at all – Woz is Wizard of Oz for people that don't know. And people would be like, look at all these mechanical features. And now I look at this, and I'm just like, it looks like a Stern Pro. It does look like a Stern Pro. With lots more LEDs. Let me be fair. It's got lots more LEDs, but it's like, what are our features here? We got a tablet, which no one cares about. The fact that they put a tablet above the screen and they put virtual pinball on it is just... It's kind of funny to me. It makes me laugh. It makes me tummy laugh. I wanted to play Zen Studios in my JJP. I mean, it's just crazy to me. But I'm just like, I'm not going to do the whole what people used to do, coil counting. But I'm just like, you look at Toy Story 4 and I see mechanical features of notes. And we won't count the tablet, even though it's not a mechanical feature. That's up to y'all. But we have the jump ramp, which I think looks pretty cool. Yeah, that little jump ramp looks cool. We got the Gabby Gabby Bash toy. Well, I hated the trolls in medieval and I hated the Hobbit monster. So I'm really not keen on that. But hey, it is a mechanical toy. And then there's a spinny wheel, right? Yeah. And then there's like one drop target over by that spinny wheel for the ball lock thing if you want to talk about that. But then let's just think about Godzilla Premium. Thousands of dollars less. It's got a Mechagodzilla with a magnet and a tummy magnet. Do tummy ball grab. It's got a ramp that rotates for a standing target bank to be the shield for Mechagodzilla. So that's a pretty cool mechanical feature. it's got a collapsible bridge ramp which changes how the ball behaves that's a cool mechanical feature of course it's got the newton ball magnet grab to feed off of that off of that left side orbit to the upper flipper that's really cool and then of course oh yeah a collapsing building and again i know it's a different game but it's thousands of dollars less and that's where i struggle on the pricing i look at this and you can't i'm sorry it's it's not it's not 2012 anymore it's 2022 sticking in 300 leds does not impress me yeah that is kind of crazy to me i mean that many putting leds as a selling point on a game in this day and age is dumb i can go get leds and fill my kid's room with LEDs. Actually, one of my kids does have LEDs all over the place in their room. It's no big deal. They're normal now. And I get that someone has to program the light show, but if we're doing like a cascading light effect, if you're using 20 bulbs or 200 bulbs, the cascade program effect is the same. Right. There's not $3,000 worth of LED programming in this. Let's be honest about it. So that's my struggle. Most people don't seem to be arguing that either. I think most people are just like, JJP saw people flipping games and they're trying to make sure that money isn't being left on the table. I just think it's really interesting that this company has seemed to have gone with the decision that, where they, I think they've always been, but I think they're just committing to it now that they're like, this is for high-end collectors. Other people need not apply. They're the Jaguar. I guess. I guess. I don't – I mean I don't know. I don't know. It was interesting that now that we're on the back end of the pandemic and operators and the locations are back, I mean this was the one they decided to drop the standard. And I don't – that actually probably was smart to drop the standard edition because I heard they were selling like dogs. They just – they weren't moving units. But when you looked at like GNR standard compared to the other two, you really had to be willing to settle. It might not have been that bad on Wonka, but it was on GNR. And I don't know. Anyway, the pricing – so the pricing I think is a huge barrier to a lot of people. I just think it's just a bridge too far for a lot of folks. I think so, and I think it's going to make it a problem for operators because – Yeah, I don't expect many operators, other than those that flex about having all the – the ones that were already buying premiums and LEs for their location, which there are some. There are some that do that. Yeah, no, there are some, but most general normal operators – and that's a thing. This is a game that seems to be designed for a certain type of player, designed for fans of Toy Story 4. But they are not going to be able to play this game because it's not going to be operating anywhere. Nobody's going to be able to afford to operate it. It's interesting because in so many ways, other than price really, it seems like it's a very operator-friendly game. It does. It's a great location theme, I would say. Okay, kids will know Toy Story. They're not going to have money to buy a $12,000 game, but they would have money to put money into one. I have heard it is very inexperienced gamer friendly. Is that a nice way to put it? Long ball times, yes. Long ball times. Relatively approachable code. In fact, I guess it was noted by the team that they wanted a lot of people to be able to get to the Wizard. At least the first side was. I guess you do a side as Woody and a side as Buzz. And the idea was, though, that