# The Pinball Show Ep 185 BONUS: Supply & Demand: How Should The Industry Handle Extremely Desirable Releases?

**Source:** Pinball Show Patreon Feed  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-11-18  
**Duration:** 55m 39s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.patreon.com/posts/pinball-show-ep-143807186

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## Analysis

This Pinball Show bonus episode explores how the pinball industry should handle extremely limited releases, using Spooky's Beetlejuice and Winchester Mystery House as case studies. The hosts and community members debate supply chain management, resale/flipping, dealer responsibilities, and potential solutions by comparing practices from luxury watches, exotic cars, and sneaker communities. Key tensions emerge between preventing scalping, maintaining customer loyalty, protecting manufacturers' margins, and enforcing fair access, with no consensus on best practices.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Over 500 people wanted Beetlejuice but the dealer did not receive anywhere near 500 units. — _Zach (dealer/host) directly stated this regarding his allocation and customer demand disparity._
- [HIGH] Most dealers required deposit payment before launch announcement for Beetlejuice; Zach's dealer was one of very few that did not force deposits and instead offered a 30-minute review window after announcement. — _Zach explicitly contrasted his approach with 'majority of dealers' who filled spots on title alone before game reveal._
- [HIGH] Many customers who transferred their Beetlejuice deposits had already ordered from other dealers and were using the second spot as a backup to flip for profit. — _Zach stated he encountered evidence that some transfers involved customers who 'already bought from another dealer but this is his backup that he just wants to make money off of.'_
- [HIGH] Spooky Pinball does not allow transfers; they require games to be shipped to the original purchasing customer and do not facilitate resales. — _Host confirmed 'Spooky does not transfer they will not transfer games' and explained Spooky's policy directly._
- [HIGH] Very few pinball games launch and sell out the first day; historical hot titles include Ghostbusters LE, Batman SLE (80 units), Metallica Remastered LE, Pulp Fiction LE, and Winchester Mystery House. — _Zach listed these as notable sellouts in pinball history, noting this immediate sellout phenomenon is rare in the industry._
- [MEDIUM] Some dealers are charging $500 transfer fees on Beetlejuice to offset the fact that resellers are making $3,000–$5,000 in profit while the dealer's margins are much smaller. — _Zach stated 'I've seen some dealers do this on Beetlejuice. They're charging a $500 transfer fee' and explained the margin disparity rationale._
- [HIGH] A preferred buyer program was implemented during the pandemic where customers who committed to buying every new release received guaranteed allocation priority. — _Zach described past preferred buyer program: 'if you're going to buy every game that's launched, I'm going to make sure you have every game that's launched.'_
- [MEDIUM] Requiring deposits and no-transfer policies discourages flipping by reducing speculative purchases without financial commitment. — _Zach discussed the deterrent effect: 'It takes money to make money. You can't be scalping without putting anything down.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "There's not one clean solution... people will understand the different perspectives."
> — **Host (opening framing)**, early episode
> _Sets tone that supply/demand problem is nuanced and multifaceted with no universal answer._

> "They knew they were going to be able to sell it for a profit. So... I've got all these customers who actually buy games from us regularly that weren't able to get one. So am I doing a disservice to my regular customers when this person's never even bought anything?"
> — **Zach (dealer/host)**, mid-episode
> _Core tension: ethical obligation to loyal customers vs. market-driven allocation._

> "If you want the Rolex, you've got to have bought other Rolexes before kind of thing. Or how does the watch industry do it?"
> — **Host questioning guest**, mid-episode
> _Introduces luxury goods industry comparison as potential model for pinball allocation._

> "Audemars Piguet... you buy a Code 1159 first and then you can buy a Royal Oak offshore and they will work you into, you have to buy your way up the ladder."
> — **Guest (watch industry expert)**, mid-episode
> _Example of tiered brand loyalty requirements in luxury sector; potential model for pinball._

> "If you're forcing people to buy stuff they don't want to in order to get better stuff in the future, that actually encourages flipping... because if a person buys everything, they're going to be flipping a lot of that stuff."
> — **Host**, late-mid episode
> _Identifies paradox: loyalty programs intended to prevent flipping may inadvertently encourage it._

> "Spooky does not transfer they will not transfer games... basically if you have a deposit it for a spot the only way that game is leaving our factories if it goes to you what you do with it afterwards is your business."
> — **Zach**, late episode
> _Describes hard-line manufacturer stance that eliminates resale friction by design._

> "It's almost embarrassing [the dealer margin]. So $500 [transfer fee] because you're making a hell of a lot more than that for me to help you make more money."
> — **Zach**, late episode
> _Reveals dealer frustration with margin disparity and rationale for transfer fees._

> "These dealer transfer fees are just as bad as the scalping... the onus is on the manufacturer to set MSRP and quantity to match the market and product."
> — **Community member (quoted)**, end section
> _Shifts responsibility upstream to manufacturer; frames dealer fees as equivalent to flipping._

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Zach Sharpe | person | Pinball dealer/distributor, primary speaker, host perspective; operates customer-facing sales operation; implemented preferred buyer programs and ethical allocation policies. |
| Dennis | person | Co-host/colleague of Zach; participates in discussion; was in team meeting about allocation policy; offers counterarguments and perspective on operational challenges. |
| Greg | person | Colleague or team member present in meeting; argued for convenience of transfers for legitimate customers facing life changes or shipping challenges. |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer; known for strict no-transfer policy on reserved games; ships only to original purchaser; serves as model for anti-flipping approach. |
| Beetlejuice | game | Recent Spooky Pinball release that became case study for extreme demand/scarcity issue; over 500 people wanted it; allocation far below demand; high flipping activity and transfer requests. |
| Winchester Mystery House | game | Recent limited release mentioned alongside Beetlejuice as example of hot, limited-supply title causing supply/demand tension; used as parallel case study. |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; produces Ghostbusters LE, Batman SLE, Metallica Remastered LE, Pulp Fiction LE cited as past hot releases. |
| Ghostbusters LE | game | Historic hot-selling Stern title from ~10-15 years ago; early example of rapid sellout in pinball market. |
| Batman SLE | game | Limited edition Stern title; only 80 units produced; historically hot/desirable. |
| Metallica Remastered LE | game | Recent Stern remaster limited edition; sold out within ~1 day of launch. |
| Pulp Fiction LE | game | Recent limited edition pinball release; cited as example of rapid/first-day sellout. |
| Fang Club | organization | Loyalty/subscription-based program mentioned as model for priority-based allocation; membership-based approach to preferred customer access. |
| Pinball Show | organization | Podcast and community platform hosting this episode; runs Patreon membership program; features this bonus discussion. |
| IFPA | organization | International Flipper Pinball Association; mentioned in context of competitive pinball culture, though not central to this discussion. |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Supply and demand imbalance in limited pinball releases, Flipping and resale pricing practices in pinball secondary market, Dealer allocation policies and ethical considerations, Loyalty programs and preferred customer tiers, Transfer and resale restrictions (manufacturer vs. dealer approaches)
- **Secondary:** Margin disparity between dealers and resellers, Comparative industry practices (watches, luxury cars, sneakers, trading cards), MSRP management and manufacturer responsibility in scarcity

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.35) — Discussion is analytical and frustrated but not angry. Zach expresses exasperation with operational burden and ethical conflicts ('fucking nightmare'), but also acknowledges complexity and lack of clear solutions. Community input is mixed—some sympathetic to flippers' rights, others critical of scalping. No deep animosity toward manufacturers or community, but palpable tension between different buyer tiers and between principles vs. practicality.

