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Episode 12 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·59m 41s·analyzed·Mar 19, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

ZapCon recap: Labyrinth dominance, Barbecue Challenge disappointment, Jaws earnings lead.

Summary

Electric Bat Cast Episode 12 discusses ZapCon, a Phoenix pinball and arcade convention featuring notable games like Mobius (custom homebrew), Computer Space (rare arcade), Labyrinth (high-demand new release), and Barry O's Barbecue Challenge (American Pinball newest title). The hosts review earnings data showing Jaws leading with Elton John close behind, discuss operator experiences with new game performance, and answer community questions about arcade operations and age policies.

Key Claims

  • Barry O's Barbecue Challenge has laggy, underpowered flippers typical of American Pinball games, but good geometry with innovative features like captive-ball-style saucers and sweepable drop targets in the multi-ball orbit

    high confidence · Direct gameplay experience at ZapCon; multiple witnesses

  • Barbecue Challenge shipped with beta code, which hosts believe hurt first impressions and market reception compared to finished Stern releases

    high confidence · Game announced with 'beta code' label; hosts observed lack of enthusiast repeat play compared to Labyrinth

  • Jaws earned approximately 80% of Elton John's first-month earnings record, suggesting Elton John's record was not purely driven by increased arcade traffic but specific game appeal

    high confidence · Monthly earnings audit data; direct comparison by operators

  • Labyrinth drew consistently deep lines at ZapCon with strong word-of-mouth (people pulling friends), contrasting sharply with Barbecue Challenge's minimal organic interest

    high confidence · Direct observation at ZapCon; multiple instances of social validation behavior documented

  • Pulp Fiction earned in 3 days approximately what Galactic Tank Force earned in an entire month

    high confidence · Recent earnings data; Electric Bat operator direct knowledge

  • Computer Space arcade was rescued from Goodwill after community members searched Arizona Goodwills based on descriptions; purchased for ~$20-$200 range

    medium confidence · Story corroborated by two separate community sources; unusual acquisition narrative

  • Galactic Tank Force dropped from 5th place to 27th place month-over-month, falling below Bally Eight Ball

    high confidence · Monthly earnings audit comparison; clear data trend

  • Stern machines at ZapCon booth drew continuous lines, while new games like Barbecue Challenge saw minimal organic play interest

    high confidence · Direct observation at shared booth; contrast noted between established Stern catalog and new release

Notable Quotes

  • “People were very excited about it and wanted to play over and over and over. And what we saw were pinheads in the know going over and checking it out and playing it once or twice and moving on. I never saw anybody go and grab their friends and say, you've got to check out the barbecue game.”

    Host (Electric Bat Cast) @ ~35:00 — Direct critique of Barbecue Challenge's lack of social transmission and repeat appeal vs. Labyrinth's viral engagement at the same event

  • “I think American is trolling us now. Because it is, visually, it's not quite visually appealing. It's not stunning. As a pinball machine. Or as a cooler.”

    Host (Electric Bat Cast) @ ~30:00 — Candid aesthetic critique of Barbecue Challenge artwork and execution; questions American Pinball's design choices post-Galactic Tank Force

  • “If the code was completed, would you tell operators to get it? If it was good. No, I wouldn't tell them to get it. But I would feel like they were on the trajectory of earning some trust back.”

    Co-host (Electric Bat Cast) @ ~40:00 — Even hypothetical code completion wouldn't salvage Barbecue Challenge recommendation; structural/design issues beyond code quality

  • “For an extra $1,000, you can get a Pulp Fiction. That's a phenomenal game.”

    Host (Electric Bat Cast) @ ~50:00 — Price/value comparison suggests Barbecue Challenge lacks competitive advantage in the market at similar price points

  • “This is a dream theme, and they did it right. Like, they really, they did a service to the, everything's great. They did everyone a solid.”

    Host (Electric Bat Cast) @ ~90:00 — Pulp Fiction execution praise; contrast to Barbecue Challenge aesthetic and quality complaints

  • “I think that new games get a large piece of the pie, but I also think that it makes the overall pie bigger. More people are coming in because of those games.”

    Co-host (Electric Bat Cast) @ ~110:00 — Operator data-driven perspective on new game launches expanding total arcade attendance vs. pure cannibalization

  • “We have under 21 is you can go there under 21 until 7 with someone over 20. There always has to be somebody over 21 present. At any time.”

Entities

Barry O's Barbecue ChallengegameLabyrinthgameJawsgamePulp FictiongameGalactic Tank ForcegameElectric Bat

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pulp Fiction's immediate success (top 5 earnings, sustained lines) demonstrates strong market demand for Stern catalog games and willingness to play established releases; suggests market still expanding for quality games but consolidating around proven manufacturers

    high · Pulp Fiction earned in 3 days what Galactic earned in month; lines persisted two weeks after launch; only public copy in Arizona driving traffic; hosts cite 'dream theme' execution as differentiator

  • ?

    community_signal: ZapCon stall ball competition with participation incentive (raffle ticket for play, not winning) drew 80-100+ entrants on Sunday, demonstrating community appetite for casual competition and social arcade events

    high · Sunday stall ball had 80-100 person queue; hosts specifically designed participation > performance reward structure; successful raffle execution with generous prize

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Stern machines maintained continuous player lines at ZapCon despite being playable at other arcades, while new American Pinball and niche releases (except Labyrinth) saw minimal sustained interest, indicating brand/quality-based loyalty

    high · GameRoomGoodies Stern booth had lines throughout; Barbecue Challenge saw pinheads check once/twice then leave; Labyrinth exception drew 80-100 person queue

  • ?

    design_philosophy: American Pinball potentially cutting corners on artistic execution (hypothesis of cost-saving measures vs. hiring skilled artist) as evidenced by Barbecue Challenge's fragmented aesthetic compared to their prior releases (Houdini, Hot Wheels, Oktoberfest, Galactic Tank Force)

    medium · Host speculation: 'They may be trying to save money by not hiring a skilled artist'; visible aesthetic downgrade from Galactic Tank Force to Barbecue Challenge