people without high skill would be able to get through one of those paths. And from initial reports, that seems quite true. Yes. Because the high-level players were, like, beating the game both sides the first day. Right. It's like ball two or game two. and that's not necessarily a problem you know it's interesting because most of the time on games that seem targeted to the homeowner they've wanted to make it so that it's a journey to be able to quote unquote beat the game and I do think this might hurt hurt in the sense that I think there will be some people that they sell their games once they quote unquote beat them and if you're beating this game really fast while it's still in production they're going to be more popping up used faster than they would otherwise. So there's a little bit of a market effect perhaps. But again, with Jersey Jack noting that in the first day they sold out all the CEs and made like $30 million, I guess it doesn't matter. Right. Well, you knew that was going to happen. Oh, yeah, the CEs, no, that doesn't. Granted, I mean, they direct sold one-tenth. The rest was just sold to distributors. Right. And then the question always comes up, because they've not even started making them, is what is the market going to be like that? because remember when people suddenly started dumping halloween positions for less than they paid for them uh the same thing is always possible in any game in from any manufacturer sure i i don't think it will be like that for this game because the one thing you people who hate the price people who who hate the theme people who don think it good bang for the buck the one thing I have seen almost universal praise for is that it does shoot well Like it's Lawler. He executes, to a lot of people, it's Lawler's greatest hits. It's Gophers plus Wonka or whatever. But even as easy as to get through the code, that geometrically it is enjoyable to shoot. and that is not the case for a lot of people when it comes to Halloween. Halloween is just seen by a lot of people as a bad game. This seems to be seen as a good game that is way too much money. Yeah, and I think that could be a very valid way to look at it. Yeah, it's just the weirdness is it's been a long time since we've seen people have a good game, but it also be seen as really, really easy. I think the last example everyone would probably cite would be Munsters. Like, geometrically, Munsters is a very well-respected game, but people could not get past the shallow code on it. Yeah. Well, and this is, as I recall, this launched with 1.0 code, supposedly. It's basically feature complete, is my understanding. I don't know the version number, but, yeah. I mean, they've done a couple updates, I guess, since it initially came out. So I think one was to integrate the score bits or something about the score bit, and then there was some other – I don't remember what the other thing was. But yeah, all the modes and stuff, my understanding, are in there. I hope people don't go around – this was a silly – it would be as silly now as it was with monsters. But if there are people hoping like, oh, well, maybe they'll add more wizard modes and stuff. It's like, why? It's exactly what they want it to be. We don't have to like what it is. I don't mind that they made it easy. I found it humorous just to hear people buying this game and then immediately winning it. That's amusing to me. It's not actually necessarily a defect. I think there was a lot of sense when Stern did Monsters because there were a lot of people that really respected Iron Man. Iron Man was a pretty shallow game. I mean, you could say, well, Iron Man was basically unbeatable because of the way to get the one do or die. The ultra hard do or die was basically – it required you to do it all on one ball and was near impossible. But most people would see all the other aspects of the game, the achievable aspects, pretty quickly even though the game was hard. It had a hard layout, but it was not deep code. In this case, you've got a gentler layout and not particularly deep code. But deeper code than Iron Man. I don't know if it's deeper than Munsters or not. You know, I never finished Munsters. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see. I do want to play it because I have heard about how well it shoots. I just think it's a disappointing overall entry. Yeah, I just, I think everyone, because we had known it was Toy Story for so long, to find out it ended up just being this one slice of Toy Story turned a lot of people off. And then the price, of course, was going to ail. No matter, even if it was all the Toy Stories, the price was going to alienate a ton of people. Yeah, and I think that's a big thing is the price is something that I knew it would be up there, but I did not expect where it's at. I knew they'd raise off of GNR because of inflation. I did not expect, like, the, I mean, I don't even know. I don't remember how much more the collector's edition, how many thousands more the collector's edition is versus GNR. But they also doubled the CE run. But they sold them. I mean, even if it's through just to distributors, they sold them all. Financially, these