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The Pinball Show Ep 178: Derpie Dragons, Arnold Doppelganger, & Mexican Ice Cream

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 47m·analyzed·Jul 1, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

JJP Harry Potter production delays frustrate dealers; Stern expands lighting accessories; major code updates incoming.

Summary

Dennis Griesel and Zach Manning discuss recent pinball manufacturing updates, with heavy focus on Jersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter production chaos, Stern's new Expression Light Topper accessory line, major code updates across multiple titles (Uncanny X-Men 0.91, John Wick 0.95, King Kong 0.83), and the frustration of customers demanding delivery timelines that retailers cannot provide due to manufacturer opacity.

Key Claims

  • Stern is building Metallica Remastered Premiums, Jurassic Park Pros/Premiums, and Godzilla Premiums this week, followed by continued Godzilla and James Bond Premiums

    high confidence · Zach Manning citing Stern's production schedule directly from sales/distribution data

  • Jaws 50th Anniversary edition may be in production July, with hosts speculating on design approach (black and white vs sepia tones)

    medium confidence · Speculative discussion about potential release timing and aesthetic direction; not confirmed by Stern

  • Jersey Jack Pinball CEs have been rolling out over the past couple weeks; production will swap to Arcade Additions, then Wizard Additions in one-week runs, then back to CEs mid-July

    high confidence · Zach Manning citing JJP production schedule information provided to retailers

  • Uncanny X-Men received major code update (0.91) branded as 'Days of Future Code, Part 1' with complete overhaul of game state

    high confidence · Zach Manning confirming code release and naming convention

  • John Wick coder left or asked to leave, then returned; V0.95 update pulled players back in with more approachable rules and faster mode access

    medium confidence · Dennis and Zach discussing John Wick code status; Zach played the update and noted subjective improvements

  • Uncanny X-Men and John Wick have been sliding on secondary market, but an uptick is expected following code updates

    medium confidence · Zach noting secondary market trends and seller observations; predicting recovery

  • Stern's Expression Light Topper costs $3.99 with interchangeable game plates at $99 each, compatible with Spike 2/3 systems

    high confidence · Dennis and Zach discussing official product pricing and specifications

  • Jersey Jack retailers are answering 20+ questions per day from customers asking when Harry Potter will ship, creating significant workday burden

    high confidence · Zach Manning describing retailer experience and frustration with production opacity

Notable Quotes

  • “I had a work conference, so I was out of town. During the crash? No, after. I crashed.”

    Dennis Griesel @ early segment — Establishes running joke about Dennis's recent vehicle incidents that frames the tone of the episode

  • “I'm going to get ice cream and tacos... dulce de leche and street tacos... It tasted extra good after the accident.”

    Dennis Griesel @ opening segment — Humorous callback to the crash story; sets casual, informal podcast tone

  • “I told you. I told listeners. And I held out. and it's coming to fruition. We got 0.91, a big overhaul in the entirety of the future game state.”

    Zach Manning @ code updates section — Zach vindicated on prediction about Uncanny X-Men code receiving major overhaul; confidence in future updates

  • “That game is going to be an effing monster. That game is going to be fantastic. It is a monster game.”

    Dennis Griesel and Zach Manning @ code updates discussion — Strong enthusiasm for King Kong's potential with v0.83 code; confidence in game's future trajectory

  • “a couple hours of my day is simply giving guesses as to what when games are going to come out. That sounds exhausting. We call that inefficiency.”

    Zach Manning / Dennis Griesel @ Harry Potter production discussion — Core frustration: manufacturer opacity creating massive retailer workload and customer dissatisfaction

  • “I don't want to upset people if it's irrational for them to be upset because number 17 would be a good thing with us... Your primary concern seems to be that because it's not complete information, you know that they're going to jump to some sort of conclusion.”

    Zach Manning / Dennis Griesel @ list position debate — Deep dive into retailer psychology around communicating partial information; tension between transparency and customer anxiety

  • “I don't want to give numbers for people because it doesn't mean anything. But they want the variables because it feels like they at least have some information.”

    Zach Manning — Articulates central problem: data without context creates false confidence or false despair

Entities

Dennis GrieselpersonZach ManningpersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyFlippin' Out PinballcompanyUncanny X-MengameJohn Wickgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack production scheduling opacity creating massive retailer workload (2+ hours daily per Zach) and customer dissatisfaction; no clear production forecast from manufacturer to dealers

    high · Zach: 'a couple hours of my day is simply giving guesses as to what when games are going to come out... I'm still answering upwards of 20 times a day when somebody... Oh, wow. It takes at least an hour of my workday every day.'

  • ?

    code_update: Stern pushing major code updates across multiple titles simultaneously (X-Men 0.91, John Wick 0.95, King Kong 0.83); hosts express high confidence in resulting game quality improvements

    high · Zach: 'I told you. I told listeners. And I held out. and it's coming to fruition. We got 0.91, a big overhaul in the entirety of the future game state.' Dennis: 'That game is going to be an effing monster.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Honeymoon period for new games (Harry Potter, King Kong) shortening; community quickly pivots to 'what's next' rather than engaging with current releases

    medium · Dennis: 'it felt like, again, by and large, the mass community of pinball enthusiasts was, all right, so what's the next game? What's next? There's very, this is a, I don't, and maybe this is true for lots of hobbies where there's like collecting and stuff, but there seems to be a, that's always, it always feels like to me, everyone always wants to talk about what's next, not really spend a lot of time on what is.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Jersey Jack positioning as 'Razzle Dazzle' manufacturer; Stern competing on volume and software; initial excitement around JJP games fades faster than expected as rules/layouts reveal limitations

    medium · Dennis: 'JJP can bring, we're talking about Razzle Dazzle, they can bring that like no other pinball company, I think. What happens often is they bring that like ooh and oh and then it slowly turns to and because the rules don't hold up or the the well layouts don't know...'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.322

