# An Evening with Don and Sterling 2-10-2026

**Source:** Don's Pinball Podcast (patreon feed)  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-02-11  
**Duration:** 43m 29s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.patreon.com/posts/evening-with-don-150461799

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## Analysis

Don and Sterling discuss the breakdown between Dutch Pinball's Barry and Melvin Williams, speculating it resulted from delays on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Back to the Future development struggles. They explore manufacturing challenges, tariff impacts, licensing costs, and the viability of outsourcing production. The conversation also covers Pokemon pinball artwork expectations, P3 module updates, Spooky's booth placement at TPF, and various rumored game licenses including potential Ghostbusters and Batman projects.

### Key Claims

- [MEDIUM] Melvin Williams left Dutch Pinball / DPX partnership with Barry over unspecified tensions; likely related to delays and investor involvement — _Sterling heard Melvin's press release read like 'someone being shown the door' and speculates about investor pressure and partnership restructuring issues_
- [MEDIUM] Alice's Adventures in Wonderland missed its end-of-year deadline, contributing to partnership tension — _Don and Sterling discuss whether missed deadline was cause of split, with uncertainty about responsibility distribution between Melvin and Barry_
- [LOW] Back to the Future game may lack art direction; Christopher Franchi rumored to be doing artwork but tied up with Spooky project — _Sterling: 'other people are telling me' Franchi is doing art; acknowledges this is third-hand information_
- [MEDIUM] Back to the Future licensing includes actor involvement (Crispin Glover status questioned) and expensive music rights (Huey Lewis) — _Don and Sterling discuss licensing hurdles including score acquisition and actor participation; note Crispin Glover's history of refusing to sign memorabilia_
- [MEDIUM] Pokemon pinball will use cartoon/anime assets rather than video game or card game graphics — _Sterling did research on Pokemon Company ownership; Don states 'it is cartoon not video game'_
- [MEDIUM] Pokemon pinball art direction heavily constrained by licensor approval; limited creative freedom compared to unlicensed games — _Speculation that licensor provided approved asset list rather than giving Zombie Yeti full creative control_
- [LOW] Jack Danger designed Foo Fighters and X-Men with insane ball paths; Pokemon design appears more conservative, possibly due to corporate constraints or design philosophy change — _Sterling notes Pokemon lacks 'a lot of jack danger in this design' compared to prior work; speculates on reasons_
- [MEDIUM] Stern's design process involves frequent licensor meetings and corporate oversight that limits iterative mechanical experimentation — _Don speculates Stern designers face Monday presentations, 1:1 licensor meetings, and Microsoft Teams overhead vs. hands-on plafield iteration_
- [HIGH] Jersey Jack Ghostbusters project is 'garbage' and 'not true' according to Jason (JJP representative); project appears dead — _Sterling: 'Jason told me that was garbage. Not true.' Direct attribution to JJP house statement_
- [HIGH] P3 Pinball system experiences early failures at shows; multiple units went dark on day one at recent events — _Sterling reports P3 failed within first day at Pinball at the Beach; Merlin's Arcade board fried; Chris Turner unable to provide service fix during show_

### Notable Quotes

> "I read Melvin Williams' press release about, like, he's not giving up on pinball. And it read like someone that was, like, being shown the door and was definitely going to give up pinball."
> — **Sterling**, ~2:00
> _Key interpretation of Melvin's departure as involuntary; frames partnership split as potential conflict_

> "can you call yourself a pinball company if you can't make games like what even it took 10 years to make the Lebowski and I really think back to the future is going to be a way harder journey for them than the Lebowski"
> — **Sterling**, ~4:30
> _Expresses concern about Dutch Pinball's production capability and timeline viability_

> "I'm hearing good things people that like pokemon are like liking what they're seeing i think you either love it or you hate it"
> — **Sterling**, ~25:00
> _Early player reception signals bifurcated response; theme polarizing_

> "they're probably like if you're stern do i want to pay more money for the card property just so i can put card graphics on the decals and a card on the apron or we'll just go with the cartoon because it's probably costing us enough money as it is"
> — **Don**, ~26:00
> _Reveals pricing trade-offs in licensing decisions; Pokemon licensing cost optimization_

> "i don't think i want to be a pinball like i used to like kind of dream of being a pinball designer and anymore i'm like i don't even think i'd want to work for any company unless it was like like spooky like a very small company"
> — **Don**, ~32:00
> _Reflects on corporate pinball design constraints vs. creative autonomy; signals broader industry burnout concern_

> "i don't want modules i want a lineup of games i don't want to be like you know what i don't want to play that game today let me pull a bunch of shit apart"
> — **Don**, ~38:00
> _Critique of P3 modular system; customer dissatisfaction with modularity vs. collection building_

> "Beetlejuice is going to sell out the shit... they're going to be available on the secondhand market but nobody wants to pay more get on the list for the next one now"
> — **Sterling**, ~42:00
> _Confirms Spooky's limited production strategy and secondary market scarcity pattern_

> "jersey jack has it no way yes not you think maybe not soon but jason said no it's dead"
> — **Don/Sterling**, ~46:00
> _Definitive statement that Ghostbusters is not in development at JJP; contradicts speculation_

> "if any of it's true like hell yeah bring more of that what did uh han solo say it's true all of it about the the force"
> — **Sterling**, ~47:00
> _Enthusiastic endorsement of rumored game slate; belief in leaked game pipeline_

