# Episode 196 - Tears of the Potter **Source:** Eclectic Gamers Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2023-06-25 **Duration:** 106m 23s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://soundcloud.com/user-465086826/episode-196-tears-of-the-potter --- ## Analysis Dennis and Tony from Eclectic Gamers discuss pinball rumors and industry news, focusing on a Stern Ghostbusters Vault possibility, production schedule gaps, and Home Pin's design philosophy. They analyze the Ghostbusters flipper gap issue tied to designer John Trudeau's criminal history, Home Pin's center post addition to Spinal Tap based on location testing, and Mike's explicit design strategy targeting casual buyers outside the pinball enthusiast market rather than tournament players. ### Key Claims - [MEDIUM] Stern has a production scheduling gap in December 2024, with speculation it could be filled by a Vault, Kapow title, or increased runs of existing games — _Dennis discusses distributor-shared production schedules and notes Stern planning only two cornerstones for the year with an August/September opening (likely for Venom)_ - [MEDIUM] Stern is discontinuing SAM system Shaker Motors, potentially limiting future Vault possibilities since all previous Vaults have been SAM games — _Dennis cites Zach Minney's production update noting OEM Shaker Motor discontinuation_ - [LOW] John Trudeau (Ghostbusters designer) was convicted of sexual harassment of a minor and possibly child pornography, and may currently be incarcerated or recently released — _Dennis states 'I can't remember the specific things' and notes uncertainty about charges, describing claims as 'alleged'_ - [HIGH] Dwight Sullivan adjusted Ghostbusters rules a few years ago, improving gameplay and fixing layout issues — _Dennis directly references Dwight Sullivan's rules adjustments from personal knowledge_ - [HIGH] All currently available Spinal Tap pinball machines are considered prototypes, not production models — _Dennis cites an interview with Mike from Home Pin clarifying this distinction_ - [HIGH] Home Pin's Mike stated his long-term goal is to produce pinball games under $5,000 USD — _Dennis directly quotes Mike's stated pricing goal from the Aussie Pinball Podcast interview_ - [MEDIUM] Rush pinball is essentially discontinued with no runs planned into 2024, and license will likely be allowed to expire — _Dennis speculates based on lack of future runs and final run announcements on accessories_ - [MEDIUM] Iron Maiden and Deadpool are likely approaching end-of-production soon due to age and parts management complexity — _Dennis speculates based on production age and Stern's current backlog priorities_ ### Notable Quotes > "I separate from Jason Knapp of Knapp Arcade. I have heard very similar to what he reported. And so I thought, oh, this would be a pretty good rumor corner rumor. But it's out there publicly." > — **Dennis**, early segment > _Establishes Dennis's independent sourcing of the Ghostbusters Vault rumor from multiple channels_ > "for whatever reason, there are a ton of pinball entities. I'll say podcasts that absolutely refuses name John Trudeau as if not saying his name somehow erases him from pinball history, which is not how history works." > — **Dennis**, mid-Ghostbusters discussion > _Addresses community avoidance of naming Trudeau and asserts importance of historical accuracy_ > "What if someone like their chief designer, George Gomez, were to close the flipper gap? Then they can say, well, this game's been redesigned, not even have Trudeau's name attached to it anymore, and move forward from there." > — **Dennis**, Ghostbusters section > _Proposes plausible solution to Stern's Trudeau/reputational concern via design credit reframing_ > "he won't say USA. He won't refer to the United States. He refuses to name us as a country. So he'll constantly talk about the country that shall not be named." > — **Dennis**, Home Pin section > _Describes Mike's unusual rhetorical avoidance of naming the US, characterizing it as childish_ > "he wants to make pinball machines that people will buy who are not into pinball. They basically want a game in their game room, like one game, one pinball game, and they're buying it based solely off of theme." > — **Dennis**, Home Pin strategy section > _Clearly articulates Mike's non-enthusiast market targeting strategy_ > "his games are not for tournament pinball players. He'd said that before, but they're not for tournament pinball players. They're also not for people who like pinball." > — **Dennis**, Home Pin criticism section > _Highlights the paradox of Home Pin's design strategy excluding both competitive and casual enthusiasts_ > "It's like this is what I want out of a pinball machine, and so that's what we're going to sell because I'm the big shot owner, and it's my money. So what say do any of you have in terms of how terrible my games are?" > — **Dennis (paraphrasing Mike's position)**, Home Pin philosophy section > _Encapsulates Mike's owner-driven design philosophy dismissing consumer feedback_ > "if this is his goal, why is he doing different designs? Why doesn't he just re-theme the same layout over and over? Because he doesn't expect any audience overlap." > — **Dennis (citing Zach Minney's question)**, Home Pin layout section > _Logical critique of Home Pin's business model redundancy—supports non-overlap thesis_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Dennis | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast; pinball enthusiast with knowledge of industry rumors, production schedules, and designer history | | Tony | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast; recently played in pin golf tournament, finished second in B division | | Jason Knapp | person | Operator of Knapp Arcade; published article about Ghostbusters Vault rumor that Dennis corroborated through independent sources | | John Trudeau | person | Designer of Ghostbusters pinball; convicted of serious crimes (exact charges uncertain to Dennis) and incarcerated; name avoided by many pinball media | | Dwight Sullivan | person | Stern Pinball rules designer who adjusted Ghostbusters rules a few years ago, improving gameplay and fixing layout issues | | George Gomez | person | Stern's chief designer; hypothetical candidate to redesign Ghostbusters to separate game from Trudeau's name | | Mike (Home Pin owner) | person | Owner/founder of Home Pin; engineer-designer targeting casual non-pinball-enthusiast market with games under $5,000; explicitly not designing for tournament players or pinball fans | | Zach Minney | person | Co-host with Dennis on The Pinball Show; covers Stern production schedules shared with distributors; shares production intel | | Dr. John | person | Host of Aussie Pinball Podcast; conducted interview with Mike from Home Pin; described as wonderful gentleman by Dennis | | Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; planning production schedule with two cornerstones in current year; considering or rumored to be considering Ghostbusters Vault; discontinuing SAM Shaker Motors | | Home Pin | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer; producing Spinal Tap (all current units considered prototypes) and other themed games targeting casual buyers; adding center post to all production Spinal Taps based on location test feedback | | Ghostbusters pinball | game | Stern DMD game on Spike 1 platform; features controversial flipper gap (Trudeau gap); well-regarded game with good secondary market pricing; subject of Vault rumor | | Spinal Tap (Home Pin) | game | Home Pin homebrew game; all current units considered prototypes; receiving center post modification based on location test feedback; gameplay reports have been negative | | Godzilla | game | Stern pinball game; still in high demand; Tony identifies as game he would buy; Stern planning light runs of Premium versions in December | | Foo Fighters | game | Stern pinball game; still in high demand; Tony identifies as game he would buy; Stern planning light Premium runs in December due to demand | | Rush | game | Stern pinball game; essentially discontinued with no runs planned into 2024; license expected to expire without renewal | | Iron Maiden | game | Stern pinball game; Owen's first game; long in production (years); likely approaching end-of-production soon | | Deadpool | game | Stern pinball game; very successful but in production for years; likely getting discontinued soon | | Lord of the Rings | game | Stern White Star era game; most desired Vault candidate by community but never vaulted; high secondary market prices (around $7,000+) | | Tron | game | Stern SAM game; high demand among players; would be practical Vault option if Stern can still source SAM components | | Venom | game | Upcoming Stern cornerstone game; anticipated to fill August/September production slot based on distributor schedules | | Eclectic Gamers Podcast | organization | Long-running podcast hosted by Dennis and Tony; covers video games and pinball; episode 196 recorded June 25 | | The Pinball Show | organization | Podcast hosted by Dennis and Zach Minney; covers pinball production schedules and industry news | | Aussie Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Dr. John; featured interview with Mike from Home Pin discussing game design philosophy | ### Topics - **Primary:** Ghostbusters Vault Rumor, Stern Production Schedule and Capacity, John Trudeau Criminal History and Design Credit Avoidance, Home Pin Design Philosophy and Market Positioning - **Secondary:** Spinal Tap Center Post Modification, Game Discontinuation (Rush, Iron Maiden, Deadpool), Vault History and Practical Considerations, SAM vs. Spike Platform Production Constraints ### Sentiment **Mixed** (0.35) — Positive discussion of potential Ghostbusters Vault commercially, but skepticism about likelihood. Critical of Home Pin's design philosophy and Mike's dismissal of enthusiast/tournament player feedback. Appreciative of interview content but frustrated by contradictory business strategy. Light frustration about Patreon support and road trip funding. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Home Pin's market strategy appears contradictory—targeting non-enthusiast casual buyers while producing multiple different designs rather than cost-efficient layout rethemes (confidence: medium) — Dennis quotes Zach Minney's logical critique: if targeting one-time casual buyers with no audience overlap, why spend design effort on different layouts rather than retheme same playfield - **[competitive_signal]** Stern focusing production capacity on Godzilla and Foo Fighters despite long backlogs, indicating these are highest-priority games and strongest revenue drivers (confidence: medium) — Dennis notes Stern planning December light runs to catch up on demand; Tony independently identifies these as his top two purchase choices among available games - **[design_philosophy]** Ghostbusters flipper gap (Trudeau gap) widely disliked; speculation that Stern might redesign layout to distance game from Trudeau's name (confidence: medium) — Dennis notes community dislike of gap; proposes George Gomez redesign theory as solution to both mechanical and reputational issues - **[design_philosophy]** Home Pin explicitly targeting casual non-pinball-enthusiast market with one-time-buy games based solely on theme; not designed for tournament or pinball fan audiences (confidence: high) — Dennis cites Mike's statements from Aussie Pinball Podcast interview; Mike explicitly states target is casual buyers, goal is games under $5,000, and games are not for pinball people or tournament players - **[personnel_signal]** John Trudeau's criminal conviction (likely sexual harassment of minor and possible child pornography) creates reputational/legal hesitation for Stern to republish Ghostbusters (confidence: low) — Dennis explicitly notes uncertainty about specific charges; describes as 'alleged'; notes speculative nature of reputational concern theory - **[product_strategy]** Venom appears delayed; likely filling August/September cornerstone slot rather than previously anticipated timeline (confidence: medium) — Zach Minney's production schedule updates cited by Dennis show August/September block opening 'most likely' for Venom but not explicitly confirmed - **[product_launch]** Deadpool likely being discontinued soon after years of production runs (confidence: low) — Dennis speculates based on long production history and parts management complexity; no official statement - **[product_launch]** Iron Maiden likely approaching end-of-production due to age (Owen's first game) and production capacity prioritization (confidence: low) — Dennis speculates based on game age and Stern's focus on Godzilla/Foo backlogs; no official confirmation - **[product_launch]** Rush essentially discontinued; no planned runs into 2024; license expected to expire without renewal (confidence: medium) — Dennis states Rush is 'all but on paper' with no committed runs; speculation about license expiration based on lack of production planning - **[product_strategy]** Home Pin adding center post to all Spinal Tap production models based on location test feedback indicating game difficulty for casual players (confidence: high) — Dennis confirms via Home Pin owner interview and Nap Arcade article; center post explicitly added to all production runs post-location testing - **[rumor_hype]** Stern Ghostbusters Vault under consideration with December 2024 as potential release window (confidence: medium) — Dennis confirms independent sourcing of rumor from multiple channels separate from Knapp Arcade article; cites distributor-shared production schedule gaps and lack of committed December releases - **[technology_signal]** Stern discontinuing OEM SAM Shaker Motors, limiting future Vault options since all previous Vaults have used SAM platform (confidence: medium) — Zach Minney production update cited by Dennis; raises question whether alternative Shaker Motor sources or platform alternatives exist --- ## Transcript Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, June 23rd? 5th. June 25th? Yeah. This is episode 196. I am right on that one. You are. You