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:10
What you, what you, what you, what you everybody doing? It's the Pinball Show, episode 178. Dennis Griesel, Zach Manning. Hello, Pinball Land. Oh wait, that's a wrong show. Oh, it felt so good hearing him say that again. Dennis, what have you been up to this last week, besides getting into automobile accidents? A small fender bender. Not much. Well, I had a work conference, so I was out of town. During the crash? No, after. I crashed. That was in my personal vehicle, and then I took a work vehicle, and everyone was like, are you going to ruin this one, too? Oh. I was like, you know. The last conference I went to in a work vehicle, I hit a hawk or something. It was still dark out. I saw it in the air, and bam, 75 miles an hour. I was on cruise. It was a wild turkey. Right into the windshield. It could have been a wild turkey. However, it seemed to be flying clumsily. However, I don't usually see wild turkey in the area I was in. But it was dark out, and I know that they can be tricksy when it is dark out. So anyway, I cost them a windshield. It was only the windshield, and that was a $400-and-some repair because I had to have them come out. It wasn't really safe to drive. I got it down to where I was going. I was a presenter that day. So I was like, I didn't know how bad it was until the sun came up. And then with the light refraction, with the cracks, I could no longer see clearly. Did you present better with the blood pumping? Yes. My presentations are always incredible. Are they? I can see you like a motivational Tony Robbins speaker. You've got your headset on. That is in no way my style. I am not here to inspire anyone.
1:51
No, I did a presentation. It was actually on a legislative process, and afterwards someone came up and said – I think they said that is one of the most depressing presentations I have ever heard. And you were like, thank you. Like I just – I made her feel like all hope was lost. And I was like, no, there's always hope. But yeah, all of these things aren't going to work the way you want them to. So what were you – You need to be aware. The audience needs to know what you were doing during this current wreck.

  • Rumored Cornerstone coming September; rumored to be John Borg designing Star Wars Pinball episodes 1-3 for Jersey Jack Pinball

    medium confidence · Dennis stating rumor; not officially confirmed by manufacturers

  • Harry Potter CE package was so much better than expected that it outsold other tier options significantly

    medium confidence · Zach acknowledging incorrect prediction about Arcade edition demand; CE demand far exceeded expectation

    • @ list position discussion

  • “The last thing I want is somebody to blow smoke up my ass... I've experienced that so much from dealers... Well, we got them coming in two or three weeks... fucking like four months later.”

    Zach Manning @ retailer credibility section — Personal philosophy on retailer-customer relationships; commitment to transparency even when it means admitting uncertainty

  • “I've started based on the current data we have i've started giving a rough estimate for people as to my guess so we'll see”

    Zach Manning @ closing production discussion — Retailers adapting to manufacturer opacity by using heuristics; pragmatic workaround to communication gap

  • “It's infecting everything. Like a disease, Dennis.”

    Zach Manning @ final segment teaser — Sets up next topic (AI in pinball); strong negative sentiment toward AI adoption in the hobby

    • King Kong
    game
    Harry Pottergame
    Metallica Remasteredgame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Godzillagame
    James Bondgame
    Jaws 50th Anniversarygame
    Star Warsgame
    Dunegame
    Cactus Canyon Upgrade Kitproduct
    The Pinball Showorganization
    Expression Light Topperproduct
    John Borgperson
    Southern Fried Gaming Expoevent
    The Big Lebowski (Dutch Pinball)game
    WWEgame
  • ?

    leak_detection: John Borg rumored designing Star Wars pinball for Jersey Jack (episodes 1-3) as Cornerstone September release

    medium · Zach: 'current rumor is john borg in star wars episodes one through three jersey jack pinball'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Stern in multi-game simultaneous production mode: Metallica Remastered Premium, Jurassic Park Pro/Premium, Godzilla Premium this week; Godzilla and James Bond next week

    high · Zach: 'This past week, Dennis and listener, it has been Metallica Remastered Premiums, Jurassic Park Pros, Jurassic Park Premiums, and Godzilla Premium... This week, they're going to be building continued Godzilla Premiums and James Bond Premiums.'

  • $

    market_signal: Hosts concerned about tired aesthetic trope: black-and-white with red accents appearing across multiple Stern games (Beatles, Harry Potter CE, Godfather CE, rumored Jaws 50th); hosts suggest alternative (sepia tones) for differentiation

    medium · Dennis: 'If they do a 50th anniversary, I really hope it's not a black and white R package with the hints of red. I'm getting a little tired because it's a tired trope at this point. They're doing the same thing on all the games.' Zach: 'I want them to at least use sepia tones.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: John Wick coder departed then returned; no clear reason stated but timing correlates with v0.95 update release

    medium · Dennis: 'Why is that not done yet? Well, the coder left or asked to leave or whatever it may be. Are you saying he's back? Sexton's not back. Is that why there was an update? Did they bring him back? They said, I guess I'm back.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jaws 50th Anniversary rumored for July production with no official confirmation; hosts uncertain about timing and feasibility

    low · Dennis: 'If they do a 50th anniversary, I really hope it's not a black and white R package... When would they build it? I don't know. I mean, I guess July, but.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern Expression Light Topper positioning as budget alternative to high-end OEM toppers; hosts debate whether mode functionality should be included at lower price tier

    high · Dennis: 'So it's like this little bar. It's $3.99... Some people don't like spending a lot of money, like Foo Fighters $2,000 topper.' Zach notes concern about whether topper-based modes are unlocked with budget version.

  • $

    market_signal: Uncanny X-Men and John Wick have been sliding on secondary market; code updates expected to reverse trend; Zach reports uptick in purchases already starting

    medium · Zach: 'I had somebody purchased an ellie yesterday so we're gonna start seeing an uptick in those'; 'both Uncanny X-Men and John Wick, have been sliding on the secondary market'