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.179

0:00
You got all kind of notes. You gonna ask me some things? Yeah, I'm gonna ask you some things. Let's do it. All right. Hello and welcome to the Batcast After Dark. After Dark. This is the first Batcast that we have done at night. Yes. What do we have? It's actually 909. I think that means something there. 909 in Phoenix, Arizona. We just saw something phenomenal. Yeah. A rocket. The SpaceX. The SpaceX rocket, it launched from somewhere in California, but it flew across our sky and left a, what do you call it, a contrail? Or is that just a conspiracy theory term? Anyway, it had a long line of smoke behind it. It was cool because it was dark outside, but the trail was bright. Right. Fascinating. And we actually saw the rocket shoot off into the distance until it eventually disappeared. And I don't know. What do they do with those things? They go into the ocean or something? Well, I think it was just out of sight. I don't think it was dropping off into the ocean. But isn't that where they end up? Space trash. I'm not sure. I haven't done enough SpaceX research. I'll tell you what. And if you guys haven't noticed already, we're in a new studio. Yeah. It's really just a different room. Different room in the house. A different room. We're on the couch. We moved out of the library, and we're in here. I like it. We're relaxed. We're on a couch. It's nicer to be on a couch. Sometimes the chair, you had some issues with leaning back. Early on when I was using a chair, I think I stole from a hotel. That one failed anyway.
1:56
So here we are. Let's get right down to it. Okay. I think the first thing we want to talk about is ZapCon. Yes. We just had ZapCon. It was great. That was very cool. Lots of great games. some notable games yeah but it was both pinball and arcade upright arcade machines and you had some merchants we also went to the renaissance festival this weekend so there may be some miladies milord tell me about the merchants you had some merchants you had motoglass you had some other guys selling all kind of wares related to a pinball and arcade. That was a lot of fun. As far as the games go, notable games. Yes.
2:53

Host (Electric Bat Cast) @ ~125:00 — Operational model for age restrictions in licensed bar venues; industry practice example

  • “You don't put your, yeah, best looking game next to this game is not the move.”

    Co-host (Electric Bat Cast) @ ~33:00 — Practical observation about placement strategy; Barbecue Challenge hurt by adjacent Galactic Tank Force's superior aesthetics

    • organization
    ZapConevent
    Computer Spacegame
    Mobiusgame
    GameRoomGoodiescompany
    Elton Johngame
    Godzillagame
    Stranger Thingsgame
    Bond 60thgame
    CW Gossperson
    Barry Operson
    Mike Vinicoreperson
    Katie and Olivia Helmperson
    Paulperson
    Typerson
  • ?

    leak_detection: Barbecue Challenge announced day before ZapCon; wheeled in unannounced; game already in circulation at locations shortly after Texas reveal, suggesting accelerated production timeline or pre-show distribution to key operators

    medium · Host surprise: 'announced the day before ZapCon'; machine wheeled in during setup; game at multiple locations within days of announcement

  • $

    market_signal: Jaws earnings at ~80% of Elton John first-month record suggests game-specific appeal matters more than pure traffic volume; Barbecue Challenge's poor earnings trajectory despite high promotional push indicates structural market rejection

    high · Monthly earnings data showing Jaws ~80% of Elton John; Barbecue Challenge zero observable player retention at convention vs. Labyrinth's sustained lines

  • ?

    community_signal: Barry O remains celebrated designer but his involvement in Barbecue Challenge scope unclear; varying reports suggest possible concept-only vs. full design role, indicating potential disconnect between brand reputation and execution quality

    medium · Hosts note 'varying reports' on Barry O's work scope; community confusion about his level of involvement; last public sighting at Texas Pinball Festival couple years ago

  • ?

    product_strategy: Barbecue Challenge rushed to market with beta code for Texas Pinball Festival announcement timing; hosts speculate all hands on deck shifted from Galactic Tank Force updates (virtual locks still in place) to meet deadline

    medium · Game shipped with beta code label; hosts note 'they wanted it out for Texas'; Galactic still uses virtual locks suggesting development resource reallocation

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pulp Fiction priced competitively with Barbecue Challenge but delivering vastly superior player satisfaction, code completion, and market performance, suggesting classic/simple rule design and theme execution trump contemporary feature complexity

    high · Pulp Fiction earned in 3 days what Barbecue Challenge earned in full month; praised for 'simple rules that you can make complicated'; hosts prefer straightforward alphanumeric experience to modern LCD complexity

  • ?

    product_concern: Barbecue Challenge criticized for mixed art styles appearing amateurish, laggy underpowered flippers, spinners positioned ineffectively on ramped shots, beta code shipping, and overall lack of visual appeal compared to contemporaries

    high · Direct hands-on critique; 'It's not visually appealing. It's not stunning'; spinners described as 'whomp' instead of smooth rotation; multiple design issues noted

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Galactic Tank Force dropped from 5th to 27th place month-over-month, suggesting rapid player abandonment after initial curiosity despite prior podcast hype

    high · Month-over-month earnings audit showing dramatic 22-position drop; hosts attribute to community moving on after extensive prior discussion

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Barbecue Challenge tied to BBQ theme within Texas Pinball Festival timing strategy; thematic relevance to geographic market may have driven decision to prioritize launch over code completion

    medium · Hosts quote: 'you've got to have barbecue in Texas for that show'; game announced and distributed around Texas event; theme licensing/regional timing coordination evident