### Signals

- **[market_signal]** Beetlejuice and Winchester Mystery House exhibits extreme demand exceeding supply; over 500 interested parties vs. limited units allocated to dealers. Drives flipping, secondary market inflation ($3,000–$5,000+ premiums observed), and dealer margin disparity. (confidence: high) — Zach: 'I had a list of over 500 people wanting a Beetlejuice. Over 500. I didn't get anywhere near 500 units.'
- **[product_strategy]** Dealers employ vastly different allocation strategies: some require pre-announce deposits (easy/fast), others offer post-reveal review windows (ethical but operationally burdensome). No industry standard or enforcement mechanism. (confidence: high) — Zach: 'Majority of dealers were saying just on title alone, we are filling our spots... We didn't feel good doing that because you should always see what you're paying for.'
- **[collector_signal]** High volume of transfer/resale requests during Beetlejuice launch; evidence that some customers are purchasing multiple allocations with intent to flip; secondary market activity at unprecedented scale for pinball. (confidence: high) — Zach: 'they knew they were going to be able to sell it for a profit... we had droves of people saying they want to transfer their deposit.'
- **[industry_signal]** Manufacturers differ dramatically in transfer policy. Spooky Pinball enforces strict no-transfer rule (games ship only to original customer). Other manufacturers have no stated policy or allow flexible transfers. This affects dealer operations significantly. (confidence: high) — Zach: 'Spooky does not transfer... if you have a deposit for a spot the only way that game is leaving our factories if it goes to you.'
- **[operational_signal]** On-release allocation management creates extreme operational strain for dealers; launch-day message volume, transfer processing, and decision-making consume all available staff bandwidth. Dealers unable to respond to customers or manufacturers during peak demand. (confidence: high) — Zach: 'It was a fucking nightmare... I'm busy. I don't message Zach on launch days... 17 other messages [while typing one response].'
- **[business_signal]** Dealers face significant margin pressure; observed 5–8x markup spread between dealer profit and reseller profit on same unit ($500 dealer margin vs. $3,000–$5,000 reseller profit). Justifies transfer fees as partial margin recovery. (confidence: high) — Zach: 'I know you're making $3,000 to $5,000 on this, and I sure as a fuck am not coming close on my margins to making any of that. It's almost embarrassing.'
- **[product_concern]** Ethical/customer-friendly allocation policies (review windows, loyalty programs, transparent criteria) create unintended consequences: enable flippers by reducing barriers, consume operational resources, frustrate loyal customers who lose out to speculators. (confidence: high) — Zach: 'in retrospect, principles aside, [doing what other dealers did] would have been a hell of a lot easier... [my policy] did more harm than good.'
- **[regulatory_signal]** Community discussion suggests potential legal/contract mechanisms (one-per-household limits, scalping penalties, transfer restrictions) but uncertainty about enforceability. No legal framework established in pinball for resale governance. (confidence: medium) — Community quote: '[scalping penalties] I don't know if that's parts even legal.' Host: 'I'm not a lawyer and nothing I say be taken as legal advice.'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Palpable shift in dealer sentiment from initial ethical optimism (do right thing) to operational/pragmatic frustration (easier to just take deposits and move on). Suggests fatigue with complex allocation logistics. (confidence: high) — Zach: 'in retrospect, it would have been a hell of a lot easier just to sell the spots and be done with it.'
- **[industry_signal]** Discussion draws parallels to luxury watch (Rolex, Audemars Piguet), exotic car (Ferrari, Porsche), and sneaker (Air Mags) markets; each has distinct allocation/scarcity strategies. Suggests pinball is naive/inexperienced compared to established luxury collectibles. (confidence: medium) — Extensive comparison of watch dealer tactics, Ferrari invitation-only model, and sneaker secondary market pricing; host notes 'Pinball just doesn't know what to do with it because we're not used to it.'
- **[community_signal]** Community feedback shows deep disagreement on best practices: some favor free-market flipping, others advocate loyalty programs, others blame manufacturers for under-producing, others propose transfer fees or one-per-household limits. No consensus emerges. (confidence: high) — Multiple contradictory community quotes presented; no clear majority position on ideal solution.
- **[product_strategy]** Manufacturers appear unengaged or indifferent to dealer/resale friction; Zach suggests they don't care how games are distributed post-sale. Contrast with luxury watch/car brands that actively manage authorized dealer networks and pricing. (confidence: medium) — Zach: 'I don't think they care... I would argue they should care. I would argue I care for them more than they do.'