    • 2:22
    What was I doing? Was it a Sunday afternoon and you were going to pay? Yes, I was going to get ice cream and tacos. There was a, I guess I would describe it as like a Mexican ice cream shop that sells like street food too, like street tacos and stuff. And I'd only been once before. And I was like, I'm going to go and I'm going to pick up a dulce de leche and I'm going to get me some street tacos. One of my favorites, dulce de leche. It was so good. I never had had it before. It tasted extra good. after the accident.
    2:55
    It was a regular size. Dos scopas? I pre-ordered it. I was worried it was going to be ruined. They put it in the freezer because I was late. Hold his hand, Chico. He's got three scoops coming.
    3:11
    It was really good. It was good. Do you remember what song was playing in your car? I was going to pick it up. I wasn't there yet. I can just picture you licking your cone listening to like, what's that song, Seal, from the Batman Forever soundtrack? Oh, God. Where's the best ever little peachy? Hello, beautiful day. And then you hit the fucking note. New for me. And then boom. What the fuck? I'm taking a walk. Your scoop falls onto your floorboard. That's my daughter. Hey. What the fuck? uh no it didn't happen at that like that at all but i haven't heard i don't think i've heard that since oh and then and then and then the guy took off it was a hit and run yeah he he he did he He really slowly ran, but he – yeah. His window was down. I got out. He didn't look mad. I was confused. I mean, again, I was looking for traffic another direction, so I didn't even see the collision. So I'm like, well, this is probably my fault. He was looking for an exit. But I think he was cutting through the parking lot, and he may have been going at speed. And technically, it did look like he hit into the side of my passenger side fender. But we both backed away a little bit at first in the car. I got right out. I'm just still thinking of it all. Yeah. And I, you know, I told him, I said, well, let me make a call. So I was going to call 911 to report the accident and get everything written up and all that. And he just, he never said a word. He just, he backed up a little more, went around me and slowly just escaped. Oh my God. In my mind, it was, it was an Italian guy. Cause in my mind, it was the owner of the Italian ice stand. That's right across from the Mexican ice cream joint. And he was like, don't you delay my ass. And then he just was like, boom, and hit you and took off. You don't want to try our gelato? I was right across from the golf cart shop, a Joel Engelberth special, and it's called Outlaw Golf. Yes. Look, can we talk about some pinball? I have seal in my head now. Damn it. You do. Well, you know what seal reminds me of? It reminds me of pinball. And I wanted to ask you a hypothetical, Zach. Okay. If I were to, let's take a current release. Let's say like Harry Potter. Okay. And I was to order that. Yes. But I was to... I can't... Stern pinball. I guess that's always for our screaming goats. If any screaming goats out there want to know what I beep from Dennis every week, I'll be happy to oblige. Actually, they could probably just Nordman level the Patreon and get in on the call. Because you'll often discuss those on the call. We do. During the Happy Hour Hangout, we did that last one, didn't we? Yes. You don't have to pay $100 a month. We went back. That was a good happy hour hangout, I must say. That was a blast. You guys are missing out. Patreon.com slash pinball. We went a couple hours that time. But I figured we needed to, just given all the new releases. I was feeling frisky. It was fun. It was a fun time. And people learned all kinds of stuff that they didn't know behind the scenes. But everyone will learn what Stern Pinball has been producing lately. This past week, Dennis and listener, it has been Metallica Remastered Premiums, Jurassic Park Pros, Jurassic Park Premiums, and Godzilla Premium. A lot of them. Can you imagine all those games? It's like one day they make hundreds of games for each of those. It's crazy. This week, they're going to be building continued Godzilla Premiums and James Bond Premiums. Wow. I didn't know there was residual demand for that. I heard it got a lot better as they've updated it. I think Bond is one of those titles that they have no plans to make for the rest of the year, actually. Same, oddly enough, with, I think with Jaws. We'll talk about that. Jaws has been. But it's the 50th anniversary. Well, that would be something different.
    7:26
    Why? I mean, I wouldn't consider that. Why? The pro premium. They're not going to do something special for Jaws 50th. Is it true? There's going to be some blood in the water this week. What? I don't know. I don't know what. In addition to what they're building this week, I don't know if they came out with a 50th anniversary Jaws. When would they build it? I don't know. I mean, I guess July, but. I think so, because there's not much on the schedule here in July. Here's the thing. If they do a 50th anniversary, I really hope it's not a black and white R package with the hints of red. I'm getting a little tired because it's a tired trope at this point. They're doing the same thing on all the games. Well, yeah, but there's some collectability now that they've got some titles like that. So it would be cool to see a collection full of black and white. I want them to at least use sepia tones.
    8:18
    August, they're going to be producing D&Ds as well as the Uncanny X-Men Pro and more Godzilla premiums. Look, it's the best game ever. If you're going to keep selling them. We'll talk about this later. There was a game that kind of has shot out of nowhere in the last week or so that we've been selling better than even Harry Potter as of the last week. So we'll talk about that soon. September, I believe there will be a new Cornerstone. And then, yeah, we'll see all kinds of stuff from the rest of the year. Did you see that Stern Pinball released what they're calling the Expression Light Topper? I did. I love toppers. There was a little confusion from people initially about how the pricing was working on that because it's like two parts. It's an interesting idea Basically They're extending their expression Lighting family to now include Not only cabinet lighting on some games Speaker lighting The expression speaker lighting Eligible on all Spike 2 games But also for Spike 2 and Spike 3 The expression light topper So it taps into the system So you're going to get interactivity Between all of this lighting system I think in the future you may even see some external expression lighting for the cabinets, maybe soon. I don't know. But, yeah, it's got like this light bar up on top of it. And it's made so that there are different choices that you can make with. Some people don't like spending a lot of money, like Foo Fighters $2,000 topper. So it's like this little bar. It's $3.99. It mounts to the top of your game. And then you can take out different plates that get backlit with this lighting, too. and those game plates are each $99. I wanted to ask, I don't know if you'll know this or not, if you go with the Expression Light Topper and the game has a topper-based mode, do you get the mode? That's actually a fantastic question. I do not know the answer. My guess would be no. How about no?
    10:18
