# Kaneda's EXPLICIT FB RANT about Call For Price

**Source:** Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2023-03-23  
**Duration:** 37m 54s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.patreon.com/posts/kanedas-explicit-80430209

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## Analysis

Kaneda delivers a scathing critique of American Pinball's launch of Galactic Tank Force, specifically condemning the "Call for Price" pricing strategy, poor marketing execution, weak gameplay reveal, and the $17,500 Signature Edition pricing as disrespectful to the community. He argues the leaks generated more excitement than official content, compares the launch unfavorably to recent successes like Pulp Fiction and Foo Fighters, and calls for industry-wide transparency and accountability on pricing practices.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] The Galactic Tank Force reveal video lacked substantive gameplay, mechanism, or feature demonstration — _Kaneda (host) - directly observed the reveal content and criticized its inadequacy_
- [HIGH] American Pinball charged $17,500 for the Signature Edition, $6,000 more than the LE, justified only by a 3D Translight and lunchbox — _Kaneda - stated as direct knowledge of distributor pricing communication_
- [MEDIUM] Games are shipping to retailers/locations the week of Texas Pinball Festival, suggesting last-minute timing — _Kaneda - mentioned John's game cancellation at Jack Bar and general lack of early location placements_
- [HIGH] Leaks of Galactic Tank Force generated more community excitement than official marketing content — _Kaneda - explicit claim comparing leak impact to official video impact_
- [HIGH] "Call for Price" is a deliberate strategy to hide pricing, lock in early adopters at high prices, then lower prices weekly without transparency — _Kaneda - extended explanation of the mechanism and intent behind call-for-price tactics_
- [HIGH] Foo Fighters, Pulp Fiction, and Godfather were launched well/poorly respectively based on content quality and execution — _Kaneda - comparative analysis of recent major launches_
- [HIGH] Pulp Fiction is positioned as the best-executed modern launch and a keeper investment — _Kaneda - only purchased Pulp Fiction LE; repeated praise for execution_
- [MEDIUM] Content creators covering pinball games are allegedly receiving kickbacks/discounts that incentivize favorable coverage — _Kaneda - personal assertion; claims he receives no kickbacks while others do_
- [MEDIUM] Multimorphic machines (Weird Al, Heist, Final Resistance) feature the most innovative mechanical design in modern pinball — _Kaneda - opinion-based assessment of recent games_
- [MEDIUM] Modern pinball games lack substantial mechanical toys compared to older Stern and Jersey Jack titles — _Kaneda - thematic critique across multiple recent releases_

### Notable Quotes

> "They gave us what they wanted us to react to. I am reacting to their content, their inability to market this thing right."
> — **Kaneda**, ~19:45
> _Core thesis: American Pinball is responsible for poor launch execution; Kaneda is reacting logically to bad content_

> "The most interesting mechanism that has been made in all of these games has probably been the final resistance tank, okay, that Multimorphic made... the guy who's freaking 80% of his game is a damn screen is putting more mechanical wow in his games than all these other companies."
> — **Kaneda**, ~27:30
> _Highlights Multimorphic's superior mechanical design despite heavy digital reliance; ironic comparison_

> "If you're a company and you want to price something, then stand behind your fucking price. Stand behind your fucking price. Don't bullshit hide like a coward and have your distributors tell everybody to call for price."
> — **Kaneda**, ~43:00
> _Core complaint: lack of transparency and corporate cowardice in pricing strategy_

> "Call for price, my ass. Bullshit. Get this call for price shit out of our hobby. Get it out. It's an asshole move. It's a cowardly move."
> — **Kaneda**, ~46:15
> _Emphatic moral stance on pricing transparency; repeated throughout for emphasis_

> "Pulp Fiction is a monumental move in our industry. Quentin Tarantino's only pinball machine, executed perfectly for their vision."
> — **Kaneda**, ~29:00
> _Establishes Pulp Fiction as the gold standard for modern pinball execution and investment_

> "If I'm Luke Cash and like, what are you doing, man? What are you doing? Like, how is this what we're doing?"
> — **Kaneda**, ~35:30
> _Rhetorical challenge to American Pinball leadership on strategic direction_

> "These are like priced like a Bugatti with a fucking inline four inside it with just 200 horsepower."
> — **Kaneda**, ~52:00
> _Metaphor for premium pricing without premium mechanical substance_

> "Spooky doesn't play games. They tell you transparently what they're going to do and they deliver on their transparency and they're part of us."
> — **Kaneda**, ~62:30
> _Positive contrast to American Pinball; Spooky as model of industry integrity_