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## Transcript

 Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. Thanks again for the ongoing support as a Pinball Show Club member. Enjoy this exclusive TPS content and make sure to visit the Pinball Show Club Discord to chat about the bonus material. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for your exclusive content. Thanks so much for being part of the membership here. Yeah, Dennis got the thumbs up. But refer a friend. We appreciate that. All right. Is this discussion going to tilt people? No. Okay. No. I think this is going to be really interesting. I think most people listening are going to have – I think they're going to understand when you run through it the nuance and why it's so complicated. Like there's not one clean solution. Yes. You might gravitate towards one, but I think people will understand the different perspectives. But we'll have to see. That's right. So we're presenting to you guys kind of the issues that have come up with this recent release of Spooky Pinballs, Beetlejuice, as well as a bit of the Winchester Mystery House. And that is having a game that is limited, truly limited, where many more people want the product or the game than games that are going to be made. So how do you handle that? Some of you have been on the bad end of that situation. you've got and you've got so many components within it too you've got a manufacturer sometimes they're selling direct sometimes they're not selling direct if they are selling direct how many of them are they selling direct and how are they doing it does that differ or does is that similar to how their sales network of distributors are selling them how are the distributors doing that is there a uniform system in which all of them have to follow the rules yes and no is there Are written rules? Yes. Do they follow them all the time? No. Are they reinforced? I don't know. All dealers do them differently, so there's not one system. Some of them just come out and take your money before you see the product. Some of them don't. Pros, cons, and everything. I'm ranting, but you get what I'm going with here. It's very confusing. And maybe our discussion today will help our hobby grow together like I'd always like to think. Not like I'm socialist or anything. I like rules. I do well with agreed upon terms that everybody follows. I think that is the solution to any problem such as this. But we'll see. What I want to do is just laying it out. Many more people wanted Beetlejuice than received one, leading to a lot of frustration by some people. But then again, a lot of people increased monetary value for what they're buying. So much less risk in owning the coolest toy in existence. So that's a lot of people don't want you to take away that. And the issue is these games are now being flipped at a very high rate. That's what when I was teasing in the episode viewer. We'd always had people that want to transfer, right? Transfer their spot, transfer what they purchased their deposit. Hey, I bought a game. I might have paid in full or I paid for the deposit. But now Joe Blow wants it. I need to transfer it over. that happens but not to the degree that it happened on beetle juice it happened to such high degree that it was taking a lot of time and these things are always kind of complicated because people don't get you all the info you need then you have to be in a group message that says hey basically this is our written terms here this person needs to transfer to this person we're all in the same group here we agree that everybody's transferred everything is kosher I've paid them their deposit. Like, what are the terms? I've paid this person the deposit already. They need to transfer. Or am I supposed to pay everything and Zach refunds me for the transfer? It can be complicated. It's time-consuming. It's really time-consuming. But the wrench that you're throwing also into this is we had a list. I don't think this is saying too much about our position. I had a list of over 500 people wanting a Beetlejuice. Over 500. I didn't get anywhere near 500. units. How do I decide who takes those? Everybody's different. But this time around, we were getting just droves of people saying they want to transfer their deposit. Now, in the past, not an issue. This time, it was time-consuming. But also, it was more like a head-scratcher. We were one of the only dealers, Dennis, that did not force people to give their deposit prior to launch. The majority of dealers were saying just on title alone, we are filling our spots. No questions asked, fill your spots. If you want one guaranteed, boom, get in on one now. We didn't feel good doing that because you should, in my opinion, always see what you're paying for. So I said, we're going to do an interested list like we always do. I have guaranteed spots because I know how many I'm going to get. Those people are going to be told beforehand, hey, you get a guaranteed spot. You don't have to worry about whether you're going to get a Beetlejuice or not because you have the opportunity right at first refusal to have one. But once the game is announced, you have 30 minutes to look it over and then tell me if you want it or not. So when I allow that, they've seen it. And to be quite honest, it was more than 30 minutes because it took me longer to work through stuff. They had hours to be fair, hours before they technically had to respond. They had hours to look at it. And then the issue I have is – maybe I don't have it, but the issue I'm proposing is this. They could decide if it was going to be a game for them or not. What we found was a lot of them, a lot of people who were transferring, they knew what they were getting. They still paid the deposit so that they could then – they knew they were going to be able to sell it for a profit. So – or maybe they already had ordered from a different dealer. but now they're taking their second spot with me and flipping it for a profit but then i've got all these customers who actually buy games from us regularly that weren't able to get one so am i doing a disservice to my regular customers when this person's never even bought anything he's telling me he's already bought from another dealer but this is his backup that he just wants to make money off of what do you do this usually isn't a big issue because very few games launch and sell out the first day. Some of the hottest titles we talked about in the main episode, Ghostbusters LE, dating back 10, 15 years. Ghostbusters LE was really hot. Batman SLE, there's only 80 of those. That was really hot. Metallica Remastered LE went pretty much a day launch. Pulp Fiction LE and Winchester Mystery House more recently. So we've not had to deal with this very much. But how do you deal with it? Every industry is different too. Pinball just doesn't know what to do with it because we're not used to it. But I think the car industry, the watch industry, to a certain extent collectibles, trading card industry, gaming industry, everybody's going to be different based on different characteristics such as cost of product, availability, return on your investment, complexity, lead time production, all kinds of components. How does watches, I was going to ask you, we hadn't discussed this, But do watches ever – they feel like Ferrari kind of to me. Like if you want the Rolex, you've got to be – you have had to buy – to get a limited edition Rolex, you've had to have bought other Rolexes before kind of thing. Or how does the watch industry do it? It depends. So we'll use in your Rolex example. It's up to the dealer. The dealer decides. So for example, I've wanted a no-date sub. I've been on a list for two and a half years for a no date because I don't have a purchase history with my local area dealer. Their claim is they only sell to local and they work down the list in the order that they have it. And the date versions are made more so you have to wait longer for a no date. Another place I went, which is also in the region but further away, was a little more direct. And they were like, that's a very popular watch. however we can make this happen for you if you will spend a certain amount of money with us on other things oh so a bundle deal essentially it was more of a not like i wasn't going to walk out that day with it but if i were if i was willing to basically spend and they gave a percentage of value like each watch is you know because they make a profit off of each one like if i wanted to buy an Omega watch and a Grand Seiko watch that could get me there. And then within six months, I would have what I wanted. Most likely they couldn't promise. And they're pretty open with you about what it would take? Surprisingly so, because I don't think Rolex smiles upon that behavior. Does the hobby frown upon that behavior or does the hobby kind of accept that? It's accepted because Rolex is the most popular Swiss luxury watch brand. But I mean, most of the people hate it. Some people like playing the game. Another brand which controls, they don't use dealers anymore. They