    Stern, you need to think about this because I'm concerned. Like if I want to get the Mandalorian Expression Light Topper because I don't want to pay a bazillion dollars for the hologram, but I want the mode. No mode for you. $3.99. But the nice thing is you can swap that topper to another game and buy the different plate, and boom, you get a cheaper alternative, but also having something. I like it for the fact that because it's a little plain for my tastes, Dennis. I kind of like the nice over-the-top OEM toppers. but right now if I put one I could put one on like my uncanny x-men le just so it has something until the you know the official one comes out so I would love Stern Zach here uh here's what I would love from you these they're not over the top gameplay so you're putting you started out with Star Wars very commendable especially since nobody can buy that regular r2d2 topper again And I really doubt that you're going to have to go through much licensing stuff for the plates themselves. So can you launch these plates at the same time as you launch games until your regular topper is ready? I think that would be really smart. And financially, it would be really good, too, because people would buy twice. That's how you get the wheels. Is that healthy, though? Is it healthy to basically ask Stern to release a placeholder topper? It works for me because I want something up there. If there's a gap in my lineup, I'm like, what? I get it. I get it, and I think the idea of an expression light topper makes sense on the surface of it, but I don't know about it as a notion of just make people pay to buy time for the fact that they don't ever have the accessories ready when the game launches, which seems more like a fundamental issue that Stern could fix if they were more efficient.
    12:20
    But that's just me. No arguments here. You know what they have been fixing? Code. But I don't want to talk about it because it's code. Can we skip it? Stern Pinball bringing that summer heat with big code updates. They need me as an admin, I think, over there. Why? Because they need a little razzle dazzle. They got razzle. That's what Express and Lighty is. I'm not seeing the dazzle. They got dazzle. That's what that WWE gold trim is. You know what? I ended up getting a WWE LE. Selfishly, I kind of wanted one. I don't know why. No. I like the nostalgia of Hulk Hogan and stuff. Oh, no. So I got one in for myself. Well, an opportunity came up, but I paid more than I typically would, just because I kind of wanted one in the showroom. And, you know, if I fell in love, I'd take it home.
    13:15
    It's sold. But the metallic powder coat on that everybody gives shit to, I'm going to tell you, listener, probably the best iteration of gold powder coat that you can get, I've seen really bad because you can't powder coat gold. Yeah. Sorry, Harry Potter CE. This WWE. CE you later. Yeah, it's honestly, it's pretty well done. So I just remember everybody poo-pooing it. And then when it came in, I was like, well, wait a minute. This is actually not too bad gold powder coat. Very metallic. I think it's because the gold color looked a little mustardy. They all do. Yeah, I hate that. They all do. I think they all do. I mean, whether it's Beatles, whether it's Harry Potter, CE, Godfather, CE, they all, to me, you just can't do gold. New code, big time, too. This is an overhaul for some of these games. We did get an update to King Kong, V.83. Some big stuff there. Dungeons and Dragons, .92, and the big ones that everyone's been waiting for, Dennis, the Uncanny X-Men, V.91. They gave the code update its own name, Days of Future Code, Part 1. Very clever. And then John Wick, V.95. These last two X-Men, what did I say? I told you. I told listeners. And I held out. and it's coming to fruition. We got 0.91, a big overhaul in the entirety of the future game state. Whatever. Yeah. Complete overhaul. Yeah, but I'm concerned that D&D is already ahead of it in version updates. That should tell you a lot. I mean, it really should tell you a lot. It also tells me like at Kong 0.83, that game is going to be an effing monster. That game is going to be fantastic. It is a monster game. Yeah. And then John Wick, 0.95. Why is that not done yet? Well, the coder left or asked to leave or whatever it may be. Are you saying he's back?
    15:28
    Sexton's not back. Is that why there was an update? Did they bring him back? They said, I guess I'm back. Baba Yaga's back. I played a little bit of the updated John Wick.
    15:39
    I'm not smart enough to know all these little additions. What it felt like from the start button is that the rules became much more approachable. It pulled you into things quicker, whether it's modes, multiballs. And they're still going back and overhauling the different way the allies work. And so got some good stuff coming. Got some good stuff coming. And those two games, in particular, Uncanny X-Men and John Wick, have been sliding on the secondary market. really sliding but that x-men that's where it's at y'all just wait i had uh somebody purchased an ellie yesterday so we're gonna start seeing an uptick in in those i don't know we talked about the rumored cornerstone coming in september current rumor is john borg in star wars episodes one through three jersey jack pinball harry potter continues to amaze and continues to receive pretty high praise amongst the hobby community. A really strong showing at Southern Fried Gaming Expo in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago. Have you heard the same? Yes. Yeah, I heard that it had a good showing there at the show. It's always good that because JJP can bring, we're talking about Razzle Dazzle, they can bring that like no other pinball company, I think. What happens often is they bring that ooh and oh and then it slowly turns to and because the rules don't hold up or the the well layouts don't hold you know the initial excitement for for any game always fades though like i don't hear people you know screaming all the praise of king kong to the same you know voraciousness that they did when it launched because they're getting familiar with it so yeah but it just feels like that that honeymoon is much shorter live it was it was funny to me because I'd say a week after the full Harry Potter reveal, it felt like, again, by and large, the mass community of pinball enthusiasts was, all right, so what's the next game? What's next? There's very, this is a, I don't, and maybe this is true for lots of hobbies where there's like collecting and stuff, but there seems to be a, that's always, it always feels like to me, everyone always wants to talk about what's next, not really spend a lot of time on what is. uh yeah i think there are probably a lot of hobbies like that but maybe i mean it i i don't know and i wonder maybe like cars maybe that's i'm trying to find a good analogy see see what watches is not a good analogy because there's basically a new watch release every every business day so if that's your if that's your thing i mean i could i can do a weekly show and talk about new releases and probably do 50 or 52 weeks a year because there's so many I like the hang time that Harry Potter's got some of it because of continued little controversies that are going on try and spin the controversies as a positive before we get into that I will talk about production updates for Jersey Jack people wanted to know they've been clamoring when am I going to get my Harry Potter yes that's the big thing when am I going to get it I can say that CEs have been rolling out of the factory over the past couple of weeks. They've been focusing on that, but they're swapping it up. This week, as we're the week of what, the first week of July here, they're going to be building some arcade additions.
    19:10