> "When the guy stops buying at $16,500, you're going to be unloading those signature additions for $15,500 another week later... You don't want anyone to know who got it for what."
> — **Kaneda**, ~51:30
> _Detailed mechanism explaining how call-for-price disadvantages early adopters and enables price collusion_

> "There's a reason why you don't hear this much because a lot of the other people making your content, trust me, they're getting kickbacks... So of course they're not going to want to talk about this stuff."
> — **Kaneda**, ~66:00
> _Allegation of financial conflicts of interest among other content creators; positions himself as unique voice_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| American Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer; subject of intense criticism for Galactic Tank Force launch strategy, pricing, marketing, and execution |
| Galactic Tank Force | game | American Pinball's latest release; criticized for weak reveal, unclear theme/identity, poor animation quality, wireform ramps, and premium pricing ($11k LE, $17.5k Signature) |
| Kaneda | person | Podcast host, industry critic, collector; speaking as independent voice without financial incentives; positioned as advocate for pricing transparency and design accountability |
| David Fix | person | American Pinball leadership; criticized for lack of accountability and poor strategic direction on Galactic Tank Force |
| Pulp Fiction | game | Recent boutique pinball release praised as best-executed modern launch; featured Quentin Tarantino involvement; positioned as wise investment |
| Foo Fighters | game | Stern pinball release; praised alongside Pulp Fiction as exemplar of good launch execution and content marketing |
| Godfather | game | Jersey Jack Pinball release; criticized for high pricing ($15k), lack of mechanical substance beyond cosmetic gold accents, and expected secondary market depreciation |
| Multimorphic | company | Pinball manufacturer praised for innovative mechanical design in Weird Al, Heist, and Final Resistance despite heavy reliance on screens |
| Final Resistance | game | Multimorphic release; noted as featuring the most interesting mechanical innovation in modern pinball |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Manufacturer praised for transparency, direct community engagement, and honest communication; contrasted favorably to American Pinball |
| Scooby-Doo | game | Spooky release; noted as Spooky's best game to date; lacks mechanical wow factor |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major manufacturer; referenced for quality execution (Foo Fighters) and perceived pricing parity with boutique competitors |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer criticized for premium pricing strategy based on perceived scarcity rather than mechanical substance |
| Batman SLE | game | Stern release; praised as prettiest game Stern made; predicted to retain/increase value due to low production; criticized for poor shooting |
| Godzilla | game | Historical reference; $10,500 price point; praised for substantive mechanical content; wire form ramps superior to Galactic Tank Force |
| Texas Pinball Festival (TPF) | event | Upcoming major industry event; Galactic Tank Force games expected to ship week-of; described as make-or-break venue for game |
| Deep Root Pinball | company | Manufacturer mentioned as securing Goonies IP license despite being boutique; context for licensing strategy discussion |
| Greg Colton | person | Content creator mentioned in context of proper launch video execution (Straight Down the Middle work on Pulp Fiction) |
| Zach | person | Content creator (surname unclear) mentioned alongside Greg for quality launch content on Pulp Fiction |
| Dennis Nordman | person | Designer known for innovative plastic ramps; wireform ramps in Galactic Tank Force criticized as disappointing compared to his legacy |
| Franchi | person | American Pinball team member; created 1950s advertisement-style promotional content for Galactic Tank Force; believed by Kaneda to harbor grudge |
| Luke Cash | person | Industry figure; Kaneda addresses rhetorically regarding American Pinball's strategic direction |
| Brenda | person | Kaneda's wife; mentioned as arriving home during livestream; planning house purchase |
| Killian | person | Kaneda's child; mentioned as having attended Mexican restaurant with Brenda during livestream |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pricing transparency and "Call for Price" strategy, American Pinball Galactic Tank Force launch execution and reception, Game reveal video quality and marketing effectiveness
- **Secondary:** Mechanical design trends in modern pinball (toys vs. shots vs. screens), Comparative game evaluations (Pulp Fiction, Foo Fighters, Godfather, Galactic Tank Force), Content creator financial incentives and bias in coverage, Secondary market depreciation and FOMO-driven pricing, Manufacturer accountability and community communication

### Sentiment

**Negative** (-0.82) — Kaneda is severely critical and angry about American Pinball's launch strategy, pricing practices, and marketing execution. His frustration extends to industry-wide pricing inflation and perceived greed. However, he expresses genuine love for pinball as a hobby and praises specific games (Pulp Fiction, Foo Fighters) and manufacturers (Spooky) that execute well, creating a mixed-negative sentiment of 'I love this hobby but I'm furious at what's happening to it.'