are probably good moves for the company. It's just from a collector aspect, which is a player aspect, I just don't think I'm going to get to play this until Texas or something. Yeah. Because I can't imagine an operator buying this in our area. Maybe a collector alone won to an operator. I mean, maybe they'll succumb and hope that they can get their money back on it and buy. I don't know. I don't want to speak for any of the area operators, but, you know, it's just, yeah, it makes it harder to get access to the pricing. That's the problem. It does. It very much does. And can we talk for just one second about just how freaking horrible that topper is? You know, I have, I looked at the topper like twice. It is literally just a box with a bunch of fiber optic wires coming out, like the little fiber optic light up tree. that you had in the 90s the little just direct fibers and it's all it's so terrible it's so bad I honestly in my mind this is the worst topper or it's not the worst topper but it is a worse topper than the ones where it's just the plastic standees I think so hmm sure is firework heap I guess. It's big, super special. People are happy happy. Well, regardless, congratulations, though, to Jersey Jack for putting out a new game. I do hope to play it because, like I said, I hear it shoots well. It's just not the theme that anybody wanted. It almost was. It almost was. Okay, well, I think that's enough of Toy Story, and we're almost done with Pinball. The only other thing to do is Rumor Corner. Rumor Corner. Ding dong. so this episode's rumor corner is not a brand spanking new rumor this is again one others have probably heard because i've obviously heard it i've heard it from multiple places at this point. And, hey, they can't all be brand new unless I just make up all the rumors all the time, which would just be goofy. So, here's the rumor, Tony. Stern Pinball. Purportedly. They have the license for He-Man Masters of the Universe, and that Jack Danger is the designer of it. What are your thoughts? Wow, that's a lot to take in. I mean, my initial thought is, it's not He-Man 4, so there's that. There is that. Is it the new He-Man show that just came out like earlier this year or late last year? Or is it the original He-Man and the Master She-Man? I have not heard. Is it? Here's what I'm hoping. Here's what I'm hoping, Tony. Because this might play into what you're about to say. We'll see. I remember seeing a post on social media where Jack Danger said he wanted to make pinball weird again. He-Man is not weird. Not at all. Unless they do the live action movie. Oh, man. yes that'd be so bad yes i know why would they do that i'm not saying they would but it would be the weirdest thing they could do with he-man would it not why would they do that to themselves it would be a weird thing i don't think they would but i'm just saying jack wanted to do something weird trying to salvage something out of that movie that's weird that would be weird that would be weird because i don't think you could really salvage very much out of that movie uh not at all but holy i just wow i i don't know i really i had he-man toys as a kid i don't i don't know if i'd be into this or not though i'm honestly i'm wore out of all of the nostalgia says the guy watching stranger things i haven't watched stranger things in weeks not since I finished it last time. But the thing is, I like stuff that's done well, but I don't know, He-Man just feels like such a stretch. I mean, I loved He-Man. I was one of the biggest He-Man fans, and even I don't really reference back to He-Man when I think back to it. when I think back to the kids even though I had tons and tons of He-Man stuff my primary thought back to shows I watched as a kid is Transformers G.I. Joe, Silverhawks and stuff like that I also remember a lot of the shows that lasted like a season and I thought got just completely robbed because they were way better than they were treated as Well, if it is He-Man and it is the original cartoon If he wants to try and make it weird We can't ever make it as weird as the movie Correct But he could put in a what's going on mode Based off that YouTube That's the other option That would be weird That would definitely be weird Are you not rumour chained, Tony? I mean, I'm rumor curious. You're rumor tamed. You meant to say you're rumor tamed. Well, what we need to be tamed on now is video games, Tony. What's going on in the world of video games? So much has happened in the world of vidya games. I'm not going to talk about most of it, but there was still a bunch of stuff. Immediately after we recorded our last episode, I stayed at your house for what I thought was going to be a, you know, 30 or 45 minute Xbox Live event. And it turns out to be have been an hour and a half. Well, they do own all the companies. That's true. And I should have thought about that beforehand, that they own everything. So and they're still only the third largest or will be when it's approved. but so we stayed and watched that and there was a whole bunch of stuff I'm not actually talking about a whole lot of them because most of them are too far from release because they're