Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Saturday, June 16th. It's episode 64, and I'm Dennis. Now, before you all get concerned that you're not hearing Tony do the introduction like he usually does, do not worry. This is the E3 2018 episode. We are going to have some guests on later. It's going to be a long episode, and because of that, I am recording most of the pinball segment ahead of time so that everyone can get out at a reasonable hour. So you will be stuck with me for the next few minutes. Now, since there's no real point in doing introductions, Instead, I'm going to go ahead and answer some common questions that we've received. Tony and I don't actually have a mail segment where we go over listeners' feedback. We sometimes mention some of it. We usually just respond offline. It's just how we've structured the show. And so I've been saving some items, not attributable to anyone specifically, and they all seem to be mostly around podcasting in general, and I figured I'll go ahead and stick them in as my introduction. So the first question I wanted to tackle was, what do we use to actually record this show? And the answer is, it depends, because we experiment with a lot of different things as we go along. So I can never say we're really committed to one particular setup. However, in terms of hardware, Tony uses a Blue Snowball microphone. I use a Blue Yeti microphone. These are both USB-based microphones. and I use for on-site recordings a Tascam portable recorder. Specifically, I use a DR-05. In terms of remote recording, most of the time we contact people through Skype and in that case I use another software package that is called a multi-call recorder to capture the audio. I also will use, if I'm doing a traditional phone call such as I did with the Deep Root interview, I use an application creatively called Call Recorder, and editing is done, as most people do, in Audacity. So that pretty much covers all the stuff we use for recording. Next question. Why do you guys record fortnightly? Well, it depends who you ask. I mean, in terms of why we started that way, Tony really deserves credit for that, and I'd say if you were to ask him today, it's still mostly driven by the fact that these hobbies, even the video game hobby, don't really have a lot of news constantly coming in. And so he didn't really see the point in recording weekly, because there's really just not enough news to warrant it. I know that seems a little odd if you think about it. You read This Week in Pinball, there's always news going on on pinball. There's always some news going on in video games. But we were thinking in terms of major news, significant things, like the release of a pinball machine or a brand new video game was revealed. it doesn't really work that way. And so because of that, we figured doing it every other week would work out better. Now, if you were to ask me at this point, why do we do it fortnightly? Generally, I would interpret that interpretation to mean you don't want it less often because if you were tired of hearing us this much, I would think you'd just unsubscribe. But I don't like the idea of going weekly because it doubles my work. And everything about the podcast is designed to keep me from burning out. So because I'm doing all the editing and just the effort that it takes to put together the show notes ahead of time, contacting guests when we're going to have guests on, it's all sort of structured that way. So if we were to move from fortnightly to weekly, the first thing that comes in my mind is you just doubled my workload and I don't want my workload doubled. So we stick with fortnightly because it's a reasonable work balance that I'm able to keep up with. And I'm assuming for Tony, too. But anyway, those are our two reasons why we've done it from a fortnightly basis. it works pretty well for us. I hope it works well for you. Third question, how do you select guests? I don't say there's really any particular way we select guests. Actually, all of the guest hosts have been arranged by me. So I guess the question is best answered by me. I just choose people I think have interesting perspectives. That's really anyone I think is going to have an interesting conversation with us. So I usually focus on finding people that I think have a strength in an area that we are weak. So that's why we've had a number of pinball collectors on because Tony and I aren't really big time collectors. And if I think the conversation is going to be good, I'll go that way. I've lately had a lot of people on that do their own show or podcast. And again, workload reasons. I know they all have the equipment to actually do the podcast and have clean audio. So it very convenient to know that your guest actually is capable of doing something like that or if they been on other shows you know I don like to try and get people who have been recently on another podcast because i think it gets tedious to constantly hear the same people over and over so i do try and mix it up a bit but you striking a balance there so it really just whoever i think might have an interesting story and is willing to actually come on and talk because there are people i contact who are uncomfortable coming onto a podcast they don't want to have their voice out there and that's fine so sometimes those certain conversations don't get to happen in this sort of medium. Let's see. Fourth question. What do you think of podcasters having non-disclosure agreements or NDAs with companies they cover? Okay, I'm not a fan. That's the short answer. That's up to each podcast. The thing to remember with most of these podcasts, our podcast included, is we are not journalists. So the idea of needing to be open and transparent and you don't operate under NDA, that doesn't really need to apply in the same way that you might expect of a journalistic source that would be trying to get to the truth and always get the truth out there. That said, it's very frustrating because I know on