### Signals

- **[product_launch]** American Pinball launched Galactic Tank Force with weak reveal video, minimal gameplay footage, unclear theme presentation, and rushed 11th-hour timing. Leaks generated more community excitement than official content. (confidence: high) — Kaneda's direct observation: 'they didn't have a marketing department...leaks of this game got more people excited than their own content'
- **[market_signal]** Pinball pricing has inflated significantly; recent premium-tier games ($15k-$17.5k) are expected to depreciate $2-4k+ immediately, creating negative ROI for early adopters. Call-for-price strategy artificially inflates opening prices. (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'Stern LE just a few years ago for $7,500...Godzilla was $10,500...now you're writing checks for $16,500...you just lost $4,000 in one year'
- **[product_concern]** Galactic Tank Force criticized for minimal mechanical toys; wireform ramps promoted as major feature despite being basic. Compared unfavorably to Godzilla and older Jersey Jack releases for mechanical substance. (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'when they promoted Godzilla, they didn't even have to talk about the damn wire forms...Zombie Yeti blows these wire form ramps out of the water'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Community sentiment around Galactic Tank Force shifted from anticipation to disappointment post-reveal. Pinside forum thread described as uniformly negative. Kaneda explicitly states: 'I was excited about this game. I'm no longer that excited.' (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'read the pin side thread, everyone's just ragging on this thing'; 'I was excited about this game. I'm no longer that excited about the game'
- **[industry_signal]** Call-for-price strategy enables price discrimination, early-adopter penalties, and distributor collusion. Elvira 40th cited as example where dealers coordinated pricing, then crashed when inventory remained. (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'dealers colluded and charged $25,000...just got offered an Elvira 40 new in box for 15 grand. 10,000 less than people were buying that game for brand new'
- **[design_philosophy]** Galactic Tank Force's theme identity unclear—marketing oscillates between 1950s sci-fi camp, 1990s aesthetic, and tank/spaceship imagery without coherent visual language. Live-action approach compared unfavorably to animated/illustrated alternative. (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'who am I as the player? Like, is that a tank or is that a spaceship? And what's with all this 90s porn acting going on? And is this a 1950s game? Is this a 1990s crappy video game?'
- **[content_signal]** Official reveal video criticized as low-quality, lacking gameplay, mechanism detail, or substantive feature demonstration. Production quality inferior to competitor reveals (Foo Fighters, Pulp Fiction, Godfather). (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'crappy two-minute video...animations...don't look good...you probably got some very junior level person working on your animations'
- **[community_signal]** Kaneda alleges that content creators receive kickbacks/discounts from manufacturers, creating financial conflicts of interest that suppress critical coverage and promote FOMO-driven buying. (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: 'there's a reason why you don't hear this much because a lot of the other people making your content, trust me, they're getting kickbacks...they're getting $1,000 off on every game they buy'
- **[design_innovation]** Modern pinball trending toward shots-as-toys rather than substantive mechanical toys. Multimorphic noted as exception with innovative mechanical design (Final Resistance tank) despite screen-heavy gameplay. (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: 'Shots are the new toys in pinball?...Multimorphic is probably making some of the best mechanisms in modern pinball with the stuff in Weird Al, with the stuff in Heist'
- **[regulatory_signal]** Distributors lack transparency on actual pricing, enabling variable pricing by distributor and time. Early adopters penalized; no mechanism for consumers to verify if they paid fair market price. (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'This is not some fucking airline ticket...It's a fucking singular pinball machine where everyone has the same fucking experience'
- **[event_signal]** Texas Pinball Festival positioned as critical venue where Galactic Tank Force must perform in live play to salvage reputation. Machines expected to ship week-of event; no pre-event location placement. (confidence: high) — Kaneda: 'nobody is getting the games dropped off on location the week of TPF. This is going to be a very make-or-break moment for this game at Texas Pinball Festival'
- **[personnel_signal]** Kaneda directly criticizes David Fix and American Pinball leadership for lack of accountability, poor strategic direction, and isolation ('everyone's stuck in their own vacuum'). Suggests external creative input needed. (confidence: medium) — Kaneda: 'if Canada was working at American Pinball I would never have greenlit this thing...they need someone like me in the room. Everyone's stuck in their own vacuum'

