# Episode 1068: "Potter Info You Haven't Heard Anywhere"

**Source:** Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-03-24  
**Duration:** 28m 8s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-1068-you-125067219

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## Analysis

Kaneda discusses a leaked/casual Harry Potter announcement by Jack (Jersey Jack CEO) at Texas Pinball Festival, where he revealed the game is coming this spring and advised against buying other games until seeing it. Kaneda shares unverified rumors about Harry Potter's content (loaded like Wizard of Oz, full movie clips with unmuted audio, three trims with stripped-down standard edition) and a potentially game-changing unlimited Collector's Edition sales window strategy. He also critiques recent releases (Merlin's Arcade, D&D artwork, John Wick, Avatar) and reflects on how JJP's pricing/edition strategy may have destroyed traditional pinball collecting FOMO.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Harry Potter will be released this spring (2025) — _Jack (JJP CEO) stated at Texas Pinball Festival seminar that 'spring started yesterday, so you'll see the game this spring'_
- [HIGH] Jersey Jack secured all eight Harry Potter movies and all assets for the game — _Jack stated 'We have all the movies. We have all the assets.' and that it took 10 years and 'X millions of dollars' to secure the license_
- [MEDIUM] Harry Potter will feature unmuted movie clips with original actor voices — _Kaneda reporting rumor: 'I am hearing that the clips in the movies, they have it all. And the clips are not muted, that you are going to see the sequences from the film and the voices of the actors'_
- [MEDIUM] Harry Potter will have three trims with the standard edition being stripped-down for operators — _Kaneda: 'I am now hearing that there will be three trims... the standard edition trim of Harry Potter will in fact have stuff removed from the game. It is going to be a simpler, more stripped down version of the game, and it is meant for operators'_
- [MEDIUM] Jersey Jack is considering opening unlimited Collector's Edition orders within a time window instead of capping numbers — _Kaneda rumor: 'Jersey Jack is considering... instead of putting a number on the amount of CEs they will make, they are going to open up sales of the CE model during a window of time'_
- [MEDIUM] Merlin's Arcade sold fewer than 100 units at Texas Pinball Festival — _Kaneda: 'I'd be curious how many people actually ordered. I don't think they sold a hundred Merlin's Arcade'_
- [HIGH] Chicago Gaming's Medieval Madness Merlin's Edition sold 1,000 units — _Kaneda: 'Look how well it sold. 1,000 coming back. Distros had their allocations severely cut'_
- [LOW] Artwork licensing issues may delay Harry Potter beyond end of spring 2025 — _Kaneda: 'there is an issue I heard with the artwork and licensing and we're now not going to get this game maybe to the end of spring so this game might not come out for three months'_
- [MEDIUM] Star Wars is the biggest IP license in pinball history; Pokémon will be #1 when released — _Kaneda: 'Star Wars is the biggest [license]. It's going to be Harry Potter. And when we get Pokemon, that will be the number one biggest IP ever in the history of pinball'_
- [MEDIUM] Portal is the best P3 game to date — _Kaneda: 'to date, it is looking like Portal is probably the best P3 game to date'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I would not spend a dime out of your pocket until you see the game. I wouldn't spend anything, nothing."
> — **Jack (JJP CEO, quoted by Kaneda)**, Early in content, during Texas Pinball Festival seminar
> _Unofficial announcement of Harry Potter that overshadowed Avatar sales pitch; became the focal point of the episode_

> "If you think Wizard of Oz was something, you're going to love the game."
> — **Jack (JJP CEO, quoted by Kaneda)**, Texas Pinball Festival seminar
> _Jack's direct comparison positioning Harry Potter as a loaded, feature-rich game comparable to the most celebrated JJP title_

> "It took me 10 years to get the license. Only 10 years. And X millions of dollars."
> — **Jack (JJP CEO, quoted by Kaneda)**, Texas Pinball Festival seminar
> _Emphasis on the massive investment and time required to secure Harry Potter IP, underlining its strategic importance_

> "It is loaded like Wizard of Oz."
> — **Kaneda**, Rumor discussion section
> _Kaneda claims to have seen the game and counters 'barren' rumors, validating Jack's Wizard of Oz comparison_