see? I'm Tony. You are. I'm Dennis. What's going on, Tony? We got so much stuff to cover. There's so much going on. No, no. That's going to take all that much time. But we got a number of items. We have a couple emails related to video games that we're going to address. We've got a few pinball discussions. It's a little light on pinball news, but I'll tell you what. This last week in particular has been flush with pinball rumor. And we're not going to dive into all of that because, as we know, there is only one pinnacle of rumors. That is rumor corner. It is right 100 percent of the time, even when it is not right. It's science. But what have you been doing in the last couple of weeks besides keeping up with the Ukraine-Russia war and all the fascinating things that have been happening in the last 48 hours in particular? Yeah, no, that that that ate a lot of my last 48 hours. We almost started the eclectic geopolitical podcast. One of these days we need to do one of our actual eclectic other random podcasts. Like some of the stuff we really dive into? Yeah. Probably. Someday. Probably. But, no, I did go ahead and spend the money, and I picked up Diablo 4s and started doing some Diablo 4s. It's good. It's really good. I enjoyed it. I've been enjoying it. I'm not horribly far into it. I'm a little ways into Act 2. I would be a lot farther into it. But I've basically completed, like, Act 1 and a ton of subquests three times now because I keep changing classes. Like, let me see what this one's like. Well, you need to find one that you're comfortable with. So because I started with the classic Necromancer corpse explosion type, which was – it was fun enough. I was doing pretty good with that one, but I was having some issues with, like, bosses. Okay. Because I needed to change my build, but I wasn't going to go online and look at builds. I was just kind of playing it by ear, and I kept making adjustments. And finally, I'm like, okay, I'm going to try another class. So I tried Rogue for a while, and it was all right. And then I tried Sorcerer, and I was just annihilating everything with Sorcerer, to the point where I finally actually did go online to look up builds. Like, did I just, like, chance upon in my first build try with the Sorcerer? Yeah, no, I chanced. Like, it was not the most efficient. It wasn't the perfect. But I was about 75% of what is considered, like, one of the best leveling builds for Sorcerer, just out of me choosing stuff by reading tool tips and guessing and then testing. So I could have done it more efficient, but it was a lot of fun. It's been most of all of last weekend and most of this upcoming, most of the week with that up until, what, Friday night? Friday and Saturday I spent time back finishing the Battletech game I was in the middle of when I started playing Diablo. I was like, I should go finish that game before I forget what my plans were. And then last weekend you played in a pinball tournament I was too tired to go Yeah, I went to a pin golf tournament You know how long it's been since I played in a pin golf tournament? No, I can't remember the last time I played in one I remember it was at 403 and it was years and years ago Yeah, it's been years since I played in a pin golf tournament And I got, I did good There were two brackets There was our qualifying Then there was an A division and a B division I got second place in B division. But some of the stuff was suitably evil on the pin golf goals. Some of them wasn't that bad. Ghostbusters, collect 20 ghosts. Okay, that's not bad. Willy Wonka, score 450,000 points. Okay, not that bad. Yeah. Jungle Queen, score 35,000 points. That can be tough because that's a very house ball oriented game. Very much so. I went from getting on Jungle Queen. I went from I played it multiple times and like I got it in like two balls once. And then I got it in six once because everything was on five ball. And the same. But we had Party Zone was there and it was light happy hour multiball, which is that upper right side orbit thing beside the comic book. Okay, I don't usually shoot that part. Nobody usually shoots that. That game was so rough on, like, everybody. Everybody was having problems with that one because just nobody ever shoots for that. I took six the first time I played it. And then it worked out because I apparently got it dialed in while I was – while I was trying at it because I got it first ball the next time I played it. So that went really well for me. I was one point behind the guy in first place, and that was solely because it took me two balls to get 20 ghosts because I had a house ball, ball one of Ghostbusters. He got it ball one, I got a ball two. So you have a trophy. So I have a trophy. Yay. Yay, trophy. Where'd you put it? It is sitting up on a shelf with a bunch of... With all your others. Yeah, with all of my other items. With your Funkos? My Funkos, yeah. They're my Funkos. And my Lego motorcycle. Oh, Lego cycle. So what have you been up to? Not a lot. I have been continuing my Puzzle Quest 3 playthrough. That's mostly been the video game. I still have been going into gyms of war and, but mostly just, you know, doing some dailies and stuff. So chipping away at the story mode and puzzle quest. I am now in chapter six. I finished up five last night. I'm not quite sure how many chapters there are, but they're adding more stories. So like there's another patch drop, which I started initially. And then I saw, Oh wait, it's got characters. I don't know yet like NPCs. And it was really close to my gear level. So I'm like, okay, that's going to get way too hard too soon. I need to get through the first thing first so that I can actually probably have the equipment necessary to survive the fights. So that's what I've been mostly doing. And we don't have any new Patreon members to report. So let's go ahead and move into our topics, Tony. And you already gave us some nice lead in with talking about Ghostbusters and pinball. And that's actually what I want to start with. The rumor, this is from Nap Arcade is where I read it. He has an article about this rumor involving Stern Pinball possibly considering doing a Ghostbusters vault. And I have a link to that article in the show notes if you want to read up about the rumor. This is interesting. I actually almost rumor cornered this. And the reason is I separate from Jason Knapp of Knapp Arcade. I have heard very similar to what he reported. And so I thought, oh, this would be a pretty good rumor corner rumor. But it's out there publicly. So we're going to talk about outside of rumor corner. And I've got a pretty good rumor that we're going to get into in a little bit that I think people are really going to be interested in. But this, you know, I like the Ghostbusters game. I've always thought it was really well done immersively. I love the call outs. You know, it's got a fun light show. I think when Dwight Sutherland went back and adjusted the rules a few years ago, made it a lot better playing game. He helped fix some of the issues with the layout. But the house balls are pretty common on the game, and there's a lot more for giving ball saves, especially at the start, to help mitigate that. The ball saves have gotten, yes, very much so. So anyway, the rumor obviously is that Stern has or is looking at producing Ghostbusters Vault. This actually came up a little bit on the other pinball podcast I do, The Pinball Show, with Zach Minney, in the sense that he covers a lot of the production schedule that Stern has that they share with the distributors. and there's a hole right now around december now stern had been as of the last we had heard only planning to do two cornerstones this year and the second cornerstone they have a block open up here and i believe it's either august or september for that and most of the assumptions are that will be venom finally but there's a bit of a a lightness to the december schedule like they i think they've said they're going to do a light run of foo fighters premiums and godzilla premiums because there's still a lot of demand for those games but otherwise they haven't really committed to anything well they're not doing a new cornerstone the most likely guesses would either be something like a boutique thing like a kapow title or a vault right they haven't done i think the last vote they did was probably iron man vault a few years ago so uh the reason why ghostbusters is sort of interesting is it is a dmd game however it's not a sam game it's actually spike one so and i note that because they're on spike two now for the lcds but it might be easier for them to source the parts to do a spike game even a spike one game versus sam at this point like i don't know if they still have stockpiles of sam stuff there was another production item that zach did on an update noting that it sounds like Stern is discontinuing making the SAM system Shaker Motors. Now there are other sources for Shaker Motors if you want a Shaker Motor, but the OEM Shaker Motors. So they might be like, we're not going to go back and do SAM anymore, which is always what all the volts have been are SAM games. But maybe they're like, we can still get the chips to put the boards together for Spike 1. I don't know. I've heard mixed messages on this because I've also heard reports that Stern can't easily get all the stuff for Spike 1 at this point anyway. I also don't know whether or not there's much modification that would be needed to make Spike 2 run a Spike 1 game. I don't know. I think that'd be the big question. But the architecture would be pretty similar. Here's another aspect to it, because we know the game's done very well. Its use pricing looks really good. One of the aspects is the layout. So and the and I'd say the second big aspect is the designer. So for those of you newer to pinball, and I'm going to note this because for whatever reason, there are a ton of pinball entities. I'll say podcasts that absolutely refuses name John Trudeau as if not saying his name somehow erases him from pinball history, which is not how history works. Right. So John Trudeau is the designer of Ghostbusters. He was a designer with a number of pinball manufacturers, and he was incarcerated for – I can't remember what his ultimate charges were. It was – I think it was sexual harassment of a minor. I think that's what it is. I think there were also some child pornography aspects to it as well. So I'm going to note all this as alleged because I don't remember the specific things. He was convicted or he pled guilty. It was like he's been doing jail time. I think he's out now. I thought so. But anyway, so just FYI, that's why people get uncomfortable saying his name, because obviously when you have fairly heinous crimes that you have been convicted of, it makes people uncomfortable. So some of the thought has been Stern may have been reluctant to rerun Ghostbusters despite its popularity because Trudeau's name is tied to it. Now, there's been some speculation on whether or not they would have to pay Trudeau if they were to do the run. my guess and it's a guess is no and that is because i don't think the way stern because these people work for them like they they've done contract gigs as well in the past like lawler and Steve Ritchie used to not work for stern and actually do designs on contract but as an employee which trudeau was i would assume they own the design rights now i have been told that stern at least does have a uh like a milestone thing that they do with designers So like if Godzilla hits a certain number of sales, there's like a bonus. Right. But it's not like royalty. Right. It's not like, oh, my episode got rerun. That's my sense. So my assumption is based off of a certain probably finite defined time period, if certain sales milestones are met, there are bonuses that are provided. This being a vault, I would assume it's past all of that. So there's probably not an issue of – because the thought – again, this is part of the rumor. The thought process is that Stern would be very embarrassed if it leaked out that they were sending money to Trudeau. And so that might be reason alone not to rerun the design. However, there's also the thought that's explored in Knapp's article about fixing one of the biggest complaints about Ghostbusters, which, as you probably recall from playing it last week, is the flipper gap. A lot of people hate that flipper gap because it's very houseball. Well, it's more of a space between what used to be called the Trudeau gap because he had a lot of games like that. I had heard that Stern had claimed that that gap wasn't supposed to be there on this game. They missed it in their reviews because they don't put them on location anymore until the games are done. And that it just was like an error and that Trudeau had never meant for there to be that sort of gap. I've also heard that the gap is necessary because otherwise some of the geometry on the game doesn't work right. I don't know if any of that's true or not. Again, this is all speculation. But the thought would be, what if Stern modified the layout, something they've never done, like they've fixed things on vaults before, like when they vaulted Star Trek, for example, there's a screw in the back near the pop bumpers where, if you've ever played on my game, sometimes when it feeds out of the pops, the ball gets stuck and you have to shake the game. They changed the screw back there. So on the vault versions, that doesn't happen. But that's not a change in the geometry. Basically, that's a fix. The thought is, what if someone like their chief designer, George Gomez, were to close the flipper gap? Then they can say, well, this game's been redesigned, not even have Trudeau's name attached to it anymore, and move forward from there. So, I mean, what do you think of the rumor? Let me ask it this way. Do you think that Stern should vault Ghostbusters? Like, commercially, do you think that makes sense? I think of all of their older games that I can think of that are also after Iron Man, it was the one that makes the most sense, the Vault. Yeah. I think it would be a smart game to Vault. There's new movies coming out that have been fairly popular. And that's a good point. That's something I've been forgetting about. And I think there's more stuff coming out with the Ghostbusters world. Yeah, because that new movie came out last year. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it either. But I've heard it reviewed pretty well And there's supposed to be a sequel to it Coming soon I don't know when I just recall reading it Online at some point recently So that means it's still Kind of in the public Mind So that would give it another reason to put that in there The question is Like you brought up Can that gap be closed Which it should be closed in a way that doesn't mess up the geometry. Do you close it with a center post? Do you close it by just adjusting and bringing things in a little bit? Do you go to like, I don't know, what, six-inch flippers? Yeah. The safe answer to solve the geometry aspect would be just to make the flippers longer because then you could still have everything at the back and it's just a longer tip. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't think Stern's going to be in the mood to invent a longer flipper to install in the game. So probably not that. I hadn't thought about the center post as just a simple strategy. And that's interesting. That's going to come up here in a little bit. Yeah, I think a center post would be a good, solid way to not change any geometry as long as you put a real bouncy. Yeah, like Kirk post style. Yeah, it would go a long way. Tourney people might like that, too, because they could always pull the rubber off the post and it'd still be there. and you can still bounce off a metal post. Right, it's just a lot harder. Yeah, that's kind of how they nerf Super Orbit in tournaments and stuff, in high-level tournaments. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I mean, I agree with you. Commercially, aside from Trudeau's name being attached to the design, there's no reason not to revisit this game. I mean, it's big enough. That gap is wide enough. You could probably just put a pop bumper right there in between them. That takes the BOM too high. They don't spend that much money. That'd only be on the premium version. Yeah. Now, do you think they will actually vault it? So we talked about the logic of it, but do you think they actually do? Do you think they're going to do that in December? I don't really think they will, just because I feel like they've moved away from the vault, and I feel like cutting down their cornerstone so much and then leaving an opening and doing a vault feels a little weird. I feel like it's more likely a spot that's probably setting aside for like a Kapow title. I agree. I don't think they vote Ghostbusters in December. I agree. I don't think they vote at all. However, I don't think it's a Kapow title either. I think CERN just isn't quite sure yet like what's going to still be the most backlogged. And I think December gets filled in probably with Godzilla's and Foo's and they actually just up the run because they're still trying to catch up. That does make sense. That's my guess. I mean, if I was going to go buy, if I was going to sit down right now and drop the money on, say, three pinball machines, Godzilla and Foo would be two of the three. So and I also like some of the steps that we'd already heard about, I believe, discussed on the show how Rush is essentially discontinued at this point. It's all but on paper, like it's not got any runs planned even into 2024. so they'll probably just, the license isn't expired but they're probably just going to allow it to expire. Also given some of the accessories and stuff that they've been doing or announcing final runs on and stuff I'm getting the impression, and this isn't surprising, these have been out a while, that Stern's probably also looking to drop a few more games out of production and if I were to guess, it would be at this stage, Iron Maiden probably getting close to the end of running that because it's been out for, I mean, it's Owen's first game. It's been out forever. And Deadpool. I think they're getting ready to finally stop making Deadpools. Again, very successful games, but they've been making them for years. And how many different parts do you want to keep stocking and trying to manage, especially when you have large backlogs of Foo Fighters and, quite frankly, Godzilla still? I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot to let languish in order for you to pump out another game. Or in the case of a vault in particular, pump out a game that already had it shot. And how many DMD era games do you expect to sell at the same price as the LCDs? Because they never give a discount on the vaults. They're always as much as the regular. And here's the thing. Well, I think of that era zone, Ghostbusters is the most sense as a vault. Personally, I'll say it as it's always been said, they'll never get it back. Lord of the Rings is the game everybody really wants vaulted. yes and honestly i would like probably rethemed because it would make sense i would love to see some new runs of world poker tour yeah i don't i don't know if there's enough i don't think they'll ever reuse that layout they won't i just enjoy it yeah no i understand i understand uh Yeah, no, it's, I mean, yeah, if I were to say, if I were to look at Stern's back catalog of everything they've done since becoming Stern Pinball as a standalone from Sega and say, what would I vault? Yes, I would definitely say Lord of the Rings is the right answer. However, they've never vaulted a White Star. Like, they did a gold edition of Lord of the Rings, but, like, since the vault thing, they've never gone back. I don't know how readily available they could even get White Star boards put together. So given that, they would have to move it to a new board set. And that, I think, all of a sudden moves it into being a lot more work. Right. The most intricate vaulting that they've ever done was Spider-Man Comic, where they changed the art and they changed the dots. I just don't think they're going to do that with vaults because it's a lot of work. You might as well just put out a new game that will probably sell better. And if we were to go back and vault a Sam game, I would say you should vault Tron. That's the one that's got the most demand. A lot of people want that one. And it would be far more practical if they still have the ability to get the stuff to do Sam stuff because they've always shown a willingness to vault Sam. And that was a game where a lot of people, you know, like if you made a premium version so people could have Daft Punk multiball and stuff, that would probably resonate. In fact, I think it's safe to say there are a lot fewer Trons out there than there are Lord of the Rings. If you want a Lord of the Rings, it's not actually hard to find one. People just don't want to be paying like $7,000 for it. Right. But at this point, if they were to vault it, especially if they had to move it to a new board set, it's going to be at the new modern pricing. So I don't think you're really going to save anything. People just remember that that game used to be sold for under $4,000, and it pisses them off that they can't have it for that. And I agree because it's one of my most favorite themes, and I do enjoy the layout. It's a long player, but I do enjoy the layout of that game. But at the rates that they go for, I don't ever look. But that's just how it is. That's just how pinball is. You mentioned Center Post as a solution to Ghostbusters, so that is an excellent segue to Home Pin. So also, Nap Arcade, and I also have a link to this in our show notes, had an article on Home Pin regarding that Spinal Tap game. Now, you and I, we have not played Spinal Tap. We have not seen it. We know there's at least one in the U.S. at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas, but we haven't been there to play it. Road trip. Yeah, we could road trip it, but we're not. We need more Patreon members to do that road trip. That would be a heck of a road trip. That would be a fun road trip. Our Patreon's only contracted a little bit over time. Guys, it's a dollar a month. Where's the love? Where's the financial love? Feel no obligation. But the – so HomePin, they put this game, Spinal Tap, on location at a pub overseas. and based off the feedback at that one bar that Spinal Tap was in, Mike, the owner of HomePin, has decided that Spinal Tap needs a center post between the flippers and that is going to be added to all the production games. And I note production games because I want to clarify something that I was not clear on until I heard an interview with Mike from HomePin. All of the Spinal Taps out right now are considered prototypes. Really? Yes. Yes. Yeah, I was a little surprised at that. But that is not what I expected. So just as an FYI. So anyway, I don't think this is particularly relevant to spend a lot of time on in the sense that I don't think very many of our listeners are honestly going to buy a Spinal Tap pinball machine because it's pretty pricey. And initial reports on the gameplay have not been very good. but I just thought it was fascinating that they decided based off of one test location that they wanted a center post. I don't, I don't, I don't know. Cause so few companies do test locations anymore, but I just thought it was really like, I don't know. I wonder if it's one of those things where, I wonder if it's one of those things where they didn't have a feel like it needed something like that. and then feedback from the location just confirmed their own feelings on the issue? Well, I kind of get it from some of the, and we'll get into that next, but some of Mike's other statements that, okay, a bar location where people aren't any good at playing pinball tell you that the game's too hard. What's the easiest thing you could do on a redesign that doesn't take any intellectual thought whatsoever? Well, it's to drill a center post in, right? You don't have to change any geometry. You just drill a post in. It's not going to interfere with anything under the play field, most likely, because it's going to just be like a tiny little Kirk post or whatever. Right. So it's like the simplest of fixes. It's a cheap part. It's easy to install. It doesn't have to make you rethink anything else about the layout. So I've just guessed that the ball times aren't as long as what he was hoping for. Like, the game's too hard for drunks. Right. Which is his target audience, which is what I'm going to get into next. No, let me float another idea. Yes, float these ideas like they're boats. Center pop. No, not center pop. Just throw that boat. I would respect it. So a 25-hour drive. To Vegas? To Vegas. That means it's over a day. That's long. That's a long drive. Separate issue, but related to HomePin. There is an interview that was on the Aussie Pinball Podcast and I love this interview It fascinating I go ahead and include a link in the show notes to it So Dr. John hosted the Aussie Pinball Podcast. You and I have interacted with Dr. John before. Wonderful gentleman. He interviewed Mike from Home Pin. And this is where it gets tough with me doing two different podcasts that talk about pinball because I've already talked, I feel, an excessive amount about the interview. interview and I don't want to go on more in the sense that I feel like it becomes ad nauseum for anyone that listens to both shows, though obviously there is a degree of listenership that does not overlap, that doesn't like the pinball show that might listen to this one. It's definitely worth hearing the Aussie Pinball Podcast, even if you don't think very much about Home Pin, just because listening to the thought processes is fascinating. But there's just so many elements and I'll just hit on them really quick. But so Mike from Home Pin, you know, I think the thing that will stand out to anyone who listens, especially any American who listens, is it will become really clear early on because he doesn't really mask it well. But he won't say USA. He won't refer to the United States. He refuses to name us as a country. So he'll constantly talk about the country that shall not be named. Oh, he talks about it in that way? Yes. Like the USA is Trudeau. That is weird I mean that's It's Childish is what it is A rapid correction it's 20 hours 20 okay well that's It is it's 5 hours I mean that's way less That's what happens when I have avoid tolls Avoid highways on because I was Planning a trip with That I didn't want to spend time On interstates So it was all too late Yikes so the so yes there was that aspect uh and one of the things this relates to the center post and my my drunk comment was and mike's talked a little bit about this in other places before about thunderbirds but the main thing here was he emphasized like he is trying to sell pinball to a new market he wants to make pinball machines that people will buy who are not into pinball They basically want a game in their game room, like one game, one pinball game, and they're buying it based solely off of theme. So he stated that his long-term goal was to make games ideally under the $5,000 U.S. price point so that there's a cost reason to want to go with Home Pin. And he stated that his games are not for tournament pinball players. He'd said that before, but they're not for tournament pinball players. They're also not for people who like pinball. No, it's weird. And you need to hear him like I'm not – I don't think I'm misdescribing it. I can't say that I'm giving you an exact quote. But, yeah, he went into a – I'd say a rant, but the whole interview is basically a rant about how he's really – like he's an engineer type. He's really technically minded. And so he designs games from that standpoint. and so he doesn't make competitively balanced rules for tournament players, but also the way the games are set up, they're not designed for people. Yes. They're not designed for people who enjoy pinball to play. It doesn't make any business sense to me. Yeah, it's very much worth listening to the interview. He's just like, I'm just not into that. It's like this is what I want out of a pinball machine, and so that's what we're going