some shows, and I hear this on the video game side as well, they have these relationships, they get really close and cozy with the manufacturers, and then maybe they tell you they know things but they can't talk about it, and it's really awkward from a listener perspective to hear a show, and a show knows something, and they're willing to tell you they know something, but they're not willing to tell you what they know. It's an interesting tease. I think it's tacky. And this is part of the reason why Tony and I actually do not try and form relationships with manufacturers. We have invited people who work for manufacturers on to talk about things. We've invited manufacturers to discuss their products with us. I don't want to be in the official loop. I don't want to be on an NDA with Stern Pinball so that I know what the next five titles are. I don't see any advantage from putting together the show perspective to do that. The only value I could ever come up with is that I would be leveraging the fact that I have a podcast to actually stay officially, quote unquote, in the know. And but that doesn't serve the listeners in any way. Now, that said, there are people who will send me things and I'm sure this happens for all the other shows. And they'll say this is not for disclosure. This is not for airing. This is confidential. And a lot of times they'll say that and then immediately say what they have to say. and you just have to work within those confines because there are people that sometimes want to share information and they don't want it to be on the podcast. I've had people contact me who just want me to know because they can tell after they hear an episode that I'm really confused about something and so they're trying to educate me but they're not trying to educate the audience and that's not an NDA. That's just someone basically giving you something off the record and that's fine. You just have to accept that and then try and keep track. Hopefully, it doesn't happen too much because you don't want to make a mistake and accidentally reveal something that you didn't want to reveal. But, you know, that is a bit of a challenge. But no, I'm not a fan of entering into arrangements with manufacturers. Tony and I have no relationship with any video game designer, publisher, or pinball manufacturer with an NDA in place. We don't have any of those. We don't have any of those relationships. And the fifth and final question is, should a podcast be on a fixed schedule? There is no right answer to that. it's up to the podcaster and whatever works for them. From a listener perspective, schedules are best. And that is part of the reason why we do a schedule. In fact, when we were setting up the podcast, Tony insisted we needed to be on a schedule. The listener base is most loyal to shows that have schedules. And I really like having a schedule because it makes sure we keep doing it. It's so easy to slip and let weeks and weeks pass when you do not commit to a schedule. So for me as a planning-oriented person, I find it ideal. And from a listener standpoint, there's no disadvantage to being on a schedule for the listener from a listener perspective. So it is, I feel, a superior approach. I know some people advise differently, and that's fine. It really is. You need to be able to do – if the question is coming because you want to do a podcast, then you need to do what's going to be comfortable for you because you don't want to burn out. that's in my view that's the biggest risk you'll burn out like half these shows i've listened to that go away don't even announce that they've gone away they just sort of pitter out and it's annoying because i want them out of my phone subscription podcaster list and i want to fill it with other stuff but as long as i still see them i can't be sure if they're gone so i believe in schedules but it's up to the podcaster i can tell you there's no disadvantage to a listener for doing it however so introduction questions are done let us move to the pinball segment and start working on the news. First news story I want to touch on. This was interesting. It just came up recently. Sandra Bullock, who was one of the stars of Demolition Man, is out promoting her new movie, Oceans 8, and during an interview and a discussion with one of her co-stars, mentioned that she was annoyed that Warner Brothers never gave her a Demolition Man pinball machine and noted that her male co got a machine Now, I'm not going to go into whether or not it was just because they were male and she was female, or if it was how many different male co-stars. She cited three different ones. Two of them did do voice call-outs for the game. She did not, I believe, do any custom speech for the game. However, she should have got a Demolition Man pinball machine. Her face is one of the three on the back glass. It's silly that she didn't. So she actually put Warner Brothers on blast saying, I want my Demolition Man pinball machine. Of course, I've already seen there's a discussion thread on Pinside about whether or not they should get her a Demolition Man pinball machine and donate it to her. Some others have noted she could easily afford a Demolition Man pinball machine. It is only Demolition Man after all. It's not a particularly valuable pin. But I think from her perspective, it's not anything other than that Warner Brothers should have done it for her, and she's annoyed that they didn't. Not that she couldn't easily go out and afford a Demolition Man. But I just thought it was interesting because, hey, apparently pinball can be emotional even for actors and actresses, especially when they don't get one and everyone else does. So let that be a lesson to any of you movie studios listening out there. If you're going to do pinball machines and give them to some, you better be ready to give them to all. That said, Demolition Man is one of the better widebodies, so I would say in terms of a game she would want, there are a lot others that are a lot