all scheduled for release in the next 12 months and no surprise almost everything's coming out on Game Pass because that is where Microsoft is leaning at the majority of its time and effort but there was a lot of interesting stuff there including a much deeper look at No Man's Sky 2 I'm sorry No Man's Starfield I make the joke but honestly I was just in so shock as they just kept talking about Starfield and I'm just sitting here going haven't I already sat through this presentation one time. I'm pretty sure I've been here before. I'm sure it'll be better than No Man's Sky's initial launch. Well, no, it is Bethesda. And they launched bad. I wouldn't be sure of anything. We'll have to see. It'll be weird. I was most disappointed with the Bethesda side of it, though, that even with it being an anniversary of Fallout, they didn't announce anything Fallout related other than more Fallout 76 stuff. Yeah, I guess after the fact they made a statement that the next Fallout game would be done, but it's going to be done after the next Elder Scrolls. Right, and the next Elder Scrolls game was them saying, throwing, hey, throw a pretty picture of some stuff and say Elder Scrolls 6 at, was that last year's E3 or two years ago E3? Yeah, I'm starting to think a new Fallout might be close to like 2028 or beyond. Right. I figured we'll get the next fallout sometime around the time we're actually living fallout. Um, so we'll see where that goes. Uh, the other big announcement, the one that was probably in my mind, the big, big announcement based upon the reactions online. Kojima is making a game for Xbox. Yes. Oh, you know, nothing seems to upset people more than that. It's like, And I was like, don't you all have Kojimas? I've seen so much hate, so much betrayal, so much how could he do this to us. No, he belongs to Sony. Right. And he's even come out recently and said, no, no, we're still doing stuff with Sony. I'm just making a game for Microsoft now. And people are just like, it's like bane for blood. They're just so upset about it. It came off like the next Uncharted came out on Game Pass. Right. I was like, what the? When did this? They don't have a first-party relationship. They get along, clearly, and he's still doing stuff with them. I was just surprised how visceral it was. Well, that was my surprise because I don't recall them ever having anything seen as, I mean, yeah. Death Stranding was a PlayStation exclusive but that didn't mean that Kojima Productions was a PlayStation exclusive and I don't get where people took it that way that he would only ever make for PlayStation and that it was so weird when I saw the thing it was like interesting he's gonna make something weird and insane like he always does because that's his brand and I didn't think anything else about it. When I started reading stuff online, you would swear that Kojima had walked up to somebody's house and shot their pet. Yep, he's a dog killer now. That is the kind of response. It's like you go to that website, does the dog die? And the answer is for that live, yes, Kojima shot him. I don't know. Yeah, that one just was, I was surprised. I mean, of all the things to get worked up over. Yeah. Okay. It's like, yeah. And other than that, there were a lot of interesting looking games, not just there, but in that time spot that would normally have been taken up by E3, all the companies did major lives. And there was even a PC Gamer Live that was done. Uh, which had the, the E3 people come out and say, once again, that E3 will be back next year. And I don't know. All these things did real well without having to pay the money required them to pay to get into E3. They all did very well. So I think that this could have been a really bad thing for E3 this time around. We'll see how it goes. But beyond just that weekends of sheer enjoyment and interest We have so many other interesting things that have gone on DICE, makers of Battlefield, had been asked about some other side projects Games like Mirror's Edge and the like And they say that they are fully committed to Battlefield And they have put all non-Battlefield projects on the back burner and they are committed to Battlefield 2042 and it reports that the development team has been reduced to maintenance levels and is in full-on abandoned ship mode are patently false. They stand behind 2042 and they will make 2042 the game that is expected to be. Oh, so are they finally going to get rid of operatives and bring back in the classes? Because that's what it would take. It is, and you know they're not. No, they're not. They already made a game that people who play Battlefield didn't want. Right. It feels like playing Rainbow Six Siege, except you're running everywhere. Yeah, it is definitely a negative for them, and it's probably in their best interest to cut their losses and concentrate on other things. The fact that they are backburnering everything that doesn't save Battlefield field on the box is kind of sad. Yeah, I just don't. You know, here's the thing. I won't blame you, but you kind of fall into partial blame, and that is Final Fantasy XIV. See, Final Fantasy XIV has done more damage to the video game