to sell because I'm the big shot owner, and it's my money. So what say do any of you have in terms of how terrible my games are, which is in a way fair. That is definitely a way to – I mean I am perfectly acceptable with if you want something a certain way and you want to make it yourself to have what you want exactly how you want. But at the same time, you can't get angry when you make it and sell it and can't sell it or it gets bad reviews if the whole thing is well. No, I knew people wouldn't like this, but I think this is the correct way to do it. Yeah, it's just – and it came up in so many different levels. This is why it's such a good interview. It came up in so many different levels. I mean one of the things that I thought that Zach Many asked me on the last TPS episode, which was an excellent thing I hadn't thought about when I heard the interview was, if this is his goal, why is he doing different designs? Why doesn't he just re-theme the same layout over and over? Because he doesn't expect any audience overlap. He's trying to sell one game to someone who doesn't own any pinball machines that they want Thunderbirds or they want Spinal Tap. They don't know any better whether the game is good or not, and they don't care. They just want the theme. So why not use the same layout over and over? Why is he spending any time doing design at all? Because he doesn't care at all about fun, He doesn't care at all about balance. It was just weird. He also does have another license. It's a movie license. He didn't say what it is. He does plan to go to Chicago in the country that shall not be named for Expo, not this year, but next year, 2024 Expo, to do the unveiling as the plan. And the only things he really indicated about it was the license to the movie was complicated. Like there were a half dozen different owners that control it or something. And so that's OK. There's not going to be any assets anyway. It's going to be more of throwback solid state style. So I guess think Pulp Fiction like he's not going to because he did DMD for Thunderbirds. Right. And then for Spinal Tap, for those that don't know, Spinal Tap has a DMD. The DMD is the functional aspect. There is an LCD in it, but from all reports I've heard, all it does is randomly play clips from Spinal Tap. It does not – they're not integrated in any way. It's just like playing the DVD. And the new one will have mechanical reels. I don't know. I don't know. And the other thing about it, the last thing I'll whine about because, again, I've already whined about this on the other show, but is I was – I hate using the word fascinated again, but that's what I'll go with. I was absolutely fascinated. He takes virtually no responsibility for anything. As you noted about like people don't understand, people are complaining, they don't understand who this game is for. His whole mantra in the interview, at least, was everything is someone else's fault. Everyone else is the failure. Everyone else has made the mistakes. yes he was super delayed on getting uh thunderbirds out but that wasn't his fault that was the chinese government's fault that was kovitz fault that was having to reinvent every part from scratch again because of china's rules fault whose fault was it to choose to locate a business in the people's republic of china but they're a republic they say it right there in the name well it's for the people it's been so bad so he's moved to taiwan now which is why now he's delayed again because he's had to spool everything up in taiwan because taiwan's such a better place and i'm like OK, but these were your decisions. You you're the adult. You made these decisions. But it's all everyone else is like forced it. Everyone else forced his hand on it. The the the spelling International Rescue on Thunderbirds, one of the most joke about things he brought that was brought up. He went into that one again. So fascinating. So I'll tell the story real quick. But again, here are the interviews. Much. It's much better to hear it from Mike's mouth. It's just to hear the scorn in his voice at people being upset with what he did. He's like, well, what happened was early in the design process, they put light. I guess they're I don't know the game. Well, I guess there are lights in the back that like light up for our spell international rescue. That was in the early design concept from he doesn't remember who came up with the idea. I'm assuming that's not him. they were almost done with the game and then realized those lights don't do anything so he decided okay let's have one letter get spelled out each time you shoot the center ramp because the center ramp is a really easy shot to make okay so that was the logic of it so he then lectures lectures to dr john about how this was the this is kobayashi maru tony this is the no win scenario these are the burdens that captain kirk had to had to circumvent but that he could not he he played the kobayashi the proper he didn't use the kobayashi analogy i'm using it here because we're nerding out because he's like i was in a no-win scenario if i didn't have the lights do anything everyone's going to criticize me how i had lights in the game that didn't actually do anything at all and so i decided i would go ahead and have the lights do something knowing i went in fully knowing that everyone was going to complain about how many shots it would take to spell international rescue now i'm sitting here with my headphones on and i'm like why didn't you just take the lights out i don't i don't know all i all i know is that it's my fault and everyone else's fault that people complained it's pensize fault man don't get me wrong some of the stuff he brought up was fair like like um people piling onto thunderbirds who didn't play it and I still haven't played it, which is why I don't give a review of Thunderbirds. I don't have any impressions of Thunderbirds, other than I laughed at the part when they had the plastic ramp and someone poked a finger and it was made out of the same material as that water bottle you have on the table. That sort of stuff. But yeah, it's, I mean, the closest thing he took responsibility for is the flippers on Spinal Tap. People complained about not being able to make the ramps, and he acknowledged that the end of stroke distance of the flippers were not as, didn't have as large of a degree of movement as the Williams mechs, which they kind of modeled them on, did. Right. And they have gone back and redesigned them and like moving forward, the mechs are going to have the same range of motion that the Williams mechs did. But I have to say that he only quasi accepted responsibility because he did also say, even though they went ahead and did this quote unquote fix, he did say, I don't think there was a problem. I think that they worked fine, but people complained about it. Get good, son. So we. Get good. They went ahead and fixed it for people, but he thinks they were wrong that they couldn't make the ramps as they were. So his design was good, but yes, it wasn't a one-to-one Williams experience, so he went ahead and coddled them and made the adjustment. Get good, son. The last piece. Why can't you backhand that ramp? The last piece I want to point out, because I thought it was fun, too, was his discussion about the inability to update the code on Thunderbirds and Spinal Tap allows it. So you might not remember because you didn't own one. Who cared? But on Thunderbirds, there is no spot to stick a USB stick in to flash update code. You don't have to update production, son. And that's what he said. The code is complete when the game ships. you don't ever need to update code because everyone's like ever since like SAM system with Stern you've been able to flash updates with USB sticks before that and I have this equipment because I have older games you'd have to get out an EEPROM burning tool and you'd have to burn the chip yourself which most people are really uncomfortable doing because you have to get the chips and it's all you know you got to line up the light the USB just made it easier for doing code updates so everyone's sort of used to being able to do code update now. And he's like, no, you don't need to do a code update. This is going to be at 1.0 when it comes out. It's not going to, like, if there was something catastrophically wrong, we would mail you new chips. Wow! Like the old days, like what they did with operators, like Gottlieb and all of a sudden. So, okay. So Thunderbirds does allow code updates. So they've got that solved. However, not the way you would think. So there is a USB port. However, you cannot take a flash stick and stick it in after you format it in whatever, like, FAT32 or whatever format it wants with the code on it and, you know, it update. You have to basically take a computer like a laptop and I take a ribbon cable, USB cable that will connect the laptop to the port. And then there is special software package that you have to run. And that software code little app is designed to flash the update. So you need a computer. You need the cable and you need the software on the computer. to do the update. And you have to be suspended off the ground, a la Mission Impossible. Oh, my God. And he was explaining this to Dr. John in the interview, and he's like, well, here's the thing. I hired, I kept bringing in these USB experts, you know, USB ports that have existed since 1996. So I had to bring in these USB experts, and none of them were experts, and they couldn't figure it out. They couldn't figure out how to do code flash updates. And he finally found someone who he like paid with loose meat sandwiches or something like he like bought bought him with food. And that person. Figured it out and by figured it out, I mean required you to have a laptop, a cable and wrote a special program to do the updating. Again, it's all everyone else's fault that this didn't work and somehow all the other manufacturers figured it out. but he couldn't figure it out except he kind of figured it out in the most clunky cumbersome low rent amateur way possible these are dennis's opinions i don't necessarily speak for the eclectic gamers podcast because i'm only half of the podcast just i mean he does seem to know a lot about engineering and stuff i don't want to make it sound like he's like not competent but his business decisions make little sense to me. There's far more. There's like, he goes into a whole rant about how motherboards are evil and all this other stuff. That's just fascinating. I don't want to cover it here. Just because you're good at one thing does not mean you're good at anything. That's very true. That's very true. And I think his, some of his strategy makes sense to me. Like, if he could get his games under 5,000 US, so that it's under a Stern, at this point, significantly under a Stern Pro, it being like a garbage game might still be able to move units but he's also not trying to get pinheads to buy his stuff but he's still doing different designs but he's trying just to sell things off of license i just like i don't know why he's making pinball machines he's got a very like my understanding is a fairly successful uh company that in terms of like they do a lot of circuit boards and stuff like that side of it sounds like it's doing well i don't know why he just doesn't make replacement parts i don't know if this is vanity or what, but it's weird. To me, it's weird. It's a hobby. That's an expensive hobby. But I collect pinball machines and watches, so what do I know? I know all about expensive hobbies. We only have one more thing, Tony. Is it time? It is time. To climb the mountain? Not a mountain, a corner. What sort of corner do you think? I think it's a corner of rumors. Rumor Corner. Rumor Corner. Rumor Corner. Rumor Corner. Rumor Corner. Dennis Creasel's got the news before Napa Caves. Is that right, Tony? Yeah. Okay, so I told you originally I was thinking about doing the Ghostbusters for the Rumor Corner. But we can't really – well, we could. I can do what I want. It's our show. We can do whatever we want, Tony. but jason knapp on nap arcades already covered this ghostbusters thing so i don't want to regurgitate with that i already got the link on show notes people can already read that so let me give you something different let me give you something new let me give you something exclusive possibly exclusive dennis doesn't listen to all podcasts that are in pinball because many of them are boring and so he cannot tell you whether or not this is truly exclusive i also cannot tell you whether this is true or false or remember treat everything in rumor corner is a dirty nasty lie because we don't know that rumor corner is true even though rumor corner is 100 always good is it true or not i don't know 100 of the time it's right every time except when it's wrong that's what we say about rumor corner but i'm stalling for too long so let's get into the rumor rumor is actually going to deal with harry potter so this oh ears are perked up now haven't they everyone loves to hear about harry potter so we've talked about this before but a real quick recap for people that aren't familiar people i remember a few weeks ago joe chemical went on to social media proclaimed jersey jack pinball has a harry Potter license. You know, spoilers. Boom. They're done. So here's the rumor corner rumor for you today. I have received a report, a rumor, a claim that Stern Pinball did indeed screw up Kamikaze work to secure the Harry Potter license that he had been working on it. That's ostensibly theoretically why he went public with this, because he did all of this work And it was due to action or I've heard more inaction on the part of Stern that allowed the license to slip through their fingers. That's not the interesting part of the rumor because we actually already talked about that speculation before. What I have heard is a couple of things. One, this rumor claims Harry Potter is coming out soon, as in 2024, before the end of the year, but possibly as early as the summer. So we're talking a year out. Second piece of the rumor, that this is not remotely going to be what people expect when they heard Harry Potter