    • Arzak? Arzak. Yeah, Mobius. Man. That was so cool. I'm a Mobius fan, and listeners know I'm a Mobius fan. This game was unbelievably cool. Yes. Completely custom. um but he and he routed it out like in his driveway by hand when you can't tell no cnc right right no cnc it was i think it was a router and some jigs or maybe even freehand but it it looked cnc he did a great job cw goss before we forget cw goss um made this machine amazing job CW. And there's a pin side thread so you can... I was about to ask. Yeah, you can follow... People can follow along with the whole build and see the finished product. I guess just search and it's A-R-Z-A-C-H? Yes. Okay. So search that. And this is cool because usually whenever we're telling people about or if you're telling someone, oh, go follow along. This is nice because we're at the completion. The game is done. So you can go back and look two years ago or however many years ago how he started it and right it took it took a couple of years to complete this thing so cool great job cw another notable game computer space there was a working computer space it was beautiful the red one do you know who brought that i think derrick who is one of the new showrunners okay uh thank you for bringing that out and There was an interesting story with this.
    4:37
    This game, long story short, we heard this story from two different people, so we know it's true. Yeah. If you write, you hear from two people. Two people, then it must be true. Separate occasions.
    4:48
    Basically, long story short, the game was somewhere, and somebody talked to the person who saw this game because they described it and somebody in the know was like, oh, my God, that's a computer space. Where is it? Well, the guy took it to a Goodwill. Yeah, I think he said it was a lumpy, like a red lumpy arcade. It was a very bizarre description, but somebody who knew would know that this was computer space. Right. Okay, and it was somewhere in Arizona, and all they knew is the guy who owned it took it to a Goodwill.
    5:28
    So multiple people drove all around Arizona. Drove to all the different Goodwills. Looking for a computer space. Yes. It wasn't working. Right. So they found it in one of the Goodwills for 1999? I think it was. Right. And anybody here... but it was not a lot of money. Right, right. Somebody told me it was like 20 bucks. I would believe that. Yeah. Either way, but that thing's worth five digits, right? Yes. Okay. And now it's working, and it was there, and you can play it. Thank you for bringing that. Derek.
    6:12
    That was a neat experience, because I've always seen computer spaces as show pieces, but I've never been able to play one because they're never working. Right, right. This one was working. Do you remember, I sent you a photo from Joystick. Yes, he had all the different colors lined up. And that's an amazing, it's not an arcade, it's a... Retail shop. Yeah, a distributor. Is that in Houston? That's in Houston, right across the street from where the Houston Astros play. Okay. Very cool. And it has like a little speakeasy old school, I don't know, like Irish pub right next to it. It's built into the building.
    6:54
    It's not just a freestanding in the street. Another notable game, Labyrinth. These are out now. More and more people are seeing it. The first time we saw this was at Expo. And the lines were just insane. We played it one time, and then we were like, I'm not getting back in this line. Because it was almost like Disney World. People were just getting back into the back of the line, and it was like 80 people deep.
    7:25
    But there were also lines at ZapCon. Luckily, we had two. Yes. We had a couple of people bring in their labyrinths. And this was a very interesting thing. I think there were more people excited about this than almost any other game. The lines were consistently several people deep for both copies. And you saw people going and grabbing their friends and saying, come check this out. Yes. And then I saw several times where then those people would go and grab their friends. Everybody was very excited about it and wanted to share it with their friends. Right, right. One of them had the topper. Yeah, I love that topper. I think that's the best topper. Katie and Olivia Helm brought that one. Best topper in pinball. Yep, yep. And another fellow brought the other one.
    8:23
    And then this was a bigger surprise than any of the other games because this particular game was announced the day before ZapCon.
    8:40
    Barry O's Barbecue Challenge. The barbecue adventure. And our friend brought it in, wheeled it in through the roll door there. We just happened to be standing there. And we were like, holy crap, that's the game. There's the barbecue game. Here it is. and it wasn't covered or anything. He brought it. He wheeled it on in. Had it on a coffin cart.
    9:08
    As soon as... Let me speak for myself. As soon as I saw it, and I think I talked about this on the Pinball Party podcast. Shout out to Jason. Go listen to... I don't know which... It's labeled. We're on... A recent episode. One of his recent episodes.
    9:26
    But when I saw it, I was just like, okay, American is trolling us now. Because it is, visually, it's not quite visually appealing. It's not stunning. As a pinball machine. Or as a cooler. I mean, it's not visually appealing.
    9:48
    Okay, so it came in, and our friend Jordan set it up. and and this this game is at at danger zone yeah you can play it now i assume right on the floor danger zone and and we played it we were excited to play i think we were the first people to play it we plugged it in fired it up and this is before the public got there and uh uh do you want to do you want to talk about the artwork is that where we should start let's start with the beans because that is the first thing I noticed once he set it up. We were still setting up our game, so we kind of went back and forth while he was getting that set up. I went over and looked at it, and I noticed right on the apron, the first thing I see is a photograph of a big bowl of beans, or plate of beans, I don't know, a pile of beans. It amounts to a pile of beans. And then, you know, there's some other meats and food things that are photographed, and then the art on the play field is some line work.
    10:57
    And then there's some other graphic. There's a lot of different art styles and a lot of different fonts on this machine. Right. It looks like everybody got to do a part, and then they got combined. Okay. Which some people might enjoy. Some people who like really good art would probably not enjoy this. It was hurt by the fact that it was next to the fancy version of Galactic Tank Force. Right, which is beautiful. Yeah. And so you don't put your, yeah, best looking game next to this game is not the move. Even amongst American pinball standards, this was a surprise because Houdini looked cool. Houdini looked fine. Hot Wheels looked fine. Hot Wheels looks dope. And Oktoberfest, there was a little debacle about that in the beginning, you might recall. With the rapey monkey. With the monkey grabbing, yeah. And then Galactic Tank Force looks absolutely stunning. And then you have this. Yeah. Valhalla also looked... I don't really remember. We don't know what's going on. They may be trying to save money by not hiring a skilled artist. But here we are.