> "i had a subscription with spooky for like the last two years so i was like you know what just subscription just we'll just do this every year my journey started with evil dead and i don't see it stopping anytime soon"
> — **Sterling**, ~43:00
> _Demonstrates collector loyalty; annual subscription model adoption; multi-year Spooky engagement_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Barry | person | Owner/founder of Dutch Pinball; attributed with solo design work on Back to the Future; involved in breakup with Melvin Williams |
| Melvin Williams | person | Designer/artist who worked with Dutch Pinball on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and DPX projects; recently departed partnership; plans to manufacture games in America |
| Dutch Pinball | company | European manufacturer of licensed pinball games (Lebowski, Alice in Wonderland); partnership split with Melvin; facing investor involvement and production delays |
| Christopher Franchi | person | Artist/designer who created 25th anniversary Big Lebowski artwork; rumored to be working on Back to the Future art but tied up with Spooky project |
| Back to the Future | game | Dutch Pinball licensed game in long development; rumored to lack art direction; expensive licensing including actor/music rights |
| Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | game | Dutch Pinball game; missed end-of-year deadline; production delays cited as potential cause of partnership tension |
| Pokemon | game | Stern Pinball game in media day reveal (Feb 11, 2026); cartoon/anime art direction; constrained by licensor approval |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major manufacturer; producing Pokemon; design process critiqued for corporate overhead and licensor control limiting creative freedom |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique manufacturer; booth at TPF adjacent to Don's podcast space; producing limited-edition games (Beetlejuice); model praised for creative autonomy |
| Beetle Juice | game | Spooky Pinball release; selling out quickly; limited production strategy; collector demand high |
| P3 Pinball | game | Modular pinball platform; reliability issues reported at Pinball at the Beach (failed within first day); expensive add-on modules |
| Jack Danger | person | Designer of Foo Fighters and X-Men pinball games known for complex ball paths; associated with Stern |
| Zombie Yeti | person | Stern Pinball art department head; likely involved in Pokemon artwork design |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer; explicitly stated to not have Ghostbusters project in development |
| Jason | person | Jersey Jack Pinball representative; confirmed Ghostbusters project is dead/untrue |
| Don | person | Host of Don's Pinball Podcast; collector; skeptical of corporate design processes; considering P3 purchase |
| Sterling | person | Guest; pinball enthusiast; Spooky booth attendee at Pinball at the Beach; multiple-year Spooky subscriber; Back to the Future collector history |
| Pinball at the Beach | event | Recent pinball show where P3 and Merlin's Arcade experienced failures; Spooky trailer presence |
| Texas Pinball Festival (TPF) | event | Upcoming event; Pokemon will be shown; Don and Spooky sharing booth space |
| Huey Lewis and the News | entity | Band responsible for Back to the Future soundtrack; expensive licensing rights required for game |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Dutch Pinball partnership dissolution, Back to the Future production status and licensing challenges, Pokemon pinball art direction and licensing constraints
- **Secondary:** Manufacturing outsourcing models and quality control, Stern design process corporatization and creative constraints, P3 Pinball reliability and modular system criticism, Spooky Pinball limited production strategy and secondary market
- **Mentioned:** Jersey Jack Ghostbusters project status

### Sentiment

**Negative** (-0.45) — Discussion centered on industry dysfunction (Dutch Pinball breakup, production delays, corporate constraints on design), reliability failures (P3, Merlin's Arcade), and skepticism about future projects. Tempered by enthusiasm for Spooky's work and some upcoming games, but underlying concern about manufacturing viability, licensing burdens, and creative compromises in corporate structures.

### Signals

- **[event_signal]** Pokemon Stern media day imminent (Feb 11, 2026); NDA active on topper design; revelation expected within days (confidence: high) — Don: 'So the licensing has to be like around the corner... we should be seeing something by the end of the week'
- **[design_philosophy]** Back to the Future game allegedly lacks art direction; Christopher Franchi rumored as artist but potentially unavailable (confidence: low) — Sterling: 'if it didn't even get art on it yet, because that's what I'm hearing too, because didn't Franchi do the art? Now, he didn't tell me any of this, but other people are telling me'
- **[design_philosophy]** Jack Danger's Pokemon design appears conservative compared to prior Foo Fighters/X-Men work; possible cause is corporate/licensor constraint or design choice (confidence: medium) — Sterling: 'i don't see a lot of jack danger in this design either i'm used to like foo fighters had like insane ball paths'
- **[leak_detection]** Pokemon topper design leaking through social channels despite NDA; speculation about singing/animated carp design (confidence: medium) — Sterling: 'people have put eyes on the topper... a friend of a friend of a friend posted something... big mouth billy bass thing... magic carp'
- **[licensing_signal]** Pokemon Company owns all licensing (anime, card game, video game rights); design constrained by licensor asset approval rather than creative freedom (confidence: high) — Don/Sterling discuss Pokemon Company structure; speculation that Stern was given approved asset list rather than creative control
- **[personnel_signal]** Stern design process involves frequent licensor meetings and corporate oversight limiting mechanical iteration; contributes to creative burnout (confidence: medium) — Don: 'I have 10 a.m. I have to give a presentation... 1130, I've got to meet with the licensor... very little like screwing stuff into Whitewoods'
- **[personnel_signal]** Melvin Williams departed Dutch Pinball partnership; plans to relocate manufacturing to North America (confidence: high) — Sterling: 'Melvin's a good dude' and 'I like to hear from Melvin is he's like, I'm going to build games in America'
- **[market_signal]** P3 portal add-on modules cost as much as full Stern Pro game; customers questioning value proposition (confidence: medium) — Don: 'you're paying as much as a stern pro for just for the portal module now'
- **[product_strategy]** Alice's Adventures in Wonderland missed end-of-year deadline; linked to partnership tension (confidence: medium) — Don: 'I'm wondering if the whole like Alice in Wonderland, like not meeting the deadline by the end of the year. is that part of the tension between melvin and barry'
- **[rumor_hype]** Multiple game licenses rumored in development; community confidence in leaked pipeline high (confidence: medium) — Sterling: 'There's not a bad game in development That's awesome to hear' regarding rumors; references Tim Burton games, Batman 89
- **[business_signal]** Spooky Pinball maintaining limited production strategy on Beetlejuice; artificial scarcity driving secondary market demand (confidence: high) — Sterling: 'Beetlejuice is going to sell out the shit... people asking if more will be made; on list for all of them; annual subscription'
- **[technology_signal]** P3 Pinball system experiencing critical early failures at shows; reliability concerns emerging (confidence: high) — Sterling: 'P3 didn't last the first day either... showed just started... an hour after opening I wandered over and I'm like the P3 and it was just already dark'