pinball. and Potter fans, broadly speaking, are going to be immensely disappointed with what this game is going to be. That is the rumor. So we must speculate off of this information that they have Harry Potter. It's coming out really soon. So the development cycle either was already underway or if it's being undertaken, it's going to be basically ready to go, possibly in under a year. I'll tell you what my thought is, Tony. My thought is, think about Stern's The Pin Line, or you want to go even more extreme, think Zizzle. Not commercial-grade, full-on, proper pinball. That this is some sort of novelty game. It might still be pinball in the sense that you are using flippers and hitting a ball around, but by novelty I mean more toy-like or again and this is this wasn't part of the rumor this part of my speculation if J.K. Rowling's thing that we'd always heard but I'd never seen the evidence of myself uh having a problem with pinball was it being routed in bars and she didn't want kids to feel like they wanted to go and experience something in a bar because they would be you know possibly allowed to go in because there's this thing and then they're around this environment that she thinks is unsavory, which is why it's okay for casinos which keep kids out to have casinos, all that stuff. We've talked about it before. My initial speculation when we first heard this rumor was maybe part of the pitch that JJP was able to make was, hey, look, our games start at $12,000. There's next to no operators that use this stuff. We are targeting the homeowner's market and that would be their angle. But whatever the angle is, this thing can't even be commercially operated. There ain't no coin door. They ain't even got software to allow you to install a coin door. It's not commercial grade. That is the speculation I'm adding on. The rumor is next year it's coming out and it's not remotely going to be what people think of when they think Harry Potter pinball. Your thoughts? I think that it will be a pinball machine, a normal pinball machine. I think it's going to be fantastic beasts. it falls into the franchise and its most recent movie was last year okay um here's here's an aspect and of course depends how you interpret it uh and again this is a rumor uh this is an outside rumor to us so who knows what's true and what's not or if any of it at all is true but But if they secured the license just recently, assuming that Stern basically just now lost it and Kamikau thus just now went public because it just all recently happened. Right. For JJP, this seems to be a pretty aggressive development cycle. That would be aggressively fast for JJP. While I agree that Potterheads or whatever they call themselves, Potter fans, would be probably, by and large, downright pissed if it was a Fantastic Beasts Harry Potter game, it still wouldn't explain the aggressive schedule of JJP being able to, in basically 12 to 18 months, putting out a full-fledged pinball machine. something that they're developed while they've obviously godfather came out within a year of the release of um toy story 4 but if they just now got the license normally they've had the licenses for a while and they you know they wrote to the design so that's the part that i i wonder about if it's just that like if it's still can it still be full like on like stern could do it Like, Elwynn could get a game out in a year, but we've never seen that out of JJP if they actually did just get the license like a month ago. And that's the question. Did they just get it? But it's not beyond thought with the number of game designers that they have right now working on stuff that something hasn't been partially put together or partially designed but not themed yet. That could be used as a set point. It could be used as they could have had something gestating that they were able to do a rapid turnout of change it from whatever it was originally targeted as if it had a targeted theme already and then slide it in with the new thing. It's entirely possible it could be something like that. I mean, it's interesting because when someone claims it's so safe to claim that people broadly will be disappointed because there's so many ways that could happen. Like, for example, if they did that and they had a design in the can, that might mean nothing wholly original in the sense of a toy or mech might be possible. Like what people might be fantasizing about, like a special Quidditch play field. Right. Like it might be a generic upper play field that looks like a Quidditch thing, but not like, oh, look, there are rings in the ball with magnets. I don't know what people are fantasizing about. likewise the you know other things people could be disappointed if it's as simple as it's absolutely not movie assets it's all going to be the book there'll be people that just like people were upset that Deadpool wasn't the Ryan Reynolds Deadpool right and just to go with the whole Quidditch thought it could always just be that as you play the game and they're with the birth of internet connectivity the way it is. The game must be connected to the internet. And if somebody completes a special shot on their machine somewhere else in the world, your machine in this game instantly ends because somebody caught the golden snitch somewhere else. Because that's how it goes. That'd be a fun... It's Quidditch. That could be a fun... If it was a Quidditch novelty game, that would be interesting. Now, I'm going to... You could get it ball one and just end the game. That's all rumors. So I'm going to stick with my speculation. I'm going to stick with that. No, this is going to be – it's not going to be like a normal JJP game. Something is going to be – It's a pachinko machine. That would be funny. I wouldn't want to count that as pinball though. I still think it's going to be pinball-esque, but I don't want to – it feels so weird for me to say I don't want to zizzle them because that's like a toy, but that's where I'm leaning. With the development time, because it would sell. It would still be good money for them. It would sell, but – It would just be a different audience. I just have such a hard time. they talk so much about how quality and deep and everything else that that's what all their talk is about for them to turn their backs on what feels like their core identity so much i just have that's where i have the hard time that's fair but i mean they got the new factory they have multiple lines now right maybe it was just like well it didn't come to fruition remember american pinball was going to make that flying dutchman thing or whatever and they were trying to do more than just pinball. They wanted to be able to build other arcade novelty games, and it just didn't work out. But the capability is there. Now, you could be right. Maybe they are going to make something like that, and that's where they're going to release a whole bunch of different pins to cover all of the movies to make that a realistic capacity. I just thought of another one. This idea. It's a pinball cabinet, like their traditional size cabinet. It's virtual. It's a V-pin. So it's all software. Oh, crap. I could see that. I mean, they did virtual pinball for the Toy Story 4. Like one of those mini games is the virtual. So they have the bones to a virtual pinball game. They could put it in a full size cab, take the coin door out, say, look, it's not real, like not real pinball. J.K. Rowling. So it's OK. It's a video game. And you've endorsed Harry Potter video games. She has repeatedly. Video games are OK. And then that's. Have I have I cracked the code? Is the rumor tamed? Possibly. Could be. Anyway, this one was a real interesting one. I don't know what to think. I have no idea. Because my, at the whole, Potter fans are going to be disappointed. I can already say, I just assume that Potter fans are going to be disappointed. I think they're going to be disappointed no matter what. Exactly. And that's not a dig at JJP. I just think, it's like Star Wars. It's just so big of a license. people are going to have something in their mind and they not going to get exactly what they thinking The hype has gotten to the point where it is impossible to do what people want Exactly I mean but so no matter what they going to be disappointed But I can just totally see them doing a Fantastic Beasts and just the rage. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. The rage would be hilarious, I think. Is it Harry Potter if it's Fantastic Beasts? It is. Is he in it? It's the Harry Potter universe. Dumbledore's in it. Yeah, but. Other main characters are in it. I'm thinking the character Harry Potter because everything else is like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Right. Well, that's just one story in a bigger universe. Is it Harry Potter and the Fantastic Beasts? Will Harry be under a plastic that you can only see when you clean it? Like, where's Harry? Thank you for cleaning me. Okay. Well, that's it. So I guess we can go to video games now. Okay. We do have a couple emails. So I'll go ahead and continue spewing words out of my mouth for a little bit. So first one I want to cover is from Glenn W. Thank you for writing in. I'm not going to quote the entire email, Tony, but I'm going to quote the part that was relevant to us for the discussion points. And Glenn writes, I am not a video game guy. All of the major releases come out and I don't play any of them except all except for the Zelda releases. I played through all of them since Ocarina of Time. I was hoping to hear about your experience playing Tears of the Kingdom to only be met with tears of disappointment. In your opinion, is Nintendo only good at releasing movies? Is the Zelda franchise not that good? Is the Nintendo Switch not worth owning? Could you maybe have a segment, Nintendo Corner? Well, thank you, Glenn, for writing in. First off, no, we're not having a Nintendo Corner segment. That said, we do talk about the Direct this time. We do, but we're not to that part yet. And that's not what he asked about either. He asked specifically about our thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom. He was hoping to hear about our experience playing it. Well, it's really simple, Glenn. I don't play Tears of the Kingdom, so I don't have an experience, and that's why I don't talk about it. Tony, what are your thoughts? My Nintendo was lost to the family, or my Switch was lost to the family. And in all technicality, I think it's in the spot where I can reclaim it now because my wife has her own Switch. so it's once again something that I could reclaim and I just have not done as of yet. I love Breath of the Wild. Breath of the Wild was a great game. I like Zelda. I am not, you know, like you get certain of the older video game franchises, you get a certain type of player who is their big thing. You got your Zelda fans, you got your Metroid peoples, you got your Marios and your Sonic peoples. I'm not any of those. I enjoy all of those games But I am not the huge fanboy So while Tears of the Kingdom I want And especially the more stuff I see about it And this little building construction thing that it's got going on I really want to play it It's not been so much of a priority to me to have grabbed it as of yet Or set up my Switch or try to reclaim my Switch I don't even know where my Switch is right now The family's got it somewhere At one point, my wife had my Switch set up in one room and her Switch in another room, and then both of my daughters have their Switches, and I don't know. I don't even know where it's at. Because at one point, my wife was still playing Animal Crossing on my accounts with her with Animal Crossing on my Switch, and then on her Switch, she had her Animal Crossing, and they tied. I don't know. Islands working together, one of them used for storage for overflow. I don't know. It's crazy. I haven't had a chance yet. And for me, it's one of the games that would probably fall into the once the price comes down some. I will grab it once I get my Switch set back up and such. But I've not done it. It's nothing bad about it. It looks incredibly fun. It's just not a game that jumps at it. It's the same way we'll be talking about a whole lot of Mario games because they just announced a whole bunch of Mario games. And some of them I think look great, but I'm not going to be like day one adopters. I don't – it's just not how I play anymore. And a lot of this stuff is just not my primary game type anymore. Yeah, for me, it's not about – I'm not a connoisseur. No, yeah, well, maybe I'm a little bit – I was going to say I'm not a connoisseur of the Zelda games. Like I played the first three, and then I kind of just moved away from it. Like I borrowed – I had a roommate once who let me start – like I think it was the – whatever the – what's the one that everyone loves? All of them? I guess it was Ocarina of Time. Okay. And I started it, and I – you know, it was – maybe it was just too old, and I just didn't get into it. And I was like, eh, I don't think I'm going to continue this. And it's – so there's that aspect to it, even though the game I think looks great. It's nothing against the game. I do not buy multiple consoles in a generation. I have never owned multiple consoles in a generation to my knowledge. So it was – I mean for me it was – You can make the argument. You can make the argument. I have a GameCube downstairs and I don't know whose GameCube it is because I swear I never owned one. But there's a GameCube in a box downstairs under my stairs. So I mean I could tell you the cycle. I'm not counting PC because PC is separate from console. you can consider switch a handheld it's a console you owned a Nintendo Advance at one point and you had a console yes but those didn't plug into the TV and were consoles like the Nintendo Switch is a console that's what it is it's a console look just bear with just roll with it okay also I didn't buy those those were gifts so like I didn't buy my GBA I never owned a DS I had a GBA because I had to play the Busket game and I didn't buy that, it was a gift so I had the GBA you gifted the GBA so you could play with the Busket well we ended up playing