better, but she could do far worse than getting the game that actually has her face on it. Alright, next news item. Let's talk a little bit about some stuff going on in the industry. Scott Denisey, the creative mind behind Total Nuclear Annihilation, which Spooky Pinball has been releasing to great success and fanfare. it has been confirmed by Spooky that Scott is working on a second game and this surprises no one I know he played coy with this for quite a while that he likes his job with Pinball Life and he hadn't decided that he was going to be working on the game I thought it was obvious that he was going to do a game number two so I'm going to say I told you so it's just based off of how long and how carefully he's been treating Total Nuclear Annihilation he's been continuing to update it I don't think his interest in the design process has waned at all. I think it was very transparent that he was really, really passionate, and that passion didn't seem to go away, and it only makes sense to take that passion and put it into a new project. Of course, the question that everyone is going to be wondering, well, I think everyone who's concerned with design, is will Scott be doing another single-level game, or will he move into what is seen as the more modern design practice and start doing things with ramps and toys and such? And I have no idea because you could see it go either way. He might feel it would be fun to do something with a higher, well, I don't want to say a higher bill of materials. Well, I wanted to, obviously, but now I'm hesitating on that because Total Nuclear Annihilation is not a street-level game. I've mentioned that several times. It wasn't designed with a low cost point in mind, which is a core principle of street-level if you're following the premier model. It was just a single-level game. There are interesting challenges that single level presents. I think he could do a lot more creative layouts in the vein of Total Nuclear Annihilation if he wanted to. But that said, Spooky typically has produced games with ramps and a much more modern feature set, and he might be curious to see what he could come up with along those lines. He might already have something in mind. but those are the areas I really expect to see possible variants because Scott likes music. I think it's going to have a killer custom soundtrack no matter what he does. So that's sort of a given and I think you're going to see probably a similar light show to what you got in Total Nuclear Annihilation. I just don't see him moving away from color changing GI and everything else that he integrated. Another thing that we might see different is the screen. I don't think the LCD screen really does a whole lot that's visually particularly interesting on Total Nuclear Annihilation. I could see that being a lot more developed asset if he does something in-house with Spooky from the get-go. And so that might be something new if you really... I don't really care about that, but some people might. So it's something to consider. So anyway, good for Spooky and good for Scott Denise. I look forward to seeing more designs from him because I think Total Nuclear Annihilation is a killer concept as a game. Let's see. let's go into software side and we've got Joe Schober. Joe, is that how I say your name? It's how I am saying your name. Feel free to write in if I'm wrong, but I don't think you're listening. So I doubt I'll be corrected, but I do get 50% of all names wrong. So we have to just accept that. Anyway, Joe has joined American Pinball. Joe Schober was with Highway Pinball working on Alien pinball. And so I think that this is pretty exciting because while I have been pretty hard on Alien setting aside the whole issue with Highway the software I think on Alien is very good I just thought the layout was a step back from what Full Throttle offered I thought it was an inferior design However I think the rules are better And I saw a very preliminary rule set. But I thought the idea behind how the shots were working was really cool. In terms of rewarding shots you need to hit and punishing you for shots that you shouldn't be hitting. So I'm hoping to see a rule set like that over with American Pinball and with Joe going over there. I think there is pretty good potential for that to happen. Final piece of industry news that I think is worth touching on is David Thiel. He is a sound engineer. He's done a lot of games. He's mostly been working lately with Jersey Jack Pinball. He's been doing their Pirates of the Caribbean game that's still yet to come out. But he also worked on the sound for Hobbit and Dialed In. And then over again with Highway, he did the sound package with Alien, which if you haven't heard Alien, it sounds great. David does good work. Everyone knows he does good work. So, he is now exclusive with Deep Root Pinball. Now, David working with Deep Root is not surprising. It was announced when the designer, the full designer team was announced that he was over with them to do sound. What was not indicated in that, though, was that he was exclusive. And now, he has indicated on Pinball Profile with Jeff Teolis that he is now at this point exclusive with Deep Root Pinball. The pinball playfield designers were all exclusive, but David was not. And that was likely driven by the fact that he was still working with Jersey Jack and on the Pirates game at the time. But apparently he has reached the point where he's going to be over with Deep Root doing their designs and only their designs to help on the sound package. It's not really very surprising when you see the additional details that he supplied in the interview because he's doing more than one game with them. He noted he can't even keep up with all of the games that are being put out by Deep Root, so there will be other sound engineers, or at least one other, that will have to help out. And so he just doesn't have the time to work for any other company while he's doing these pins with Deep Root. And