# Roughly Iambic Pentameter and Delicious

**Source:** NYC PinPod  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-03-09  
**Duration:** 80m 35s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.spreaker.com/episode/roughly-iambic-pentameter-and-delicious--70539250

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## Analysis

NYC PinPod covers a full week of New York City pinball competition (Feb 28–Mar 5, 2026), including Barcade Fidei Monthly, Silver Ball Sunday, multiple Pinball NYC league matches, South Slope Pinball League finals, and Scrapple League's second season opener. A significant portion discusses venue machine updates and a detailed technical breakdown of a Walking Dead ramp failure at South Slope finals. The hosts preview upcoming matches and touch on Pokémon as a new Stern license.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] As of March 6th, 2026, there are 358 pinball machines in New York City at 75 public locations. — _Stated as data from Pinball Map creators and users_
- [HIGH] The Walking Dead ramp at South Slope returned to top speed and the rubber bumper broke through the plastic box at the end of the left ramp return, causing the ball to fly onto the playfield instead of dropping into the in-lane. — _Benjamin Furiga provided detailed technical breakdown of the machine failure during South Slope Pinball League finals_
- [HIGH] Greg Pavarelli directed Barcade Fidei Monthly for the second month in a row on the last day of the month, with 22 players. — _Tournament results reported by NYC PinPod hosts_
- [HIGH] Tommy Ortega has held Silver Ball Sunday for 35 consecutive times on the first Sunday of the month at Single Cut. — _NYC PinPod hosts confirmed this milestone_
- [HIGH] The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields team is sitting out Pinball NYC season 2026 and will return in May. — _Stated during league schedule preview_
- [HIGH] Balls of Steel are undefeated at this point in the Pinball NYC season. — _Benjamin Furiga stated 'characteristically undefeated at this time of the season'_
- [MEDIUM] Legend of Valhalla was previously at Jack Bar and The Drift under the BQE. — _Discussion of machine removals; hosts expressed surprise at its existence in NYC_
- [HIGH] Jack Danger designed both of the modern Sterns at Skylark, which the hosts did not love. — _Benjamin Furiga stated this during Bullet Journal segment_

### Notable Quotes

> "It's roughly iambic pentameter, yes. And also, it's delicious."
> — **Eric Sweeplund**, ~30:00
> _Title reference; hosts praise the Troll Story poem written in verse form_

> "Well, it must be that time of year again."
> — **Bartender at Skylark**, ~70:00
> _Reflects how pinball venues recognize the start of Pinball NYC season by increased player traffic_

> "It is fucking close to water."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~20:00
> _Running joke about Amstel Light beer strength during match play discussion_

> "I just drained my ball and there was another ball still in the out lane. And then my ball hit it and they both went down."
> — **Courtney (quoted by Benjamin Furiga)**, ~55:00
> _First indication of the Walking Dead ramp mechanical failure that became the focus of detailed technical analysis_

> "That is really weird. How does that happen?"
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~57:00
> _Reaction to the ramp failure, sets up the technical investigation_

> "The ball has busted completely through the end of it."
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~62:00
> _Discovery of the root cause: the rubber bumper broke through the plastic box, allowing the ball to escape_

> "There are still more arenas than players, even though that's a huge number of players."
> — **Eric Sweeplund**, ~40:00
> _Commentary on Scrapple League's growth: 36 players but not enough to fill all available machines/groups_

> "I'm shocked that the Drift was still on Pinball Map. And I'm shocked that there was a Legend of Valhalla in New York City."
> — **Eric Sweeplund**, ~75:00
> _Reflects surprise at rare machine and venue presence in NYC_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Benjamin Furiga | person | NYC PinPod co-host, tournament director, Colliders team member, active in Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division |
| Eric Sweeplund | person | NYC PinPod co-host, pinball tournament director in NYC, NYC FSA team member |
| Greg Pavarelli | person | Pinball tournament director, directs Barcade Fidei Monthly and Scrapple League, competitive player |
| Tommy Ortega | person | Organizer of Silver Ball Sunday at Single Cut; has maintained event for 35 consecutive months |
| Stern Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; discussed for Pokémon license and Jack Danger game designs |
| Jack Danger | person | Pinball game designer who designed two modern Stern games at Skylark; hosts are critical of these designs |
| Barcade Brooklyn | venue | Pinball venue in Brooklyn hosting Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division and Right Flipper Division matches |
| Scrapple Land | venue | Pinball venue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn; hosts Scrapple League qualifying rounds |
| Buttermilk Bar | venue | South Slope Brooklyn pinball venue; hosts Pinball NYC league matches and South Slope Pinball League finals |
| Jack Bar | venue | Williamsburg pinball venue; hosts Pinball NYC league and Thursday Night Strikes tournaments |
| Single Cut Beersmiths | venue | Queens pinball venue; hosts Silver Ball Sunday tournaments |
| The Wallace | venue | NYC pinball venue; hosts NYC FSA league matches |
| Owl Farm | venue | NYC pinball venue with Addams Family and Avengers Infinity Quest; hosts NYC FSA matches |
| Rulo's | venue | Park Slope, Brooklyn pinball bar; hosts Pinball NYC league matches |
| Gebhardt's Beer Culture | venue | Financial District pinball venue; hosts Barcade Fidei Monthly and Pinball NYC matches |
| Colliders | organization | Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division team, home at Buttermilk Bar, currently 3-0 in season |
| Mutants | organization | Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division team, home at Solid State in Deep Queens, currently 3-0 |
| Aristocrats | organization | Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division team, currently 3-0 |
| Balls of Steel | organization | Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division team, currently undefeated |
| Pin Pals | organization | Pinball NYC Left Flipper Division team, currently winless after three consecutive losses |
| Pinball NYC | organization | NYC team-based pinball league with Left Flipper and Right Flipper divisions; organizes weekly matches across city |
| Scrapple League | organization | Competitive pinball tournament held at Scrapple Land, directed by Greg Pavarelli and others; 36 players in week 1 of season 2 (2026) |
| South Slope Pinball League | organization | Brooklyn pinball league with A, B, C divisions; held finals on March 5, 2026 |
| NYC Flipper Sport Association (NYC FSA) | organization | NYC pinball league; competes at venues including The Wallace and Owl Farm |
| Pokémon | game | New Stern Pinball license mentioned as topic for Ball 3 discussion about pinball licensing trends |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pinball NYC League Results, Scrapple League Season 2 Launch, South Slope Pinball League Finals, Walking Dead Machine Failure Technical Analysis, NYC Venue Pinball Machine Updates and Rotations, Competitive Tournament Results (Barcade Fidei, Silver Ball Sunday, etc.)
- **Secondary:** NYC Pinball Venue Infrastructure and Operator Practices, Stern Pokémon License and Industry Licensing Trends, Pinball Game Design (Jack Danger designs)
- **Mentioned:** NYC Pinball Map Data and Venue Availability

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Hosts are enthusiastic about tournament results, venue camaraderie, and community engagement. Frustration expressed about specific machine failures and game design choices (Jack Danger), but overall tone is celebratory of the competitive scene. The detailed technical analysis of the Walking Dead failure shows community investment in problem-solving.