industry than anything else because it makes people believe they can save a dead project. It does. And it does it by having people think that it can get better and by providing a fun story and an interesting story and characters that people actually like And most AAA titles just don't have the time or money once they get done spending everything on bells and whistles. And, you know, retreats for the executives. and spa days for the managers to spend money on things like story or characters because they think, well, I can't put microtransactions on something like that. So let's just make another deathmatch game. Yeah, I think a lot of them may also forget the life cycle from the developer standpoint as well on the reform of Final Fantasy XIV, it wasn't a bunch of memos coming out saying, oh, we're not in, you know, we haven't reduced it to menace mode. We're committed to doing something. No, they came out on stage, bowed to everyone and cried at their failure. Yeah. And they said, we failed. Yes, they did. We have failed you. Where is Dice's, where's their tears? I don't taste their tears. And you never will because they'll never say something like that. They don't taste very sorry to me. well then they're not really sorry are they no i don't think they're sorry they don't care all they want is to get their they need to get microtransactions back up the uh uh speaking of final fantasy uh it has been announced for sure the final fantasy 16 is going to be taking place in a more fantasy like setting okay then the more all the more recent 15 was all kind of yeah, it was like, let's drive in a car. Yeah. Bro trip. Yeah. It was basically like road trip. I actually liked 15 except the, I never really understood that. Like the combat wasn't fun for me. It wasn't bad. It was just like, I don't know. The tutorial didn't seem to do a very good job explaining to me exactly how to maximize my combat. So it was just mostly, I could just wail on everything and win. So it didn't matter. But anyway, yeah, no 16 is supposed to be going back to the more traditional, uh, type actual fantasy fantasy stuff. So that'll be fun. Yeah, I would like that. Is there any Activision Blizzard news? No, surely not. Surely not. No, there is. They had their shareholder meeting, and all the upsets that came out of it, no upsets came out of it. Exactly what you thought was going to happen, happened. The entire board was held to their positions, including Bobby. No surprise there. And it was like, I don't even know the percentages, but it was a complete walk. It was like 566 million or whatever thousand votes to like 68. It wasn't even close. The interesting things that did come out around the same time, they released an investigation. Activision Blizzard investigated themselves to see where their issue with their widespread harassment issues and everything were And they found that there's no widespread harassment There's no issues There's nothing that's not been reported or has been handled wrong Since 2016 there's been nothing Just minor things that have all been 100% correctly handled And all of this is just from an overzealous person with the state of California putting a suit out. Please ignore the $18 million settlement we had to put out to the federal government in addition to this ongoing lawsuit. None of that's real. So they investigated themselves and they found themselves did nothing wrong. Well, I'm sure glad they looked into themselves. and talking about looking into themselves. Another thing that came out of the shareholder meeting is the shareholders voted to approve the release of an annual abuse, harassment, and discrimination report to which upper management immediately replied that, well, this was a non-binding vote and we'll consider it, but we're not required to do this. Okay. You know, they're probably right that it was a non-binding vote. I just think it's interesting. I just – again, I try and visualize what would happen if I, to my governing board, after they did a vote for me to do something, then told them, you do know that this is not binding and I will do what I want. Oh, I'm sure it would turn out absolutely fine. I'm going to stick this in. It's totally fine. I had a work meeting. I have several recurring meetings, of course, as you do. And one of them, one of my board members is on the same group. It's a team we work with with the state. And they live out in a very rural part of Kansas, very rural at the Colorado border. And we were in this virtual meeting, and she had to step away. And then she came back. She's like, sorry. They had a plane crash. A plane. The pilot was fine. But something happened with the plane, and he had to put touchdown in a field. And all I said, Tony, was, oh, so will your county now just, like, make that field a new municipal airport? Is that just, like, what you guys do? And she just looked at me a little Zoom and just goes, Dennis, you're an a**hole. And, like, half the people online looked like I think they thought they were really scared that something was going to happen to me. And I, of course, being me, Tony, said, so does this mean I'm now ex-executive director? And she goes, no, your