control their own boutiques. It's Audemars Piguet, favored by rappers the world over with their Royal Oak line. If you want a Royal Oak, you buy a code 1159 first and then you can buy a Royal Oak offshore and they will work you into, you have to buy your way up the ladder to get the stuff that you want. And the really popular people, yes uh you know at that point like if you regularly are spending money you're the person that gets to have that le daytona or that limited production uh blinged out ap model that they only made a hundred of or whatever so it varies it's kind of like um well what does sneakers do like sneakers has run into this right with limited edition yeah and i think that uh watch is probably the same there's always going to be some dealers that it's just market price like um you don't have to worry about this hierarchy of stuff like right now uh it's whatever the market bears so if i ask um the air mags were the back to the future shoe the self-lacing things there was like a replica of that but those were going for at some point like fifty thousand dollars for sneakers but sure you could get into the lot i think there was even a charity thing on those like you had to be invited to the charity event to be given the opportunity to buy them for ten thousand but if not like you You can always buy them. The dealer would always have them if you paid what the market bared. So if they said, we got Air Mags and you have them for $100,000 and they didn't sell, then they would just lower the price until they sold. I think the quickest, easiest way is that. I don't know if it's the best way. But I'm sure there are some watches that if you wanted that no date, a dealer could sell you that watch. It would not be what everybody else is paying for. It will be more. but it's rare it's rare in watches okay at the authorized dealers it's against their contracts that's why okay so the manufacturers do not want that right so yes i could buy a no date submariner right the retail price for a no date sub today is 9500 us uh for 13 000 i could go buy an unworn one from a secondhand person who got one from a flipper who flipped it to them so there's always you don't have to wait there's always a way to spend more and get a daytona or the ones doing it no no the only one i ever heard of that did that is ap for a while did on some of their models sell them above msrp but again that was the brand controlling their own boutiques uh it's generally it's against the rules that's the difference between like uh cars exotic cars or luxury collectible cars the manufacturers i don't for the most part don't really have much of a problem with the dealers saying hey right you're paying 40 000 over msrp it's just the way it is it happened a lot in the pandemic with regular cars 100 and it's just normally that environment doesn't exist for a lot of the models again ferrari is a really interesting example because ferrari it's like like how do you even buy your first ferrari it's almost like you have to be invited in is my understanding most of the other luxury car lines have a way like nobody has a problem getting their first porsche like there's a no but if you want to get the special porsche you kind of have to buy yeah you gotta buy the you might have to buy a couple of porsches you don't want so yeah so it depends they all have they all have different stuff it used to be a luxury item is this really a collective are we there where pricing wise i feel like we are the We can get into the discussion. The build quality sure ain't there to be called luxury, in my opinion. It's not a Swiss timepiece. Even that has certain – you can get non-luxury Swiss timepieces. And what goes into – I mean, a lot of people – excuse me. A lot of people would argue Rolex is not luxury. It's too mass-produced to ever be really worthy. And it's so – there's so little hand-finishing done to it. It's just – it's made to a very high specification. Like, the tolerances are incredibly precise. They make a very robust, nice watch, and it's expensive. It's priced luxury. But if you want, like, hand finishing, you've got to look at Breguet or something. Yeah. So there are a lot of options as to how pinball machines could be sold. Sure. And I don't know how the manufacturers feel about it. Honestly, I do know. I don't think they care. I going to put it that way I would argue that they should care I would argue I care for them more than they do But I think they don really care Slippery slope, and I could present to them why it should matter. Let me ask you a question about Beetlejuice specifically. Would you have had the situation that you did if you had not done your 30-minute wait-till-release-day window? If you had done what all the other distributors had, would you have solved this problem for you on this release? Yes, it was very simple for the other dealers. They were already done before the work was to be put in. They didn't have to answer any questions because they didn't know. So on retrospect, principles aside, should you have just done what they did? Because them doing that meant you standing on your morals or however we want to frame it about offering this opportunity. It actually did more harm than good. Harm to you in terms of the time spent dealing with the aftermath and harm to the end consumers because a bunch of flippers took those spots that you offered up in theory to be given to real pinball people. Sure. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I mean, we didn't know this going in, but I've just that's where I. Yes, it was a lot more difficult and a lot more time. And on top of it, the special circumstances, I was trying to launch stuff at launch on social media with videos and stuff. It was a fucking nightmare. But, yeah, in retrospect, it would have been a hell of a lot easier just to sell the spots and be done with it and then enjoy the launch like everybody, all the other dealers. And even to a certain extent, the manufacturer was able to. I get manufactured on launch days a lot. That'll message me, hey, how everything's going. And I'm like sweat pouring, trying to type up invoice. And I'm like, I'm busy. I don't message Zach on launch days. I don't. I feel bad. If people want to chat, I try to be nice and be like, hey, I just don't want you to think I'm ghosting you. But in the time I'm taking to type this up, I've had 17 other messages. So I will get to you. Hang tight. Because I don't want to come across as a dick. But it is very, very busy on those days, especially when you only have so many Beetlejuice to sell and you're trying to work through to see who wants them, who doesn't, answer all their questions so that they can make that determination. So there's a lot of ways to do it. Pinball has only seen kind of one way, though. They've only seen when launch day, you tell your dealer, hey, I want this game. The quicker you tell them that, probably the quicker in queue. Some dealers may say, hey, I've got regulars that are going to be at the first front of the line, period, dot. Doesn't matter. I don't care if you pay me quicker. It doesn't matter to me. These guys buy the most, so they get the most. Right. The watch is doing that a lot. Yeah. That's a hard system to enforce and a hard system to create fairly. If you do it loosely, half-assy, then, yeah, you can be like, oh, fuck, Bill always buys from me. I'm going to have a spot for him. But if you really go in and be like, what are the qualifications for Bill to have to stay in the program of being on top of the list? Is it every single game until he drops out? Because we did. We did do a preferred buyer program in the past, Dennis, where if you – there was a lot of people back in around pandemic that would buy every game because there was not much risk there. You'd always sell it for – so they would buy every game. So, yeah, I did have a program where if you're going to buy every game that's launched, I'm going to make sure you have every game that's launched. You don't have to worry about anything. And we did have a nice amount of people that were doing that. but then even that gets tricky because if they don't buy the next american pinball game does that then disqualify them from your list because then you could they come back and be like dude i thought i was on your list you mean to tell me i don't have that game and i'm like well you but you didn't buy oktoberfest you didn't buy and they're like well shit dude like nobody bought it i'm like yeah but i have to have some kind of some kind of criteria to know whether you're on the, I can't just bank on you buying 25% of games or everybody's going to buy that. So it, it gets tricky. Uh, or do you just say some, some dealers that don't have much of a platform, they've just first come first serve. They don't take an interested list. They'll put it on their website. Even if they have a website or they'll answer their rotary dial phone and they'll take your order. Uh, it just, it's so different. And I think some dealers can do some things where other dealers can do things. I don't think I could have the