the Busket I don't know how it worked out it was someone's idea, it was not my idea because I didn't know, you wouldn't stay loyal to the Busket so that was just a bad experience all around but the Thug did not need to stay loyal to the Busket Thug had a hit point pool that allowed him to ignore the Busket when necessary Yes, that's what he claimed. But I did have a Game Boy as well. But yeah, my console, my proper, and I think of Switch as a proper console. It's got the power. It's designed to be both. Nintendo's doing weird stuff, which is smart for them. But they retired their handhelds because they're kind of like, we're everything now. Right. So, I mean, long story short, I don't think anyone really cares, but my cycle had been NES, Super NES, PS1. I skipped the next generation and only did PC gaming at that time, so I didn't have the next gen. uh 360 xbox one xbox series x that's my life cycle on consoles so it's not that nintendo only does good at releasing movies it's that there's no reason to own a nintendo console unless you want to play nintendo exclusives because it's an incredibly weak system compared to the ps5 or the xbox series and most of what i play is third party so i would rather have a fixed position i play here we're recording in my living room right now that's where i play my console games is in the living room and it's that's i don't need it to portable and that's why i don't own a switch i it's not good enough for me to want a whole other system to charge and manage and keep the games and pay attention to i've got plenty of stuff i haven't even played i don't need more time sinks like that so what about a steam deck i have no interest in one but i wouldn't be like i wouldn't ideologically be against it uh but i'm not ideologically against the switch i just i don't it to me it feels like wasting money buying multiple systems like that and some people are all in and they like collect they like collect every gaming thing that comes out and i am not like that i just i just don't care enough to do that mike it's not efficient for me i i have dozens of games installed on my on my xbox and honestly i probably have a couple dozen at this point on Steam, and I rarely play Steam games, that I've never touched. So, why waste more money? That's my logic. This is such an interesting discussion. Well, we're moving on from it. Thank you, Glenn, for bringing up this discussion, because I find it immensely interesting. Owning multiple consoles is a waste of money. For me. No, I understand. Like, I mean, imagine if i like if i owned let's say i owned a ps5 and an xbox series x aside again aside from the exclusives isn't it like okay well which one do i want to play call of duty on which one do i play street fighter on which one do i want to play uh the battlefield on you know it's like um maybe just pick one and not drop another 400 on something that does the basically like 90 the same stuff now nintendo's got a lot of exclusive but again i'm not what am i going to do throw my had at things is Mario. How long am I going to play that? Is it really worth several hundred dollars? Because that's what you're asking me to spend. Does it make sense when you're like, well, but you spent several thousand on a pinball machine? No, you can point at all sorts of stuff to say where it doesn't make sense. I don't judge people for owning multiple consoles. I've never seen the motivation to do it for me because I've got plenty of video games. I've never gone and turned on the Xbox and gone, darn it, I'm out of games to play. Guess I better spend more money. Never happened. Never will happen. interesting moving on thank you glenn for the uh interesting discussion sorry that we don't have anything to say about your most precious game of all time maybe if it was good we would play the uh jason y wrote in that was harsh no it wasn't i've heard nothing but good things about that game you know what i've no i read one review that said that uh that breath of the wild is better than tears of the kingdom i don't know why i should say i read one review headline i didn't I read one headline. I read one headline. I'm just saying it's not universally seen as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Some people think it's just equal to sliced bread. Glenn loves this. He wanted this. I wrote him and I told him, we're going to cover this on the episode. He's like, oh gosh. He was all worried that his email was too harsh. I was like, don't worry. It will be responded to accordingly. Don't you fret. It is a valid thing. Don't you fret. It is a valid thing. We'll give you lots of discussion. We don't talk about a whole lot of the Nintendo stuff because, again, it's primarily just not. Well, I don't play. You don't play. I haven't really played any Nintendo stuff in a while either. I mean, should I play Nintendo? I mean. I could. It's just like, but I've got other stuff. I just don't feel the need for it. I just don't. No, I understand. So it's like, why don't I cover Pokemon? I've never played a Pokemon game. That's why. I just don't. Would I like Pokemon games? No. Probably. Nah. No, I'll say probably. Probably. That way it stings even more. Yeah, probably. But you know what? I'm puzzle questing right now, so leave me alone. I am. Puzzle questing. So, Jason Y. He wrote in as well. Okay. Okay, we got to move on. We got to move on from this ocarina of tears or whatever it's called. He writes, Tony and Dennis. I don't know why he's Southern. This is how it is. This is how it is. Sometimes the voice just comes to me as I start to speak. It just comes to me. I read the tone. I read the tone in the email, and it tells me. So, you know, bless his heart. Bless his heart. Jason writes, so I'm sure you guys are going to talk about the Nintendo Direct News. Spoiler, we will. But can I just say how excited I am for Super Mario RPG Legend of the Seven Stars Remake? This is one of my favorite games of all time, and I'm curious if you two have ever experienced with the original and what your thoughts on the game were. I mean, the timeless turn-based combat, the quirky isometric view, the Mario meets Final Fantasy storytelling, the plot twist, the music. Beep. I had to say that next part. Got to change my pants now. Look forward to hearing all the news on your podcast. Love the podcast, Jason. Well, Jason, thank you for writing in. You're not going to love the podcast in a moment because, no, I never played Super Mario RPG because I never cared about it. And I also don't own any Nintendo consoles. I was going to say, we're already in the middle of – so basically – What console did it come out on? What console did it come out on? Okay, I did own a SNES, but I did never happen to – and I played Mario games, but I never owned this one. Yeah, I'm almost positive it was a SNES release. Okay. I did not play Super Mario RPG. I did play Paper Mario, which was the style of game that kind of came after it. Right. I've seen – like I've watched like speed runs of some of this stuff. Right, right. But I've not played it. But, yeah, no, I've not played it. I've never heard a bad thing about it. Nor have I. It is one of those games that's always talked of as a pinnacle. And then, like, oh, didn't you love it the first time you played it? And you're just like, I never played it. When I heard about what the Nintendo Direct covered when it came out, my reaction was, I think the Super Mario RPG remake is probably the biggest news in the Direct. That was my reaction. I agree. But obviously, that's subjective. Everyone's going to have their own take. It was the first thing I heard trumpeted about after the direct. I have not played it because I didn't know about it at the time when it came out, apparently, since I own that system. I didn't have a lot of SNES games, though. I was starting to do more PC gaming then, so I kind of moved away from it. Because, again, as you have realized, Tony, I'm very linear with my gaming, and I tend to stick with one thing. And then when the new generation happens, maybe I shift. But I don't do a lot of multi-platform gaming, even with PC and console. It's always kind of been all-in sort of stuff for me. So, yeah, I just can't really weigh in on it. And I don't really know people in person who have talked to me about Super Mario RPG as players. So it's just not something that I had friends that played. It was the SNES. Or if they did play it, they never talked to me about it. So I assume they didn't play it because the buzz has always been pretty positive about it. So, sorry, we will be talking a little bit more here in the direct, but I don't have any feedback on my thoughts on the old version of the game. So, sorry. Maybe Glenn can talk to you about it. But I'm not giving you Glenn's email because we're keeping it secret. Yeah, I would just be weird to just randomly handle those emails. Oh, I cook people up like that? Yeah, that would be. That's probably like what listeners do not want to happen, would be my guess. Hey man we couldn't help you out but we just randomly hooked you up With some stranger That we thought would be more your You guys would have a better connection Now like Dennis I just never played it at the time I looked it up the original release Was in May of 96 I was getting ready to think About playing Final Fantasy 7 then Right so That was Well I guess I don't think Final Fantasy 7 Came out until No, not yet. That was like a year later. Yeah. But, no, I just – it's not a game that I had then played at the time. I was not – at that point in time, I was pretty much purely PC games. I had a Super Nintendo, but it was shared with my sister, and it lived in my sister's room. So that tells you how much I played Super Nintendo. I like what you did to your Switch. Yeah. It went its own separate special way. but I can claim it back. I can totally get it back, guys. I mean it. But we'll talk about it more here in a little bit. But thank you for writing in. We do appreciate it. All right, Tony, take over. I'm tired. So many directs. I almost forgot to put this first one in. It was the Xbox slash Starfield direct. I almost forgot about it because that direct was like two hours after we recorded the last episode. Yes, it was. World premiere. Wow. Yeah. Lots of an extended looks at games that we'd already had announced. Lamp Lighters League, which is from Hairbrain Schemes, who did my Battletech game that I am now at 1,020 plus hours into. Hopefully it's as good as that. It won't be. Outside the Cyberpunk DLC, I did find it very interesting that the Microsoft Flight Simulator, I love how they still push Microsoft Flight Simulator really hard. It's got huge player base. I didn't know that until I saw it on Reddit this week. Yeah, I was looking some stuff up the other day. There is literally a player base where people, like, multi-play player together, and they, like, do, like, real-world Carl Weathers, and people do ATC stuff, and it's insane. But it has a player base that's just insanely larger than I ever thought it was. I mean, I knew it was kind of popular back in the day, like in the late 90s and everything. Yeah, I played it back then. But I did not realize just how big it has gotten to be for people playing Microsoft Flight Simulator. Because here, I was surprised. I'm like, wow, they talk about these every year. Every summer they show the new. They talk about the racing game. I was going to blow it. I know there's like a niche for it, and I just sort of blow it off otherwise. And that's how I've been too. But this year they're like, oh, and by the way, here's our Dune DLC where you get to fly ornithopters on Arrakis and stuff. And it's like, wait a minute. What? I was surprised at the collab. Now, those ornithopters are cool. They're cool. But I wanted to fly the worm. That's not how that works. Make it work. It feels like Flight Simulator is becoming something else. You can, but only on Nintendo. It's on Nintendo Flight Simulator. Well, then I won't be playing it. Just like I'm not playing the current one. Oops. Just because it's on Xbox doesn't mean you get to play. This is why I don't get Game Pass. I have so many free games with gold stuff. Yeah, but there's good games on Game Pass. Look, sometimes we need to give these diamonds in the rough their chance to be rough. And sometimes they're just rough. Sometimes, but you know what? No risk, no reward. No risk, no reward. My tiger growls at your assumption. They won't get it. Then I get it and you get it. You know, there's one person out there who got that. There's one person who said, oh my God, somebody else read that. I read every book in that series. If you know what series we're talking about with the tiger growling, then write in Eclectic Gamers Podcast at gmail.com, and I'll let you pick a discussion topic for the next episode. Wow. Well, probably the episode after because we'll obviously – It depends. But still. Yeah. Worth it. Yeah. Worth it. I mean – If your discussion topic is you want us to talk about the growling tiger. I wanted to say the discussion topic has to be video game or pinball related but it can be related to the series if you want like how would you design a game that is involved with this well first thing it does is it tasers you on the palm every five seconds but I think just leave the probes in it's less painful than re-reading the two biggest things that was so good that was so good the two biggest things for me out of this direct was the Star Wars Outlaws look. That looked good. It is the game. People have been wanting for a decade an open world single player Star Wars experience. I think you're right. They've canceled three of them. I know. They've been like two, I guess they're not open world, but there have been two games recently that seem to have done well, right? They've done very well, but in both of them you're a Jedi, where specifically this is you're like Han. Okay. This game is situated more in the rogues' gallery of the type of thing. There had been a lot of talk. There was a bounty hunter game in design that got canceled, and there was another kind of rogues gallery type game in design that got canceled a number of years ago