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## Transcript

 And now live via satellite location in a remote pinball bunker somewhere near Savannah, Georgia. It's Sterling straight from the pinball studio. Hello, sir. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. Probably back to the future's number one fan. You've got to be overjoyed now that the damn Raza's out of the way and back to the future construction can begin unimpeded. Maybe, man. I'm kind of a little bit concerned about the whole breakup. Yeah, I know. You can call it that. I think definitely not all is well in the Netherlands here. So, like, I read Melvin Williams' press release about, like, he's not giving up on pinball. And it read like someone that was, like, being shown the door and was definitely going to give up pinball. But that's not what people are saying. They're saying Melvin's a good dude. And this was all Barry's fault. Scandal. I don't know. I mean, the one thing I like to hear from Melvin is he's like, I'm going to build games in America. And I'm like, at this point, I think that's probably the smartest choice. Yeah, if at all possible, that's like the only way forward. I mean, you know, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was already a bit of a sell for me. And so the fact that I have to put an unknown amount of tariffs towards it just killed it totally. So if you could find a way to manufacture in in North Bedmonton, Chicago or whatever, then, yeah, that would definitely be easier. I'm wondering if the whole like Alice in Wonderland, like not meeting the deadline by the end of the year. is that part of the tension between melvin and barry yeah wanting to work together anymore this is what i don't know because like you know did melvin develop this thing and then it was up to barry to execute like the problems on his hands you know but this was done in a new factory across the street apparently like there's too much about it that i don't know so i've been around more like a partnership like they tried to play it off as like two different companies but didn't they say like he gave up like his portion of the company it sounds like to me like they probably didn't want melvin to be an equal partner so they're like well here we'll set up this other separate entity that you can be affiliated with and then it won't sully like the main district whatever that they had right because i guess they have investors too and maybe you know right as far as i know they brought on the two investors and that was like red flag number one for me i'm like you're looking for investors because you may need money can you call yourself a pinball company if you can't make games like what even it took 10 years to make the Lebowski and I really think back to the future is going to be a way harder journey for them than the Lebowski based on what I'm hearing that the brains behind Lebowski's layout is no longer with us and so this was barry trying to do solo design and the whitewood kind of came out like not very impressive is what i'm hearing yeah yeah so i don't know who knows this is all like second third hand knowledge that i'm getting but like if that was the case i think it would look something like just gesticulating in the general area like what we have going on here yeah i want to give a little background on like how crazy back to the future i was for a little bit so like that's what got me into pinball was collecting back to the future shit and then instead of having like a pinball arcade i had a room like dedicated to like back to the future memorabilia and like all the movie posters signed by the cast and nerd from the a car and parts from the ride at universal and that's awesome i had the same thing but mortal combat but go ahead but yeah but if you're the collectors in back to the future or something else like like they're fucking crazy ass people and uh you're not a real collector unless you have the back to the future pinball machine and you're not a super collector unless you got the time machine all decked out you know real are you even a super fan if you haven't camped out in front of tom wilson's house and spied on him through the bathroom window but anyway that's why i got into pinballs because i bought that pinball machine and then i sold all that crap off to buy yeah pinball you were a super a fan i was a no no i didn't have a delorean i'm not like oh you know the time machine yeah does mike bernard have a time machine he's got a delorean and he's like i've thought about converting it over but he's never done it that's got to be like i mean it's one hurdle just to get a delorean let alone destroy it to make it into a time machine but yeah i'm concerned because i mean melvin leaving that means things probably weren't going well i'm sure if the company was really healthy they there would be no reason for him to want to leave does this and does this mean now that they're not making uh the atombies whatever the fuck that game's called viva la raza sorry cuss um this patreon go ahead man but uh yeah so now what are they gonna build like what else did they have cooking besides probably back to the future so i think they're really gonna push these deposits out sooner than later i i wouldn't be surprised if you saw in a few months just the words back to the future and we want money what so was melvin not involved in design of that at all then i mean i don't know i really don't know i thought that was more of barry's game but i could be wrong i mean it always sounded to me like this game was kind of already designed and they were just waiting for winter to put it out they weren't quite ready yet so then they brought out alice to kick the can down the road, get some money, and then Raza behind it just to put them across the finish line so then they could start Back to the Future finally. But, I mean, I've been hearing about this Back to the Future game the entire time I've been in pinball. It's getting crazy. And if it didn't even get art on it yet, because that's what I'm hearing too, because didn't Franchi do the art? Now, he didn't tell me any of this, but other people are telling me. That's what I keep hearing, the word on the street that he's doing the artwork, because he said he was tied up with another project when he came on with Spooky. So I imagine that's it. Just move back to the future to Spooky and get it over with. Dude, oh my God, I would be freaking over the moon. Oh, you'd have a clock tower topper for sure. Franchi's already been working on the artwork, man. It's ready to go, man. It's ready to go. Did you hear they were talking about doing Big Lebowski with another art package just to get the work cash? I know that Franchi did that one, and then they wrapped the game and brought it to TPL. I've seen it, and it was amazing looking. yeah yeah the the 25th anniversary lebowski artwork that francie did fire man i wasn't there last year but yeah i saw you know all you guys were taking photos and stuff it looked really badass yeah he had like the whole side of the cabinet was the dude reclined in the limo just holding his white russian and like i'm like francie can you just put my face on the dude's body and just give me that for my wall it looks so awesome but they keep saying for back to the future they have like all the assets all the actors are on board there's no way they have crispin glover on board you would think because they had a huge falling out