same system of dispersing games to the certain window that every other, I'm going to say every other dealer does. I think my leash is much tighter because my public profile is much larger. So I'm trying to equate this to another industry. We have to always, we're on the stage more so than other people. Other people's not going to hurt their brand as much if they say, I know these are 10 grand, but they're selling for 15. If you want it, it's $15,000. I don't think that hurts that brand as much as if I were to come out and be like, hey, they're going for 15,000. That's how much we're going to sell them for. I may not have a business. We'd have a business, but it would not be as successful. So everybody's different. Before we determine what we think is the right and wrong way to do it, I want to read through. I think a lot of people will like hearing from others. We asked pinball buyers and hobbyists, not all of them buy pinball machines, but a lot of hobbyists, what they thought about all of these situations that we're presenting to you, viewer. I'm going to read some of these quotes. And while lengthy, I think it gives a really nice, colorful Walking Dead remastered picture of how things are handled. One of the members said, quote, it's a free market. People can do whatever they want. But I don't like it. you should buy this game because you want it and then maybe sell it down the line buying something just to flip is immediately depriving someone who probably really wants to own the game and loves the theme it's a tricky question okay i agree with that uh i think it's pretty vague in terms of like you shouldn't do it it doesn't really give us a right plan i think the implication is that they can't afford the flipped price. That's the deprivation. At $10,000, I could get a pinball machine a year. At $15,000, I can't. And I'm sure there are plenty of people that that's their budgetary limit. Which is a high limit. Another member said, my opinion, I think as a distributor, you limit one person or family or household, if that's something you can even control or know. They're saying one game per household. Right. You don't know if they're trying to flip it or not. Maybe put in an agreement. If they're scalping, they owe you X percent. I don't know if that's parts even legal. Ha ha. I don't think I'm not a lawyer and nothing I say on this Patreon episodes be taken as legal advice. However, chargeback. It's a yes. Maybe there's a way you could craft a contract that would say that. But nobody like no, it's not worth the effort. It's not worth the effort. I don't know how you would, because I'm thinking as a distributor, how would I control one per household? The only way, because anybody can break that. They can just another email and ship it to your brother. That's pretty easy. Right, they could break it, but I guess the way I would assume. If somebody comes and says I want four. Right. The way I would assume is if you have a database of where the ship, like basically you're flagging off of the shipping address. That would be the easiest way. Yeah, yeah. So the possibility, yes. But yeah, easy to work around as well. Another member says, quote, what about a loyalty priority list for past purchasers like the Fang Club did or what Dutch is proposing with a guaranteed back to the future spot if you bought Alice? If you scalp, then you get put on a naughty list for the next game. And they were kind of tongue in cheek here. But I mean, a loyalty program is interesting. That's kind of what we're talking about, that preferred buyer. but that's a whole other system that you've got to follow and you have to be transparent about or else people think because people thought I was full of shit until people realized that I'm so legitimate and almost OCD like on systems they thought oh yeah Zach's got some program that he you know it's a good old boy they know now it's not like that but before they didn't think that but I think a loyalty program could make It depends how it would work. It could make sense in any system. How it works, though, kind of determines the fate of it. Like if you do it like Fang Club where it's a subscription-based service. Okay. A subscription-based service. Well, like they're going to pay you $100 a year to be on your priority list. Somebody pitched that as well. Right. So why not have that? But the question that comes up is, okay, well, does the loyalty list apply to everything? not everything is in the same limited counts so like you'd have to let's use winchester for example i don't know how many winchesters you got allocated but if you have a club of a hundred people they can't all you don't have a hundred winchester zach so you can't you can't like you you'll still piss them off the other option is you do kind of like what you did in the pandemic and you'd be a thing like okay well you're guaranteed a spot if you buy everything the The people that can afford to buy everything can pay the flipper too, like honestly. What's five grand to the – That's the other thing like the Ferrari model here, viewer, is that sure, that will work. But if you're forcing people to buy stuff they don't want to in order to get better stuff in the future, that actually encourages flipping. Whether it's flipping for a profit or not, it's still encouraging purchasing something without the intent of keeping it to move it along and to sell to somebody else. So that can be – because if a person buys everything, they're going to be flipping a lot of that stuff. Another person says, quote, definitely a loyalty perk to the top of the list. That's how high-end car dealers do it. But then they do charge $20,000 over MSRP, which is crazy. So right along those lines, another person said, quote, ideally the answer is no refunds, period. No swaps either until after the entire balance is paid, and then it's noted for that person using user for the future. So this person says no refunds and no transfers until you pay for the product in full. How do you feel about that? Does that save you any work? No, but yes, indirectly. because if you force upon something more stringent such as that, you'll have less people doing it. What I did, and a lot of people will judge me for this, and we did have a team meeting and we discussed it before making this decision, and I did make the decision that this time around it was common sense to me. I was like, the ball's on these people. But some of them just weren't even thinking it was an issue, and that's fine. Um, but they were trying to transfer the spot before they even had paid the deposit that they just wanted to. They had no investment in anything. They were just like, no, I want to transfer my spot over to this person. And that's where I put my foot down. I said, hey, respectfully, um, we're not going to do that. Like, cause there's arguably there's nothing for us to transfer. You're on an interested list. Now, we're giving you a guaranteed spot, but that's a glorified interest list. You have nothing to transfer. So until you have paid a deposit, I can't transfer a deposit. We've got 400 or 500 people wanting this game. I've got my own interested list that I can go off of. You don't get to determine your interested list. I can't transfer it unless you've actually paid a deposit, and then I can transfer it over. Now, that did anger some people. but I mean you have to have some type of initiative. It gets back to the it takes money to make money. You can't be scalping without putting anything down. That's not how it works. That was rough. So here's where this one's interesting. I guess what I would say is I think it would be an interesting model if you were to say kind of where they were like the no refunds period no swaps period either you either will take possession of this game and then if you want to flip it while it's still in the box that's up to you or you can forfeit your deposit and walk away and then yeah and you can sell the spot again so that's the spooky model spooky does not transfer they will not transfer games and i respect them for it uh they say basically if you have a deposit it for a spot the only way that game is leaving our factories if it goes to you what you do with it afterwards is your business we would never in you know it's not like some of these car car things are you have to sign an agreement you don't sell it within so many years right uh unless it's approved by the company so but spooky will say no when you order it's going to whatever shipping address do whatever you want afterwards but no we're not transferring anything that's becoming more and more interesting to me. But a lot of people argue like, well, that's bullshit. Like, it's not that much work for you just to transfer it over. Like shit happens and I can you know I don want it anymore Why are you making me go through with paying more money And the argument was and Greg gave this argument in our meeting He said, for people who legitimately something comes up and they're trying to sell, they don't know how to ship stuff. It is very inconvenient for them. They don't know how to set