that really had a lot of early hype. But this came out of nowhere, and it looks surprisingly far along for something what I was expecting to see. So I'm excited about this. Okay. I was going to say I hadn't played a Star Wars game since the one where you're the Vader apprentice, but that's actually not true. I did play the Battlefront games when they were on sale. I did end up getting those, and those were okay, but they're multiplayer. Right. And then there was like a Rogue Squadron or something. Right, yeah, the Starfighters. Too hard. It's actually like it's too – this is going to sound weird – it's too realistic of a flight sim for me. Like I just got pwned. Not even owned, pwned. It was that bad. it was too much. I just could, I was like, it's, I mean, I'm on a controller which should work great on flight sims. It's not like a shooter where, you know, I get it. That's why they have aim assist and stuff. But I was just like, maybe everyone was just way better. I mean, they were way better, but I was just like, I just can't. You're going in. I'm so bad at this. I'm not having fun. I'm dying like every eight seconds. Yeah, I'm a TIE fighter with no shields. I get it, but it's just like, I maybe played it like a month and I was like, This isn't fun. I'm done. I'm done with it. Well, that's one thing. You're supposed to have fun with games. That's right. So anyway. Okay. So yeah. I can see the excitement for this. I don't know if I'll be in the market for it yet or not. We'll see. I have high hopes for it being something like an Uncharted for Star Wars or Far Cry for Star Wars. But the big thing was The giant Starfield Like hour long Deep dive direct release I didn't know if I was going to sit through it But I'm glad I did Because my first impression Of Starfield was not good When they showed the very first stuff months ago It was just I was like Is this it? This is it Now My opinion has shifted somewhat But it seems like they took all of the concepts that was being hoped for by No Man's Sky, tried to avoid the No Man's Sky mistakes, and put a good spin and polish on it and a Bethesda storyline. Yes. I have to admit, I'm interested. Seeing the ship modification, ship building stuff surprised me. That is not at all what I expected to see in such a game. Yeah, you'd think they'd need at least a decade of Alpha. Oh, wait, no, that's Star Citizen, not Starfield. Well, even then, you don't get to design the ships. The ships are already designed. You just pay real money for them. I'm actually pretty excited about Starfield now. It looked way better than I thought it was. I didn't like the shooting mechanics or anything when I first saw it, and now there's so much more to it than I thought it was going to be poor man's space fallout and it's it looks way better than that so but it's bethesda so so you know it's gonna be buggy as crud at launch now supposedly microsoft is saying that it is the least buggy bethesda release ever that's not a high bar though valid i i i really like bethesda i was so excited when because you know i commit to only one console uh i was so excited when Microsoft got Bethesda because Bethesda might be my most favorite studio at this point. I can see that. But they bug you. They are buggy. You just got to accept it. I find it hopeful that they acknowledge that they are due to have launch problems. We'll see how it actually goes. But, yeah, I was deeply impressed by that entire segment of the show. So it was – I was interested, and now I'm waiting. I'm ready. I want it. Okay. The thing that has surprised me was it resonated so well, not just with me, but across the board that you've seen – I've seen stuff constantly about Starfield, little news drops here and there, little people doing deep analysis of the videos that were released and grabbing stuff out of the background. Pretty hardcore. It's like surprisingly hardcore as people have been going through stuff. So I think they have succeeded in generating a huge buzz. Hopefully this won't be Redfall 2. I wouldn't normally, I mean, what's the biggest blunder Bethesda's really had? It was Fallout 76, which wasn't single player. And is enormous now. It's hugely popular. Once you fail, once you No Man's Sky it, I write you off. I don't go back. Yeah, no. And that's, I mean, I had no interest in Fallout 76. I still don't have any interest in Fallout 76 because I don't really care for Fallout as a multiplayer game. It doesn't matter to me. But it has a surprisingly large player base. Okay. Much bigger than I expected. Because I'd always heard stuff saying this game's Trash this game's trash this game's trash Early on but it is really Segwayed and now most of what I hear is well they fixed All the bad stuff and now it's an actually really good game Okay so good to know I'm still not going to Play it but And then there was also The Nintendo Direct Which has some Big things the Pokemon DLC Everybody excited for Pokemon being able to have DLCs now As we talked about the Super Mario RPG remake That's the thing that I've heard the most buzz about. I think it was probably the biggest surprise. Right, and I've heard the most buzz about it. Everybody's excited for it. I saw an article where the composer for the original one confirmed that she is doing the music for this one, and the comment section was just insanely enraptured with that fact because the music in the original is considered a classic video game music. So it is definitely one of those things that that hit everything. What I found actually interesting was Super Mario Wonder. it is a throwback to side scrolling 2d mario okay but it's like on an acid trip like in the trailer like the flowers are talking to mario and at one point he grabs a power up and everything starts dancing and the light and the light goes all weird and there's all sorts of strange stuff going on and then he grabs another power-up and everything goes back to normal. I mean, it is like full-on acid trip Mario. But from the trailers, it looks like it has four-player simultaneous same-screen play. I don't know what is going on with this game. He grabs a power-up that turns him into an elephant in a Mario outfit. I really don't know what's going on, but I am intrigued. I would like to see more I mean it is full on Would you like to know more? Yes I would, thank you very much New WarioWare game I played a few of those actually And they're fun, on handheld Back when I, on my GBA or whatever Back when you had a handheld Back when I cared, yeah, now I have a phone Don't you all have phones? Well maybe when Microsoft attempts to Purchase Nintendo and then gets turned down They should. Just buy it. They'll try and get turned down. Then PlayStation will try and succeed. PlayStation will just enter into timed exclusives for all the Nintendo stuff like they do with Final Fantasy. Yeah. I'm not buying your console just because you do those mean things. There's a Princess Peach-centered game on the way. They didn't release much information about it. It was very much a teaser look. They're doing an enhanced version of Luigi's Mansion 2 Which is a game My daughter loves Luigi's Mansion games And they announced A new Detective Pikachu game Coming back Oh okay So Yay I guess I only know the movie Yeah I'm the same way But it definitely was a good direct For people who liked Mario It was a very Mario-centric and Mario-forward direction. Maybe that's what the other M stands for in Metroid, other M, Mario. Anyway. That's the new Mario. Samus takes off the helmet. It's not Samus. It's Mario in there all along. To be thematically correct, it would be Peach in there when the helmet came off. That doesn't make the other M joke work. True. EA has decided to split itself into two separate organizations. So that it's easier for Microsoft to buy them? I don't know. They're splitting themselves into EA Sports and EA Entertainment, which is who used to be EA Games and is going to be continued to center on non-sports related gaming. Okay. Which means, based upon the quality of EA's non-sports-related games as of lately, I guess that section is going out of business pretty quick. Because I'm pretty sure EA Sports has been keeping them afloat. The Microsoft Activision deal, the FTC filed a temporary ban on the buyout, and it succeeded, and they're going to federal court. Which will actually speed things up compared to what was the original timeline we were looking at. Microsoft does not seem to be overly upset by them going before a judge in this case. In their court filings, Microsoft made sure to say, to be fair, most of the court filings have been redacted. There's only a few parts that are visible. But they made sure to say that they have lost the console wars. They have 16% market share and is ranked third out of three in console sales. they are doubling down on the how can this be breaking stuff when we are the smallest people. See, I'm supporting the little guy by just buying that. Yeah, that's what it is. What I find is interesting is the FTC is upset because they pointed out that there's several games that Microsoft has kicked out recently that Bethesda kicked out that were originally supposed to be multi-platform and are no longer multi-platform such as Redfall. Apparently the new Indiana Jones game is going to be Xbox and PC exclusive. And Starfield is Xbox and PC exclusive. They're pointing out that this exclusivity is hurtful for gamers. So let me tell you what I'm really hoping to see come out of this. I hope that they do ban this purchase. I hope that the courts come down and say, you're right. This does take choice away from gamers. And then I hope they step back and say it is illegal to sole source games. It can no longer be a console exclusive because that is bad for gamers. And they force out console exclusivity by law. I don't even know they have the authority to do that, though. To be fair, they'd have the authority to do that within the borders of the United States of America. I mean, the thing is, because of there's a certain degree of, I assume, maybe I'm wrong, certain degree of freedom on what a business can do, operate within the bounds of the law and the regulatory aspects. If the designs are to control monopolistic behavior, but the regulatory controls are only in the realms of possession, then they might not have the power to. For example, Sony first-party game being exclusive to Sony. I don't know. Again, I'm not an attorney, so I can't give any legal advice anyway. But I don't know if FTC can go in and say, if you make a video game Sony under Sony, that you have to let other people air it any more than does Apple have to give apps that they develop to Androids? And, you know, like where's the – it's – you're starting to dictate how they once – they are their own entity, and you're starting to say, well, they have to share. It doesn't get to extend to, oh, well, congratulations. You invented a new cholesterol drug. I guess it's generic. Honestly, I would like that. Of course. No, people would like it. I'm just saying I don't even think they have the authority to do it. No, I think you're probably right. I just think it would be what would be – if they're going to argue that they want to do what's best for gamers, then they need to take it to the logical conclusion. I agree that to me it's nonsensical in a way because I can see there is some nuance to it. But it's nonsensical to get super upset about exclusivity because you bought a company, but it's okay to get exclusivity as long as you bribe a company. Exactly. And the issue of timed or permanent exclusives via payment is something that console manufacturers, especially Sony and Microsoft, have done over the years. And Sony has really relied on that a lot lately. And I think Square is perhaps the case in point where Square is by fiat keeping everything off of everything else. It's not on Nintendo and it's not on Microsoft because Sony is arranging that. But Sony doesn't own them. So they're not getting accused of running a monopoly because they don't actually control Square. They just cut them a check and control all the titles. Right. But at the same time, there are laws that allow you to not prevent a monopoly by buying out and having controlling interest in all of your competitors and maintaining a false sense of choice. Yes. And I just – I don't know what the level is. I have no idea. I don't have enough legal basis. And I don't even know how someone raises it. Like, does the government have to raise a claim or does someone withstanding have to litigate and bring it up? But I will say, because I read, of course, some of the gaming subreddit stuff that comes out and this gets covered, and it's interesting because you'll see a lot of Sony supporters that don't – and I understand. Like I understand, especially if they like to play like what I do. You play a lot of third party games and maybe one of your big third party studios is about to be controlled by this baby's first tiniest console maker. And you wouldn't be able to play Call of Duty anymore. I'm saying side Microsoft's promises over the next decade and all that. But to me, they're somewhat, in my opinion, tortured arguments are because I've seen several make it is. the reason why this is wrong is microsoft didn't earn it that they're buying companies and their ips and they're going to just have all of that and what sony did is okay because either it's deals with third parties that get to still be third parties and then can make their own way in the future if they want to and everything else was homegrown so sony built their studios with honor and thus those things getting to be controlled it's fair because they built those up microsoft is like let's skip the development stage and just buy the good ones which is a fair criticism but i also think that it's a it's a it's a i think it's a difference without meaning right it's still exclusivity who cares if i mean you want to go we'll go full we'll go full on america corporations are people too microsoft earned the money they have they want to buy their way to the top that's what money's there for what's the point of having power tony if you can't wield it i mean i guess it's all