after the first film and dude i don't know if you know like oh or back to my collector shit where i was getting autographs he will ruin a back to the future poster he will just write garbage all over and destroy your poster he never asked him to sign he's unstable for sure he's the core he's the cory feldman to back to the future he doesn't have a rock band though oh give it time man he's like a cori's like rock band shit dude i just listened to him on a podcast man when he's getting into hip-hop mode uh wild man but like if i had the childhood that kid had growing up i don't know that i would have came out any better like it was rough man goonies kid goonies oh goonies i hope someone's doing it i hope these rumors are true it's probably dutch yeah oh dutch has it yeah so some of the other hurdles i think they're going to be having to like did they get the score that score's got to be expensive you gotta have power of love and back in time those were written for the film that's like doing goonies without cindy lopper like if you're doing back to the future you need who huey lewis there man you got back in time power of love yeah it's a curious thing lewis in the news yeah yeah i love you but do they have everything and then the delorean motor company that's another whole now hang on now hang on hang on now if they did get all this this would have been like expensive like maybe harry potter license expensive did they like bring on investors expensive yeah like they invested like millions of dollars and secured in his license already and then they've got like a ticking clock and a game with nothing to show for it i'm just scared what they're gonna like or are they doing it the dutch way where people are gonna pay deposits and they're gonna be using your money to build other people's games and it's just that's not good man and then if you're building years of nonsense and then if you're building in europe right now you got to pay the tariffs on all the pinball life parts and then you got to pay the to have the customer pay the tariff on the game ships the u.s yeah you were mentioning that the other day and that's just at this point it what are you doing just doing a recipe for disaster just you know be a design studio you know you make the games for the european market i think dutch could handle that like 300 games for europe they seem to have that capacity in a year but like farm it out to somebody else to build these things but then i was thinking if you're gonna have somebody else build your game like like i design the game my artists are here my engineers are here our game design is done and i give it over to some some factory to build and then that factory is building them and shipping shipping them out to customers when there's problems who's servicing that game am i doing it as the game's designer but i wasn't the one that was in there building a thousand of them and like learning from the process and what can go wrong and you know i i know that you know you can put together a prototype game even a production sample but as those games are going down the line like things are changing you know based on like unforeseen problems that come up and so then you know how can i best address that if i'm not the one that's making the games to go to customers and that may be why we haven't really seen that model take off you know spooky designs a game and builds a game and services a game barrels designs builds and services uh stern designs builds and then gives to the distributors of service but stern build some uh medieval madnesses once for uh chicago gaming i believe i had heard that that i did had heard that's like i didn't i don't think that would happen now that the scenario is a little different because that was a game that It was Bally Williams. They made thousands of them back in the day, and then they were kind of resurrecting it again. So I think they already had the experience of building thousands of them in the past to settle on a finalized design And they already been troubleshooted since the 90s Right You know so if I was to like you know design my game and then take it over and have someone build it you know, how am I going to have quality control over what they're building? Another thing with Dutch too, I mean, I wouldn't really say their games are, you know, the quality's great. Most of the time I see a Lebowski on location, something's broken. So, yes, there is that. The cabinet is built great. And, you know, I like the engineering that went into it. Maybe we could use Dutch cabinets and then Stern could build the game. Dutch cabinets and Turner's circuit boards and Spooky's theme and licensing and Stern's parking lot. And then we go. We got it. Speaking of Pokemon. Yeah, yeah. What you hearing about? I heard some stuff. What do you want to talk about? I heard some stuff. I don't want to, you know, of course, you know, Distro saw today. There's another media day coming up. So I don't want to get my sources in trouble or nothing. But I had heard that people have put eyes on the topper. I don't know if you heard this yet. Okay. Yeah. So it sounds like they're finally making good on that promise on bringing the accessories out closer to launch. And, you know, I'm not sure what the topper is exactly. but a friend of a friend of a friend posted something on something and then it filtered back to me. We may be looking at, you remember like the big mouth billy bass thing you put on the wall and it was like a singing fish? Like on fish tales? Yeah, like on fish tales. What if it was that but a magic carp? What? Yeah. Is this what you're hearing or what you would just like to see? I don't know. Maybe it's just a fever dream, but can you imagine? Can you imagine? Awesome. That would be, we're going to find out soon. Um, well, they're, they're showing it to people. And of course things are going to leak out no matter how ironclad and waterproof that NDA is. Um, so the licensing has to be like around the corner. I don't think they would take this risk. So we should be seeing something by the end of the week. I would imagine. Okay. When's the media day for people? Is it tomorrow? It's Wednesday the 11th. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I wouldn't doubt if they drop tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. And it could be like where they're in the final stages of license or approval. It's anticipated to happen now, but just out of an abundance of caution, they NDA people that are seeing it. Cause don't they usually drop the trailer by the time all the people are there for the media stuff? So usually, usually how it's, usually how it's worked is they've, they've done everything a week ahead of time. You know, they, they do like the dealer call Monday morning and then noon is when the trailer goes out or whatever. And then the media day was like later that week or the next week. and that was all the way up until fall of the empire when they had to sign ndas because it wasn't quite approved yet and remember like they didn't get the approval to do marketing in europe for the game so like it was kind of like down to the wire this may be something kind of similar it was something weird too didn't we see the trailer and it was like weeks before they started building the games yeah walking dead never had a media day either oh okay yeah yeah yeah it came out like the lead up to expo and they did that with metallica but yeah but metallica