> "Jack doesn't want to be upstaged by anybody else... he just wanted the attention he knows he's gonna get, but he just did it prematurely."
> — **Kaneda**, Post-Avatar discussion
> _Kaneda's critique of Jack's handling of the Harry Potter reveal and its impact on Mark Seidon's Avatar presentation_

> "Pinball collecting is over... None of these LEs make your wanker a little bit bigger. Nothing, right? There's nothing. You're not special."
> — **Kaneda**, Closing rumor discussion
> _Kaneda's resignation about the death of FOMO-driven collecting caused by unlimited edition strategies_

> "I don't think at nine thousand dollars there's enough going on here... you need to show this game with all of the bells and whistles going if you're going to try to get people to buy at nine grand."
> — **Kaneda**, Merlin's Arcade critique
> _Direct feedback to Chris Turner about Merlin's Arcade's pricing, code maturity, and market readiness_

> "The artwork is fine, but it does look like artwork I would see on books I buy for Killian. It looks like artwork that would be in a book for a four-year-old boy."
> — **Kaneda**, Merlin's Arcade art critique
> _Harsh assessment of Merlin's Arcade's visual design and target demographic mismatch_

> "I love the game. I love the way it shoots... [but] I just don't like the artwork. I think the game kind of ugly."
> — **Kaneda**, D&D discussion
> _Acknowledges D&D's strong gameplay but criticizes art package, describing it as looking 'a little like AI created'_

> "If they do number them and the number is so large, what have you really done? It's not a collector's edition anymore. It's just the nicest trim of the game."
> — **Kaneda**, Unlimited CE strategy discussion
> _Core critique of the unlimited Collector's Edition strategy's ability to devalue the 'collector' label_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Jack Danger | person | CEO of Jersey Jack Pinball; announced Harry Potter at Texas Pinball Festival and is widely known for informal, candid public statements |
| Kaneda | person | Host of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed); industry insider and analyst with access to unreleased games and rumor networks |
| Retro Ralph | person | Pinball content creator; mentioned as having documented/amplified Jack's Harry Potter announcement with applause overlay |
| Chris Turner | person | Designer/operator behind Merlin's Arcade; criticized by Kaneda for lack of creative direction and audience targeting |
| Mark Seidon | person | Stern executive presenting Avatar at Texas Pinball Festival; overshadowed by Jack's Harry Potter announcement |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Premium pinball manufacturer; developing Harry Potter with 10-year licensing effort; known for high-quality games and collector editions |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; producing Dungeons & Dragons, John Wick, Avatar, and confirmed Pokémon titles |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique manufacturer; praised for Evil Dead and upcoming mainstream themes; previously used unlimited CE strategy |
| Chicago Gaming Company | company | Manufacturer of Medieval Madness Merlin's Edition remake; sold 1,000 units at premium pricing |
| Multimorphic | company | P3 modular platform manufacturer; Portal game shown at Texas Pinball Festival |
| Barrels of Fun | company | Emerging pinball manufacturer; rumored upcoming title (possibly Dune) with no marketing teasers |
| Harry Potter | game | Upcoming Jersey Jack Pinball game; major license secured after 10 years and millions in investment; announced spring 2025 release |
| Wizard of Oz | game | Legendary Jersey Jack Pinball game; used as comparison point for Harry Potter's feature richness |
| Portal | game | Multimorphic P3 platform game based on Portal IP; exhibited at Texas Pinball Festival; noted as best P3 game to date |
| Merlin's Arcade | game | New arcade-themed pinball game by Chris Turner; priced at $9,000; criticized for incomplete code and art design |
| Medieval Madness Merlin's Edition | game | Chicago Gaming remake of classic Medieval Madness; 1,000 units sold at $12,500; strong secondary market demand |
| Dungeons & Dragons | game | Recent Stern Pinball title; praised for shooting/gameplay but criticized for flat, AI-like artwork |
| Avatar | game | Stern Pinball title; dismissed by Kaneda as sterile with no emotional connection to theme; overshadowed by Potter announcement |
| John Wick | game | Stern Pinball title; criticized by Kaneda for narrow playfield and poor cradling mechanics |
| Guns N' Roses | game | Jersey Jack Pinball game; referenced as example of high-end trim dominance (more CEs sold than LEs) and saturated secondary market |
| Evil Dead | game | Spooky Pinball title; praised for artwork by 'Franchi' and visual design quality |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Major pinball exhibition where Harry Potter was informally announced and new games were showcased |
| Pokémon | game | Upcoming Stern Pinball title; predicted to be the #1 biggest IP in pinball history when released |
| Dialed In | game | Jersey Jack Pinball game; historical example of limited CE ordering window strategy |
| Franchi | person | Artist/art director for Spooky Pinball (Evil Dead); praised for high-quality artwork but criticized for overly busy Big Lebowski treatment |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Harry Potter announcement and licensing strategy, Jersey Jack Pinball unlimited Collector's Edition sales strategy, Texas Pinball Festival releases and exhibitions
- **Secondary:** Pinball game artwork and visual design quality, Pinball collecting FOMO and secondary market dynamics, Manufacturer competition and market saturation, Merlin's Arcade game design and market positioning
- **Mentioned:** Stern vs boutique manufacturer competitive landscape