    And then after that, just the following week, next week, they're going to be building some wizard additions. So one week runs, which I thought they wouldn't do, but they're proving me wrong. So they're going to wizard additions. and then after that week they're going back to CE models. So mid-July we're going to start seeing more CEs being built again. I don't think that they'll run them for one week before swapping. I think that you'll get, we'll probably get, here's my guess. Again, notice I say guess because they haven't told us. This is all that they have told me thus far based on the production timeline and schedule. sounded like we had two three weeks two to four weeks of ces then one week of arcade one week wizard then back to ces i would guess that they'll run those for another two to four weeks and then they'll then i don't know i don't know uh because why make yeah it's we talked about this last time it doesn't make sense to run the same amount of arcades as you're doing wizards if in In fact, your wizard orders are five times, if not more, that of the arcade. So we may not see after these CEs in mid-July. Maybe we just see a wizard edition run for a week or two before going back to CEs. I think this arcade, throwing this arcade in there, is merely to try to get out more location games. It's like their justification for doing that. I think you're right. And I was clearly very wrong. I thought that this was going to see it. It was so similar to the middle tier that I thought a lot of people would go for it, but I was wrong.
    20:54
    In my defense, I didn't expect the CER package to be so much better. And if you want to hear the breakdown as to which titles sold better or worse or how many compared to other JJP games or hell, even compared to the biggest Stern games, where does this fall? go listen to our last dedicated Patreon episode if you're a member of the pinball show at patreon.com slash the pinball show and a lot of people like that because we had an uptick in subscribers so go check that out but the issue right now for people from enthusiast buyers is the whole is the weight it's like the lack of production estimates and schedule I'm still answering upwards of 20 times a day when somebody... Oh, wow.
    21:44
    It takes at least an hour of my workday every day. And that's just Harry Potter. Then I have the Dune people asking for updates. Then I've got the Cactus Canyon kit people asking for updates. The Medieval Madness Merlin people asking for updates.
    22:02
    Hey, is Jaws 50th going to happen? Those people asking for it. So a couple hours of my day is simply giving guesses as to what when games are going to come out. That sounds exhausting. We call that inefficiency. So inefficient. Well, now, you know, these buyers, I feel like they've fallen into what a lot of the CGC fans are like, well, welcome to our reality. Yeah. So I don't know what they, until JJP gives us as dealers an estimated timeline. That's what I would have liked to have seen. I would have liked to have seen, hey, broadly speaking, here's what we're aiming to do. And, you know, with that aim, we're hoping that every time we run arcades flipping out pinball, you'll get X units. We're hoping that every time we run CEs, you'll get X units. And here's the cadence of which, you know, if all goes properly with parts and stuff like that and production, you can estimate for yourself kind of roughly. I would rather roughly be able to tell somebody, within these two months than saying, I don't know at all. Or could be next year, could be next week. I have no clue.
    23:15
    So that's been very, very tough. And then people get frustrated because they're like, well, wait a minute. How do you not know? You're shipping CEs. I've heard that a lot. You're shipping CEs, Zach. I've seen it. People received them. How do you not know? Well, because I legitimately, like I can lie to you if you want, but I just don't feel good doing that. I just don't know. Like, sure, CDs are going out, but they said, this is how many are ready, Zach. They didn't tell me, hey, we're going to run these for a couple more weeks, and we aim to get you these more. No. At that point, I didn't know. They might have cut it tomorrow and went to the Wizard Edition, so I had no clue. Or maybe they run it for another six months. But until they say, I just have no clue. So the only thing that we can do as a retailer is try to hope that they stay in the same type of rhythm. So now that they're establishing, here's how many CEs that we were able to ship during this first batch. And then if they do a week on each of the wizard and arcades, then we kind of get how many we get during that. Okay, we're starting to have somewhat of a pattern. And then we can expand upon that.
    24:21
    But that's just hoping that they stay to that pattern. Does that make sense? Am I making sense? Yeah, I think so. okay and then a lot of people were like well wait a minute i ordered like within the first day of it being released how a lot of people did a lot that's why i have to explain to people like guys a lot of people like somebody was like there's no way i'm towards the end of the your list i ordered within the first week and i'm like you've got to realize that a ton of people ordered not only the first day, but they were taking pre-orders. Remember the whole Jersey Jack thing? They were taking pre-orders a long time before that. And even before that, there was an interested list for the last five years. Like, it's just – but it doesn't – a lot of people say, where am I at on your list? What number am I? And that's a sticky thing, too, because it's all relevant. I don't know how to answer people with that. I could answer with the number, but what does that mean, Dennis? What if I were to tell you, if you asked, well, what number am I? my argument is to them is like, that's not going to tell you anything, though. It's irrelevant. Like, it's going to create something in your brain that's going to make you either happy or sad or frustrated or whatever emotions tied to it, but we still don't have any objective data to suggest if your emotion is then correct.
    25:46
    So let's say you're number 17. You ask, well, where am I on your list? And I say, number 17. What did that tell you? It's told me that there are a lot of people ahead of me. Does it? So you make that inference. Yeah, 17 seems like a lot. Okay, so you make the inference that 16 people ahead of me, that's a lot of people. I do the call center approach. You know, when you're on the call and they're like, there are five people ahead of you. Like 17 would be a lot. However, it's not all relative between dealers. So number three could be a worse position with one dealer than number 45 with another dealer. Sure, but how am I going to – who cares about that part? I'm already locked in with a non-refundable deposit, so it's not like I can just jump dealers. So my point being, if you're number 17, it doesn't tell you a lot. For you, that would be a negative thing because you're like, I'm back too far. I would think, gosh, I've got to wait. That would be my thought. If I hear I 17 I going to think okay I probably going to wait a while Okay But I already locked in so who cares So 17 what if I had 25 leaving next week And then I be like whoa look it came Yeah. Or what if I said, I'm getting about two a month. Then you're like, oh, fuck. See, that's the more meaningful thing. That you don't have enough of the variables to be able to provide people. We're basically having to do trial and error because there's not enough variables to actually mathematically solve the problem. So I just – I don't want to give numbers for people because it doesn't mean anything. But they want the variables because it feels like they at least have some information. That's why they want it. But why have misinformation? Even if it's not enough to – Misinformation is deadly. That's not misinformation. Knowing where they are on the list would be a factual number. It's just they might draw inferences. You're worried about them drawing inferences that are not true. Correct. From that data. Yeah, you're right. And I'm like – and I get your concern. I don't know if it's worth not giving them the number because I'm worried that they won't know how to use it. It's kind of one of those, here's the data. If you're too stupid to know how to use it properly, I mean, that's on you. But I don't think you're too stupid. And number 17, actually, number 17 for us, that would be a really good position. I'm using a little hyperbole. Your primary concern seems to be that because it's not complete information, you know that they're going to jump to some sort of conclusion, And your worry is they'll jump to a conclusion that will end up making them more angry than them not having the data. Yeah. I don't want to upset people if it's irrational for them to be upset because number 17 would be a good thing with us. But there's some dealers out there that haven't got in there. So but ultimately, in my mind, I'm not saying give them the data because I don't know the answer to this. I don't I don't know that. I don't think there is a right answer. But to me, if they end up, once they get the game, they will analyze that entire situation and then make a determination. So if you told them that they're 17th and they're pissed, but the game comes in a week and a half or in two weeks, and then in the end they're like, you know what? I learned something that with JJP at flipping out, if I'm 17th, my current data set tells me that I actually have less than a month wait. and maybe that makes them happy because they're like, that really wasn't that bad.