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## Transcript

 What a weird day for pinball people. We're going to talk about it right now. I've been thinking about it. I've been mulling it over. And I want to talk to everybody here about what we witnessed today by American Pinball. What it means to have this final game in this March Madness Blitz sort of come out of the gate in such a weird way. And we're going to talk all about it right now. Let me just turn off the TV. So here's the thing. Here's the thing. I absolutely, like many of you... What's up? Let's get this camera up a little bit. Let's do this. Let's do this. Okay, that's better. All right, like most of you, I was absolutely so surprised that after all of this time, After two years, two and a half years in the making, American Pinball launches a game in a way that just feels like they tripped out of the gate. And I want to talk about that. I want to talk about. Thank you, Cliff. Yeah, my podcast is fire and it was 10 minutes long. But I think the main issue I have with all of this is you can't launch a game like this and then have your distributors knocking on everyone's door for our money. We are either going to stand united as pinball buyers and stop with this nonsense. It's not even American Pinball's fault. They just did not even show clearly enough to even warrant game is on sale today. What they showed today, they should have showed us two weeks ago before order banks even opened up. And this pathetic practice needs to stop. And I mean it. It's just getting absolutely pathetic. Is the screen frozen? Is my screen frozen? Or not? Am I frozen? Can you guys see me all right? Can you? It's not frozen. Okay. I just want to say this. This is absolute. It's at the point now where it's over. There's been too many good launches. Foo Fighters was launched tremendously well. Pulp Fiction was launched tremendously well. Godfather was launched tremendously well. And what I mean by tremendously well is this. everybody saw i think enough information from the streams to the the the featurettes that zach and greg did for straight down the middle i mean pulp fiction just won the best launch of the year easily hands down and now you're going to come out with this game with no gameplay with a weird theme, with a weird, who am I as the player? Like, is that a tank or is that a spaceship? And what's with all this 90s porn acting going on? And is this a 1950s game? Is this a 1990s crappy video game game? Is this a game where I'm a tank? What's the deal with ice cream? What is going on? All of this. And then all of it just feels like they wanted to make something different, but they also needed to bring us into this galactic tank force universe, get us into the storyline, get us into everything. You can't launch like this. You can't just show up and drop a game on a Wednesday at 1 with a crappy two-minute video and then ask people for $11,000 and then ask distributors to tell people with a straight face that you want $17,500 for the signature edition of the game. When I heard that, I literally hung up the phone as fast as I ever could on a distributor. Not rudely, but I'm like, I got to go. I got to go. The fact that they think they could charge $6,000 more than the LE for a freaking Translight and a lunchbox. And I'm just going to say this. When you do that, American Pinball, you're treating this community with absolutely no respect. And I think these pinball companies think these pinball buyers have no self-respect. Because no self-respecting man who works hard for his money or woman who works hard for her money would ever look at that signature game and write a check for $17,500. They didn't even go over what this signature game had in any videos. They didn't show us the Translight that's 3D. They didn't do anything. Where's my freaking thermos? I don't even know where the thermos is. And you get one chance to make a first impression. This game stumbled out of the gates. Everything leaked. The leaks did more to get people excited than their own content. Think about that for a minute. The leaks of this game got more people excited than their own content. They don't have a marketing department. They don't know what they're doing from a marketing standpoint. American Pinball is rudderless in that department. Clearly, they were rushing this at the 11th hour. Something's up. Their plan is not going according to plan. They canceled John's game at Jack Bar. He didn't get it. Nobody is getting the games dropped off on location the week of TPF. This is going to be a very make-or-break moment for this game at Texas Pinball Festival. I was excited about this game. I'm no longer that excited about the game. I didn't see anything in the video they shared that showed any really great mechanisms or toys or anything. So it is what it is. And they have nobody to blame. It's not Kaneda being negative, Nancy being toxic. They gave us what they wanted us to react to. I am reacting to their content, their inability to market this thing right. All these campy things Franchi's been putting up like these 1950 ads. this game feels nothing like that. They could have made the LCD images, these campy 1950 characters that are illustrated and animate them somehow instead of this live action thing going on. You know another game that's live action? In it, Batman 66, Godfather, Willy Wonka. Do I need to keep going and mention every single... Star Wars. Every single game that uses actual live action assets that were shot by professional directors with multi-million dollar budget movies is going to look much better than getting in a bunch of C and D list actors in a green screen in your Chicago studio, wherever you did it. It doesn't work. You can't work like this. Bill said, how did they not read the room? Bill, I'm absolutely flabbergasted that they did not read the room, that they thought what they had in the can would be good enough after what we saw. And with so many games available