up shipping for something if they need to ship it. And my argument to him was I will always help as much as we can. But at the end of the day, it's just – that's not our problem. We're running a business. I can't worry about how somebody else is going to ship their pinball machine that we don't have any part of that deal. They bought the product from us. They have the product. Our terms are complete. Why are we helping them sell it to somebody else? Why – we shouldn't enter into that. That makes things messy. But that would be the argument there. All right, what else we got here? another member said quote it honestly sounds like a real pain for a distributor to change a pre-order to somebody else especially if you know that they're just flipping it if you decide to do it you should most certainly charge a pre-order transfer fee this is an interesting concept they said though honestly for the sake of the hobby i think those who pre-ordered it are not allowed to transfer to someone else during the pre-order shipping phase they can do whatever they want once they receive it so then that's what i was saying yeah but a transfer fee i've seen some dealers do this on Beetlejuice. They're charging a $500 transfer fee because they know that, you know what, it's not as much as the deposit that you're losing out, but I know you're making $3,000 to $5,000 on this, and I sure as a fuck am not coming close on my margins to making any of that. It's almost embarrassing. So $500 because you're making a hell of a lot more than that for me to help you make more money. How do you feel about that one? As long as it was declared in writing as part of the agreement. I think that's fine. Beforehand? Yeah. Yeah, it's a non-refundable deposit. Then there will be, if you want to transfer ownership of the deposit-reserved spot to someone else, there will be a whatever you agree the transfer fee will be. Yeah, I can see that. So I think it's beneficial for some dealers to do that. I think it's trickier for other dealers to do that. Another one is, quote, prioritize repeat customers, limit one. and I think that's all you can or should do. Also, don't do a transfer fee. These dealer transfer fees are just as bad as the scalping. It seems to me the most of the onus is on the manufacturer to set MSRP and quantity to match the market and product. So they're 180. They say, no, that's just as bad as scalping. It's the manufacturer's responsibility to set the MSRP and the quantity correctly, not on these dealers to do transfer fees. So you would essentially lose that customer. They'd be gone if you did a transfer fee. Another person said, quote, although I completely on a completely different scale, I've been through this with bourbon and beer at their height. I thought they were always at their height. People love booze. My personal opinion is one per person reward loyalty. And if a person does pay their deposit, they must take delivery of the game. If they want to flip it, it's on them to deal with the freight after taking delivery. If life circumstances change, then don't pay the deposit as you must take delivery on it. Okay, so piggybacking off of what some people have said. Others say, quote, meh, start bidding at 200% MSRP and let the market figure it out. Better profit goes to those taking the risks. I wouldn't allow transfers, though. So they go so bold as to say, let the market decide because that's the economy in which we live within, which I see that argument. But don't allow transfers. We don't have really an open auction system. It is frowned upon upon this hobby. I just don't see this taking off. And I don't know if it ultimately did bear bad fruit. I never got the sense necessarily that – I don't know what size the dealers were. Let me just hedge that. But during the pandemic, there were a few dealers that were known to sell above MSRP. And there were a lot of people who said, writing your name down, when this ends, I ain't buying from you ever. And not very many distributors did it. But there were some. And that's why I said some dealers can get away with stuff that others can't because they're smaller. Sadly, I know some of who them dealers are. And if I wanted to play devil's advocate here, Dennis, I would say, well, obviously they're doing something correct because they're allowed to sell one manufacturer's product and I'm not. so they're valued by that manufacturer more than I am. Well, again, the manufacturer might not care. It depends. Again, that's where I like the watch analogy. Rolex, for example, there was a, I think it was in Chicago, ironic, I give them pinball, but a few years ago where they were caught selling to what's called the gray market. They were selling, secondhand dealers really, they were selling new watches and it was like an underhanded deal so that they could make more money because they were not allowed to sell above MSRP. That's why people wait on the list. They wanted an MSRP. And Rolex pulled their distributorship as punishment. It's kind of like a sub-dealer kind of thing. Yeah. It's like, no, you are going to sell at MSRP. That is the deal. But they're in a different – what a Stern can do versus other brands, that's kind of that thing because there are jewelers that without Rolex, they won't make enough money selling watches. I've talked to manufacturers about this issue because, generally speaking, sub dealers are frowned upon in this industry through manufacturers. Some manufacturers are very stringent upon it, like Stern. Stern says it is not allowed, period. If you get caught doing it, there will be consequences, period. Having said that, there have been grandfathered in sub dealers as part of Stern, one of the most public that people know about Todd Tuckey, TNT Amusements. He is not a dealer or a distributor of certain pinball products. He is a sub-dealer of Automated. Automated is the dealer. But that one is approved because it's been grandfathered in the past, and it's fine. But there are some sub-dealers, but they look down upon it. Other manufacturers, sadly, they're loose. They're loose on it to a degree that I've told them, look, it's going to bite you, and when it does, don't come crying to me because there's an easy solution. You just have to enforce rules. I've seen Stern even kind of get looser. It's going to fluctuate that market, right? And we see there's a little dip in that market. They're not paying as close of attention. They're allowing dealers to sell show games with two plays on them for $1,500 under. I think that is a courageous and a slippery slope. I still remember when there was the dealer who just flat out sold new in-box JJPs under the minimum pricing and was just like, what are you going to do about it? And JJP, of course, did nothing. Until Flippin' Out said, hey, if they're going to do it, then I'll do it. And then there was a meeting and a call. Some dealers, it's just different. So, yeah, I always tell manufacturers, hey, if you want to continue sustaining your product and the viability of it long term and you don't want to turn to the arcade industry that you cannot buy a product without walking off the dealership and losing half its value. You actually are able to hold that if you just police it a little better. don't cry to me if all your good dealers leave and start selling jewelry and houses and property and cars uh and you'll have shitty dealers left that are fucking slimy and they'll make a hundred dollars a machine and they're happy with that that's the dealership that's the sales network you're going to get or you sell direct that's another option as well man i'm i'm big into the whole system singing all this okay a couple more of these i think this is good uh quote what i could Let's see. Is Spooky charging slightly more and being more in alignment with JJP? Of course, I don't want that for myself, but it wouldn't make business sense how they distribute the extra proceeds across the distribution channel or pure profit. It could be determined by those who take on the risk. So just charge more. Sure. Spooky wants to maintain the value of their next sale. That's the issue. What happens if the next game sucks? What happened with Halloween and Ultraman? those are some of the best bargains you can get secondhand today i know a lot of people those were pandemic games and people lost their shirts on those i mean and we've even seen it in other instances with jjp like we know people who are listening to this who have said they will not buy ces anymore they got tired of taking a multi-thousand dollar hit on them yeah avatar ce They're like, I'll lose 500 all day. No problem. 