they had they didn't do like an official media day but like the the tuesday of expo or something they're like any media people here come by and play it so it's kind of like a truncated version um yeah so now they're back into the swing of it with the pokemon i'm hearing good things people that like pokemon are like liking what they're seeing i think you either love it or you hate it or at least that's what i'm seeing with a lot of people either you just like hate the theme or you think you know that's pretty cool yeah like what's a good comparison like sailor moon or something like if you're just not into it like nothing's gonna really make you care about it that's how i feel about it but i mean more power to anybody that wants a pokemon game it just does not speak to me personally okay i'm hearing that it is cartoon not video game okay and i did some research yesterday while I was waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion. And the Pokemon Company owns Pokemon, the anime rights, the card game, and the video games. And the Pokemon Company is Game Freak, Nintendo, and Monsters Incorporated or something, or the Monster Company or something. Some triple threat. What I was thinking is is the card game owned by someone different than the licensing for the anime, which is different than the licensing for the video game? But it looks like it's all under the Pokemon company now. So I guess that would allow at least talks for including card game assets and things. And probably that was an option, but it was like, if you're Stern, do I want to pay more money for the card property just so I can put card graphics on the decals and a card on the apron? Or we'll just go with the cartoon because it's probably costing us enough money as it is. Yeah, I'm really curious what they got and what they're going to use. it's such an expensive license you know how much of this did they buy or pay for yeah i'll be interested to see the art but i don't think this is the kind of property where they were just like hey zombie yeti do us up whatever you want we'll submit it for approval it was probably like everyone's seen the leaked photo by now and it was probably like wow me i was thinking more like the card graphics like they're usually pretty awesome and like i was imagining that on the side of a cabinet yeah like a nice sparkly dragon character on the side with like the pokemon words and do a Pikachu version, a Charizard version, and maybe one with everybody. It was more just like collage. I don't even know how to explain it. It was more like here's the assets you can use and limit your design to exactly what's on the page here. Have you heard if there's a pinball artist on this, or did they want to use their own artist? I've heard Tanya Kleiss is doing code or rules. I forget how it works. And then Jack started down this road and George finished it. That's all I've heard as far as who's making stuff, who's actually on it. I think John Borg walked up with the toilet bowl. He left it on the table. I used this in Star Wars, and it was pretty badass. He was like, do what you want with it. I'll just set it here on the out lane, but feel free to move it around. And they're like, brilliant. Print it. Do we need more toilet bowls and pinball sterling? Dude, I'm over it. Like, I mean, after Cactus Canyon, I had enough toilet bowls. i've never made that shot in fall of the empire and been like oh sweet let me sit here and watch this go around and around it just it makes no sense yeah eating a flipper because i feel i'm very impatient when i play pinball i'm like give me the ball give me the ball yeah and watching that thing right by my flipper just rolling around i feel like it's gonna drive me nuts and it's not like if you give it a couple of extra spins you get like extra points really it doesn't really matter much you know it's like fast feeding to the flippers and it's gonna feed the flipper slow i feel like yeah i wish it was just dropping dead right there i wish that was just another spinner shot into a wire form to drop somewhere you know maybe you've thrown up post in it if you wanted to stop the gameplay to play a mode or something but yeah something more kinetic than just like okay we're going around the rancor options can i just i just don't see a lot of jack danger in this design either i'm used to like foo fighters had like insane ball paths and same thing with x-men yeah yeah did he just like not want to take the risk or is this more of just george's design yeah i'm kind of leaning towards i mean i've never worked at stern but their their model seems to be that the the game designer is really like the head of the whole team and this seems like the kind of place where it'd be like all right monday morning I'm at work. I have 10 a.m. I have to give a presentation on where we're at this week. And then at 10 at 1130, I've got to meet with the licensor for to update their team. And it's all like a bunch of Microsoft Teams things going on and very little like screwing stuff into Whitewoods and, you know, trialing mechs and things. So I got to imagine that's kind of grating after a while. Yeah, I don't think I want to be a pinball. Like I used to like kind of dream of being a pinball designer and anymore. anymore i'm like i don't even think i'd want to work for any company unless it was like like spooky like a very small company right because you think like you're walking in and like all right man blank slate let's go let's screw things on here let's try some stuff out let's play with some some ball guides okay let's come up with some rules and it's not fun the community is gonna trash this shit out yeah like let's take it over let's stream it you know we'll talk about people and it's like that's not what it is you know it's like a lot of the parts of the the hobby that or the parts of manufacturing you just aren't interested in and it's just it's all that you know and like sure it's fun to show up to a pinball show like here's my game we made it's done come play it but like the process you know i think we're more in love with the idea of designing pinball than actually what it comes down to making the sausage well it's like i'm doing my home brew but there's no deadline yeah i can take as long as i want yeah so like there's not really any stress there's no deadline there's no like you got you know six months or however long you got there's no budget you know there's no um yeah and then we have to worry about a budget like another thing of a homebrew it's like whatever you want to do yeah you can come up with some cool idea and then iterate it till it works you don't have to be like well the licensor said no to that just flat out no you can't do it it's like well i gotta think of something else all right what do i put in here we got room for a toilet bowl and that's i think that's how you end up with it like i wanted it was uh how was your pinball at the beach uh venture dude it was then you went everywhere else disney and universal it was fun it was fun um i'm trying to think back like somebody asked me to say like how was it and i was about to lay into like seven things i did and i'm like i just stood around and like wore spooky clothes and you know talked to jack danger like but that's it was so fun man i mean people kept coming up you know somebody gave me a cigar Sammy, thanks for that, buddy. That was fun. It was just goofing off. It was midnight. The show's