### Signals

- **[competitive_signal]** Multiple teams achieving undefeated records early in Pinball NYC season; Colliders 3-0, Mutants 3-0, Aristocrats 3-0, Balls of Steel undefeated; Pin Pals 0-3 with consecutive tough losses against strong competition (confidence: high) — Tournament results reported across multiple matches in Left Flipper and Right Flipper divisions
- **[product_concern]** Walking Dead at South Slope has severe ramp malfunction: vacuum-formed plastic end box disintegrated, rubber bumper broken through, ball escapes onto playfield instead of returning to in-lane. Also reported auto-launch and Scolari Brothers mode issues. (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga detailed technical breakdown of ramp failure discovered during South Slope Pinball League B division semi-finals
- **[venue_signal]** Active machine rotations across NYC venues: Willy Wonka added to Barcade Fidei (replacing Baywatch), Beetlejuice added to Scrapple Land and Jack Bar (replacing Evil Dead), various machines added/removed from multiple locations over one week (confidence: high) — Detailed machine update log from Feb 28 - Mar 5, including user comments from Pinball Map
- **[community_signal]** Scrapple League week 1 drew 36 players with more available playing groups than players to fill them; indicates strong growth but potential capacity constraints (confidence: high) — Eric Sweeplund noted 'there are still more arenas than players, even though that's a huge number of players'
- **[operational_signal]** Owl Farm operator (Max) deliberately misconfigures Addams Family placement (only front-left and back-right legs functional, no working tilt bob) to accommodate poor floor conditions; floor gouges present that could catch machine legs (confidence: high) — Eric Sweeplund's detailed explanation of Max's operator decision and the floor hazards at Owl Farm
- **[product_concern]** Ghostbusters at South Slope experiencing multiple issues: auto-launch and Scolari Brothers mode activation problems; also reported at Buttermilk Bar. NBA machine was out of service. (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga and Eric Sweeplund reported Ghostbusters malfunctions across multiple venues and dates
- **[design_philosophy]** Hosts express critical views of Jack Danger's design work; Benjamin Furiga states he doesn't love either of Danger's modern Stern designs at Skylark, and notes he understands other players may disagree (confidence: medium) — Benjamin Furiga's comment: 'he designed both of them...i definitely i don't love either of those games'
- **[rumor_hype]** Pokémon confirmed as a new Stern Pinball license; hosts plan to discuss in Ball 3 whether this signals positive trends for future pinball licensing deals (confidence: high) — Hosts scheduled discussion of Pokémon Stern license in Ball 3 segment; phrased as seeking hope about licensing trends
- **[event_signal]** Multiple active tournament series confirmed for NYC: Scrapple League (weekly at Scrapple Land), South Slope Pinball League (seasonal finals format), Pinball NYC (team leagues with Left/Right Flipper divisions), Silver Ball Sunday (monthly), Thursday Night Strikes (Jack Bar), Barcade Fidei Monthly (confidence: high) — Comprehensive tournament schedule and results covered throughout episode
- **[venue_signal]** The Drift (under BQE near Union Pool) no longer appears on Pinball Map; had been operating Legend of Valhalla before closure/delisting (confidence: medium) — Hosts surprised to learn Drift was still on Pinball Map; noted it was under BQE and impossible for operators to maintain
- **[sentiment_shift]** Legend of Valhalla received poor reception from players; hosts and others found it frustrating and poorly designed; one host described it as 'if everything that could go wrong with the Jersey Jack went wrong' (confidence: medium) — Hosts discussed negative impressions of Legend of Valhalla after trying it at Beast 2024 tournament