    12:28
    I wonder what the savings is between Franchise Galactic and what they spent on this and how that works out in sales. Maybe Franchise could give us some insight on that. He'd come on the show and talk about that. Yeah. So then let's get to the gameplay. Okay.
    12:47
    First thing you notice with this game, what I noticed, was the laggy, underpowered flippers, which if you've played an American game, you're familiar with.
    13:01
    But the geometry, it makes sense. It was good. Very cool. Yeah. And I don't know exactly how much Barry O had, you know, how much he worked on this. There's varying reports. Varying reports where it was just a drawing and then everybody else brought it to life. But either way, the geometry makes sense and is cool.
    13:31
    If you guys haven't seen a video of it, you have two saucers on either side where you can lock the ball. and then an inner right orbit where you would start your multi-ball. One cool thing is you can hit the left saucer from the plunge, which is like a skill shot. I did that one time. It was cool. Yeah.
    13:53
    And what we didn't realize when we were playing it, I learned this after, when the balls are in the saucers, you can actually hit them and they'll trigger a switch. They're like captive balls. Almost like a captive ball. Very cool. That innovative, innovative, innovative, my lord. Also, something unique is in that inner right orbit where you start your multi-ball, there's a row, there's a bank of three drop targets. Yes, sweepable. That you can sweep. And whenever I first saw that, I thought there is no way in hell this is going to work. And then you and I both did it multiple times. Very, very sweepable. Very sweepable. and and that was cool uh something else that's notable is they put spinners on the ramps this is a good idea in theory and in practicality i not sure that physics loves the positioning of this because it not level Your spinner not going to be because the pitch of the game changes Right. Which makes for a spinner that doesn't go, instead it goes like, whomp. Right. Or if you're lucky, whomp, whomp. Even if you nailed the ramp shot, your ball is losing inertia because it's going up, right? That's right. And then it loses more inertia hitting a spinner, a metal spinner.
    15:29
    Lots of times the spinner wouldn't even do a full rotation. It would just kind of flop up and go back down.
    15:37
    I think part of this is once you dial up the flipper power, I think you'll see the spinner improve. But it is – it's still maybe – it's not going to spin like an opto-spinner on an orbit. Certainly.
    15:59
    Would you recommend an operator get this game? Do I like the operator? Let's say you love the operator. Let's say the operator is me. No. No? No. So I'm guessing you don't think it would earn. I don't think it will earn past the first month of Curiosity. And we saw this as those lines we saw for Labyrinth. People were very excited about it and wanted to play over and over and over. And what we saw were pinheads in the know going over and checking it out and playing it once or twice and moving on. I never saw anybody go and grab their friends and say, you've got to check out the barbecue game. Certainly. It also has beta code, which it announces on the game. Right.
    16:54
    I think in an instance like this where American is, in my opinion, American is trying to recover from galactic tank force. I would think that you would postpone the launch to have code that is past beta. Because you want to make a splash. You want people's impression of this game to be good. Very good. As good as what you can get.
    17:25
    I don't think that's the move. What do you think? Well, obviously they wanted it out for Texas to make some kind of splash there.
    17:39
    So I think that was – the game does seem rushed, right? Also, it's kind of like after Galactic Tank Force, they don't really have anything to lose, right? Like why – Well, I think they – Because here's the thing. Would complete – okay, if the code was completed, would you tell operators to get it? If it was good. No, I wouldn't tell them to get it. But I would feel like they were on the trajectory of earning some trust back.
    18:18
    Right? Yeah. And maybe this is why we haven't had any galactic updates, It's like why we still have to use virtual locks on that game because all hands on deck to get the barbecue game done for Texas. Right. Because you've got to have barbecue in Texas for that show. I don't know. Yeah. So they were able to pull it off and they had the game in Texas and they had the game at several locations shortly after they announced it. Right. So that was a success. Yeah. And I think this game, I think it'll be kind of fun, but I think that if I was an operator, I am an operator, and I know the decision I would make for that price point for the four extra dollars or whatever it is, you'd get a Stern Pro. That's going to make you the money. Oh, yeah.
    19:13
    That's a great point. Also, for an extra $1,000, you can get a Pulp Fiction. That's a phenomenal game. Yeah. Right. Phenomenal.
    19:22
    Yeah. Okay. And then I guess there you have it with the Berrio's Barbecue Challenge. People are still asking us who Berrio was, which was weird for being at a pinball and arcade convention. He's a much celebrated and successful designer. The last time I saw him was at Texas Pinball Festival. Really? We had breakfast. Oh, you're kidding me. A couple years ago. good deal uh another game that was notable at zapcon qb3 which is a robotron sequel well is that correct it's so this is a game that was never produced um it was made by rockola and it is robotron like so if you know how to play robotron imagine you're playing robotron on a cube. So you complete one face of the cube. Once you kill all the enemies, then it moves to a different face of the cube. So you keep rotating the cube until you wipe it out. Wow.
    20:30
    From what I understand, I know there are no known copies. The game wasn't produced. Somehow, I believe it was Brian, another one of the Zapcon showrunners, got his hands on that code and completed it. I don't know what was needed to do all of that, but I know that this is a game that didn't exist. It didn't exist and now it does. There's one copy.
    21:00
    I didn't know that until the last hour of the show. We should have probably advertised it more. Yeah, right. We didn't know. Cool. It was very cool that it was there. It worked. It was playable. It was fun. It looked like a production machine. Right, right. So it was really special to be able to play it. It was a neat thing to have at the show. Very cool. I think I watched Mike Vindicore play it. He probably did a better job than me. Yeah. He was excited about it. Yeah. He knew what was going on. He knew the lore.
    21:38
    Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. And speaking of Mike, Mike Vinicore hung out with us at the Game Room Goodies Stern electric bat booth. Yeah, it was a three-way booth. It was a three-way booth. It was kind of sexy.
    21:52