closing for the night, and then I'm partying in the trailer in the parking lot with all the mad pinball people for some reason. Us and a broken school bus. No, no. They just had a regular straight-up trailer, like a cargo trailer. So we were back there with a non-working Merlin's Arcade. Get a fried aboard or something. I know. So sad. It didn't last a day. like some board fried something they couldn't fix and they're like we got to pull it and it was so sad i wanted to play it and i know it the one they been parading around the like yeah yeah so i know chris turner was like i know exactly what the problem is i have the board in my hand but it not going to help them this weekend you know it like god damn it you have it at tpf though yeah yeah i can't wait i want to get some more time on it and also um p3 didn't last the first day either man oh shit they had a uh weird island there and it was really early in the show like the show just started and i was mainly hanging at the spooky booth where we were setting up so i didn't see what all was really ready to go. And so like an hour after opening, I wandered over there and I'm like the P3 and it was just already dark. And then it was pulled. I was like, no, man, did you order one? Oh man, I keep trying to, but it keeps, uh, I filled my card and then when I go to check out, it's gone. I don't know what, what's happening. It sounded like bug in the sauce there or something. I used to joke that I had a reverse discount code where I should put in Don's pinball podcast at checkout it adds $700 to your your total you should tell spooky to add that just see if anyone checks out be sure to not use my code at checkout add a thousand dollars to your purchase don text i i love the p3 system so much i want to have babies with it i want to get one eventually um it sounds like a good idea until you yeah make one i keep getting hurdles in my way man i don't know what it is i'll try again next week project pinball should raffle one off anything and everything on a pinball play field you can't have all these like like the screens in the way so we can't make it happen i mean they started like hovering ramps and stuff over it but then you hit them and they kind of like i know around the janky ramp the janky ramp and then and then you're paying as much as a stern pro for just for the portal module now ken i've been on this rant 17 I don't want modules. I want a lineup of games. I don't want to be like, you know what? I don't want to play that game today. Let me pull a bunch of shit apart. Well, fortunately, the P3 is uniquely positioned to allow that. All you need to do is buy multiple P3 cabinets, and then you can line them all up. Yeah, think of the space you will save. How much does that cost? Don't worry about the cost. Worry about the weight, and can your floor handle it? If these games aren't in the basement, they're going to be if you put more than two together at the same place. i wanted to see a new game at tpf sterling i want to see a new module i think we're gonna see some new games i've heard confirmation we are not seeing new p3 modules at tpf oh that's their launch window sad now i was thinking some other manufacturers might drop some stuff we'll definitely see pokemon for the first time and you know the masses pokemon will be there we're sharing booth space with spooky at tpf oh yeah and uh the guys have noticed i guess they published the uh the map and saw that yeah i saw that like we're right next to them or something and so they're like oh great we need room to put more games so we might put games at your booth and i was like yep that's allowed um okay i had to bug that guy like a hundred times he is horrible what if we could have vip beetlejuice time like about our own game just for like i want a tent let's bring you got the spooky trailer there shove a bunch of crap so we Should we have a beetle tent? Yeah, a beetle tent. Oh, sweet. Neons. Yeah, come in the beetle tent. Can you plug up headphones easily to a beetle juice? Because, like, do the experience if they can put on headphones and, like, you locked into the game. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Well, you know what? We could make some special cable. My wife works at the factory, so I think we can see about at least making one that has a ready for headphones. Don't you agree, man? like they could put headphones on and actually experience it. That would be sweet, dude. The Beetlejuice isolation. We could do tactile stimulus. That's awesome. They put us next to us. Right? Next to Snoopy. This is the first I'm hearing of this. Dude, Beetlejuice is going to sell out the shit. Wait. That was the saddest thing was like just hanging out at the booth and have people come up like, oh, they're going to make more, right? And you're like, oh, my sweet summer child. I'm sorry. I feel so bad. telling everyone you better already be on the list for the next one do not wait again i was telling them um oh you should have been here about an hour ago we had two left but and like some guy starts yelling at his wife like damn it i told you to get ready sooner we could have got one no that would have been so mean to do i mean they're gonna be available on the secondhand market but nobody wants to pay more get on the list for the next one now yeah and the next one i just told my distro like sign me up for all of them and like i've had a i've had a subscription with spooky for like the last two years so i was like you know what just subscription just we'll just do this every year my journey started with evil dead and i don't see it stopping anytime soon especially with the themes that are rumored if any of it's true like hell yeah bring more of that what did uh han solo say it's true all of it about the the force uh i wish i could confirm I hope somebody makes those rumored games If not Spooky, somebody Those are banger rumors There's not a bad game in development That's awesome to hear Another thing too There was rumors about Jersey Jack making Ghostbusters Jason told me that was garbage Not true Is Stern going to make it again? If not, Spooky needs to grab Ghostbusters dude they would make the coolest freaking ghostbusters i agree but jersey jack has it no way yes not you think maybe not soon but jason said no it's dead no he said it was made up i'd say jason's wrong wait i thought jack said he people thought i was crazy when i called transformers from stern and look where we are yeah i think transformers is definitely happening yeah so yeah uh so uh since this is patreon um i believe from the house of jjp they they are or at one point were uh going to do let's see justice league batman um ghostbusters it's fucking one more or two dude is batman 89 available that's that's the one i want if it's not batman the animated series then yeah batman 89 oh i want 89 man tim burton yeah man yeah uh any any one of those man um yeah any anything tim burton we got a tim burton game finally was there another tim burton game before this one um i guess batman returns technically wasn't when they're a batman game already like back in the day to east days i know batman forever batman 89 it was just batman Batman. Yeah, okay, so that would have been the first one then. The first Tim Burton. Then we got Beetlejuice. Would Edward Scissorhands work? I wouldn't. I'm not. It's like a full title. I mean, it's very atmospheric, but it's kind of like a one-trick, one-note character. I think