punishment is you have to stay with us. See, it's nice when people understand you. Yes, yes. Yeah, but just to be sure, after writing the email, I said, thank you for putting up with my snark. And she goes, it's much better than sitting through boring meetings, Dennis. because other people are... They laughed after I made a joke at my own expense about my possible soon termination. But you see, I don't know. With Activision, I could have probably just said that and actually meant it in a mean way. Well, yeah, and then you could have punched her and it'd been okay. Punch her. Speaking of punches, we had an email in the video game part. I stuck it here at the end, Tony. Perfect. Let's go over it. Okay. This is from Chris Chandler. He likes to email us a lot. Hi, Chris. He wrote in. Yes. Hello, Chris. He asked us to interpret a graph. All right. I'll try and describe it. I'll try and paint a picture because people cannot see a graph on a podcast. That would be impossible. But he asked us to interpret this graph, and he had a few questions of his own that he embedded in the email. And the questions were, are games truly getting better? Reviewers becoming less critical? Are gamers' expectations getting higher? Review bombing more often? I wish they provided other views like median instead of mean and P95 views to filter out the extremes. So here's the graph for people to understand. This is an average of Metacritic data across all consoles from 2000 to 2022. The way it works is there are two line charts that line graphs that Tony and I are looking at. one is following the average critic score and one is following the average user score. And so for people to kind of get an understanding, the starting date of 2000, the critic score was under the user score. User score was about a 76 and the critic score was about a 74. Those both dropped as time went by. I'd say the low point seemed to be around 2006, 2007 where the critic score had fallen to about a 67 and the user score had fallen to about a 70 then the critic score started to go way up and the user score continued to dip they kind of met in 2010 is where the crossover happened where the the critic score was at about a 71 and the user score was at about well i should say the critic score is a little over 70 the user score is about a 71. And then after that, it flips where the critic score is always higher every year since then. As of 2020, the critic scores were up to about a 75 and the user scores were down to about a 65, I'd say. So that's what the graph looks like. They both started higher than where, well, they both started fairly high. The critics dipped down and then have gone up above where they were in terms of average score since 2000, whereas the user score started way high, and now they are at their lowest in the 20-year period. So what are your thoughts on that? Do you think review bombing is a big issue as part of it? I don't know if it's a big issue. I know it is an issue. I think the biggest issue here is the fact that the truth of the matter is most of the critics' scores at this point don't mean anything. critics will give a game that is the worst game they've ever played a 60 out of 100 i mean they just they don't rank low anymore uh there's been multiple articles and stuff talking about how the video game journalism is so different now than it used to be uh the critics are the same they view things differently they have different interest uh but the big thing is so many of them They're just straight up bought. Their reviews are bought. Everything's paid for. They get everything. And the user reviews are going so much lower because, A, there's a lot more people doing it now than there ever used to be. And everybody has very different tastes. So whilst they might like some types of games, they don't like other types of games. and also people are so incredibly rabidly protective of the people that they found online that they do like, the influencers and such, that an influencer simply saying something minorly negative about a game will make everybody who's never even played that game rank that game terrible because so-and-so hated it. And the opposite. it. You'll see people do the rank things really high, even if they've never played it because so and so likes it. It's just like what happened where Among Us blew up out of nowhere after having been out for several years was because influencers started playing it online and people, it got super popular. So I think that has a lot to do with it. And yeah, there is a review bombing problem. I don't think review bombing is all of this problem, but there is a definite review bombing problem. I would be much more interested to see this data, like he said, with the P95 views to filter out the extremes, because I think the extremes probably are deeply shifting this. It's hard to believe just naturally anything where it's a one or a five, like on a five point scale, It's so hard to believe because there's no nuance to it. You either absolutely hate it or absolutely love it. And so often those reviews, when you see them online, there's no comments or anything. It's just a one or a five. Yeah, those are some good