    But what was cool about this, Game Room Goodies brought a bunch of their brand-new Stern machines and monitors and had it all hooked up. Stern Insider Connected. mike brought out a hot spot with a you know a you know wi-fi and all that stuff and a rig and then made the this location our booth a a verified location so people could get all the people were logging in like crazy there were lines lots every this is what absolutely blew my mind there was a whole row of of sterns you had uh you had venom you had two different venoms le and even le man that that mirrored black uh back glass i look incredible i've never seen that i hadn't either and you really underestimate because when you see the pictures of them all lined up online it's like yeah that one's maybe a little shinier or something right you see them side by side because we had a pro next to an le that back glass oh i get it now this looks killer yes i and we tried to get it from him to put in our pro a little swap yeah so they had that go for it they had stranger things um they had a walking dead jaws premium jaws premium walking dead premium jaws pro um of course the walking dead wasn't hooked up to insider connected but everything that was hooked up to Interstellar Connected, you could constantly hear that sound of people, everybody logging in. And I don't know if that had anything to do with it or whether they were just sterns and people liked playing them. I was blown away that there were lines for every single one of those machines. You can play them at any arcade. Right.
    23:42
    And people love them so much. I mean, there's a show where there's these machines where they are one-offs. people still line up right there was the brand new barbecue adventure brand new and many times i passed by and nobody was playing that thing they saw the beans right uh but the stern there were lines for the sterns uh incredible those guys know how to make a game um and game room goodies knows how to sell them and so if anybody wants that uh venom le you know give a game room Yeah, GameRoomGoodies.com.
    24:16
    Very, very cool. Something we did at our booth that was absolutely phenomenal and was your idea. Thank you for acknowledging that. Often I notice that sometimes the credit gets misplaced. Two days in a row. So we had Saturday and Sunday. We did a stall ball game on each day.
    24:35
    What was cool about the stall ball game, if you played, all you had to do was play in the stall ball game. You got a raffle ticket and Game Room Goodies gave away, is it Namco or Namco? Namco. Is it Namco? Yeah, except on Soul Calibur at the beginning. That's where I got it from. It says Namco. Yeah, I like saying Namco.
    24:59
    So you got a raffle ticket just by playing it. You didn't have to win the Star Ball. We wanted to encourage participation because participation is more important than performance. 100 percent. I like the way I like the cut of your jib.
    25:14
    It's got you to where you are today. So Saturday's stall ball game was was pretty big. Sundays. It blew me away. I couldn't believe how many people were in. Everybody lined up. And I don't know how many people there were, but everybody lined up for this. Would you think there were at least 80? I would say between 80 and 100. That's what I think. Because I took a video of it, and it kept going. I remember asking people, is this still – Do you know what you're in line for? Are you guys in the stall ball line? And they were like, yeah. Yeah, there was 80 to 100 people in there. And this is what is interesting. Paul, our player Paul, won both stall ball games. And those were his first two – because he always goes home early after tournaments. Not early. He goes home when the tournament's over because he works early. He gets up early. So he doesn't want to stay late. So he'd never stuck around for a stall ball tournament. Turns out he should have because he won two stall ball things in a row. Did you say which Namco thing Game Room Goodies gave out? He gave out a cocktail table, a Multicade, an official Namco Multicade, which was so generous, brand new. Very cool. And it's worth like $2,800. Yeah. And our friend Ty won that. And it wasn't rigged. It was totally legit. Totally random. And if you follow our social media and the podcast, you know who Ty is. He is having a blast. He said he put the GC on every single game on that cocktail table. I think there's like 36 games on there. And his favorite game is Splatterhouse. Yeah. No surprise. Yeah. Yeah, that was very, very cool. And ZapCon was a great success. Everybody had a good time. And Stahlball Paul was christened. He sure was. And so we are going to move on to the mailbag. The mailbag. Yeah. Or do you want to you want to get to the earnings report first? Yeah. You know, I totally forgot about the earnings report. Well, let's do it real quick. Let's do it. You know, we don't even have to do it real quick. We can do it real long. We can spend some time because we have – should I mention the new machines we've gotten recently? Yes. Or are they going to pop up in this earnings report? Well, let's do the earnings report first. Okay, let's go. Shoot. Because – yeah. So the winner this month was JAWS. Oh. Not a surprise. it did not break the elton john record okay um it earned very very very well um so jaws first elton is second and they were relatively close and then it drops off almost by half oh that's how how high those two um excuse me how much play those two games were getting And then it goes to Godzilla, then Stranger Things, and then Bond 60th. So we have three out of five Elwins in the top five.
    28:42
    Now, last month, I made a comment about how surprised I was, but Galactic was, I think it was in fifth place. that fell off it is in 27th place it is below bally eight ball now what what i'm guessing i would love to hear your opinion but i'm guessing the people came in to see what was going on with galactic we we we talked ad nauseum about it on the podcast and uh now they're they're moving on yeah they played their couple of games some and some people enjoy it um but yeah so now that is has fallen off we also the reason i didn't want to talk about all of the games that we've gotten recently is because we got pulp fiction oh but it was right right before this earnings report pretty close before it so it didn't factor So we see Next month we see pulp somewhere on there Yeah we see Pulp somewhere on there And in three days it earned just about as much as Galactic did in the whole month Wow. Okay. And people are loving Pulp Fiction. I cannot wait to see what the earnings end up being on this because for the first two weeks, there were lines for this game like it was at a convention. Yeah. Right now, it is the only Pulp Fiction in Arizona in public.
    30:22
    So if you want to play it, head on down to the bat. This game is fun. Really, really good. This is one of my favorite movies. When there were, I wanted this game sight unseen.
    30:37
    And so, and it has absolutely blown away all of my expectations. How often do you get to say that? Like, how cool is it? This is a dream theme, and they did it right. Like, they really, they did a service to the, everything's great. They did everyone a solid. They did, that's what I was looking for. The phrase that pays, they did everyone a solid. We all got the big solid, and this game is absolutely stunning. it uh it looks amazing it looks correct it looks correct it just looks like it's all it should have been there it's got inline drops it's got cool locks it has it's a classic some people thought it was an older game and they were wondering why they hadn't seen it that so it has this very classic look there's there's no lcd display it's all alphanumeric um but it has And I'm glad these classic feeling games are coming back. Bond 60th. Yeah. Pulp Fiction.