right now and so much money getting tied up in all these new launches, I thought American Pinball really was going to launch strong. The video didn't show us really how the tank folds. They didn't show us how the topper works. Do they even have a gameplay video? There is absolutely no... I thought there was going to be this gameplay video from this arcade guy, this Hollywood arcade or whatever. you know, David Fix is a nice guy and he's been at the helm of this company for a long, for a long time, but it's, it's enough already. It's enough already. Like if I'm Luke Cash and like, what are you doing, man? What are you doing? Like, how is this what we're doing? it's not the way you do things I'm absolutely blown away by that $17,500 price tag I'm insulted by that price tag how dare you how dare you charge more for nothing that is an insult to how hard we all work It an insult to the value of things Why are you becoming the greedy a-holes, American Pinball? This is not the American way. You're a boutique company. You're not supposed to try to outprice Stern and Jersey Jack Pinball. You're supposed to give us value for the money and you just treated us all like a-holes. Why did you do that? Why did you make this signature edition? Why didn't you just make 500 tank editions, charge 11 or 11.5, and everyone would have been happy? But now everyone who buys that one, they're always going to know there's a 3D Translight out there somewhere. Oktoberfest and Houdini have way more, from what I can see, way more mechanically going on in it too. Okay, way more. and I'm sorry but like I don't even think there's anything mechanically wow in the game and that's like been one of the trends of all of these games to be honest like there's nothing mechanically wow in Scooby-Doo there's not really anything mechanically wow in Foo Fighters there's not anything mechanically the most the most interesting mechanism that has been made I'm just going to be completely freaking candid people the most interesting mechanism that has been made in all of these games has probably been the final resistance tank, okay, that Multimorphic made. I mean, isn't it crazy? It's like Multimorphic is probably making some of the best mechanisms in modern pinball with the stuff in Weird Al, with the stuff in Heist, and the stuff in Final Resistance. The irony of it all, the guy who's freaking 80% of his game is a damn screen is putting more mechanical wow in his games than all these other companies that They're just relying on artwork and what, lights? That's it? Shots are the new toys in pinball? It's so easy to avoid all of this now. I have not bought anything other than a $1,000 deposit on Pulp Fiction because I'm not an idiot. Of course, Pulp Fiction is going to be a keeper for everybody who gets one. Pulp Fiction is a monumental move in our industry. Quentin Tarantino's only pinball machine, executed perfectly for their vision. And that's the thing. It's like they executed what Tarantino wanted perfectly. That's why he's Quentin freaking Tarantino. If Galactic Tank Force is supposed to be some 50s sci-fi campy bubblegum movie, they executed it, from what we can see so far, poorly. and the only reason we're saying the word poorly is they haven't shown us anything more and I can't imagine right now they're feeling good reading Pinside and the other thing is this well there's no way Tony that's going to be the case there's a thousand Pulp Fiction LEs and 80 Batman SLEs I'm telling you right now looking at all these inane prices and ridiculous prices and Bill, don't even say it. I know you don't like the way Batman shoots, but Batman SLE is just going to keep going up in value. Trust me. Trust me. It'll be a $40,000 game one day because of how few they made and it's the prettiest game Stern's ever made and it's the masterpiece of Lime and Sheets and it's got the greatest use of clips and code and call-outs and sounds. It's such a good game. Shoots like a dog though. I get it. shoots like a dog. Greg Colton's in the house. Now, like, I just think they executed this thing poorly. I think they executed the release video poorly. And I think Elvira's a great game, too. I think that the weirdest part of, like, this game is how we're now promoting wireform ramps as, like, a crazy feature. When we start promoting wire form ramps as a crazy feature in a pinball machine, you know they've got nothing to sell you on. And also, these wire forms for Dennis Nordman, a guy who did some amazing things with plastic ramps and crazy directions of ramps. How disappointing are these wire form ramps? They're so basic. Go look at the wire forms in Godzilla and Avengers and see Zombie Yeti blows these wire form ramps out of the water. And when they promoted Godzilla, they didn't even have to talk about the damn wire forms. Okay? I mean, think about it. Godzilla, they actually had legitimate things to talk about that were awesome, that were exciting, that were cool features, that were toys and mechs that fit the theme perfectly. I just I really I really believe that if we're going to see stuff like this, we are going to start to see some of these pinball companies just cease to exist. Very sloppy launch. I don't know who's accountable. I don't know how it ended up being this way. It feels like they were on a rush to get to TPF and they weren't ready. Nothing about this game feels like it was like like the marketing around it. Nothing feels ready to go. The animations, I don't know what to tell you. They don't look good. So I get you did a public relations story about the young girl from college. You did your animations, but it looks like you got what you paid for. You probably got some very junior level person working on your animations. And then look at what Stern put into Foo Fighter animations. And you're charging just as much money. just as much money as the animations that are in Godfather and as I said I think Pulp Fiction has better animations than Galactic Tank Force