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## Transcript

Those pictures help to bring guns back to pairs. We're going back off the shore. Happy Sunday, pinfolk, or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC Pin Pod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City and sometimes nearby surrounding areas. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are BCF. I still don't understand what the hell was going on with Dante's t-shirt at INDISC on Sunday. My name is Eric Sweeplund. My initials are HIP, and I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. On this week's pod, we'll do the things we always do in Balls 1 and 2, we'll run down local competition results, and then we'll give you venue updates, we'll give you bullet journal, what pinball did we play this week, oh my goodness. Oh my goodness, and then in Ball 3, we're going to talk about Pokemon, this new Stern license, and whether it gives us any hope about the way that licenses for pinball are going. Let's get started. On Saturday, February 28th, for the second month in a row on the last day of the month, Greg Pavarelli directed the Barcade Fidei Monthly, which brought 22 players to the financial district to play six rounds of group match play, alternating eras each round, with IFPA scoring and cutting to a top eight. In the end, Sean Grant won the final group, besting Ash Ditrapani, Greg Pavarelli, and Leland Kuykendall. On Sunday, Silver Ball Sunday at Single Cut 35 was convened. That's the 35th time that Tommy Ortega has brought all y'all, however many all y'all wanted to come to Astoria together on the first Sunday of the month. To play a five round of match play and then four players advancing to the finals kind of tournament. It's simple. It's fun. And they're Peters games. Sixteen players showed up this time. And when all was said and done, Tommy Ortega himself took the day, besting Harlan Aida-Linda, Greg Pavarelli, and Jimmy Usher, respectively. Tommy got 5.06 Whoppers for his efforts. On Sunday, March 1st, NYC FSA hosted Worms at At The Wallace. NYC FSA got a 12-4 home win, but boy what a great time. I really like Worms, what a great team. Very cool. And that was a make-up of week two, right? That's right. The blizzard. When it snowed, yeah. It was when a big blizzard came in and no one was allowed to be on the roads until eight hours before everybody's pinball match. And it made a lot of sense for people to say, hey, I'll stay inside with a sweater on. Thanks. On Monday, March 2nd, the third round of Pinball NYC's left flipper division was contested at bars all across the city. The two for-one-ers went out to Solid State in Deep Queens to see the Mutants. And the Mutants got a 10-6 home win. That brings the Mutants to 3-0. The Pinbots had a bye week. The Aristocrats visited the Lesser Players at Gebhardt's Beer Culture. And the Aristocrats got an 11-5 road win. They're also 3-0. When I ran into Dr. John on Monday night at the pizza joint after both of our matches were completed. Benjamin, your colliders hosted the Pin Pals at Buttermilk Bar. What happened? Well, we won seven of our first eight points. We had some really good games. I want to shout out Nat in particular. She was looking super cutely good at pinball with something like a 250 million point game on Kong in round two and like 25 to 30 million on Walking Dead in round four, the latter of which added two points to our accrual on the night effectively single-handedly, although Simon played cutely as well. It was the cute married couple match at that time. Cute. Yeah, it was super cute. It was a shitload of fun. The Pin Pals are in fact our pals. They're from right down the street. And also, just contextually, that's the second week in a row that the Pin Pals, or the third actually week in a row that the Pin Pals have had a kind of rough loss. They played two teams that are really good or have a history of being really good before us. We don't have as much of a history of being really good, but they have now had three kind of tough losses. Our New York City Flipper Sport Association went to Owl Farm to see Parliament. Parliament got a 9-7 home win. You were remarking that it seemed to be going rather late. Yeah, I mean, I'd said before I ran into Dr. John after he was back to the neighborhood from Gebhard's after a match, and I had played my match, I went to Rulo's to see some folks, and then I was at the pizza joint. I had just texted you before I walked in and y'all were still going. Yeah, well, one of the three machines at Owl Farm was out of order, so we did not play Iron Maiden. We only played The Addams Family and Avengers Infinity Quest. So it made for long rounds and they're very good on those machines. We were able to salvage those seven points coming out of there I just by sweeping that last round because they had already won one with nine and three rounds. Oh, wow. Good, tough match. Yeah. Special when lit hosted Balls of Steel at Rulos and Balls of Steel got an 11-5 road win. Since it was at Rulos and I was at Buttermilk, I was back and forth when I wasn't playing, you know, in a round, I would go over and check in on them or whatever. And I went over and actually finished my night there. I saw the end of their match after the end of our match. It came down to the final round. Balls of Steel were up 7-5. I believe that I clocked... Probably Zen and I talked about this, forgive me, it was 10.30 by the time I'd got there, and I had been playing pinball all night, which is accompanied by Amstel Light all night. The good news is it's Amstel Light and it's like almost... It's just slightly more alcoholic than water, but I also... I drink enough of it that, uh, you know, it's not nothing. Why is it like making love in a canoe? Why? It's fucking close to water. Yeah, that's right. It did come down to that final round, though. I believe I clocked that Greg F. and J.S. played each other three times throughout the night, and that, that's why, like, when we were done, after we had had kind of long rounds, they were still just starting round four over there. Rob Adler, who was with us here last week, just killed it on Simpson's Pinball Party, which put it away originally, and then Jay had a chance to come back to make it a 9-7 instead of an 11-5, but just didn't quite get there on ball three of Bond. It was quite a match and I think it's crazy that Special When Lit is 0-3. Intermission Dolores went out to Milo's yard to meet worms. Intermission Dolores 11-6. Worms are still looking for their first win. And the deluxe horses battled lion persons at Barcade Fight Eye. It came down to a tiebreak game. The Deluxe Horses, an 8-8 road win. That's the Battle of the Barcades copyright Uchendu Nwachukwu. Well, except for the part that's subject to Barcades copyright. But in that Battle of the Barcades, someone was going to get their first win. And it turns out that it was the Barcade Brooklyn team on Tuesday, March 3rd. Also, all over the city, Pinball NYC's Right Flipper division contested all these matches right here. Everybody Loves the Sunshine hosted the Pin Babes, and I'm certain that they were cordial hosts, but they still handed their opponents a 15-1 loss. Pin Babes Yet Winless? Harlem Globe Flippers went all the way out to Deep Queens where No Quarters for Laundry hosted them at Solid State and No Quarters won a tie break win 8-8. No Quarters has now faced their finals opponents and their semi-finals opponents from last season. They came out with a record of one win, one loss, 14 points. Pretty good start. Neptune's Treasure went to Rulos where the replays hosted them and I'm sure that they were cordial but they gave their visitors an 8-8 tiebreak win. That is to say Neptune's Treasure won. Neptune's Treasure is now 2-0 and the replays are 0-2. I think your Butterballers hosted Pinister 6 at Buttermilk. I see an 11-5 score. How'd it feel? It was a good night. I had a couple of good games of Metallica and a pretty rough game of Twilight Zone. But, you know, fun overall. We were a little worried. We were looking like only three of us were going to be able to make it early in the afternoon. The Troll Story this week is in verse. You'll have to tell me, would you like to hear it? Yes. On the evening of the lunar eclipse, what doth bestow on our captain's fingertips? Oh, a letter, a declaration of our admiration for Sir Scott Hunter from the U.S. nation. While the moon longs to be in Earth's shadow, Amy racked up points on the shadow. Stine traveled far to join, ending our sadness, while jousting her way on medieval madness. Nice. R.I.P. our sweet friends, we tied in rivalry heated, but ultimately, the trolls were defeated. It is roughly. Uh, the first couple of lines, some of it didn't quite scan, but all you would have had to have done was like, put some apostrophes in. It's roughly I am, but pentameter yes. And also, it's delicious. Scrapple Squad traveled to Jack Bar where the Shlubs were ready for them with an 11-5 home win. Shlubs win. That's the Shlubs' second win in two tries. Danger Danger went to Midway. These are sister bars, Buttermilk and Midway. But Danger Danger, they did not treat these people like their sisters. Maybe they did. It was 16 to 0, Danger Danger over the third ball. That's not, that's worse than a forfeit. A forfeit is 12 to 0. That means that they played all of the matches and they won every single one. So yeah, Danger Danger really piling on the points there for their second win and a tough second loss for the third ball. What we do know is that because they were at Midway, they must have been queued or they would have been escorted out as the Sailor Moon drawing shows. Oh yeah, on the sandwich board outside. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah. And they got, there's a sign hanging up inside too that's framed that says be queued or leave. That's right. Tweety Bird, I think if memory serves. Yeah, Tweety Bird. Yes. Yeah, yeah, right. Ball Drainers went to Bar Great Harry where they bested Harry's hand grenades 14 to 2. Ball Drainers are 2 and 0, hand grenades are 0 and 2. On Wednesday, March 4th, 36 players came out to Scrapple Land to play in the first qualifying week of the second season of 2026 of Scrapple League. Let me jump in for a split second to just say that there are still more arenas than players, even though that's a huge number of players. Go ahead. It was directed by Greg Pavarelli, Woody Richman, myself, and Harlan Aida-Linda. We played five rounds of group match play with IFPA scoring in the hopes of garnering the highest point total across the series. This Wednesday night, Alberto Santana did it the best, collecting 31 points. Anna Wolk had 29. And Steven Perrillo, Mike Pantino, Harlan Aida Linda, and CJ Smith all picked up 27. Super cool. I like seeing Anna's name. Alberto and Anna atop those standings feels like some old timey shit right there. I like that. Yeah, they were both killing on Wednesday. Uh-huh. So good. And Pantino and CJ also, you know, harkens back to an era. Also, let me say, welcome aboard, Steven and Harlan. Like, welcome aboard. I don't mean to exclude you when I sort of get wistful about old days spent with all those folks. Welcome aboard. Great to have a Big Ten. 12 people participated in the optional side pot. Alberto Santana got the big money at top. James Bloor, Sean Grant, Spiekageft, and Dan Merrill had a playoff for the second place money. On Thursday, March 5th, 21 players descended upon Jack Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where there were a few strikes to be had, by all. After it was all over, Greg Fertel, who's making a point of doing this thing, won again. It took him 10 matches this time. 11. Oh, right you are. It took him 11 matches this time. He bested, respectively, John McGregor, Adam Kane, and Ian Leone. And magically, on Friday night, we already know this, he got 5.6 Whoppers. Also on Thursday night, the South Slope Pinball League held an A, B, and C finals for its first season of the year. Eight players in A played two rounds of group bracket elimination, Baba style. Yeah, four players played two rounds, but eight players started in the first round. After six total games, Rob Wong won the A division. George Underwood and Kate Martin tied and had to play a seventh game of the night. George picked up the tiebreak on Twilight Zone for second place, Kate got third, and Scott Strong came in fourth. Rob Wong picked up 26.21 Whoppers for this league. Once again, magic that just the day after we have that information. I love it. In the B Division, another eight players played in the same format. Matthew Carlson won the B division, Sam Hall came in second, Rob Adler third, and I got fourth. There was a C division finals, non-consequential, but we don't see it on match play. I was there, they were playing, I just can't find the record of it, maybe they did it on paper. Yeah, I think those things often happen on paper. It was for fun. Yeah, and if it's only for fun, why are you going to put it in match play if it's already just happened? Like if there's only one group playing, you know, or whatever it is. There were three machines available probably, right? If maybe two, maybe two. I guess maybe NBA wasn't available. But like there might have been three machines available for people to play. Let's see. So NBA was, yeah, out. NBA was out on Monday also. It had the sign on it. Ghostbusters has been acting funky since last week when I was guest TDing the sixth qualifying week. I recall that something was strange in the neighborhood then, yes. Yeah, and it was still acting up on Tuesday when the Butterballers were playing there. Oh, well, let me tell you, the two games that the Colliders played on it after the Pin Pals decided that we should play it went very well for the Colliders. My only weirdness was I thought I should have been in one of the mini wizard modes at the start of Ball 2 and I was not. That's probably my arrogance more than a bug in the code. Yeah, then last night at South Slope Finals, it started doing the thing again where it would auto launch a player's ball and start the Scolari Brothers. Yeah, lame. In the semi-finals of the B division, the first game I think we played, Courtney was driving my group's bus. She chose Walking Dead. A few things happened in order. At some point, I was just, you know, Sam was playing a ball. Sam Hall. Sam Hall was playing a ball. And she went, oh fuck. I didn't know what happened, but she kept playing. Didn't know it was connected until later. Well, later, then again, I was standing off to the side. Courtney came back and said to me, well, that was weird. I just drained my ball and there was another ball still in the out lane. And then my ball hit it and they both went down. I said, that is really weird. How does that happen? Oh, wow. We didn't investigate that any further. Sure. For I don't know why. Well, I played my ball. I lit the modes and I shot the left ramp to start CDC Mm The first time I shot the ramp this game And then I went oh fuck Because instead of dropping into the in lane it actually flew over the top of the sling into the middle of the playfield right above the flippers. And I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting it to come back slowly. I was looking at something else because I know how the ramp returns and what kind of time I've got. I recovered and continued playing. What I was able to discover was the end of the left ramp, which returns to the right, it's a vacuum-formed plastic ramp all the way down. Yes, the whole way. The other side ends in metal rails. This one, so it ends in like a plastic box and a hole at the bottom and it drops down into the inline. So it's a pinball sized hole that drops exactly above the switch on the right end lane. Yes, correct. Yep. Um, and it also features a little rubber bumper thing that, you know, sticks through a hole in the end of that box that deadens the ball when it gets to the end. Yes. So it goes boom and then drops. Yes. Uh, the ball has busted completely through the end of it. Got it. The little rubber thing bounced around and wound up in the right out lane. Sure, so that the ball was... Which is where it was holding that other ball that Courtney found. Yeah, yeah. And now if you shoot it, it just flies off the end. Uh-huh. I discovered that at, yeah, near the end of my ball three, I was player three, Sam was player four, Sam had already won the game, she'd beat all the rest of us. Right, there was no... And... Yeah, there was no recourse in doing anything about it because by the time you discovered the error, everyone had been subject to it and... Yep. It was while it was devastating for everybody's ability to play the game normally, it had been equally devastating to everyone's ability to play the game normally throughout the game as best you could tell. And now it's time to take it out, I guess, right? Yep. So then we took that out. And I had on that ball three, I made the recovery. I had a couple more shots and I had just got enough points to come into second place on that game. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I went looking to see if they'd have one during this season and it seems like they're sitting Pinball NYC season out and that they'll be back in May. Commonwealth will see the lesser players visiting Intermission Dolores on Cactus Canyon, Godzilla, and Dungeons & Dragons. Both Intermission Dolores and the Lesser Players looking for a second win on Monday night to get at or above 500. The Aristocrats will host the Pin Pals at Rulo's. This is going to be the second time I think Pin Pals went, you know, just right up the way to 16th Street. The Pin Pals looking for their first win. Aristocrats hoping to avoid their first loss. The mutants are going to sit around and wait for the rest of us to resolve this week. They've got to buy. We Colliders will go to Gebhard's Beer Culture to face the Two for Oners. The Two for Oners, I think, can get their second home win after a virtual away loss at their home bar in the first week. I think they lost to the lesser players at Gebhard's in week one, but they've won both of their home matches. They're getting a lot of Gebhards. Since they played the other team and it was an away match, they're going to have six this season, right? We, Colliders, are looking already to eclipse our win total from last season in week four. So that feels pretty good. Two-for-oners have always been, like, great, kind of even competitors with us in the way that pinpals and, you know, friends, homies, it's good to see these people. The deluxe horses will play host at Barcade Brooklyn to Special When Lit. Special When Lit still looking for their first win and the horse he's got there is last week. Parliament will visit the worms at Milo's Yard. Like Pinpal's aristocrats, worms are looking for their first win and Parliament hoping to avoid their first loss. Our New York City Flipper Sport Association will see the Lion Persons come to visit us at At The Wallace. I just want to point out that these two teams are used to meeting in the playoffs, but this time they are going to meet both hoping to avoid their third loss this season. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Snow Post Pwnment. So I presume they and the lesser players will make up their week two match at some point. Balls of Steel, on the other hand, characteristically undefeated at this time of the season. On Tuesday, March 10th, it'll be the third round for Pinball NYC's right flipper division. Everybody Loves the Sunshine will go to At the Wallace to meet Harlem Globe Flippers, No Quarters for Laundry and Penister Six will be playing at Skylark. Shlubz and Rest in Pinball are at Barcade Brooklyn. Neptune's Treasure hosts Trolls at Milo's Yard. Neptune's Treasure is looking to stay undefeated in that match. We butterballers are going to Midway to meet the third ball for the first time. I love that it's the third for the first. And also this is just the reverse of what just happened. And we just did it in verse again, if you'll excuse all of that. But they went to their sister bar of buttermilk last week to face Danger Danger. And now another buttermilk team, another sister bar team is coming right up in their business to face them, the butterballers. Third Ball is looking for their first win. Scrapple Squad hosts the Pin Babes at Scrapple Land. That's two weeks in a row going to Greenpoint for the Pin Babes. They're still looking for their first win. The replays and ball drainers face off at Jack Bar. This is one of those feast and famine games. The replays are looking for their first win. The ball drainers are hoping to avoid their first loss. And Danger Danger will host Harry's Hand Grenades at Buttermilk. That is feast hosting famine, just like we talked about. Harry's is looking for their first win. Danger Danger doesn't want to lose for the first time. On Wednesday, March 11th, at 8pm, at Scrapple Land, that's Pinball 8pm, I think, Scrapple League will be convened under the direction of Greg Pavarelli and a panel of associates. On Thursday, March 12th, it's Thursday Night Strikes, it's Jack Bar. Head to head, they do it all the time. Is SSPL off this week? As of March 6th, 2026, there are 358 pinball machines in New York City at 75 public locations. Thanks to the creators and users of Pinball Map for this data. Here are machine updates from the past week. On Saturday, February 28th, a Batman 66 Catwoman edition was added to Single Cut Beersmiths. Oh my. In Queens. Has Peter always had a Catwoman edition? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I remember when it showed up at Sunshine. Okay. I didn't remember that that was a Catwoman edition. I think he has three total Batman 66s. Cool. Also on Sunday, user JackBarJohn commented on the James Bond at H&H Reserve saying, Flipper Rubber is replaced. Nice. On Sunday, user Boba Fett let us know that the Stranger Things at Barcade Chelsea is turned off at the moment. That's the second best state of repair for it. The best state of repair is turned on so the attract mode lights up your room, but with a sign on it that says don't put your money in here. On Monday, a whirlwind was added to Sunshine Laundromat. User DanTastic commented, the storm is coming. Quite so. I bet that means that the initials SJG will show up sometime soon. Also on Monday, an X-Men and a Star Trek were removed from birdies. Added in their place a Spider-Man and an Addams Family. That Star Trek was the Stern one, right? Yep, it always was so friendly to me. I loved that one particular Star Trek. It was pretty dirty and slow, but... Well... Yeah, I liked how it played. What were the ads? What replaced? Spider-Man, Stern, and then Adam's Family. I like Pat Lawler. Yeah, that sounds like a pretty big upgrade to me. I might go to Bushwick sometime. If that flipper that was in the total wrong position on Led Zeppelin is back in the right position now, that might be a great venue. On Wednesday, user tr6nstr9nder commented on the Spider-Man that is newly at Birdies saying, broken. Oh no. Also on Wednesday, a Beetlejuice arrived at Scrapple Land. Interesting. We played it in League. Huh. Also, on Wednesday, Evil Dead was taken out from Jack Bar and Beetlejuice was added in its place. Interesting. User JackBarJohn commented, set up on March 3rd. And user MiniFlipper commented, bill acceptor isn't working, sad face. Oh. I bet they'll give you quarters behind the bar. And a Legends of Valhalla was removed from the Drift. I'm shocked that the Drift was still on Pinball Map. And I'm shocked that there was a Legend of Valhalla in New York City. I had no idea that either of those two things was true. It was true. It's under the BQE across from Union Pool, I think, maybe. You know, just like in this weird spot. And it's impossible for anyone, like, I can't imagine how you could have operated pinball in the place that Al was operating pinball there. And, like, Legend of Valhalla? Have you played that game? Yeah, yeah, it was at Jack Bar for a little while. Ugh. That... yeah. I didn't... I wasn't... wasn't a huge fan of it. And... whatever the beast that I went to was, 2024 I think, Alex Kelly and I stepped up to that thing because it was sitting there, like it was at the venue and we... both of us were like, I've never played it, let's do it. Like it's... we're between rounds, let's... I got a minute, I'm about to do it, you wanna join? Yeah, let's do it. And I just like it seemed like it seemed like if everything that could go wrong with the Jersey Jack went wrong That it would be exactly this bad. It's interesting that it was at that particular tournament because One of the voice actors on the pin is Jeff Teolis That is funny. On Thursday user Hitchhiker commented on the Earthshaker at the gutter bar Our LIC, currently down, working through an electronic issue, will post once back up and running. Kick ass. Also on Thursday, Baywatch left the lineup of Barcade Fideye and they added a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Anything that puts a Pat Lawler somewhere where there was a Baywatch is a massive upgrade. I don't care if it's Willy Wonka. I don't care if it's Rollercoaster Tycoon. I don't care if it's Monopoly. It's better than Baywatch. Here, this fits in with the location updates, actually. This is late breaking news. So then at 542 Windham, Windham chimes in and says, Random, but if you find yourself in the neighborhood like I did, gutter, Lower East Side, pinball is all on free play all weekend for some weird TED promotion. Let's talk Bullet Journal. On Sunday I went to Buttermilk. I like, when I can, to go to the place that I'm going to play on Monday night, sometime before I go there on Monday night. This will be a common theme in my Bullet Journal this week, I imagine. I went to Buttermilk on Sunday. I showed up a bit earlier than they actually open. So I doubled back down Fifth Avenue to Skylark to play a few. When I did so, I was greeted by the bartender. She greeted me with the statement, Well, it must be that time of year again when I walked in on Sunday afternoon. Because when I walk in to Skylark on Sunday afternoon, it's Pinball NYC season. It's not because I'm necessarily going to play at Skylark on the next Monday, but Skylark's open at 2 o'clock, and if I'm going to play somewhere on the Strip, there's a good chance I'm going to swing by Skylark. It also has Paragon and Fishtails, and so it has a couple of games that I'm actually really interested in playing, unlike a lot of modern Sterns. including the two modern sterns sitting there which have in common that they are designed by jack danger which doesn't put me resolutely in some corner against jack danger but i i definitely i don't love either of those games and he designed both of them You know, he coming up. Oh, we're going to talk about Jack Danger in Ball 3. Yeah. When I was at Buttermilk, when I finally got to Buttermilk after after I, you know, I showed up at probably 445 or 450 and I was like, you know what, I'm I'm going to double back down the street. I did see actually when I showed up there, I saw Courtney standing outside of Rulo's. And so I went over to Rulo's because I was confused in my head. We had announced on when we recorded on Friday, we talked about how RWI was going to be on Sunday. But that of course is Sunday in two days from the day we're recording right now, which was eight days away or nine days away from the day that we were recording before. They're opening at 3 o'clock on purpose these days. But, you know, it's a... I tried to go to one place, I thought I'd go to another, and then I ended up at a third. I played a few at Skylark, I went back to Buttermilk, and there I ran into, alphabetically, and Zen. Tom the bartender, not Tom M, whom I ran into, you know, as a patron, was showing Dante's performance at INDISC, which Kate, head bartender at Buttermilk, was tournament directing. I played a couple of games with Zen while I was there. He taught me why I should play the pterodactyl mode on King Kong. I played a great ball one on Metallica against him and then bragged about how well I had done and then failed to do anything on balls two or three and utterly got my ass kicked. That was my Sunday. What about you? You played on Sunday. NYCFSA at home with worms visiting in our Blizzard makeup