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.45) — Kaneda expresses enthusiasm about Harry Potter's potential and praises some games (Portal, D&D shooting, Medieval Madness) but is deeply critical of recent Stern releases (Avatar, John Wick), Merlin's Arcade's execution, and the broader industry trend of destroying collecting value through unlimited edition strategies. Frustration with Jack Danger's announcement style and Barrels of Fun's lack of marketing effort. Overall tone is that of a disappointed insider watching the industry make strategic mistakes.

### Signals

- **[announcement]** Jack Danger informally announced Harry Potter as the next Jersey Jack game at Texas Pinball Festival seminar, advising attendees not to spend money on anything else until seeing it (confidence: high) — Jack stated 'I would not spend a dime out of your pocket until you see the game' and 'Spring started yesterday, so you'll see the game this spring'
- **[licensing_signal]** Jersey Jack secured all eight Harry Potter movies and associated assets after 10 years of negotiation and millions of dollars investment (confidence: high) — Jack: 'It took me 10 years to get the license... We have all the movies. We have all the assets.'
- **[machine_intel]** Harry Potter will feature unmuted movie clips with original actor voices, not muted sequences (confidence: medium) — Kaneda rumor: 'the clips are not muted, that you are going to see the sequences from the film and the voices of the actors'
- **[product_strategy]** Jersey Jack considering unlimited Collector's Edition sales window strategy instead of fixed production caps, potentially mirroring Dialed In approach (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: 'instead of putting a number on the amount of CEs they will make, they are going to open up sales of the CE model during a window of time'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Community resignation over death of FOMO-driven collecting caused by unlimited edition strategies across manufacturers (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'all these companies over the last three to four years have absolutely destroyed pinball collecting... pinball collecting is over'
- **[product_concern]** Stern's Dungeons & Dragons game artwork criticized as flat, AI-like, and lacking depth compared to other recent releases (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'I just don't like the artwork... It looks a little like AI created. It looks a little flat. It lacks depth.'
- **[product_launch]** Harry Potter spring 2025 release timeline may slip to summer due to artwork and licensing issues (confidence: low) — Kaneda: 'there is an issue I heard with the artwork and licensing and we're now not going to get this game maybe to the end of spring'
- **[industry_signal]** Jack Danger's informal Potter announcement undermined Mark Seidon's Avatar presentation on same stage, signaling internal JJP/Stern competitive tension (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: 'Jack doesn't want to be upstaged... he just did it prematurely' and 'he just pulled the rug from underneath them'
- **[gameplay_signal]** Harry Potter expected to include complex upper playfield mechanics similar to Guns N' Roses, potentially slowing gameplay (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: 'you're going to have to have that Hogwarts castle... What's going to be interesting is if we see the return of things like upper play fields'
- **[market_signal]** Chicago Gaming's Medieval Madness Merlin's Edition at $12,500 sold out 1,000 units despite secondary market demand at $14-19K, signaling strong appetite for classic remakes at premium pricing (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'the used market for the Royal editions have been like... $14,000, $15,000, $16,000... now you can get a brand new one... I think all of these LE editions of Medieval Madness are going to hold strong around $12,000'
- **[product_concern]** Merlin's Arcade code incomplete and artwork immature for $9,000 price point; needs creative director and additional development before launch (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'the code itself doesn't seem that far along... I'd be curious how many people actually ordered. I don't think they sold a hundred Merlin's Arcade'
- **[rumor_hype]** Barrels of Fun's rumored new title widely speculated to be Dune; no official marketing or teasers released; community disappointment about lack of excitement for this license (confidence: low) — Kaneda: 'I keep hearing it's Dune a lot of disappointment... If it is Dune, there's no excitement I'm seeing for that license... they're not even doing teasers'