quote Kaneda on that and I don't mean to be down on this stuff I'm about to go to Texas and rub elbows with all these people but I really expected more from this game I don't know what they were thinking and I think Dennis Nordman David Fix all of them Franchise, they need someone like me in the room. Everyone's stuck in their own vacuum. They're like their own inside joke that no one else is getting. And it's not working. If you launch a pinball machine with a captive audience who's highly engaged with your product, and read the pin side thread, everyone's just ragging on this thing. I mean if Canada was working at American Pinball I would never have greenlit this thing to begin with I mean let's just start there I probably would have been able to help them hopefully like secure something better than you know not they lost Sonic the Hedgehog then they do this what are we doing here guys like go get the last Starfighter dudes if we're going to be boutique and we just need to sell 1500 games. Let's go get some damn movies like Labyrinth, Last Starfighter, and make them. At least there's some nostalgia, some audience to these games. If we can't afford the big games, then how did Deep Root get the Goonies license? So we need to stop with this. It's not going to work. You can't follow. Look, this is like, I don't know how they're going to, they need to turn people back onto this game somehow. And, and if they just get up there at TPF and start mumbling about ice cream and tanks, it's not going to work. And I'm sorry, but like TPF and watching people play this game over the shoulder is not going to be good either. They needed to have given this game to like a Greg and a Zach or a Jack Danger to actually make some content. So that's that, you know? I mean, you know, they know this all too well. I don't have to tell them. These guys are fully aware of how to really launch a game in 2023. It's embarrassing. Thank you for the stars. It's embarrassing. Franchi hates my guts now. But, you know, if you're everybody on that team, everyone who's on that apron card, Everybody who worked on this game should have had more accountability and responsibility to make sure we launched this thing right. All of your hard work comes down to your execution of this stuff. But more than that, I'm still absolutely disgusted that they want our money after showing just that. that they want our money, that they want to like, all these distros want to come at you with buy this thing now. I don't know what world the rest of you are living in. All right we just let people know it not going to be a good year for people at work Numbers are tough Times are tough Clients are pulling back budgets You know how easy it is when I hear that from the business side of things? Watching a half a million people in the tech industry get laid off. Watching all my friends who went in on crypto broke. You know how easy it is knowing that I'm in the market for a house for Killian and Brenda? You know how easy it is when someone says to me, yeah, Galactic Tank Force is $17,500. Get the – out of here with that. GTFO with that BS. And you know what it is too? They didn't have the balls to put the price on it themselves. and I'm going to get really strident right now, okay? And if you have kids in the room, turn them off or turn them off, get them out of the room. I'm going to go off the handle a little bit. I haven't been drinking, but I want to tell you how I really feel inside right now with all this call for price bullshit because I'm going to call it what it is. It's bullshit. If you're a company and you want to price something, then stand behind your fucking price. Stand behind your fucking price. Don't bullshit hide like a coward and have your distributors tell everybody to call for price. So as a company, you can distance yourself from the bullshit because it's bullshit. And the bullshit you're trying to play because we're not effing stupid is this is you want to hook some early adopters and screw them over by getting them to pay full price for your bond for fucking 20 grand and your galactic signature for 17.5. And some idiots bought at those prices. And then you know it's gonna happen just like James Bond's 60th. You're giving, the reason why you don't wanna advertise the price or put it in writing because you're cowards about it is you wanna allow the distributors to keep lowering the price until they sell all of them. Everyone freaking loses. I just think it's bullshit. I haven't had a single drink tonight. I'm sick of this practice. I don't care what you want to price your effing game at, but stand behind it, price it like a man, like a grown adult. Look me in the eyes and tell me you think Galactic Tank Force Signature Edition should be $17,500 before tax and shipping. look me in the eyes David Fix and set that price call for price bullshit call for price we all know what's going to happen you set it at that price so everyone would go in and buy the le's thinking it's a bargain at 11 you're using that as a sleazy tactic to sell all 500 le's call for price imagine if I went into a room and told the client, here's the idea. They're like, Chris, how much is it going to cost? I'm not going to tell you. Call for price. Every time we see that stupid phrase, it means they want to fuck with you. They want to mislead you. They want to see how much they can get you to bite at the top of that ladder. And they'll keep lowering it every month just to get rid of the inventory. Call for price, my ass. Bullshit. Get this call for price shit out of our hobby. Get it out. It's an asshole move. It's a cowardly move. It fucked over everybody on Elvira 40th. Okay. Cause you know what happened? Stern didn't want to price that game. So people call for price and the dealers colluded and charged $25,000. My friend just got offered an Elvira 40 new in box. You ready for it? For 15 grand. 15 grand. 