    31:53
    Kind of the barbecue game is kind of a throwback. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's simple. Like these simpler games. one nice thing that I didn't say about the barbecue game that you just reminded me of is that the rules are simple on this and that is often something that I want to go to that's it Pulp Fiction also has a good rule set Pulp Fiction does a fantastic job of being very straightforward about you can start a multi-ball doing this or you can start a character, or you can gamble and try and start all of your characters at once, multiple characters at once. Right. They just did a great job of making a game with very simple rules that you could make complicated by the way you chose to play it. For sure. Difficult, I should say, not complicated. Right. So can we run down the top five real quick? Jaws, Elton John, Godzilla Premium, Stranger Things, and Bond 60th. Boom. Loving that. Are there any surprises in there for you? No. None at all. Right on. What a grand time to be in the pinball world.
    33:16
    I do have one thing that I was curious about, and this gave me an answer. I was wondering if Elton John had broken a first-month earnings record because there were more people coming out and playing. So it was just a matter of volume. Right. And the fact that Jaws didn't hit that mark, Jaws got to about 80% of that, tells me that it's not a numbers game. But it could also still – there's a lot of other things going on because Elton is still there. So people's coins are divided. If Jaws had come out first, what would have happened? I'm glad you brought up that point because our first question from the mailbag touches on that. Okay. This is from Scott S. Okay. Excuse me, via email.
    34:06
    It would be interesting to know, in general, how you think about new games and how they both add to the overall coin drop, but do they also cannibalize other existing pins? Are games fighting for a fixed wallet, coin purse, or do new games expand the overall wallet size? I think that new games get people into the arcade that may not have gone that week.
    34:34
    We know that for a fact because people tell us. Some people drive over an hour when we have a new game that you can't play anywhere else in Arizona. Yeah, sometimes we have Canadians. That's way more than an hour. Right.
    34:52
    So that's a complicated question. I do think that the new games get a large piece of the pie, but I also think that it makes the overall pie bigger. More people are coming in because of those games. Sure.
    35:10
    So that's my answer. Good, and I like that. I am going to agree with you so we can move right along. Okay. Also because it's the right answer. It's the truth. I've looked at the data and I feel confident in making that assessment.
    35:31
    Okay, we got another question from Mr. Bauer, a local player. What are the highest play counts on the games that show them? I think they all show them, right? Well, not the classics. The classics you could reset. Yeah.
    35:51
    Well, you can reset. Yes. So the ones that show them the highest are Attack from Mars, and that was on location shortly before it was at the bat. So it has some pre-bat numbers. I'm not sure how many. Not a lot. Godzilla and Batman 66. All of those have 30,000 to 40,000 plays on them. Wow. Probably closer to $40,000. How much do you think Knight Rider has? Oh, you know.
    36:30
    Just spitballing. Probably $50,000. Really? You think it has $50,000? I don't know, because that's a really interesting question. I was looking at Dolly the other day, looking at some audits on Dolly, and it has a lot more than you would think. But it's not measuring, you know. But those audits, I mean, they have new boards. Right. That's what I'm saying. And it's still a lot more plays. So I would think that if you counted 30 years prior, but those were sitting in somebody's garage or home for a lot of those years. Right, right. Had they been on location, I would say they would have 120,000 plays. Now, we know the Knight Rider we have was on location. Yes. Because it has... It has some modifications. Replacement where somebody tried to steal the quarters out of it. Someone crowbarred the bottom, so now there's a very nice... So that thing could have 100,000 plays on it. Yeah, could. Very cool. I learned a little something, and so did Mr. Bauer. Thank you for your question.
    37:40
    All right, this is from Doug PDX on Discord. This is a long one. Okay. You ready for this one? Maybe. Good morning, electric bat. Good morning, Doug. You guys are awesome. Really enjoy the podcast. You can stop there. That's really what it says. Oh. Yeah. Or I'll ask a question. That's what you were waiting for. Well, I was wondering if the stop there, it's a long. All right. So, Doug PDX, I am a small operator who will be expanding here this spring. We need to make a decision about what age groups we are going to admit into our pin bar. Our pin bar is mainly pinball, but we'll have a shuffleboard, a few video games and darts. It seems like there are lots of people who want it to be 21 plus and also lots of people who want to be able to bring along under 21s. How did you all reach a decision on this? Seems like we are destined to piss off some group of customers no matter how we set things up. It's important to us that we keep a cool vibe, and I don't want our place to get overrun with kids and turn into Chuck E. Cheese. They should do what we do. What do we do? We have under 21 is you can go there under 21 until 7 with someone over 20. There always has to be somebody over 21 present. At any time. Right. 10 a.m., 6 a.m., they have to have a guardian. Okay. So at no time can someone under 21 just waltz in and start playing games. Because, I mean, we are a bar with a liquor license we have to protect. Yes. So, and then at night, it's 21 and over. And I think that's a great way to do it because we get a lot of people thanking us. Like, they can bring their kid during the day. They get to experience all that. And then at nighttime, you know, kids are at home. And we do have some families that come in every once in a while. We had a family come in today. They enjoyed everything, and it didn't turn into a Chuck E. Cheese. Right. Yeah.
    40:07
    I think it's important to have a requirement that the adult be there because you don't want to be a babysitter. Right. And we've heard about places where that does happen, where they just drop the kids off, and here's $10 or however they want to do it. Right. And then all of a sudden, you have a whole bunch of kids, and you're running a daycare with electricity, like extra electricity. Also, we have an advantage. The electric bat doesn't look like a place you want to drop your kids off at. No, you really, yeah, you've got to know what's inside to feel confident about that.
    40:44