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## Transcript

 The next game, the next Jersey Jack game, Harry Potter, we know that. I would not spend a dime out of your pocket until you see the game. I wouldn't spend anything, nothing. And if I'm wrong, when you see the game, you let me know. It's going to be spectacular. Of course it's going to be. Jersey Jack said that. It took me 10 years to get the license. Only 10 years. And X millions of dollars. We have all the movies. We have all the assets. I can't wait to see the internet blow up. If you think Wizard of Oz was something, you're going to love the game. So I can't really, I could really say a lot more, but I'm not going to. Spring started yesterday, so you'll see the game this spring. Like I glister in the sun, let me go on Big hands, I know you're the one Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast Jersey Jack, did he just like spoil the entire reveal of confirming that it's gonna be Harry Potter? after an hour seminar in which they're trying to sell people more avatar games he then tells everybody not to spend a dime on anything until you see Harry Potter you can't write a weirder way to announce to the world that you have the second biggest license in pinball history Star Wars is the biggest. It's going to be Harry Potter. And when we get Pokemon, that will be the number one biggest IP ever in the history of pinball. But man, what a weird way to get the news. I loved Retro Ralph when he added even more of a thunderous applause. We're going to talk about that. And I have some Harry Potter info for you. You know why you come to Canada's Pinball Podcast. I've got something for you that I haven't heard anywhere else. Jersey Jack loves to talk. There's rumors everywhere. So we're going to deliver this as a rumor, but it's what I'm hearing. And some of it you haven't heard before. We'll get to that later. So Texas Pinball Festival has concluded. And what did we get? We got some Portal gameplay footage. We got Merlin's Arcade, Cactus Canyon remake, Lyman Sheets' Code is now available for the world. I want to give my opinions and thoughts on what we saw at the show. And I want to just thank everybody who went to the show and recorded really nice 4K video footage of the show. I mean, you don't even have to go there. You can see everything in living color on YouTube. So thank you, content creators, for making those of us who are not attending feel like we are at the show itself. And I want to say when they did the tour, one of the things that just stood out right away was how far spooky pinball has come in the pinball world. Those evil deads were gorgeous, gorgeous. I remember when this company had like America's Most Haunted and Rob Zombie. This company, really, when you look at their modern games, they are punching in the heavyweight division with the kind of stunning machines they are bringing to pinball. And everyone's going to go crazy when they make a game look that sexy. And it's something like Beetlejuice or it's something like Gremlins or Goonies, right? once they get a little bit more mainstream with the theme, this company is going to be in the driver's seat for the next three to four years. If they just move the needle a little bit more mainstream, they know that they've got Franchi over there. Man, oh man, his art package on Evil Dead gets better every time I see it. Now, speaking of Franchi art packages, did you see the 25th anniversary of the Big Lebowski, which was actually like a few years ago. He clearly did a treatment. Now, I'm not sure like if Barry paid for that or if he did it organically and shared it with Barry as a possibility. I want to say, though, I love Franchi's artwork. I do. I think his artwork is some of the best we've ever seen in pinball, but I don't like it on the Big Lebowski. It's too busy. It's just way too busy. I prefer the Big Lebowski as it is with the big logo on the sides, because then all of your attention is on the game itself. It's also like we don't think about the Big Lebowski in that kind of art collage style. You know, sometimes it looks good. It looks good on Evil Dead. But for some reason, seeing Lebowski there with all the characters, it just felt a little crowded. And the thing with the big Lebowski is there's so much fun stuff on the play field. You almost don't want the art to be too distracting. And that's why I think the original art package works the best. All right. So what else do we see at the show? We got Portal. I've been reading people's feedback on Portal. It looks like people had a good reception to the game. I still think people are hesitant to pull the trigger considering how much money it is. But to date, it is looking like Portal is probably the best P3 game to date. And for people looking for something different, maybe, right? I think everyone is probably still waiting to see King Kong and also Harry Potter. I also think market research has shown us that people, when you spend this much money, you just want a