10,000 less than people were buying that game for brand new. Call for price, my ass. Stupid. Stupid. We need to get back to more transparency. we need to get back to understanding that these things are not fucking automobiles. And again, I don't mean to curse. I'm just in one of those moods. They're not fucking automobiles, guys. They're not Rolex watches, right? What the hell? And what's gonna happen when everyone wakes up from this hangover of just running at everything and buying everything in sight? You're all gonna start losing two to 3,000 at the minimum. At the effing minimum, that's what you're going to start losing on every single game you buy at these high prices because the prices have nowhere to go but down. We used to buy a fucking Stern LE just a few years ago for $7,500. Fucking Godzilla was $10,500 and it has way more in it than Beatles and Foo Fighters combined. $10,500 and that was pushing it. And we all said 10,000 was the freaking, that was it. Like that was our limit. Now you guys are writing checks for $16,500 for an empty godfather. Congratulations. You just lost $4,000 in one year. I hope you put 4,000 plays on it. These jerkies are going to sell it for less than 200 plays and take a bath. And I get it. You're so rich. You guys are so rich. but I thought people became rich because they were fucking smart. Isn't that how you get rich? Because you're fucking smart? Did you get rich by overpaying for fucking everything? Do you get rich by going to McDonald's and offering them 50 bucks for a quarter fucking pounder because it's tasty? I wish more of you rich guys would stop making stupid moves. I'm all for high-end pinball. This ain't high-end pinball, guys. It's one of the most barren Jersey Jack games. There's way more toys in like older Sterns than these modern games. This isn't what I was talking about when I said there's a high end of the market. What's happening now in pinball is these are like priced like a Bugatti with a fucking inline four inside it with just 200 horsepower. Cargument, you're welcome. haven't had a single drink see I don't need drinks you just don't want me to curse all the time I don't like cursing it's been a family show it's been a family show for all these years if you agree with what I'm saying kick your brother some stars but that's how I feel and I and I feel like our hobby can really I feel like our hobby could really suffer if this just becomes the new norm. If this is the new norm, what you're going to see is more and more people exit the hobby than enter it. That's just the way it's going to be. Because it's not fun. Because it's not fun. the pricing is out of control the greed is out of control the you know the lack of triple a themes is not even there i mean think about it like i was just thinking about you're telling me someone said this is the greatest time ever to be in pinball this is the greatest month in the history of pinball you fucking telling me that the greatest time to be in live in pinball is foo fighters scooby-doo final resistance galactic tank force the godfather are you i mean like what like what happen, people? Where are the A themes? Out of all of these games, obviously, I feel like Foo Fighters was the one that was executed the best. I think Foo Fighters and Pulp Fiction are the two games, when the dust effing settles, the two games that were executed the best were those two. Absolutely those two. Pulp Fiction and Foo Fighters to me are the ones where if I'm in on them, and many of you are, I think you've made the right decisions. I think it's too early to see what the deal is with Godfather. I think Godfathers are all, I think they're overpriced. I think everybody knows that. Everyone saw how Toy Story's lost so much money. You're going to see the same thing happen to Godfather. It's just not going to hold value. New Jersey Jack is pricing these games as if every game is Pirates of the Caribbean in hot demand. And yet these games have a third of what Pirates had in it mechanically. Our eyes work. You not going to fool us with just light shows It just not going to work guys We see it There no toys in the game Other than that spinning disc name me one toy in Godfather A toy Name me one toy in Godfather And I'll wait here all night. And yet you're going to charge 15K because you stuck on some tacky gold things to the legs of the machine. I mean, like it's kind of the theme, right? sticking tacky things onto the legs of a pinball machine now allows you to charge a lot of money galactic tank force 17.5 godfather's 15 000 they don't want me in this hobby gang i'm not going to get a warm reception by a lot of these companies at texas pinball festival I don't care. I don't care. I love pinball. I love what pinball can be. I love so many games that have already come out. I'm not in love with this new system of just buy before plan. everybody just gave a little sizzle and then asked for so much money and we're all supposed to just like jump on board without even like questioning whether or not we need another game in our collection whether or not there's enough value whether or not there was enough engineering or creativity that went into this game i mean look i love what they did with Foo Fighters yes i would have liked a little bit more toys in the game i don't think it has that many toys but i i think the execution of it was done really well. I think the execution of Pulp Fiction was amazingly done well. You know, amazing. Like they nailed it. They nailed it. We all were skeptical. Now we all want one. Perfectly done. Everything else that's come out. Scooby is definitely Spooky's best game. It's not saying that much. Some of the spooky games have been meh, but it's their best game to date and Spooky doesn't play games. They tell you transparently what they're going to do and they deliver on their transparency and they're part of us. You know, love or hate Spooky, I don't care. Those guys are in the community. They talk to us directly. They're not hiding like cowards. They're not assholes asking us to call for