Nightmare Before Christmas is the one that people would want. Now you're getting into Disney licensing, man. Disney licensing. Tim Burton, too. Disney licensing is not easy i would love that over the corpse bride for sure you make it happen so do it uh disney has a new ceo josh tomorrow he was head of parks and resorts and now he's going to be ceo of the whole company and my good friend seth davis was also acquaintances with josh and so that's probably going to put the kibosh on any other company having anything to do with disney other than stern i know and disney keeps buying everything so they're about to own like everything i know They've had Miramax films So then would Pulp Fiction, Miramax films That's owned by Disney Is it? It was, yeah, back in the day People just went to Netflix, right? Because they bought Warner Brothers Disney's going to buy Netflix and the world's going to end If Disney buys Warner Brothers There's going to be no more licenses for anybody If that ever happens You know back to the future They tried to get Disney to make it before Universal. They didn't like the whole mom having the hots for her kid. Good, man. That's the best part of the film. I want a mode based on that. What happens if you lose that mode? Collect the Calvin Klein underwear. I want a good company to make this game, Sterling. I think everybody should just start emailing Bob Gale I don't even know why he's in charge of this People keep saying Bob Gale Bob Gale wrote it and he produced it I don't think he owns Back to the Future Oh, he might own the rights Robert Zemeckis was the The original novelization or something That the movie was based on Yeah, I don't know I know Robert Zemeckis and him wrote it together Who was the guy that was playing Marty Until they were like, yeah, this guy sucks, get rid of him Oh, fucking Eric Eric Stoltz? Yeah, yeah. What if we got him for Call Outs? Oh. Dude, he is sour on Back to the Future to today. There's no way in hell he would do Call Outs. You've watched some of the test screens of scenes that he filmed, right? Oh, that's horrible. They're terrible. Yeah, they started filming it and they're like, yeah. They got the guy from Family Ties. They got the guy from Family Ties. He's just doing circles around that guy. right wasn't he wasn't he filming family ties at the same time as back in the future that's why he turned it down or something like that originally and then they went back to him again and like please please let him let us man meredith baxter bernie yeah that was the mom on family ties oh okay i never watched the show so oh it was great he was a young republican it was funny tina yoders was kind of gross but other than that and then there was like an older brother Cameron. I think his name was Cameron. What would we do, baby, without love? And there ain't no nothing we can't love each other through. That was the theme song to Family Ties. I watched him in Back to the Future and then he was in that show, what was it, Spin City or something? Before that he did Secret of My Success. Have you ever watched that? Apparently it's a big dog of a movie. No. I've seen Teen Wolf plenty of times. God, Teen Wolf was great. And then Teen Wolf 2 was not. Yeah, Teen Wolf. There's so many licenses. That's like a half a license, you know? You can make half of a good game out of that movie, but it just doesn have the longevity to make a fully game dude Dude Beetlejuice was great at the show I heard there wasn playfields lifted up in there Right And I'm sure that made them super, super happy. I think the only thing mechanically that was, like, a screw that had to be replaced on one game, and, like, that was the extent of it. So, yeah, like, the rigorous freaking QC they're doing now. No software crashes. Yeah, yeah, no software crashes. I feel so bad about Dune. And I walked up to play it finally and push start and the thing reset. And I'm like, what the hell? Yeah, I crashed it by pushing start. Oh, man. Happens. See, yeah, I've never owned a barrels game. And I keep saying I'm going to buy one. But they still haven't made a theme that really speaks to me yet. I had a labyrinth. If the next rumor is true, I don't want that one either. My labyrinth did great. I didn't have any problems with it. I like the topper a lot. You like the Muppet things. I love the Muppet things, man. The Muppets are creepy. give me some muppets man you know muppets in my face i'd play sesame street don't be telling spooky to make muppet games i don't think they would they would look at me and be like no no don um yeah like so like when we talk about themes and stuff there's stuff that we really like but we know it's not going to be an instant 1000 sellout so like we don't do it i think evil dead was that big just me personally but i care apparently well they made a hell of a game too So apparently a certain designer over at Stern was kind of upset that Spooky did that because he was really wanting to do it but was straight up told no. Yeah, Spooky – I mean Stern would never do that. You know who it was? You know who it was that wanted to do Evil Dead over at Stern? It was freaking Elwynn. I could see that. Yeah, yeah. But then Stern was like, yeah, we're not going to do that. Yeah, it's too rated R for them. It was fun being at the beach and see like all the other people from other companies come by and play Beetlejuice, you know? like Steve Ritchie's over there Steve Ritchie um yeah george and seth came over um freaking jack danger was dressed head to toe in the spooky hula gear that was awesome uh roger sharp came over played it elwynn walked up to a beetlejuice put up 700 million points on it just first game yeah and a good game for me is like 200 and that's like with me getting like through modes and stuff so yeah and uh and he didn't break it he broke evil dead last year like the game he was playing on like got a ball stuck somewhere where like the ball search couldn't find it um so i was like oh he's gonna break it again but no no i bet some of them were playing that game and like wow yeah we might need to step it up just uh just a hair well they're looking at going like man these guys have to be making like no margin on these games like if we were doing games like this selling them for what spooky is they'd go out of business but shouldn't the biggest companies get the best prices on parts and just pretty much everything since they're buying in such a larger quantity there i would think they're over they got a lot of people working there it's like their overhead has got to be humongous man i think they're too big for the hobby honestly that's just my personal take i think we're not asking for off the trajectory of covet if you're plotting it out like if that was going to be the pace that the industry was going to be at then it made a lot of sense but i think yeah as nice as that factory is it's kind of like too big too quick you know pinball's just not it doesn't need a factory that big especially with how many companies are out there because i'm kind of getting to the point where i'm like well i want to buy one of their games i mean their games and why is this factory in chicago like you could put this thing in wichita kansas and look it's spooky middle of nowhere yeah yeah i mean you buy it buy attractive land where they're building like these huge amazon warehouses you know get something where the land is basically given to you by the local economy just