dedicated machine. You just want one machine that plays one game and that's what you want. And if the market wanted this sort of swappable playfield system, then there would be much more sales around it. And you could argue that maybe the games haven't been there. But now that he's getting the games to where they maybe always should have been, it's really expensive. And I think a lot of people in general are feeling that burn. It's like the new in-box excitement just ain't there at these prices. But that's not true of everything because we saw Chicago Gaming Company's Merlin's edition of Medieval Madness remake. Look how well it sold. 1,000 coming back. Distros had their allocations severely cut. I think CGC and Rick at Planetary are selling more of these directly because they don have to give money then to the distros So they gonna to make more money in house And that why I think a lot of people didn get a phone call If you were on your distros list for this game, they just didn't get nearly as many as they did on the previous editions of Medieval Madness, but a thousand units. And what was the price like $12,500? And I think most of them are spoken for. And I'm not surprised. It's one of the best games of all time. The used market for the Royal editions have been like, I don't know, $14,000, $15,000, $16,000, $18,000, $19,000. And so now you can get a brand new one, which looks really good, by the way. I don't think it looks as good as the Royal, but they both look really good and nobody wants to pay over. And so now I think all of these LE editions of Medieval Madness are going to hold strong around $12,000. It's still medieval madness, right? It's still in the top five best games of all time. And for a lot of people out there, you don't want to spend 45 minutes on a game. You don't want these deep, complex rule sets. You just want to hop on a machine and have fun. And this game really does deliver that. Also, because the code is a little bit more shallow than modern games, you will see these things pop up for sale. Like people will buy them, they'll enjoy them for six months, and then they'll want to move on. But man, I think a lot of people underestimated how well this game would sell. And it just proves my point. It's never a bad time to release a great game. It's always a bad time to release a mediocre game or a game that's not great. So what else did we see at Texas Pinball Festival? We saw Merlin's Arcade. I watched about 20 minutes of Merlin gameplay and that song just playing over and over and over and over again. And the sound of that foosball spinner sounds like you're chopping some wood. Now, look, this game is much simpler than everything else in the marketplace. Yes, Chris Turner is a super nice guy. He's listening to this right now. He's a Canada Club member. I'm just not sure I just don't think at nine thousand dollars there's enough going on here and the code itself doesn't seem that far along and it just begs the question I know you're in Texas but this game got a lot to go code wise and you're only going to get one chance to make a first impression and I don't think the code is far enough along to have shown this game and you need to show this game with all of the bells and whistles going if you're going to try to get people to buy at nine grand this machine you walk over and for just a few more bucks you can go get an evil dead or an x-men premium or any stern premium right it's just at that price point you can go get of Pulp Fiction. So I just think if I'm going to give Chris another bit of advice, I just think you need to get this thing baked a lot more. And I know you wanted to show something at Texas, but I'd be curious how many people actually ordered. I don't think they sold a hundred Merlin's Arcade. And then it's like, now what, right? Now, what are you going to do? I think what Chris needs, and again, looking at the artwork and the simplicity of this game, I really think he needs a creative director to join him. He needs to invest in that money now. The artwork is fine, but it does look like artwork I would see on books I buy for Killian. It looks like artwork that would be in a book for a four-year-old boy. And we're 40 to 60-year-old men. It's just not there, right? It's like, I don't know who the target audience is for a game like this. Is it children. We know children don't really play much pinball and you're still going to have to convince someone in a household who's 40 to 60 to drop $9,000. And again, I think if you're sitting in a conference room and you're saying, well, what can we make that's going to make that target audience spend this much money? I don't know how you land on a game like this. So Chris, We should talk. You need a creative director that has a vision on how to apply all of your innovation, all of your technologies, all of your effort will be in vain if you don't nail the theme more and you don't make a product that's more enticing to the pinball buying demographic. And I'll say this, the hardest