    29:03
    So yeah, I'm waiting for... So in the end, I think they would reprocess the information once they get the game. Because again, it's not going to cost you a sale because they've already made the deposit. No, I'm looking out for causing them internal conflict. I don't want that. And they're not going to order another JJP from you until they get the current one because this isn't CGC. Yeah, and it's I always try to put myself in a hobbyist position because I'm like, if I'm in this position, what do I want? What do I not want? The last thing I want is somebody to blow smoke up my ass. I don't want that because that's the one thing. When I'm a hobbyist, I've seen before I was a dealer, I experienced that so much from dealers. Like, well, we got them coming in two or three weeks. Your game's coming. And fucking like four months later, like, oh, you're such an asshole. Why are you lying to me? I'd rather be told the truth. So I don't want to do that. But yeah, so it's tough. Well, this ultimately falls back on the manufacturer, though, because they should be able to give you a more accurate estimate than what they are. Even if you have to adjust those schedules over time. Well, things change. Things change, and we've seen this in the automotive industry all the time. But they know approximately how many games a week they are making. They should be able to, based off of that, know how many they're going to give to their distribution network of that allotment and then, based off of that, forecast a potential rough ballpark timeframe where you'll be like, all right, I got number 17. I'm going to get six games a week, so the person's probably going to have the game in three weeks. Yeah, and they'd be very happy because it's going to take JJB about 16 months to make everything. I've told people that. Just keep in mind, I'm guessing it's going to take 16 months for them to build everything. So regardless of where you're at, we know there's probably a limit. The problem is like number 17, I tell people, hey, number 17. Then they call around and they're like, look, Zach, I've got two dealers here that say if I order with them now, I'm number six on their list. So this is bullshit, man. If I would have known this, I would have never ordered from you. I would have. And then I've got to deal with that. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. you know it just it's not fun it's not fun but who cares sorry for the sausage making everybody oh lord a bit of a mess though indeed but hopefully over time we will i've started based on the current data we have i've started giving a rough estimate for people as to my guess so we'll see the bigger talking point since we recorded two weeks ago you may have talked about it on egp a bit, the whole AI controversy, AI seeping into the pinball hobby. It's infecting everything. Like a disease, Dennis. Have you read up on this much? I have, yes. Okay. All right. Overall, Hawkeye view or wild turkey, whichever it is. There's been a controversy over artificial intelligence being used in this Harry Potter pinball art package, as well as, we'll talk about this too, some inconsistencies between what people are seeing on the play field that are being delivered versus promotional materials. They differ a little bit. So overall, the issue came up in the forums, the collector and hobbyist forums saying, step one, hey, I think AI is being used in this. One person came out and was like, Sherlock Holmes, they had like 40 different examples of AI being used, right? And they were like, I'm somebody legitimate and I know how AI works and this is AI. So then everybody was like, oh my God, AI is being used. What am I spending $15,000 on? Argument in and of itself. Yeah. So then everybody was up in arms. Fuck AI. And then people were like, well, wait a minute. Let's look into Sherlock's examples here. The problem I had with those, because remember, people were like, Zach on the pinball show even said it was AI. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Nope, I didn't say that. I did mention, though, whenever you talked about the incongruency between the MinaLima art package on the CE cabinet versus the play field, I think I said, no, I think the colors actually meld and are whimsical, and they're almost AI-likes. I think they actually match better than you're suggesting. And maybe subconsciously I thought that it looked like AI. I don't know. But that's what I said. All these examples. Do you see the examples that Sherlock had? I'm calling Sherlock. Yes. Yeah, I went through. Yeah, I think I saw almost. I don't know how many he kept posting because they weren't all in the same post. But, yeah, I looked at a lot of them. So for a week or so, people were just back and forth. I think that's AI art. No, it's not. Eric Menier said how important hand-drawn art is, and that's all that this was. Yeah, but I think he's bullshit here. Maybe he didn't know because this is AI art. My issue with that argument, before we get deeper into this mess, is I have a hard time when somebody presents information to me and I can see that some of what they're presenting to me is false. I then have a hard time fully going all in on the other stuff. I get my guard up. so Sherlock was presenting all of these 45 pictures and I would say roughly 30 of them I thought were like complete bullshit they're like the hair on the her lock of hair is is curling this way fucking AI slop I'm like what wait a minute I I seen this and I agreed I seen this and I was scratching my head this and I'm like wait a minute I think they're right and then you present all of this and i'm like okay tinfoil hat time why can't people just take the most egregious stuff for their argument instead of trying to lump every little thing so well they lost me no no no no no no the the hair one and i i saw the hair one and i i didn't see the like to me i didn't see the i guess the the flaw in the hair yeah but my understanding was the post with the hair was a demonstration of given how it was clumping to prove a specific ai tool that clumps in that exact fashion yeah seems like the collar on the shirt they're like this is inaccurate i'm like it looks like a collar to me i don't i'm not he went back and said that the collar one was fine it was he was mistaken again he was trying to identify things yeah he was trying to at least if i remember if it's the one i'm thinking of with hermione yeah it was he saw certain things that made him suspicious and then there were some he was like no this one this one was at you know this one was from an actual image no or you know there were ones where he was he was acknowledging from the get-go i suspect on some i don't think i the way i read it this was not this was at the point it was no there was no well there were jack there were there were some already that were so fucking obvious