depending, I suppose, on how aggressive Deep Root's schedule is, after the first set of reveals, he might be busy for quite some time to come. I just think, in terms of our perspective as a podcast watching this from afar, It's just another example that DeepRoot is convincing the industry people that they are approaching, that they are very serious about what they are doing, and they are putting money behind that seriousness. And so Tony and I have already acknowledged we've moved past the point of thinking, what is this? Is this sort of a phantom company? In the software computer game side, we would call it vaporware, and we moved past this being a vaporware thing a long time ago. It seems very, very clear that some sort of product is intended to come out at some point early next year, and we will just keep watching and waiting and seeing what happens. But it's interesting. These are all really interesting moves because these are very serious professionals that keep getting recruited by Deep Root, and you just have to expect that much talent is going to come up with something worth talking about. a final news item I want to go ahead and touch on is when we were with our guest host Zach from Straight Down the Middle a pinball show last episode he mentioned, he being Zach to Tony and I that there was going to be a podcast and we had read about it from This Week in Pinball and it turned out that Jeff who does This Week in Pinball was doing it with Zach so Zach didn't give us the full total scoop so shame on you Zach we deserved it because we had you on and we were so nice to you I let you make fun of all my pinball choices. So after the episode aired, they unleashed a preliminary episode, episode zero. It was good. It followed the This Week in Pinball format. So it was essentially an audio version of the weekly news. And then episode one just recently came out and it was noted to be the series finale. And the episode was good. It was just that Jeff said it was taking way too much time to put together the weekly podcast. And that's understandable. He's already noted that he's spending a tremendous amount of time putting together the weekly blog of all of the news. And then just having to find the time to participate in the recording is, even though I think Zach was handling the editing, it's still, it's just, it's a lot of time. It's a lot of commitment. And I saw some people online begging basically for him to go to a no schedule or to go to a slower schedule. Although it's important to note the show format would have to change if you were to do that because it was all structured around doing the weekly news. And you have to be careful if you're going to do, say, the monthly news and just go through four weeks of these weekend pinball news posts. You end up still – you don't really save any time because you end up expanding the length of your episode and all of your prep. I think what Jeff should do is you just need to go on the guest circuit tour. That's what you got to do. You just got to go. You got to pull how Steve Bowden did it for years. You just go on all the shows you want to whenever you have the time and you're interested and you don't need to do as an interview. Come on as a guest host to places and say. I just want to chat about pinball for a while. You have no prep responsibilities. You have no editing responsibilities. And that's it. And then just coast to podcast guest glory. That's my suggested solution because I would love to stop editing. So that's what I imagine would be the dream. I would not know. But that's really it for pinball news. So once we're with Tony, we will start talking about the end of the worst of the fall, the conclusion to his stunningly negative pinball tournament. Well, Tony is with us now. Welcome, Tony. Thanks for starting without me. I know, I'm such a mean person. But we have so much to talk about. There's so many video games. And we're still not even done with the pinball segment yet. And that's why I needed you. I could not do this. You're a brainchild. The darkness that was inside you. It's time to release it, finally, onto the world, like a xenomorph onto a derelict spaceship. That is, of course, the worst of the fall The worst pinball machine of 1994 to 1999 Tony, what are the results? The final results With a bigger difference than I expected By a long shot Viper Knight driving is the worst game Of this, let's face it It's the worst game of all time Well, we don't know that scientifically No We just know that in our soul In our hearts and our souls We know it's the worst game of all time. And I will now blame the total collapse of pinball on Viper and iDrive. On Sega and Viper and iDrive. It's Sega's fault. Sega. Sega destroyed everything. That's sad. Everything they touched dies. That's sad. So how badly did it beat Premiere's Shaq attack? It was a 70% win. I figured this would be tight. I thought it would be close. I thought Shaq would win. I've never heard anyone. I mean, to be fair, I've never heard anyone say anything good about Viper either. Well, sure, yeah. But because it's Premiere and it's System 3, I just thought, Shaq Attack's going to carry this. Right. But I think more people have played Viper and they know. They know the pain. Yeah. They know the pain deep in their soul. Well, this is really good. They've got that shadowed hole in their soul from playing Viper. And I understand that. And this is really good because I've been talking to local area people in the Kansas City area where we live about that I thought that whatever won this should have to be on location for at least half a year. And it was. And we already had it, so I think we've kind of met that and we don't need to relive the experience. You don't have to go buy that $3,000 shack attack. Yeah. Jason, one of the listeners for the show, sent us a link to the $3,000 shack attack. And, I mean, it was about $3,000 too much, but it was the only source I knew of. I will be fair. It was about $2,950 too much.