thing when you're a nice person like Chris Turner, the hardest thing is nobody ever gives you real feedback because they don't want to be mean to someone who's really nice. And that's always a blessing and a curse when you're making a creative product like this. I've seen this. I see it at work. When I go into work every day, there's really nice people who deliver ideas that are stinkers. And it's really hard to give them feedback because you don't want to hurt their feelings. But as I said, if you can't sell to a global pinball buying world, if you can't get a thousand people to want your product, you're not doing it right. There are tens of thousands of people that are the potential pinball buying demo. And I mean that if you're struggling to sell 200 games, you did something wrong. All right. So that's Merlin's arcade. What else we got at the show? The faces are blurry in that electric playground Pulp Fiction topper for $1,500. It has been confirmed they are blurry faces. So they did not break IP infringement. They went by the letter of the law and released a topper that looks a little funny, a little weird. Will it sell? I don't think so. End of story. Okay. All right. What else do we see at Texas Pinball Festival? What am I missing? Anything big? I know you want this Harry Potter information I'm sitting on. Before I get to that, I want to talk a little bit about Dungeons and Dragons. I got about 10 games on the machine and I want to report back that I think the game is an amazing shooter. It really is. And you can tell, right? The moment you first start playing a game, it has a lot of great shots, a lot of satisfying shots. I love the music. I love the call outs. What that game does, it does so damn well. That dragon is huge. It's just such a nice game to stand over. And I really do think Stern delivered a phenomenal pinball machine except for one major issue I have with the game I just don like the artwork I think the game kind of ugly And as I look down a row of Stern machines this is a stinker when it comes to art package It really is I know they worked with a D&D artist, but there's just something about the art package that just doesn't pull you in. It just looks a little like AI created. It looks a little flat. It lacks depth. And also what's on the art is just not that interesting to look at. And I just think they could have done a better job. That's my thing about D&D is like, I love the game. I love the way it shoots. It is a little confusing when you first walk up to the machine and you're selecting characters. You have to be a D&D nerd to get into this game. But man, that gameplay is awesome. And I can't tell if maybe it's because I'm always playing Guns and Roses that some of these new Stern machines just seem so satisfying within five minutes because I'm finally playing something that shoots normal. And maybe my base level for gameplay is so low that I'm overly praising some of these games because they just shoot normal. But no, I think it's a great shooting game. I played some John Wick for the first time and yeah, not interested. Really not interested. Also with Wick, what's weird is like the flippers feel like they're even slanted down more than normal. Cradling the ball is a little bit harder. The whole game feels a little narrow and pinched in my honest opinion. And after playing John Wick for like 10 minutes, I was good. If I don't play it again, I really wouldn't care. Same thing again. I hopped on Avatar. I'm like, let me play more Avatar. Let me see if like I'm missing something. And again, it's just a sterile game. I didn't care the call outs, the EWG, Wama, whatever they're saying. You don't care about any of it. None of it. None of us have an emotional connection to any of the subject matter in Avatar. And man, after Jack just said, don't spend any money on anything until you see Harry Potter, he didn't do Mark Seidon any favors up there on stage. I mean, I feel like that was a little bit disrespectful. Mark's up there trying to sell his game, get people interested in his game, and then you just pull the rug from underneath them like that, that could not have been the plan. Ken Cromwell probably had no idea that was about to happen. Because if they really wanted to announce the next game was Harry Potter, they would have had a slide or a little video teaser. They would have flashed the logo with a lightning bolt somehow. And again, it just goes to show it's like Jack doesn't want to be upstaged by anybody else. And you know, he probably walked around the show, all the conversations about other people's products, not his avatar. And then so he just wanted the attention he knows he's gonna get, but he just did it prematurely. I did think it was in bad form to do it on that stage that way. All right, so let's just get to some rumors I'm hearing and let's talk about it. So here's what I'm hearing. And there's a lot of rumors swirling around Harry Potter. There's a rumor that the game is barren. And I heard people sharing this