match. That was just really, that was really fun. And we started at seven, I think. And it went really quickly and everyone was happy about that. Cool. Um, yeah, really, uh, great group of people up at, you know, one of my favorite bars. Yeah. And then NYC FSA, you know, the next night back again and at Owl Farm. It's a tough match on some funky machines. Uh huh. Just the two. And the Adams family, like when it's up in that corner, let me make this clear. As an operator, this is one of Max's pieces of pure genius. The machine that is in that back corner at Owl Farm must be only on the front left and back right leg, and it must not have a tilt bob that is reasonably functional. That is the only reasonable state in which to have that game sitting there in which to set that game up And so like I you know kudos to Max who understands that like the floor is not made for me back here I gonna do what I can do with it When I first walked in and I was stepping up to Avengers for a practice game a member of parliament pointed out to me there's a large gouge in the floor just to the right of where The Front right leg sits yeah, and if you should slide the machine that one inch over the leg will drop into it and You're not gonna get it. It'll be the it'll tilt the game. I mean it will you know like the playfield You could keep p laying, but it'd be weird could it be wobbly and Getting it out of there requires tilting the game so got it Maybe don't slide to the right. Got it. Condition notes. Yeah. That is a really good venue condition note. I also don't remember. I think that Parliament might come to us this season if we face them at all, but I'm not going to make any promises. That's all I'm saying. I'm not going to make any... If it makes sense to slide the machine to the right, my instinct might kick in to slide The machine to the right. Here was an interesting moment. Off to the side of pinball on Monday night at Owl Farm. Two associates of mine, Gabe and David, New York City Flipper Sport Associates. Yeah, that's right. Gabe and David, not business associates, New York City Flipper Sport Associates, had brought They bought their Nintendo Switches and they were trading Pokemon. I guess Pokemon Fire Red and Pokemon Leaf Green, which were Game Boy Advance games from 20 years ago? Sounds roughly correct that there were... You were supposed to buy a different cartridge for each version of it as a... Yeah, that sounds about right. In the last week was re-released on the Nintendo Switch as a classic port. And they both got it and they were trading Pokemon and then I said, oh, that's cool. So I went home and on my Nintendo Switch, I bought Leaf Green and started playing Pokemon. I've never played the Pokemon video game before. I played the card games way back when. Okay. The trading card game. Yeah. Collectible card game. Yeah. Both. CCG. CCG, collectible or customizable were the two ways that I remembered it. I think that I played the Star Wars one and the Decipher, the company that made it, called it a customizable I think that was their term of art as opposed to the industrial term of art which was collectible. Collectible card game. Quite so. Yeah. Wherein it is necessarily customizable insofar as it is collectible. You deploy your collection to customize your deck. How was your Monday? I mean, I was cute. I forgot until after ball one. To unbutton my dress shirt to reveal the Collider's crest on my Collider's t-shirt. And on ball two, I had my cutest as well as my highest value performance of the night, I'm going to play for the powerball multiball in a multiplayer game. In a single player game I might do something different, but in a multiplayer game because someone else isn't playing for it and that gives me an advantage. And if you get even one jackpot, it's pretty good. And if you don't get even one jackpot but just get a bunch of switches up on the upper playfield by hitting some crap while there's chaos happening in a multiball, it might be a decent amount of points on your bonus as long as you don't tilt. It's every switch. It's not just the upper playfield. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. During Powerball Mania. I called it Powerball Multiball. It's Powerball Mania. But on my ball two, I cashed that in because I had been stacking up my power balls. I had to... We started the game with it in the right position such that you would have to cash three in before the ceramic ball was on the playfield. I stacked two of them and on ball two, one person had collected one, so I used both of them to do it. I played a Powerball Mania that like I had two balls trapped on the right flipper for an absurd period of time. It didn't result in a massive, massive score just from that. But then after I completed that Powerball Mania, I didn't get any jackpots, but I put balls up on the upper playfield a lot and, you know, obviously hit a lot of switches because I had the ball on the playfield for a long time. I then got two jackpots in the Don't Touch the Door multiball, whatever that's called. I think of it as the main multiball for the game, but the don't touch the door thing. And, you know, I think I walked away with 500 million or something like that. It was like, you know, I like, if you guys want to take on, you know, my teammate, all three of you come get me, kind of score after two balls. And it held up just that way. I did almost nothing on ball three and it held up just that way. But it was it felt very cute. I had a mediocre game on Ghostbusters. I experienced none of the problems that you outlined. I was wholly arrogant about what I thought should have happened in the modes because, you know, probably just because I was wholly arrogant because. Hi, Benjamin Fuerger, I'm not sure we've met. I did bounce back and forth between there and Rulo's. bambo resteeklefehliot Tindrum Puja mama boi we got の contributions GD crowd Well, on Tuesday, I decided to emulate you, and at the half time of the Butterballers match, I walked across the street to Rulo's. I don't know if that's emulating me. That's just clever behavior. So I could say hi to the Reefways who were hosting Neptune's Treasure. I really just had time to walk in and give a quick hello. And, you know, there was one game going on. It was on Simpsons. And then I had to dash back to Buttermilk. Courtney texted me that they had called a Twilight Zone and I had volunteered to take that if they did, Letting her know before I went over to Rulo so she'd have that info just in case it... Right, right. If nobody wants it... They were very quick with their picks. Sure. Faster than I expected. Sure. Yeah, no, our opponents were slower than I expected and yet we were done well in time for me to go see like, I didn't see the selection and the announcement of round four over at Rulo's on Monday night, but I definitely was there for, you know, ball one in progress at some point for round four when we were down. And y'all still weren't done down at Alphorn. Yeah. On Wednesday at Scrapple League, and this comes to you courtesy of Woody Richmond, who insisted that I report this on the podcast. Yes, please. In Greg's absence, Woody led the group announcement just before we started round one. Uh-huh. We had a lot of new players and in particular a lot of like brand new to pinball players. Very cool. Were out this Wednesday. Yeah, it was cool. But, and oh boy, the music was just too loud. Maybe we should have seen if we could get it turned down because we were just yelling. But there were also a lot of casuals around not playing the league. And so a lot of machines were being played. It was loud and Woody was yelling the whole time. And then at the very end he's like, okay, we're going to get round one started. And he goes, oh, but wait, one more thing. He had, we're going to get round one started. He turned around to grab his iPad. And I had been standing just behind him during the announcement time. He turned back around and said, one more thing. None of you, 36 people here, thought to mention to me that whole time that my fly was down. And then someone, now that he was back facing the group and I was behind him, someone on the other side said, why is it still down? That's right. He said, I wanted to make a point. That's right. This is how pinball starts, my friends. This is how pinball starts. In the most dignified manner possible. Thank you, Woody. So on Thursday, I went to Gebhard's after work. I work on the Upper West Side. And I take the subway from 72nd Street on the days that I go into the office, which is several days a week. And that means that Gebhard's is right there. And I went on Thursday and it was dual purpose. I got both, I got some work-related rage out, and I also played every single game there, except for Star Trek, which is just a piece of garbage, it's not actually a game. And I played all of them at least once, except for that one, Farfalla and Embryon a few times, and I gave updates to our team. Some of them were probably arrogantly self-serving or self-servingly arrogant, you know, just about like where you can alley pass and where you can't and what passes work, where you need to alley pass. And that's probably just based on my personal play style. But also there's a little bit of dick swinging when you're like, this is how you alley pass. The only way to pass on this game is the alley pass. A lot of people, I think, do not have the confidence to attempt to alley pass, despite the