    Oh, man. Thank you for the question, Doug, and good luck with the expansion. We want to keep us updated. We want to hear what you're doing and get some photo and video, and we'll talk about you guys once you get everything expanded and all that good stuff.
    41:05
    Here we go. Gutter Ghoul. All right. Gutter Ghoul always has some good questions. Yes. He's thoughtful. Yeah, he's thoughtful, insightful. He's smart. He's funny. Friendly. He is friendly. He's great. We love playing with him. Are machines getting easier or harder as time goes on? Is the depth fragility of software making breakdowns more frequent or harder to fix? Are the intricacies of new mechs or boards adding unnecessary failure points?
    41:43
    Yes. yeah when i think about working on a classic bally there's not that much to break right um and whenever you look at most modern games there's more things to break so i would say that they are getting more breakable um there's also a lot more software side to help you diagnose at least in Stearns and Jersey Jack. Both of them do great things with their interface to let you know XYZ is screwed up. You need to fix it. So that's how I feel about that. What do you think?
    42:31
    The only thing I could speak about is like the metal parts are not what they used to be. Yes, and that's not us being old cranky people. it's us with the good old days of real metal american steel back in our day pittsburgh really made some nice stuff sure but we have seen this and have have have data about it the steel is not what it used to be but but it's not just the steel although that is an issue It is the manufacturing. We're seeing lots of times the peening on these coil stops fail. And that's not a Stern-specific. Correct. We've seen that across manufacturers.
    43:25
    But one thing, one of the big things we noticed when the quality of steel dropped, And I don't know if – did we ever talk about this when we were working at Marco Specialties? I think we did talk about it, but we can recap. Just real quickly, we're not trying to make this political or anything. When Trump was president, he enforced – and I think everybody that followed the news knew this. He enforced some tariffs on Chinese steel. and we were importing a lot of products uh made of steel from china and in now they because it doesn't make sense they didn't jack up the price of these items they they jacked them up a little bit but in order to make up the difference for these tariffs they were adding cheaper metals. Yeah, they're just using a lesser... Right. Lots of nickel. Very inexpensive stuff.
    44:29
    So the steel is not... The structure is just different. It's not as robust as some stuff you find on some old Bally Williams things.
    44:41
    So that Another thing that makes them more breakable now Yeah absolutely Thank you so much for the question Gutter Gould Me lord.
    44:55
    We went to the Renaissance Festival. We did a bunch of me lords and me ladies. You did the hat tipping. I did some hat tipping. The sun was out, so I wore a big old, what would you call that? A straw hat? Yeah, big straw hat, like a gardening hat. That looks like Ray Dan. Very large. Right? Is that his name? It's not Ray Dan? Oh, no. No? Okay. This is also from Gotagool. I have heard that for EMs, the more you play them, the better they play in that it helps keep it in working order. Is there any truth to that? If so, why? And does that make it desirable for an arcade? since the constant play would be beneficial for it.
    45:45
    Well, I mean, it would... The game has to be desirable for it to be desirable to have it in an arcade. That is true. EMs aren't going to make a whole lot of money. No, no, no.
    46:01
    There's only a couple EMs that I would even... Jack's Open would be one. Right. Which means I'm looking – I think that I'm going to look for a JAX to open, which is the solid state, much later version of JAX open. So are you putting that out there? Yes. If somebody has a JAX open – A JAX to open. That's the solid state version of JAX open. And that's a Gottlieb. It's a Gottlieb.
    46:27
    Yeah. There's a couple of EMs that I think are fun. By and large, I don't think most EMs are that fun. they do keep working better the more you play them. And that has to do with the carbonization, with just gunk getting on the switch.
    46:45
    You want that good seer. Right, isn't it? The Maya. Yeah. You want to see the spark. You want the switch contacts to be clean. And whenever they're being used, they're making contact with each other, which is sort of a self-cleaning action, and so they stay working better. So that part of it, yes. But there's also some safety features added in solid-state machines that are not in EMs. And for an arcade, there's not always staff right there to put out a fire. Yes, that's what I was getting at. We've seen an EM catch on fire at ZapCon. wasn't we had the yeah yeah well i saw somebody running with a fire extinguisher i don't know if it had to be used but that might have been me good times at zapcon yeah i think there was not actually flame at that point uh yeah that that's kind of all that was many years ago yeah somehow That makes it better.
    47:56
    This isn't a question from the mailbag, but, and I can't, actually, a couple of people have asked me this.
    48:06
    Would we get, are you okay? I just spilled water all over myself. It's cool. Okay. If you're not watching the YouTube version of this, head over there while Rachel is dribbling water down her shirt. uh people have asked multiple people very excited are we going to get a princess bride um the people who asked me about it don't realize what a multi-morphic p3 is they are just asked they think they've heard there's a princess bride machine and they would like to play it correct Got it. I wanted to know if we would get it. We aren't.
    48:46
    There's no way we would. No. We wouldn't roll the dice with that. No. We love Jerry. Yeah. And the machines are fun to play. I enjoy playing them at shows. We play them at conventions, but it just doesn't feel like a pinball machine. And I worry with the volume that we get of play, I worry about how well it would hold up. Right. I think it's a fine at-home thing. I like the idea of being able to swap out the various modules. um but i also like i want to be able to swap out more than the back third right sure now let's rewind a little bit there there are people listening who have no idea what a multimorphic p3 is oh okay just well it's so it's it's shaped like a pinball machine but it's sort of a cross between a pinball machine and a virtual pin. It has real flippers. Real balls. Real mechs on the back half of the machine. And the play field, about two-thirds of it, would you say? I think so. It's a monitor. It's a monitor, which is super cool. If you ever run into one, you have to play it. It's something else.
    50:19