oh yeah that there were anyone and there were people on pin side who were in complete denial that this is adobe photoshop filters and stuff and it's like this is ai schlock this is uh he didn't need to go and do a whole book and then throw in his hypotheticals because we had you know derpy dragon eye gate was clear as crystal like we didn't need to do adult like again but so we got to the point of it's a hobby so people do hobby stuff we got to the point of whether or not people thought there was ai but then the consensus was yeah okay like There's enough evidence presented that it's pretty much agreed upon that AI was being used to some extent in this. Okay. The next level of issue that we had, and the biggest issue, what you were referring to is like the blatantly obvious. Like no artist would do that. There was the one example of what you're talking about, the dragon, what people are calling Derp the Three-Eyed Dragon here. derp the three-eyed dragon lives by the scoop i think he's by the scoop that was the one that people are like motherfuckers got two eyes on the side of his head wait a minute like that is just wrong there's something going on with that dragon and then like the the train above it and the tracks or the wheels or something there's two arguments here the one argument whether or not AI belongs in commercial art and pinball. And the other is what the hell happened to this art package that some of these things slipped and people did not see it on a finished product. Right. You're in agreement. There's two different arguments here. Yeah. Because customers were asking. Then I researched the hell out of this. So I have strong opinions on and pretty much objectively what I think is going on here. But those are my own. I don't think that there's any refuting that AI was being used, except a founder of the company, Jack Winery, came out and publicly claimed that AI was not used in the artwork. That might have been the most damaging thing of all. Look, I've just you know, that's not just a pinball thing. You know, this is common in all walks of life. But I've you know, I've seen this professionally, too. When you don't know something, just say you don't know. Just say you don't know. Either say nothing or say you don't know. Yeah, don't make claims that you don't already know the answer to. Because they can come back to make you look either stupid or worse, make you look deceptive.
    38:53
    And oddly enough, I think we live in a society now, I've argued this before and I get in trouble, that our society I don't think cares. it's weird and sad and the truth doesn't really matter so i don't think it's as damning as i think that's why people do it people go all in because they know there's really no consequences or very little consequences to it or people are like well what's he supposed to do this is his company and like i hear that more often than not and i just don't run my business like as i don't he could have checked with the artist first yeah like if he like if you know he could have if he want he's like i gotta put a statement out my assumption is he just totally fired from the hip and just decided no there's no way that a like this no no robot did this well yeah and this is the same as eric menier saying that now so then what happened was jesper ables who's doing the playfield art he did come out with and gave a statement that ai was in fact being used as a tool in the toolbox of many artists, even in pinball, but still claiming hand-drawn illustrations. AI was just being used as a tool to get things the way we wanted. Then you hand-draw them to follow suit. So, and he even said that he did not run this by leadership at JJP. So Jack not knowing, Jack didn't know that it wasn't. So a lot of people can see, like, okay, well, Jack didn't think they were, but then, you know. Based off of what? I'm not behind the scenes, so I don't know what happened. His vast knowledge of artistic tools.
    40:35
    You see where I'm getting at. Oh, yeah. Why would one, like, if someone were to ask me, like, we unveiled a new logo, and someone asked me, was AI using the design of the logo? I'll be like, how in the world would I expect me to know that if I didn't design the logo myself? Yeah. Like, I don't sit in there and go, all right, well, you're going to use a lens flare tool, right? And then you're going to apply the shadow filter to give the text overlay the backdrop that you want. You've got to do drop shadow. You're not going to read that text. Yeah, but you don't want that shadow opacity to be too strong. You want to thin that out a little bit so it looks like it's casting. Sure. Again, I would never have expected the owners or Eric Meniere or anyone who wasn't the artist to inherently know every single tool that was used in the art. And given the nitpicking, I think it was pretty clear that there's no way that someone didn't just say, make a Harry Potter pinball in the AI tool, and it just spit something out, and they just threw it on the play field. That's what Jack came back out and said. He was like, no, that's what I meant. Like, we didn't just type into AI, build a Harry Potter play field. Like, that's ridiculous, guys. Like, if you guys can't look at this and see that there were some artists behind this, then you don't know AI kind of thing. But did it? I don't know. Again, maybe on Penn's side, it is Penn's side. But I was going to say, was anyone making that claim? Because it was too good to be pure AI. Like, pure AI. I don't know. Maybe with enough prompts, I don't believe it. Yeah, right. There's no way. Every time when I've played with AI art stuff, it's so obvious if you don't go in for a variety of reasons. And this level of analysis to find all of the tells and some of those suspected tells were not tells. And then there were others that were clear tells. So the question here is – or the answer is AI is being used. Duh. Yes. Honestly, people need to – this is like a – this is a thing for us as hobbyists. We're going to have to get past this. We're going to have to process, deal with this, and we're going to have to move forward because AI will continue to be – whether you know it or not, AI is being used as a tool from artists in other games that you own. I hate to break it to you. I think that this one is the one that we're talking about because the license is so big and because some of the errors were so egregious here.
    43:11
    Like, turn the price. So how does that happen? That's the, how does that happen? Well, I think the answer there, I think, is obvious. But again, maybe much like Jack, perhaps I would be speaking out of turn. But since I'm just on a podcast and I don't run a company, I'll go ahead and do it and say the artist clearly did not review the AI outputs very closely because there was a lot of what I will call AI artifacts that were. And again, it was from the most egregious, which is probably that dragon to things like the inconsistent lines of the lattice work. Like you'd have these backgrounds for the windows or whatever, and then you'd find out the lines weren't straight. And all of a sudden it's not flowing anymore. And anyone who had actually done it themselves would have known, hey, I'm making like a barley corn pattern here. All of a sudden, it gets disrupted for no obvious reason. And that's because of the montaging, I guess, that the AI program does. So I think the big issue – here's my issue because we all have our own interpretations. And I agree with where I think you're going, that this is a tool.
    44:17