3,000? That's a different story. So, you know, there is a – you don't always know what you've got when it's tough with the pricing. Especially, again, pinball, which is not used to dynamic pricing where it would be like, this is Beetlejuice. It's more popular than Walking – excuse me, than Evil Dead. So we're going to price that higher. And then if our next game is Snorks, we're going to price it lower because it's less popular. And then if it's Goonies, we're going to price it way higher. And then if it's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, it's going to be the cheapest game we've ever met. I'm the motherfucker. Noise, noise, noise. Yeah. It's like they don't do it like that. So like no one in the industry does. If anybody starts that system, it will take several years for their consumer base to get used to that before they – so they don't stop – so they don't keep fighting it back. I know there's some demand because there have been some people that have been like, I wish they'd just charge $1,000 more and get the license I want with the assets I want. We've seen that. There is demand. But if you've got everybody bitching about like jumping the line in that song, not being in the Beetlejuice game, if you all knew how much they were charging for that song, it was almost to the degree like you have to see if that person was delusional. you're like getting one of the biggest blockbuster film licenses cheaper than they wanted for that use of one song and bug said there's absolutely no way i'm sorry like it's no it's it's yeah it's offensive how much they were asking to use that song another person the deposit goes to spooky and it's never coming back so yeah zach could charge two thousand dollars to pocket plus the $8,000 in invoice, but I don't like it. If anyone gets a transfer fee for a second deposit, it should be spooky. I also like just completely disallowing transfers if it can be managed. Then does the next in line pay $10,000? Spooky just gets another $2,000. So this person is pro-manufacturer. Like, get it back to them. Dealers are just there just as a conduit of sales and shipping, I guess. Another person responding to the whole auction style of things, like what's the market bearing? They said, quote, personally, that's when I stopped buying new in box. As someone who genuinely purchased these for enjoyment and for creating memories with friends, I don't put up with secondary pricing. Not to mention I feel like there should be some benefit of loyalty in purchasing multiple games per year, not in terms of special pricing but in terms of access. That said, I can absolutely understand all sides of the equation. That's just my two cents. So that's interesting that they're saying, I don't think we should get price – because some customers – you guys are all different as customers. Some of you say, hey, the more I buy, the less I should have to pay. I get that argument because I think the same in distribution terms as well at times. Not that I get them. Lord knows that. But I think, man, if I'm buying 100 something, somebody else is buying five or something, why am I spending the same amount of something by buying 100 something if there's an unlimited amount to buy? Doesn't make sense to me either. So I'm with you. I think what people confuse sometimes as a buyer is the leverage they're imparting into the whole system of the sales. For example, I had some people that do get frustrated if I don't break the deals. Like, I don't give you a deal like my other dealer used to give me deals. Or you couldn't guarantee me a game, dude. I have bought three games from you in the past three years, right? So without, I don't want to be negative to them. And I don't want them to think like I don't value that because absolutely I value three games in three years. That's unbelievable for somebody to be able to afford. having said that there's a lot of people that buy a lot of games so like dennis was saying like well if you have this many people on this priority list how do you prioritize that if you don't get as many as people on the list that's kind of where it runs into if somebody were to buy three games in three years and it's like but keep in mind you bought evil dead you bought jaws le and then you bought like the things that absolutely everybody would buy. So it is a huge benefit to me as a business, but you didn't separate yourself drastically from a lot of other people in the same pool. Does that make sense? Yeah. They buy barbecues. They show that they're willing to suffer. We can talk. Yeah, we can talk. I really, you want, you want to get a venom pro. The door is open. I really appreciate that purchase. But yeah, when you're telling me, well, dude, I bought an evil dead from you. Shit. Does that count for anything? I'm like, I'll buy a hundred of them right now. Like that doesn't. Yeah. What's your next big sacrifice? Godzilla. So it tough to tell like to try to put things into perspective for people A couple more and then we be done This guy says sorry I know we I love this guy he like a i don give a shit about zach kind of thing i it bold and i appreciate it so sorry i know we're supposed to come in here and just glaze zach and distros and boutiques haha this whole situation is just dumb and unfortunate byproduct of the kickstarter boutique model of getting interest-free loans of millions of dollars from customers to fund the making of their crap all fueled by FOMO, nostalgia, and promises. You just can't lose sight of the fact that Spooky just banked $2 million yesterday for something they don't have parts for and aren't going to start making for over two months. That's a bold claim they're making. Damn! It's not wrong. Spooky's done this for years. As do manufacturers. Sure. It's not wrong. That's really a manufacturer complaint more than a distributor complaint. You don't sound like a Zach customer. Well, I mean, it doesn't matter what customer he is. If he wants a spooky game, he's got to play their game, and that's how they play their game. They just banked $2 million. Fuck. Interesting free loan money, yeah. We've been preaching that, right? And that's not my best interest to preach, but it is what it is. This person said, there should be some penalty to it, period. Not really concerned where the money goes, but you shouldn't be out here transferring deposits over and over when the Repeated behavior proves the reason why you're doing it to start with. Good point. Another person, I think if you want to put down a deposit, you should have to take possession of the game. If you do multiple deposits, you must have to pay for them all and take possession of them all. That way, if you're going to flip it, you have to deal with shipping and after-purchase risk. Another person, seems like the consensus in here is to just not allow transfers. I can get behind that. Just incoming sob stories. And then the person listed a couple things like personal life conflicts, negative events that we're going to hear as excuses to get their money back when the game isn't incredible or something. And then one of the last ones here says, quote, I think the sale or the spot for sure in this case should be non-transferable, responsible to the buyer. That would seal it for the people who actually want it. Then again, they could sell it after they get it for a higher price, but you really can't prevent that. The scalping part of it would could be minimized by doing it. I think it's the easiest way, I guess from a distro perspective, to not have to manage it is just to not have to manage it and solve it that way. But I did mention before we – on the main episode how number four would dismay Spooky. So that part – so in this instance – What's number four? This is number four. Number four is I don't understand why Spooky is making so few of them. They should have known better. They should have known better. They did. This is not Winchester. This Winchester. I disagreed with people saying they should have made more than 525. Yeah. In retrospect. But they knew they had Beetlejuice. They knew it was popular. They knew they had the entire damn movie. They knew all this stuff. They knew there was going to be a strong. They knew. And so given that they chose to keep the price where they did and or. and I'm going to more emphasize the second part, only make, what, 999 units or whatever they – is that the count, 999? Yep. It's like there was – I don't know if they had a – I doubt it, but if they needed to modify it, like if they had a licensing agreement that capped it, they should have gone back and doubled it. Like I don't understand why they made so few in the first place. I understand that there probably is still some burn from the number of Scoobies they committed themselves to making. This is not Scooby-Doo. And I just, to me, and I feel like if, you know, I'm not in business. I work in government. But even with all my much more conservative approaches to this stuff than you, you take more risks than me, Zach. I would have said this is not a game we make less than a thousand of, even in this economy. And even if they had, the moment I saw what happened with Winchester, I'd have been on the phone with licensing and been like, hey, we want to make $1,999 now. That would have solved a bunch of it. Another thing they could consider doing, which I've seen a few watch manufacturers, which is not what a lot of the big ones do, but some of the more independent, more boutique ones do, is instead of setting a limit, this is along the lines of what JJP's tried