going to be moot with however this turns out but it's definitely an interesting argument it is and where do you draw the line on all of this where do you draw the where is the line drawn between free market economy and total it's fairness and everything else i think there's a lot i mean from a monopolistic standpoint it's absolutely right that this should be scrutinized and there should be a lot of concern i just it feels so um haphazard because ftc has allowed a lot bigger things to go through that impact people's lives a lot more than some video games yeah and yeah i mean does this feel larger than like the sprint Sprint T-Mobile was huge, was absolutely huge merger and affected a lot more lives than this. And it was no problem. And and in this regard, I mean, it's a question of like the guarantees. And all right. Yeah, I see FTC's point. Look what they did with Bethesda. Well, Bethesda wasn't challenged for monopolistic reasons that they made it exclusive, wasn't up for debate. that's come up with Activision. So statements are made about like timed non-exclusivity basically of a decade. Is that sufficient or not? It's something I think that's probably worth discussing for them. But there are other things too. Like why is it okay to be focused on the console side of things versus acknowledging, well, Microsoft lets everything come out on PC also. Sony will make PC people wait a year on their consoles. At least. So why is that okay? and it's probably not but that's just how it is i don't know my my sole reason besides having to own an xbox so i like them to have want them i want the console to do better than 16 because i don't like that square so flippantly just agrees to these deals because the square is one of my favorite companies historically too and i'm just not playing final fantasies because i don't spend hundreds of dollars to buy a console to play one video game and so that's why i don't do it but it irks me that it's not available because i could have made that decision if sony owned final fantasy that would be a deciding factor on well okay do i get a ps6 or an xbox series x2 or whatever the stupid name microsoft are going to come up with yeah because they always have a dumb name like i'm able to weigh do i want halo or god of war you know i that i know going in i expect third party stuff to not be a factor so i understand why people are upset who are like all in on the call of duty bros and they went playstation but call of duty is their most important thing totally understand that granted it's not an issue this generation if a 10-year agreement comes into play microsoft i read is predicting the next console generation will probably drop 2028 and i assume sony will probably do it around the same time because they almost always align within 12 months i just yeah and i agree i just find it interesting that Most of the arguments I'm hearing are basically like this isn't fair when Xbox does it. Yes, and I agree. And part of the reason I kind of want it, besides me owning – happening to own an Xbox, is because when it comes to console video games, Sony wields undue influence in my view. and that this takes away some of their power because some major IPs are now in the stable of another company, I think it opens the door to some interesting discussions. Yes, Microsoft might try and just wall-garden the whole thing. But I also think we've seen with – you can point to Bethesda, but you can just as easily point to Minecraft and say, when something is already broadly successful, there's a lot of money to be made by not going exclusive. and and maybe that means there could be some horse trading that's what i'm thinking it's like what if microsoft says you know what after our 10 years hey sony we're going to let you have call of duty for another 10 years on the condition that you don't enter into an exclusivity agreement with square on anything or you need to let us have something of yours right god of war we'll give you call of duty for god of war and we'll let you have forza while we're at it in exchange for, I don't know what else Sony has. Horizon. Right. We need some tall grass hiding games in our system too. I think that's the kind of horse trading that would be good in the long run. Because right now Microsoft has got nothing to horse trade. No, they don't. Halo's crap. It's fallen into shadow and flame like a ball rug pulled into the pits of despair. Yeah, I just think. Now, it would be hilarious if the deal is shot down and they walk away from the deal. And then just out of spite, they go the PlayStation route and just bribe Activision to make Call of Duty console exclusive. Immediately, basically. I've wondered. That's one of those super, super petty things that I would also laugh about for a long time. In some ways, that might even be better, though. From my perspective, because then it's like it's getting at the flaw of the system. So there's some added. Right. Maybe we'll see some good reforms out of it that would benefit everyone. I bet. I don't know. I doubt it will happen. It's not interesting. The bribe would have to be too high. And just one last Microsoft thing. They are increasing costs of the Series X and Game Pass subscriptions. So That's The Game Pass subscription increase is not a surprise It's been a few years Since they've upped it And with all of the exclusives That are like day one launches coming I said I ain't buying it I know you're not I also have rules about streaming services You have rules You have all sorts of weird Rules that May or may not make sense Real gamers have weird rules They don't just throw money at everything to solve their questions of deciding things. I live my gaming frugal. I analyze. I worry about every dollar. That's how you're able to move into the other collections. Yes. You can have collections as a hobby because your video games suffer. That's right. You have to make the choice. I built up enough IV gas card points. I saved $4.01 on my gas fuel up yesterday. You know what? You've got to make the hard choices. That's going to help buy a pinball. That's it. That $4.01. That's how I sacrifice. That's what you do. That's what you got to do. You got to give blood. You got to give plasma. I haven't sold plasma. I haven't resulted to that. So, Twitch has released some new labels for their mature content. They're not actually changing their rules. They're just getting a more granular labeling system. so that instead of just labeling everything as mature content, you can put it down. It's like, oh, hey, this has excessive tobacco use or drugs, or this has sexual themes, or this is violent, or this has a lot of profanity in it, or this has gambling in it, stuff like that. So it doesn't change anything. They're just letting you get more granular with the labels. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. That's good. They've added Hype Chat, which is basically YouTube super chat where somebody pays you money during a live and then their chat comment sticks to the top of chat for a little while and is highlighted and all that. It is, you can, the streamers can set a minimum for a super chat. The highest minimum you can set for, I'm sorry, a hype chat. for the highest or the lowest minimum, the highest minimum you can set is $100. But you cannot turn hype chat off. You have to accept it. If somebody gives you more money than the minimum, you have to accept their hype chat. What's the minimum? The minimum can be as low as a dollar. They get to set, they can set the minimum between a dollar and a hundred dollars. I haven't looked in on my YouTube settings. If you can set ranges, because I wanted to think on YouTube the lowest minimum is $2 US I thought. I'm not sure. Maybe it's lower. Maybe that was a suggestion. I've done a couple to test out. You should see if you can send more than $100 to my channel as a test. As soon as you give me more than $100 to send to your channel as a test. Well, that's why we need more Patreon.com slash TheCluckicGamersPodcast support. It's all about I've got to be frugal to save up for my next Switch console by someone else. Purchase thing, game, box, system that I'll ignore because I just end up playing computer all the time. See, that's what happens to save the money. And on Twitch, they also introduced a partner plus, so they finally are offering 70% revenue split. That's what everyone's wanted. Yes. Unfortunately. What? They're only offering it to people who get 350 or more reoccurring paid subscriptions per month for three months. That gets you that revenue split for a year. Okay. Gift subs and prime subs don't count. That's going to be so hard to meet then. It's almost impossible. A ton of the subs are prime subs. In fact, I was getting some drops for Overwatch 2, actually, and I was like, oh, wait, I haven't used my Prime sub in like eight months. And I gave it to some streamer that I was watching just to get – I wasn't really even watching, quite frankly. But I was like – when I looked at the chat and you'd see subs come in, most of the time they're Primes. And GIFs would – I get that. I get that one because that's a way where basically the channel owner essentially could just gift subs to and pay the money to try and get to the higher revenue split. They might think it makes logical – I don't think it would. I don't think they'd make enough money to make up. No, but wow. I mean, hardly anyone is going to get has 350 recurring to like, I don't think any, I'm not going to say think I, I bet you, if you combined all of the pinball streamers together, you wouldn't have 350 non prime non gift subs a month on all of them. And that was a thing I saw. Someone did the kind of math breakdown of that. It's basically a very narrow sweet spot between the streamers that are so big they have their own special one-on-one deals with Twitch and the normal streamers. This will form a very narrow little wedge of the pie right at the top of the people who are on the cusp of becoming so big that Twitch cuts special one-on-one deals with them. So this probably doesn't really cost Twitch much of anything No, because it's not going to affect very many people Once you remove Prime and gift subs That's so smart of them though to pull Prime Everyone's going to get excited and they're going to see that I bet a lot of them don't even necessarily even think just how It does say in the chat when someone says It says when they sub them with Prime It's so much of it It is And honestly in a lot of ways I know I've seen far more Prime subs And people gifting subs than I do anything else because a couple of the streamers I follow, it is not uncommon to have a person gift anywhere from 10 to 100 subs in a stream. And normally that all comes from one person. So it's just insane to me. I was in a smaller streamers thing one day, and there's only like 10 of us in there. and there was like one prime subscribed guy in there I guess and he gifted enough subs to gift everybody that was in chat at that time which like I said was like nine other people but it was just one of those things but none of those would count towards that guy I mean to be fair he didn't have enough subscribers that it would have mattered for him but and to finish it out we're going to talk about E3, which was canceled this year and everyone was very sad. Nobody was sad. No one really cared. Reports are coming out that E3 2024 and E3 2025 are already canceled. Now, the ESA that runs E3 has said that no final decisions have been made about E3 2024 and beyond. And that this is not, this is just a rumor. Okay. But these rumors are coming from the report that was kicked out by the Los Angeles City Tourism Department stating that the conventions had been canceled to basically free up the space. The space is available for rebooking. Okay. So which one do you believe? Do you believe the people who have the space and say, no, no? I think this is one of those where the ESA is saying no final decisions have been made about 2024 and beyond, but they have canceled the space booking. Because they have to do it now or else it's going to cost them money. This isn't COVID where they get to have the national emergency argument to protect their monies. I don't know how they bring E3 back. I don't think it's possible. I just don't see it. I think they're having trouble letting go, and I understand that, but I don't think there's a reasonable path at this point. The problem fundamentally comes down to they'd have to have something that would convince the developers to want to come back, and I think they're all doing so well with their standalone, far more affordable events that there's absolutely no point. Yeah. Between all of those and then Summer Game Fest? Yeah. There's no way. I just don't get it. I don't think it's going to happen. Interesting, though. So I just like that they're like, no, no, this hasn't been decided. It's like, yes, it has. If the convention center is for rent again on your held dates, it might not be canceled, but you might be back to having the convention center attached to the Doubletree in one of the small suburbs. But that's it. That is it. That is all of the video games. That is all of the pinball. that is all of us we actually had a pretty meaty episode as you can go to patreon.com slash eclectic gamers podcast you can also email us eclectic gamers podcast at gmail.com and you can go to facebook.com slash eclectic gamers podcast when i post this episode on facebook if you have a facebook account maybe go in the comment section since we're not going to share emails and you all can discuss mario rpg and also give your thoughts on tears of the kingdom so glenn has a place if he has access to facebook to go and look and maybe see someone that actually cares. I will say the memes, the Tears of the Kingdom memes, the America music playing as all these flying jet things fly over and just bomb everything on the screen cracks me up every time. Not as much as the Swole Lifters, like we talked about in the last episode, but you appreciated the Swole Pikachu. That was great. I've been Tony. I'm Dennis. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: fe2724a8-556b-4bd8-bfbf-ba1b096fe557*