price. I mean it when I say it. If you say call for price in this hobby, that's an asshole move. It is a coward move. It is not what should be in pinball. Because I call for price. You tell me 17.5. Why the F can't you just put 17.5 on your Facebook for sale ad? Why does everybody have to call you? And then if I write that in the comments section, you're going to delete my comments. Because what you want to do is you want to sell to asshole number one for 17.5 on Monday and then realize nobody else wants it at 17.5 and then you want to go and you want to sell it for 16.5 a week later. And you don't want the guy who bought it for 17.5 to call you up and ask for $1,000. back. That's why it's an asshole move. And is nobody smart enough to understand that? Is it just my private school education that allows me to analyze these asshole moves in pinball? And then when the guy stops buying at $16,500, you're going to be unloading those signature additions for $15,500 another week later. And when these assholes buy it at $15,500, Now the asshole who bought it at 17.5 is super pissed off because why, if he just waited two weeks, he would have got it for $2,000 off. But you don't want anyone to know that. You don't want anyone to know who got it for what. This is not some fucking airline ticket, guys, with variable pricing based upon date, time, and availability. It's a fucking singular pinball machine where everyone has the same fucking experience. And I'm cursing again. You're never going to get me cursing again like this, but I'm just, and I'm sober. I have not had a single drink cross my heart, on my soul, on my mother's soul. I have not had a single lick of booze. It's an asshole move. And why aren't more people complaining about Call for Price? I don't know. maybe it's because maybe it's because so much of the content creation is getting kickbacks I think Brenda might be home Brenda? welcome home you're interrupting a very strident Facebook live I've actually started cursing on this one but I'm not I'm sober You look great. I like the jacket. I haven't seen that one in a while. Oh, okay. How is Mexican? Killian went down great like a champion. Yeah, guys, I'm going to wrap this up. I'm heading to TPF. Now, if you're going to Texas Pinball Festival, I would love to hang out with you guys at Perry's Steakhouse I'm going to put up a post reminding everybody of that but it is Perry's Steakhouse Friday from 2 to 4.30 it is interrupting no seminars no reveals the American Pinball reveal of this game or their seminars at 5 o'clock so you will be able to come hang out there will be drinks there'll be there'll be like um food there'll be good people i told the hostess you will never see a crowd more underdressed for perry's steakhouse than you will during texas pinball festival the hostess is amazing she's like oh chris i'm so excited all these pinball people are coming to this convention i hear i've never met pinball people i haven't been at this restaurant during this convention and I was like, I was like, curb your enthusiasm, curb your enthusiasm, get ready for some cargo shorts and some, some t-shirts. Anyway, everybody look, have a good night. I'm just trying to get rid of some of this crappy stuff happening in pinball. I don't like the greed that's permeating pinball lately. I don't like seeing my friends priced out of a hobby that they love so much. And I think we need to start standing together on this. And I don't think we should all be on a mission to just put money in the pockets of manufacturers and distributors without even like analyzing what they're doing, without even asking questions. Call for price is the biggest BS move in pinball and it needs to be eradicated. It is a cowardly moved by all parties involved. And the reason they're doing it is they want to be able to keep lowering that price every week until they get rid of their inventory. But everyone who goes in early is going to get screwed and they don't want you to know what other people paid. And that's not how pinball should be. I should know what everybody paid for their game because we all should pay the same effing price. And I mean it. When I got into this hobby, a little dirty secret, all of these major Stern distributors, you know how they were becoming the major distributors, is they were selling the games for much lower than sticker to their good old boy circle. And all those guys were paying less than everybody else. And that is why they were buying everything. That is why they got all the allocations of all the LEs because they were in that good old boy little circle. I never got that. I never paid less than anybody else. I always paid exactly what everybody else I haven't gotten a single special privilege ever, ever. I've never got a kickback. I've never got nothing because I'm one of you. All right. And the other people, I'm telling you, there's a reason why you don't hear this much because a lot of the other people making your content, trust me, they're getting kickbacks and they're getting $1,000 off on every game they buy, $1,000 off on every game they buy. So of course they're not going to want to talk about this stuff or start to kick this can down the road because I'm not getting $1,000 off. It's a lot easier when you're getting discounts to shut up about this stuff and just keep pushing that buy, buy, buy mentality and call for price BS. So Canada's the only dude – I'm standing on an island here just trying to be like, this isn't right. who thought I would be it? The guy wearing all the Gucci is the one trying to stand up for value. The most overpriced clothing in the world. Well, not the most expensive, but you know what I mean. But this is something that we should stick up for. Okay? I'm not saying it. I'm not saying it again, Cliff. Later, everybody. See you at TPF. Two days to go. It's going to be fun. Let's get our drink on. Later.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: e554ac84-dc9f-40cc-9497-7c3463216d02*