to bring jobs in manufacture games there why do they need to be made like right in suburban chicago with all those high prices and high taxes and all that that building has to be so damn expensive i remember when they moved there someone like released how much it was to lease that building and it was like millions of dollars a year yeah yeah it's it's nuts i mean you know the other half of the building's fedex which makes sense because i mean that's a huge company oh when i first went up there i was like holy shit this place is massive and then i was like oh a lot of it's fedex so yeah i mean it's still big don't get me wrong you know you can't you can't build these in like the middle of wyoming or something you know just something good somewhere cheap a lot of people in texas too it seems like that's like the second hub now yeah so texas is a kind of place where they'll give like big tax incentives for companies to move there. Turner Barrels, is that it? Yeah, Turner Barrels P3 Multimorphic, the best pinball company ever made. Assembly game yourself. Yeah, so there's three games. There are three companies right there in Texas. But yeah, for whatever reason, I mean, everybody lives in Chicago. All the designers live in Chicago. You'd have to relocate. Jersey Jack relocated to Chicago. They have a factory. Have you been to Jersey Jack's factory? I haven't. I'll need to take you on a tour next time we're there. It's kind of small. I've watched videos online. It doesn't look that small to me. It's like an eighth of the size of Stern. It houses all their offices, all their production facilities, but it's very much just... You've been in Stern, right? Yeah. It's cavernous. It's like a Sam's Club on the floor. It's when you get to the end of Ikea and it's just like nothing but just... The Ark of the Covenant is hidden in there. It's huge. than all the games up front. It's impressive walking in the... They have all that back inventory, and it's like, do you need to keep all the Aerosmith decal back stock right there? You could outsource that somewhere in the country cheaper and do shipping from there. Yeah, I don't know. It's just, when I was there, I saw a lot of unused space on the floor. Mm-hmm. It is what it is. Stern pinball. Pokemon is here. Transformers is coming. fallouts coming and transformers if it's the cartoon oh dude if it's the cartoon megatron oh dude yeah man the movies that'd be kind of turned off a little bit is this going to be elliot Elliot Eismin doing transformers are they allowing him to do another game i don't know who else is there Brian Eddy isn't he working on something i've heard it's either Brian Eddy or elliot Elliot Eismin and i'm not super excited about either one yeah um eddie i saw him at pinball at the beach so he's still like affiliated but i haven't heard about what he's working on because everything i've heard is elliot's doing transformers and uh elwyn's on fallouts this time the guy comes out with his first game and he's a mech dude and i'm like you you put a crate in a car that like turns oh god yeah that game so john wick could have been fast and furious i think dude you could reskin it for i was just at universal i made sure i read that fast and furious dark i did too the other day and i don't know why like dude now they took away the 3d too so it's just like it's such a silly weird ride but they're putting in that big coaster um which that there's like a massive building going up behind that whole facade and everything that ride's gonna go all the way out the city walk and back and when it opens i'm sure they're probably going to close that fast and furious dark ride and put anything else in there i keep hearing back to the future might go there so i hate that ride system it only works for earthquake like when they had like the real effects of earthquake so what was the earthquake ride system like it wasn't because these are the same ride system that just had like you would travel and it would have the screens going by and then you would stop at a station and like the truck would come in and i guess that's like where the girls are dancing at first was a vehicle on rails because these are trackless that they're using now those buses or i don't know i don't think they had trackless tech back then anyway i was thinking because i had heard the rumor that this fast and furious coaster was going to be ghostbusters themed and i got all excited and then it didn't happen but what if the replacement for fast and furious is ghostbusters themed and then what would a ghostbusters ride be like you have to like jump into the movie and follow through like some scenes and i mocked it up in my head for your listening enjoyment so you start off the ride in some kind of slow moving vehicle you're in a house or a library or somewhere creepy where just like some unsettling things are happening and tension is building and then all of a sudden like there is your first encounter with a ghost and like egon jumps out and shoots it and then you get it into a trap and then maybe there's a couple other ones and then something unsettling happens and something slowly building and portals are opening and then like zool is there at the end and you're battling the dogs and everything and then the whole thing ends in like a triumphant ending there um but do you do animatronics of the ghostbusters do you do projections of them it's got to be like that monsters unchained yes but ghostbusters can you imagine a home life it would be so bad can you imagine like like venkman over there just like tossing one-liners and shooting slimer while you're being flung around on a flying chair oh dude you went to the halloween horror nights i think it was two years ago when they did ghostbusters they did a pretty good oh frozen uh iced earth or frozen earth yeah yeah yeah frozen empire frozen empire yeah i did see that that was good that was good the stranger things one was good the the yeti in the woods was good um i love me some uh some universal i was just there mardi gras just started they redid the uh tribute store and it it's like a walk-through you know kind of zombie shop now that's themed after like voodoo oh it's got cool projection effects inside it was great it's the video store one where they had ghostbusters and jaws and et like you walked into an old video rental store yeah oh man that was great um yeah universal does have ghostbusters to some extent licensing because they have it in that parade and all the merch everywhere but it's sony yeah is it sony sony pictures of man ghostbusters such a huge license I would love to see that done again by somebody. Maybe that's Dutch's follow-up to Back to the Future, and in 20 years we'll get to see it. I'll be dead. Oh, man. Thanks for joining me to talk some pinball, man. Yeah, man. It was fun. Yeah. It was fun. We got 42 minutes of straight gold for people. Awesome. Yeah. Catch me next time. TPF, the Countdown TPF. Me and you are co-hosting a booth. We have no idea what we're going to do with it. headphones because Don's going to make it happen. But a beetle tent. A beetle tent. A beetle tent would be great. We need the animatronics. Did you see them on around Halloween? Yes, yes. We need those. All right. All right. I'll hit up T-Mobile. I'll hit up Amazon, man. We'll make it happen. All right. Thank you so much for joining.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: df930133-d599-46c0-a899-34724eb27ad8*