    But because the play field is a monitor, the flipper mechs cannot, of course, cannot be under the play field. They can't drill through it. Right. So the mechanism that works the flipper is above the play field, which it gives it a different feel. It's not going to feel like a Stern or a Bally Williams. um and i don't i haven't definitively heard from anyone who has actually operated them in in public so i don't know how they hold up but i i have seen them hold up well at conventions you know hold up for a weekend yeah we know that a heavy play weekend right um something else that keeps me from buying one is because it is so different um just the way it's it's put together i don't want to work on it i don't want to have to have that skill set or those parts around um that's just because we're we're busy keeping gosh right like 75 pins right between yeah we've got a lot to work on yeah and we're having a great time doing it yeah thank you for doing all this with me thank you this has been great me lady what uh what is coming up at the bat do we have some tournaments the uh what's going on we have we have our jaws launch party this weekend oh very cool so it's going to be march 23rd at noon and it is going to be a max match play format which is That's a blast. Always a good time. That's a heads up. Head to head. Okay.
    52:06
    So you're, yeah, we're going max match play qualifying and a subsidized Amazing Race finals format. Wow. Because Amazing Race is one ball play, we decided that it would be, that people can just put in one token and we'll cover the rest. Oh, how cool is that? Yeah. That is very nice of us I didn't even know about that Actually I was talking The reason that I It was something that I had thought about before And then Roland brought it up Thinking about doing some Some other big tournaments with Amazing Race And I'm thinking about myself On the player side of it If I'm only going to play one ball I don't want to pay a dollar or 50 cents I want it to feel Right Very cool So, yes, Strauss Launch Party, Saturday, the 23rd of March at noon. That's this Saturday. At noon. And the prizes? All kinds of Stern stuff. Also, we have lots of T-shirts. There's going to be a lot of giveaways. Very cool. And therefore, we're giving away both the banner and the Translight as random awards, not to the first place. The first place winner is going to get the plaque. The other stuff is going to be given randomly. So that way people have a chance to win the cool prizes even if they don't consider themselves to be the most likely to win. I love the way we do that. I do too. We really knock it out of the park with all these things we do. Yes. Wouldn't you say? I would say that. But I think it's so important. And I think that both you and I think that that's really important to encourage, again, participation over performance. The performance will come, but you have to want to be there and have a great time. And we like good times. One thing about us that separates us from other people is we like good times. Hey, the good times are what it's all about. Okay, other than the Jaws launch party, we of course have League. Tuesday night. Tuesday. Tuesday night party. We've been having a lot of people coming from out of town because we had, what was the big event? We had the baseball thing. Spring training. Spring training in Arizona is a huge thing. Still going on. Still going on? I'm pretty sure that's why we keep seeing them. There are people from everywhere coming and playing with us. league nights you can just come and play you're more than welcome to just come play one night you don't have to be yeah it's not like a what i imagine a bowling league to be like where you have to be like signed up and then you play the league you can walk right in this is open to everybody you don't even have to know how to play pinball just come and ideally you'd know the basics have a good time right like the start button start button the left and right flippers and that there's you play in an order um on our website electricbatarcade.com you can go there and see the full tournament calendar yeah because there are some there's some other stuff coming up we don't want to talk about it right now because we we don't want to overshadow this wonderful saturday with the uh the jaws launch party if you want to be overshadowed go to our website yes also you can stop at the merch page uh-huh oh yeah the merch page you can grab some uh we have the the pin towels yeah sure we have hoodies we have shirts um and all that good stuff and also i did something very cool um we we use squarespace for our they're not sponsoring us but i have to mention that it's very easy to use and if you want to build a website i recommend it to you um last year i didn't even notice this like on january january of this year uh they broke the links to our amazon tools so i had to go back in and redo all that oh so uh if you go to uh you know electricbatarcade.com and then there's a tool link we have a bunch of tools from Marco Specialties, which is a very celebrated sponsor of the show. Yes. And so we have all the tools, pinball-specific tools that you can't get on Amazon on that page. And then now we have all the Amazon stuff back. You should add those, my new wrenches. I already did. Oh. Yeah. I already did it. Look at you. What's up? I'm on the ball. You are on the ball. You like that? I did it again. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So go there. Go to the website. Learn about the tournaments. Grab some tools. And what else? I need to update. The games part is out of date by several years. Right. I need to update. Put some photos of the games. But if you really want to see what games we have, I would check pin maps. Yeah. Pinball maps. And all that good stuff. That's pretty up to date. Yeah.
    57:17
    Okay. Come play Pulp Fiction. We have that. If you're there at 7 a.m., there may not be a line. Right, right. Oh, that's a good point. We are open 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. every single day. Every day. Every single day.
    57:32
    That's all I have on the show notes. Did you have anything to round up? I want to point out your awesome shirt. Oh, my shirt. We've got kind of a meta thing going here. This is a shirt that Jard had made for you for a present. and it is made from one of some cuts of us doing a podcast. Yep, yep. This is, that's me. That's Kale. And that's me at the bottom. We're wearing Logan Arcade shirts. This is, Jard made this for me. And it says, let's talk about your husband's jujitsu awards. And that's my face being. acting like you're interested in my jiu-jitsu awards you do you i am you love jiu-jitsu yes very much so you don't do it but you love uh observing and you you you come uh you what you've watched me compete yeah like how some people watch things like the super bowl but they don't play they don't actively play football right they just like the snacks and the camaraderie yeah yeah the rooting for the various people right right the underdogs arguing about taylor swift Yeah. She won the Super Bowl. Yeah. Sorry, Jason. So that's all I have. What do you think? I think I look forward to seeing people at the arcade. Yep. And I like this new studio. I like the vibe. I like chilling on a couch. I think we're going to do a lot of great stuff here. Yes. This is very comfortable. It's how we are. We have a cat somewhere, and we thought the cat would show up. But she didn't. She stayed away. Yeah. But thank you all for joining us. We will be at the arcade at least six days a week. Pretty much always. Drop by and then knock on the office door and ask us what's going on and we'll tell you.
    59:32
    But I think right now the bats are out and we'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. Do we do the secret handshake? Yeah.
    59:39
    Thanks for joining us, guys.