to do with the Harry Potter CEs, but put a time frame on it. here we are. We are going to release this on November 10th or whenever. You have 48 hours to put in your orders. Then it's all closed and we make however many we got ordered. Okay. So you still make people commit. Like the FOMO is still going to move it. The FOMO is going to work there, Zach. But now if the game didn't end up being immediately popular, you create a lot of value for the people who committed on a game. and the game's super popular, then it deserves to be made, and everyone gets to make money. Spooky gets to make money. The distributors get to make money. And nobody was promised a certain number that changed later, so you can't really whine that your value was impacted. I get the argument. I think that from – The argument's basically perfect. No. I think there's good reason why. You guys can turn it off now. Thanks for listening. There's good reason why they didn't do it. And I think it's smart on their behalf for not doing that because they could have done that. And financially, they would have made more money doing that. However, I think what they did was they invested in their brand. And I think it will pay off for them as it did from Evil Dead. I think they did it smart here because they essentially said, we're investing in the brand long term. We're giving this one because their brand right now is hitting on all cylinders based on hobbyist support. Their buyer base has become their loudest advertisement and their loudest defense against competitors by offering them value so much so that they're making their consumer base money where they don't have to. They could be pocketing that money. That's what a lot of manufacturers do. So they went in knowing that they could have made a lot more money. But also, so that's one part of it. They're building for future releases, guaranteed less risk, more control of future releases. They're also investing in their brand and their consumer base. So that always yields dividends in the end. And the other end of it is they know what their limits are. They know of the agreements they've made licensing-wise. It's a scaling thing. They don't want to have to scale immediately and double their production run because they can't. They can't make – they can make $1,000 a year. They know that's pretty much what they can make. If they make this for two years, sure, they could double their money, but then they're compromising all of the future, like how big the window that we have because they have to get – they have to pay for these things perpetuity probably. I don't know how it all works, but they can only have these windows for so long. So by doing it now, boom, boom, boom, they just keep moving, keep building their brand equity, and long-term, will that work? They're banking on that being the case. So I get it because if they make $2,000 – I don't like the window thing because that basically sets the market immediately, and you'll never get excessive value after that. Your value is only going to go down from there from your product. In a collectible industry, you've got to be careful. You want to yield some high collectibility, especially on small run stuff like $500 or $1,000 of anything. So I think it was really smart, but they absolutely could have made a lot more money. But that goes to show they only sold, what, 100 direct? I even told them, you guys could have taken a lot bigger percentage, and us dealers wouldn't have really anything to say about it. Like, but they're trying, they're trying to make everybody happy and they're over, they're overdoing it to really make sure that hits home. Well, so they definitely did not make everybody happy. They didn't. I think they're hitting that too. And the interested list thing to close here is interesting too, because people are mad about that. There shouldn't be an interest list. Well, you can't police that. that's let's get used to that this is what it is but the interested list thing is tricky too because i'm running into now we get so many people on interested lists that we'll have somebody email us and give us 30 titles i just there should be just a common common approach to everything like come on guys they or i will get somebody that gets on every fucking interested list and they're taking a spot. And when the time comes, I call it out to the team members. Hey, guess who's not going to buy this? Hey, are you interested in your spot? You know what? Wasn't really crazy about that. I'm going to pass this time. I'm like, dude, you fucking passed that last eight at some point. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm going to piss you off, but you're out. You're done. You're wasting my time. Um, so I feel bad about that, but there are going to be some limits. I did have somebody that was flipping a spot. Um, he said, Hey, I bought from somebody else. So sight unseen. I bought my own game. But this one I'm going to flip to a local guy. It's always a local guy. I'm going to help out. I always want to help out somebody. I'm a helper. Look to the helpers. It's always a local arcade. You know what? I just want a local. I'm being facetious here. But it's always they want to transfer. But this person is ballsy enough to be like, not only do I want to make money. So I said to this, I've been saying just a little bulk something. Man, our customers aren't getting their things. And here these guys are flipping. They're never going to buy from us again. So I was like, here, how about this? I'm going to refund your non-refundable deposit in full. You already got your game, so you don't care. So I'll just give you a refund. I'll eat the fees. I'll give you a refund so that I can get another customer that buys game from us to have a spot. Because some of these guys are like, I don't want to make any money, you know. So I'm just going to transfer my spot. And I'm like, no, no, don't. I'll give you full refund. And they're like, well, no, no. I mean, let's not be hasty here. You know, no, I'm fine. Just a transfer. Just let me try it. I'm like, ah, yeah, because you're going to make money off of it. Don't try to blow smoke up my ass here. And then we got other guys that they have told me they've already bought a game. They're going to transfer their funds. And because I didn't set the terms prior to, I'm allowing that. It is what it is. I will let them know it's unfortunate, but it is what it is. But then they got the balls to then say, put me on the list next year for this. And I'm like, wait a minute. So what do you do there, Dennis? That's not right. They've told me that they're essentially using me to flip and using their dealer to keep their own games, and then they want to keep on giving on interested lists. I don't know how to feel about it. You can tell them. You put them on the list, and you do, and you have a section which is I'm not selling to these people. Yeah, but I don't lie. No, they're going to be on the list. I'd rather piss them off and say I'm not going to put you on the list. Then do it. That's true. It's not tough. They don't know what order they are on these lists. That's true. And some of them want that transparency. Some of them say, hey, you should have a list with numbers and we should be designating numbers to see where we're at in these lists. And I'm like, guys, I'm busy enough. I can't keep up with all this shit. But so I think that was a good discussion for people. So let us know. I think the proper solution is no transfer. but honestly some dealers can get by with that. Me as a dealer, I think I'd lose customers. If our new terms would be no transfer of spots, I think I would lose some customers. Significant? I don't know. But I think I would lose some. You know, you don't have to do it the same for every manufacturer. That's a good point. You could say there's no transfers on these boutique brands. That's a good point. But you would allow it for JJP, Stern, and CGC? Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. I like that. So other than that, I don't know. I don't know if we'll ever see. I think we might see if it continues to have hot titles. I think you might see an auction approach more so by some dealers. I really do. I think you're going to start seeing that. Um, yeah, I think that might be the case. Um, feedback, give us some feedback. Let us know what you thought about this. Uh, comment on, uh, whether it's discord or comment on the post itself, where you're listening to this, uh, your thoughts about how this process should go, because I'm gonna tell you what, if we all collaborate and communicate enough, these manufacturers do listen. They're seeing that when they listen to their consumer base, they make more money and they're more successful. And this is arguably one of the best places to be able to gauge this market type of research. So, yeah, feedback here is going to be gold for these manufacturers. So let's figure out what you want to see from them and dealers and what you don't. Click.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: e3743de3-dc2d-4980-bcb5-87f6027c05fe*