like this weekend. hey, I'm hearing Harry Potter is barren. So I'm here to tell you right now from someone who's seen the game, someone who's seen everything in it, that this game is not barren at all. It is loaded like Wizard of Oz. So when Jack says, if you liked Wizard of Oz, you're going to like this game, he is being 100% accurate. So that is exciting. A standard body Jersey Jack game that is loaded. Think about it. The only time we really, really got a loaded standard body game, maybe what? Dialed in? What's going to be interesting is if we see the return of things like upper playfields and how will they make that work? We got an upper play field on Guns and Roses. It definitely slows down the gameplay with those upper playfields, but I think they might find a way to add speed and add layers of gameplay to Harry Potter. I think when we think about a loaded Harry Potter game, you're going to have to have that Hogwarts castle. You're going to have to have some like candle lit use of the lighting. If it's Rainbow Puke, I will be disappointed. I think Jersey Jack really needs to look at this theme and make sure they don't just jam in, you know, their hot rails like rainbow Christmas trees into a Harry Potter world. That's not what Harry Potter lighting should be. So we also heard from Jack that they have all the movies, not just the first three. That was the rumor. All of the movies. And he said, we have all of the assets. Now, here's the thing I'm worried about is Jack always says that and then they don't use all of the assets. So here's something I am hearing. And I hope this is true. I am hearing that the clips in the movies, they have it all. And the clips are not muted, that you are going to see the sequences from the film. and the voices of the actors. And we're going to get it as you would see it in the movie. No more muted clips. And I think this is incredible if it becomes a reality. He worked on this license for 10 years and spent millions of dollars to get it. So I hope they have it all. I still would love to hear how they convinced J.K. Rowling to give them the license. Maybe it's just like from one billionaire to another. I bet that's what happened. I bet Leonard's like, look, you've got a few billion. I've got a few billion let's make a game together all right so they got that what else am I hearing okay so I have a few other things that you're going to find very juicy the number one thing is I am now hearing that there will be three trims which you know but I am also hearing that the standard edition trim of Harry Potter will in fact have stuff removed from the game It is going to be a simpler, more stripped down version of the game, and it is meant for operators. So the previous rumor was that all three trims are going to have everything in it. Nope. It's going to be more like a Guns N' Roses SE, and they want to sell as many of these as they can. I would assume the price is going to be $10,000 for the stripped down version of Harry Potter. All right, so we got one final big rumor that I'm hearing that no one else has said, and it's going to make for a very interesting launch of Harry Potter. It's also going to make it impossible for Kaneda to scalp a Harry Potter and make $20,000. So after 10 years and all this money, you know how I've been saying recently that Jersey Jack has sort of boxed themselves in that you'd only want to order the CE now, With the LE being 12,000, why wouldn't you just order CE? I think they sold more CEs of Avatar than they did of LE machines So now you got all these years where games haven sold very well Godfather was a flop Elton John didn sell tremendously well You haven sold many avatars And now you got Harry Potter and you know the demand for Harry Potter is going to be through the roof. So what do you do? What do you do? Do you stay true to the collectors? Do you increase the price because of the popularity of the theme? Do you increase the number of collector's additions you're going to make right now, it would be a thousand. What do you do? And it's a hundred percent a marketing decision. So the rumor that I'm hearing, and we'll see if this comes true, the rumor that I am hearing is the following. Nobody is going to have a hard time getting a collector's edition of Harry Potter. What Jersey Jack is considering is instead of putting a number on the amount of CEs they will make, they are going to open up sales of the CE model during a window of time. And they will make as many CEs as people order during that window of time. So let's talk about that for a minute, what we think that will do to the initial demand of this game. Look, I think they're doing this because they know what they've got. I think they know they would sell a lot more than a thousand CEs of the game. This move is very beneficial to them. It will absolutely destroy though the machine being a collectible and you call it a collector's edition. And that's an issue I have because if you do this and they are going to do this, I think you're