fact that I believe that they have the skill to do it. They just don't know it. What was your Thursday like? It was, for me, the B finals of SSPL. Yeah, we talked about you in the final group. Yeah. In the semifinals, I was in group two, which also had Courtney, Morgan, and Sam. Sam was driving the bus or Courtney was driving the bus? Courtney was driving this bus. Very good. I saw Sam. Sam came on Monday night. I should have said this when I was talking about Monday night, but Sam was there on Monday night and was incredibly kind. She was, she really wanted to practice, but she was also like, I, I don't want to like, you guys are playing a match. I don't want to be in the way of your match. And I was like, look, you're there. There are seven machines. We couldn't possibly be playing more than four at once. This is a public location. And then you should feel free to play pinball. Like you should come here and play pinball. I want to be able to go somewhere and play pinball. When four machines are required for a competition, I want to be able to go play the fifth, sixth, and seventh machines. Or I should say and or seventh machine. I can't play. I should just say or because I can't play three pinball machines at once. But like, you know, I wanted her to be able to play whatever she wanted. And I appreciated that she was giving us the grace of, I don't want to be in your way, but you know. That's nice. Yeah. I mean, I make. Practice. Practice, if you want. I make a special point. You also made it to the finals after that practice, right? You and she both to the final round, not just the B finals, you know, qualified for the final eight and B, but also made it to the final four group, right? That's right. I was going to say, I always, I make a special point in running a tournament or, you know, just in general being out and around, but to, for public venues to make sure that the general public can play a game that we're not using right now, you know. I don't want to drive anyone else off. I want to welcome them in. That's right. I want them to play the game right next to me. That's right. And see what's going on in this tournament thing and say, hey, wait a minute, let me, let me, let me join in. And I want to let them play to the end of their ball three if they're playing a one player game. And I also want to say to them right after that, excuse me, I understand you might want to play another game on this, but we're playing this tournament. Software told us what to play. Can I please hand you this dollar so that I can buy your next game on some other game while we play this? And, but like, I want to make it a positive experience for them. Even if it's an unwelcome social event, I want to make it at least a net zero experience for them, you know? Yeah. Was a Courtney drove the bus first to The Walking Dead, which I told you about. Right. The bus is ramp. Right. Then we played Attack from Mars. I got a first on Attack. It wasn't amazing all around. It was being fairly mean. I think I finished around 1.1 billion. So no Total Nuclear Annihilation? Yeah, no. You did a multiball and a couple of saucers? I didn't even do a multiball. You did a couple of saucers. I lit the locks. I never collected a lock. I shot the shots. I was two shots from Total Nuclear Annihilation. They were both the right ramp. Yeah. But, um, and, let's see, I missed, I drained the first hurry up. But then I combined the next two and hit that for 500. Or 300, 300 is the first combo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100, 300, 600, 900, I think. Maybe, yeah. 500, 900. Well, the fourth one's- Oh, the fourth one just awards it. Yeah, and you don't, it's not even a hurry up, it's just you get a billion if you've got all four. Oh, it's a billion. There you go. If you get all four started at once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. After that attack, we were in a particular situation with the scores, looking at, you One more game and who could advance? Courtney had come in last on both the games. So she was at zero. Were y'all in a 4-2-1 or a 3-2-1? Out of the contention. It was 6-6-2. Okay, so 3-2-1-0 was individual game scoring was 3-2-1-0. It was 6-6-2, that's 3-2-1-0. No, it was 4-2-1-0. 4-2-1-0. Yeah. Yeah, okay, word. Yes, of course. I had a second and a first. Seven points per round. And Sam had a first and a second. Right. Which means that the fourth individual, if they got a first, could tie for second. Could, yeah. Well, so there's, I mean, there's 24 permutations of the scores. Yes. All of them offered an out to Morgan, who had collected two points from two third places. Yeah. Both of those outs required Morgan to come in first. And you or Sam to come in first. Me or Sam to come in last. Yeah, 100%. Boy, we are also not getting very far with Maiden. I'm trying to remember the scores, but I feel like they, I mean, I was, they all, they all, yeah, no, they all did well and I did not do well. That's right. That's what it wound up being. Anyway, I came in last and I was now in danger of, of, but luckily Morgan did not come in first. Luckily for you, unluckily for me. Sam Kielkelefer, right, for my sake. So Sam and I advanced into the final four. Yeah. Yeah, my, and then in the final four I did not play well and wound up in fourth place, but I'm happy with that. I'm going to get a medal. I like a medal. Yeah. Medals. Put it up on my trophy wall right, right there. Yeah. Oh, there's a lot of medals hanging up on that motherfucker too. Yeah, there's also, well, it's like, I guess the medals outnumber nowadays, but there's also a bunch of like, festival passes. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. On, on, yeah. Credentials, I might call them. Yeah, right. Just my, like, you know, the NYC, the lanyard you wore around at NYC Pinpod with your player number. And NYC FSA. We here are NYC Pinpod. That's NYC FSA is Eric's team, but in fact we're talking about... The NYC PC. Yes the NYC PC which is the New York City Pinball Championship thanks to Levi and Austin and Paul and Tim for a couple of years a few years ago at the Skyline Ballroom for two years or the Skyline Hotel rather for two years and then in Industry City in Brooklyn for one year And then a fourth year, like two doors away from Crazy Levi's. Oh, interesting. I did not really, I don't think I remember that that was happening. It had been a gym. Interesting. Oh, I remember that gym. I remember that gym. And there was, yeah. I remember there being a gym by Crazy Levees. You may not hear Madeline's voice here regularly any longer, but Madeline very much inspired this topic. I went and looked at the at a little bit of chat on the NYC discord to to sort of reinforce that people are talking about this people are interested in this and I really I talked about it a few weeks ago when the Pokemon game was announced Madeline texted me before I knew that it was that it was a thing to say oh my god the industry was Just flipped on its head in a heartbeat was roughly the way that I interpreted the text that I received from Madeline. And while I wanted to believe that, while I wanted to think that maybe, you know, Black Sabbath isn't the next pinball machine that Stern will release, I also, you know, I'm probably a pessimist. I prefer Sartre. Many people prefer Camus as the existentialist go. I prefer the darker guy. I prefer a little bit less bright of an interpretation of things sometimes, or at least I lean that way. I might not prefer it, but it's the way that it's where my head goes right away. And so I was less optimistic. And so I posted a poll to the NYC Pinball Discord channel, which is, it has the logo of Matt Grady's Twitch channel. Uh, it has at least Kate as an administrator. I don't know if she's the only administrator, Kate Martin, or if it's both Grady and her I don't know if they're administrating the whole thing or if there are other admins. I just don't know. But I appreciate that it's there. And I posted this poll to the content channel of the server. I asked just this. What effect, if any, do you imagine the release of Pokemon will have on pinball licensing categories and strategies? I then added a little disclaimer. I had six options available for people to vote on. They were no effect, no change. They will release Black Sabbath next. Slightly optimistic. The door is open to new ideas. I'm highly optimistic that the door is open to new ideas. It will sell enough to create a new market share. I'm nervous that they won't make the comic book game that I want, and it depends on how it shoots. We got 18 votes, and I'm happy to say that 12 of them were... 12 of them want to find some middle ground between Madeline's optimism and my pessimism, and said that they were slightly optimistic the door is open to new ideas. For the one of you who said, depends on how it shoots, I just want to say, I went and looked at the Playfield, and I went and looked at the release video today, and I'm going to tell you exactly how it shoots. It shoots like Junkyard. It's the Junkyard Playfield. That's how it shoots. How are you? So where were you, Eric? Like, slightly optimistic, the door is open. Literally two thirds of the people, 12 of the 18 people who, who responded to this poll said, that's what I want. No effect, no change, they'll release Black Sabbath, had three people weigh in and say roughly what my personal, you know, stance was. And someone was closer to Madeline in the high one person