points. And I hadn't really thought about the role of the influencers. So that's an interesting aspect. I think the thing I would note, and if anyone digs up this chart, I know I think I saw it show up in an article somewhere too. I just don't remember where. It's not as shocking. Bear in mind that we're not looking at a Y-axis set at zero. So we're zoomed in quite a bit. The current spread is 10 percentage points. It's like the critics are averaging around a 75 and the users are averaging around a 65. That's really not that big of a spread on a 100-point scale. Yes, it is much more extreme than it used to be where the spread was like two percentage points back in 2000. But again, when we go back that far, the internet was still really, really young. There were a lot less user scores back then. So there's also – maybe you could argue there was – I mean console popularity has grown over time because this is noted as being all console data. So I do agree. I don't know how much about the video game reviews in this day and age on the critic score if they're purchased by the manufacturers or not versus what I just see as sort of a gradeflation style approach that has plagued video games really even back in 2000. It's just for whatever reason, the way it ended up is we grade on a 7 out of 10 scale. And yes, as Tony noted, a terrible game is a 6, 6 out of 10 or 60 out of 100. And that's like it. It's like you can't get lower unless the game is non-functional. And I think it's stupid because the whole bottom part of the percentile graph has no value. But they've gone at it like they're giving letter grades. And then it's being interpreted on a numeric scale. And it's like you think about the way we do letter grades in school. And it's like we don't really talk about 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent. Those are all F. So who cares at that point? And it's kind of like that. But when you're sticking it on a numeric chart, there's a reason why we don't show the Y axis at zero because there's nothing down there. It's all empty space. Right. So I think just that because that's so prone to happening with critics. And while I don't know necessarily on the monetary side about paid reviews per se influencing the Metacritic score, I do think there starts to be considerations about if I'm too hard, especially in some of those middle years, if I'm too hard on them, they're going to embargo me. They're going to not let me have early access. I'm not going to be able to review until the consumers can buy the game. And so there's reasons to – they know there's reasons not to – professional reasons to not be too hard on them. The flip side is like what we maybe see with pinball, what you can see in watches to a degree and probably all sorts of other hobbies where the media people know the people at these companies. They're their friends. Don't want to be too hard on their friends because they got to know these people in the course of doing their job. and again I know people like to job I'll do a pinball reference people like to joke all the time about straight down the middle when they do uh pinball reviews and I've made fun of it as well and there's all you know like Greg Bone always going to give a B plus and it's like well this is really no different than what we see with video games though they're always giving high scores to even fairly garbage games right and and that's what it is they just score everything high and I think you have a very valid point. A lot of it is with the, well, I want to keep my access. I don't want to take the risk. I don't want to risk hurting my chances of getting into some event or getting the next thing or doing the next review or getting a special behind-the-scenes look at something or another because that's where my money comes from. So anyway, yeah, there's changes on the stuff. The influencer thing is a very interesting part that I hadn't thought about. There are just a lot more users now, though, participating. So I don't know how much of it is review bombing per se. When you think about the broad spectrum of games, not a lot of them, to my knowledge, face review bombs. Some high-profile ones do. But I think some of this might be more backlash, though, against the critics. And they're like, wow, you guys are way too, like, you're giving this game full of bugs a huge pass because you like the story. And I'm not going to do that. So I'm going to shave 10 percentage points off of it. You're just going to cut it to pieces. Just cut it down. Snip, snip. Well, I think it's probably time for us to cut this episode off because we've covered all our topics, Tony. We have. It's been a wonderfully remote episode this time around. so for those that want to reach out to tell us about how great this remote episode was they can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast and shoot us a message and I will talk to everyone in a couple of weeks and Tony will probably talk to everyone in a couple of weeks and so until next time my name is Dennis and that's a growly dog in the background bye bye

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: c6337bd4-62c3-412d-9a2f-3be9bf1a3844*