going to sell thousands of CEs, like maybe three or 4,000 of them at $15,000 a pop. And you'll end up making so many of them that they will then become very, very easy to get for less money than 15,000. You're ostensibly going to oversaturate the market and you won't care. And they shouldn't care, right? They're going to make as much money as they can when they do this. And that's what a company should be doing. But it's definitely a different direction for JJP. Remember when Spooky was like, we're going to make as many bloodsucker additions as people order or collectors additions. And I think Spooky now is just 888 of just one model. I'm very curious to see what happens when Jersey Jack does this. If they do do it. I'm curious to see what happens to distros now, if that's the case, because I was thinking about this wall. If you're going to say you're going to make an unlimited amount and there's going to be demand through the roof, man, it's like, imagine if you're a distro, how many do you order now. How many orders do you put in knowing that this game might have demand for the next five years? As new people get into pinball, of course they're going to want a Harry Potter CEC. My worry is this. If Jersey Jack opens it up like this, I guess the question I have is, are they even going to number the game? They did this with Dialed In. When Dialed In Collector's edition when it was announced, Jack said, we're going to take as many orders as we get up until midnight New Year's Eve. Remember that people? And you know what he did at New Year's Eve midnight? We're going to make 150 collector's editions. Like it was such an exact number that the whole thing just seemed a little bogus. So I'm wondering if they're going to do that here. The problem is, imagine if he says, we're going to make 4,000 collector's editions of Harry Potter at $15,000 of pop. You know what I'm saying? Like if they do number them and the number is so large, what have you really done? It's not a collector's edition anymore. It's just the nicest trim of the game. And then maybe don't even bother with a CEN and an LE version of the game. So I think this is a very interesting marketing move. It does kill FOMO. I mean, would you have FOMO knowing like, all right, cool. Like let the distros order tons of them and I'll just sit and wait it out. And by the time, you know, they start making all these things, if they're making a few thousand, I'm not going to have to spend 15,000 on one new inbox. There's going to be so many out there like guns and roses. So that's what I'm hearing. We will see what happens. The other thing is this gang, there is an issue I heard with the artwork and licensing and we're now not going to get this game maybe to the end of spring so this game might not come out for three months I think King Kong is going to come out Predator the new barrels game we haven't talked about what the barrels game is I keep hearing it's Dune a lot of disappointment man my barrels friends do something guys like what are you doing like I don't understand what's happening you know they're not even doing teasers I just feel like they might be trapped. If it is Dune, there's no excitement I'm seeing for that license. So if it is Dune, guys, you got to start. Just rip the band-aid off. Tell us it's going to be Dune, but you're going to love it. And here's why. And here's the date we're going to reveal. They're doing nothing. And I don't know. You know, Jack's now trying to freeze all of our money for an unlimited run of Harry Potter CEs. It's all about to get weird. I just wish they would have made a thousand CEs and just make those thousand games unobtainable. Right. The collectors would have been happy. But as we all know, pinball collecting is over. Like it's kind of over the concept of like I need to get this version of the game now. And if I grab it, I'm special. People are going to want it. The demand's always it's over. It's all over. All these companies over the last three to four years have absolutely destroyed pinball collecting, which maybe isn't a bad thing. We're all grown men. None of these LEs make your wanker a little bit bigger. Nothing, right? There's nothing. You're not special. You're not having more fun with this higher end version. but we know they need to sell those higher end versions to convince the distros to take the other versions of the game. That was always the reason why they existed. If you want this many CEs, you got to take this many LEs and pros, or if you want this many LEs, you got to take this many premiums and pros. And that is how the model worked. So when you now blow that model up, it's gonna be crazy wild west everybody thank you for subscribing to canada's pinball podcast a lot of stuff is gonna happen over the next two months and i can't wait to cover it canada out let me go on like i'm blistering that song let me go on big hands i know you're the one Thank you.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: cde9b01e-86e7-4706-9ba8-812a80a769cf*