said highly optimistic. Another person who said it's going to sell enough that like capitalism is going to do it. And the the last person who said depends on how it shoots. Where were you in all of this? And does this? How do you feel about these results? I'm one of the 12 that were slightly optimistic. That's interesting. I didn't vote. Is open to new ideas? No, you didn't vote. I didn't vote. I guess I should have. I guess I should have voted for them. It should. I should probably add one then to the to the three the who voted again, who voted the like they'll make Sabbath next, because that's where I was before this all started. The Looking at the options again now, I feel like I could have also voted for it will sell well enough to create a new market share. You're hopeful that capitalism will solve it. You're hopeful that Milton Friedman will be right this one time. Yeah. You know, I think that's, I think that's necessarily the way that I'm, that it could happen. And so, it's like the prerequisite for being slightly optimistic is, I guess I'm slightly optimistic that it will create, sell well enough. I don't know, to me, the options, I'm highly optimistic that the door is open to new ideas is someone saying, I think that there's a cultural change and it will sell well enough is someone saying, I don't know about it, I don't care about it, outside of the fact that I have heard the name Pokemon for the last whatever 30 years and in every form and no one I know does not know that word. I can see a little bit of a distinction there. I had heard that it was in fact selling very well. I mean I imagine it will. And I listen to a lot of pinball podcasts, so I'm not directly sure where the info came to me. I'm going to guess it was Zach Meny on the pinball show who's also a distributor. So he's knowing from sales numbers and from dealing with Stern on numbers. This is from how I understood it. The original, I mean, they're running them, the premiums and then the pros and then the LEs, but they also are putting out a set of location pros. So these go to the distributor, the distributor sells them to the locations, but only operators are getting it and they sold out of that set. And then from what I hear now, they sold out of the whole next planned run of the pros, I think. Something like that. Understood. I don't know Zach Meny from Adam. I don't dislike Zach Meny or have any reason to distrust him. However, if I'm following the money and I'm a distributor, it's well within my interest to say, you know how well this new pinball machine is selling? And I do not want to excuse the information that he provides to us for that reason, but I do want to make sure that we are at least considering it in that light. I also think that this game is going to sell fucking gangbusters. So like I think he's probably very trustworthy in this instance. I think this game is going to sell gangbusters. It doesn't give me a great deal of hope that the licensing strategy specifically is going to change. And that's what, that's where I'm hung up on it, I think. It has to sell so well that everyone has to pay attention. It has to sell so well that you cannot escape, because let me make this clear, you can't escape the global I'm not going to quote what you say in response to this if you're going to say something on this Discord server, but I might vibe check the overall conversation. And I just want to point out that I'm super happy that someone pointed out that, and that there was at least a little bit of discussion around the notion that licensed IP is the only, like, that it would be awesome if there were, you know, The original IP being developed in the physical pinball space. We don't have to shit on Multimorphic here. Multimorphic is doing original pinball, but it's also a slightly different thing. But they've been moving into licensed. Their first license was Weird Al, Museum of Natural Hilarity. Right. And then they've got Portal they're doing now. Oh, right. When you said Black Sabbath is next, do you mean that literally or are you just using a dad rock band? Yeah, it is. Black Sabbath, look, Ozzy died sometime in the past year or two. Black Sabbath is an exemplar here. It could be. There's no... there is zero scoop. There is zero anything here other than Benjamin making up what, you know... If Stern did make a black set, they'd probably have a scoop. Just briefly on the non-licensed IP thing. It's frustrating. It really is. But it's also true. There's not, they're really, non-licensed IP right now is so rare in almost every realm. Do you want to know what this season's like big new shows are? Scrubs. Do you know when Scrubs was actually a big new show? A year that started in 1999. Fact check, it was actually 2001. John Popadiuk, Ben Sal dreaming. That's a-okay. I appreciate that you voted on a poll. And if you do listen to us, I appreciate that too. But, like, I really appreciate that y'all tempered where I was going. And I do actually have some pros. I have some optimism only based on the capitalist instinct. Pokemon has been turned into everything. Like, if you think Star Wars is pervasive or, you know, Marvel is pervasive, like if you think you went on some place where you can buy video games or buy comics and searched for Star Wars and there would be more results than Pokemon, you're insane. Same thing with Marvel. You're insane. There would be more results that say Pokemon in any of those places. It doesn't matter if it's games or cards or, you know, card games or like video games or probably manga for that sake, for that matter. I saw an infographic. It showed the top six IPs by value in the world. Pokemon's number one, Star Wars is number two, Marvel is number three. The important part was that Pokemon is bigger than the combined next five. Right. It's number one. Numbers two, three, four, five, and six, add them up and they're still not as big as Pokemon is. All right, we're gonna we're gonna tie this into an historic pinball moment. Eric, I hosted a pinball tournament called Arm Pinstest. Do you remember the trophies? I do remember the trophies. I have it sitting right here. I can I can grab it. Now you don't have to you don't have to show it to me, but but here's the point. Yeah. The, in particular, the budget of the United States military is like five times or six times I'm the budget of China's military and that is like twice as much as the budget of Russia's military and the US's is still as large as both of those and also Germany, France, whatever the others were after that combined up to like the next five to ten in this way and so like yeah I mean Pokemon is that Pokemon is the United States military. Pokemon could go attack Iran today and have very few negative economic circumstances or consequences, I should say, despite the fact that it is morally reprehensible to have done so. Pokemon is orders of magnitude of what Star Wars and Marvel and the next couple of things are. Unlike the Beatles, Pokemon actually is bigger than Jesus. And unlike those Wonderwall dickbag brothers, Pokemon is also bigger than the Beatles, it turns out. You know, but it'll probably be about the same size. The pinball machines. Look, if you need just some example of like how pervasive is Pokemon, my neighbor right across the courtyard here, I will often run into her on our block, walking up the street, not paying attention to where she's walking, but instead looking at not one but two little screens in her hand that are, you know, one of them is probably connected to some kind of a computer. I personally have a two-person raid, a two-person Pokemon raid wherever she goes. Back in fall two, I think I mistakenly mentioned that I hadn't played the Pokemon video games, but of course Pokemon Go. Yeah, in 2020, I started playing the heck out of Pokemon Go. Right, I mean that's the thing, it also, it was just like the dude in the Big Lebowski, Pokemon Go was the right place, the right thing for its place and time. It was a thing that made you leave your apartment and go somewhere and hold your phone and not have to interact with someone at a time that you were told that you shouldn't be speaking directly into the holes in someone else's face for more than a very short time. That might really be where the market opportunity was created and this might be how it's realized. And I hope, I really do hope that it results in something that isn't Black Sabbath next, that isn't Deadpool and Wolverine next or whatever that last Marvel movie was, you know. I really hope that it's that or I mean I'd love if it was unlicensed but I don't see it coming it doesn't it doesn't make sense it doesn't there's too much risk and there's you have to have created something utterly transcendent for there to be almost any reward That's all for this week's pot. I'd like to thank all of the Discord channel users who voted on our little poll. I also want to thank you for tempering my pessimism. Join us next week when we will do the usual things in Balls 1 and 2. In Ball 3, it's that time of year again. It's gonna be the NYCPPAA selection show. What's that? It's brackets, just like college basketball. But with pinball games, we've got a special guest this year who's gonna join us to vote on the winners. Between now and then, whatever you're up to, go get em' pinball.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v4)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: db50d182-4ea0-4830-bda6-32e70d685fa7*