    You cannot stop modernity. AI is going to be used more and more. And I don't even think that's inherently a problem. Some people will because the risk of humans being put out of business and all that. And those are all fair concerns to bring up. But there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. That's kind of my perspective. I like toothpaste, but okay. Go ahead. That said, this lack of cleanup was sloppy. And it was multiple instances of it. I don't care how fine it is on a $15,000 product. I do think it was reasonable to expect the human being to review all of the output and fix where the artifacts were in place. And I don't think the artist's defense of saying, I decide to go with complexity, which seemed to be his way. This is my interpretation, that he was citing that, that, oh, well, the art is just so intricate and complex because I decided to go with that as an artistic direction that I just couldn't review all of it. And that's why you get derpy dragons. And it's like, then you made the wrong choice.
    45:18
    Yeah. That's my take. Well, to me, the problem isn't the AI. The problem is the artist didn't clean up the AI work, which makes me question his work. Some of you listening, have you not? I know I've thought this over the last maybe since I've been in pinball. These artistic pieces of work have become very, very complex. and we keep hearing like the hobbyist, the buyer, the collector, they all want hand-illustrated artwork. That's like one of the selling pieces of contemporary modern pinball. So they keep selling as a selling point, but then you get backgrounds that still become even more complex, release upon release. Even I, over the last couple of years, was like, how in the hell does one – I know artists are good, but like what wait there's like layers mixing colors there's line work there's stuff that's becoming so articulate that like even if you zoom in it's like wait a minute you mean to tell me somebody's hand did that so that's why i was always like well now there's a lot of computer work it's a computer artist okay a computer artist and then like people use your brains Some of the stuff that we love out there, just think about how that's possible. I think that helps my mind a lot to explain how we get here. What I would say to your argument, Dennis, that it was slop and it was artists not looking over, I disagree. And that's the issue that has been brought to my attention by hobbyists that I believe in. This is what I think happened, and I don't see there being any way to refute it. there are promotional materials that don't have the three-eyed dragon. It's a gill. And, yeah, if put through an AI process or something, you'd see it being an eyeball. But if there are pictures and evidence that there was another option showing that it was, quote, unquote, fixed, then I don't think it was an oversight because there's a proof out there that it was a gill on the side of the head. Not a gill, but a scale or the ear of an amphibian or whatever it is. or something. Yeah, it was something. Nodule.
    47:36
    So if you go to Pinball News or if you go to the dealers, we all get promotional, here's a flyer, here's an overhead, here's the actual official pictures. Those had those corrections made. So I don't necessarily believe that it was a sloppy inability to go review your work because they're showing me proof that it's already been done. I think what had happened is that they go through this AI being used as a tool. Well, I think they map stuff out with AI. And then I do think the artist goes in there and hand illustrates using these maybe over. People would call it tracing and stuff like that. But a lot of artists do that.
    48:15
    I think that's what it was. And I think they misprinted the play field. I think they printed the file that wasn't the cleaned up file. One of the last revisions, sure. But that's what I think happened. And I wouldn't think that would be the case if you didn't already have a fixed version out there publicly. So I think it was just a mistake in the printing process, personally.
    48:40
    So you're blaming the printer, even though he didn't cite the wrong file version? No, I'm not blaming the printer because it could be the case that the printer was given a file that was just the wrong one. That's what I think happened. So ultimately, what happens now? That's pretty generous. Right, though? That makes logical sense. I think that's not to me. There wasn't enough flaws for me to think it was an early draft. Just the dragon alone. There was a correct dragon, incorrect dragon. Why wasn't it proofed before it was printed? Oh, that. OK, that that argument. Here's where I here's where I think here's here's the thing. And look, you know, even books have typos, even with copy editors. I get it. Like, but there were a number of things, crests on the, you know, on the, you know, the Gryffindor logo and stuff on, you know, that was just like you could see the distortions and stuff that once analyzed. And it was small. It was small stuff. But here's where I think a lot of people come down to. I don't buy the print thing. I think that maybe a different file entirely could have very well been created for the promotional stuff. It wasn't just like the Derp Dragon was blown up bigger. But he just made a different version of it. And in that instance, it was easier to fix. Why wouldn't you print the right one then?
    49:55
    Why wouldn't you? I think it's a fair question, but I don't know what order either item was created. What if the play fields were done first, and then it was like, well, that's already getting printed and done, and it's so small. You could bring a bunch of questions up. But to me, it was, I think for people, and everyone, again, they're all going to have their own flavors of it. I think for some people, it's more of a, you've emphasized that it's hand-drawn art, but you've already proven that a human eye didn't even look over all of it. And that's what I think pisses off many people. This getting through suggests that a human eye did not literally review every little panel of artwork. And we don't like that on a $15,000 product. Yep. And they've made that very, very clear.
    50:45
    My solution would have been, I don't think it should have been as, I don't think you would have lost anything if the art was a little less complex. Sure. Maybe we don't need intricate windows and stuff on the back of it. It's still – we play these. It's a play field. When you went this small and this detail, you begged for people to judge you at that level. Sure. He asked for it the moment he decided to go that route, and that was an artistic creative decision for his own admission. I think all artists need to consider that going forward. Sure. Because, I mean, remember what these are. These are not – This is commercial art. This is not point – this is not pointillism. you know if you're choosing to go that fine of a detail in your creation then you're you are asking to be judged at that level and again from a distance from a player's distance at the flipper buttons I think you could have had very very nice artwork much in line with this without this now that derpy dragon still need to be solved but some of this other stuff like the like I call it lattice work the flaws in the windows the lines that started to bend because you asked AI to do really fine line work and then you clearly didn't bother to trace it afterwards um that could have been avoided to a degree yeah and you're right it's the artists are going to have to think about it and it's before it's commercial art i don't know what type of cost it would be to i don't know and that is a thing for me too it is and i get people you know it's expensive these are expensive toys people are spending big money but for me and i've you know i've mentioned it for you it's commercial art i can't it's not fine art guys it's commercial mass-produced art what what are you expecting here like these these artists aren't like making you know hand over fist money they're not i've i've recently found out what they make on some of these projects and it's it was surprising to me substantially lower than i would have guessed so my my take is the artist didn't do a good enough job reviewing his own work, but he went way more complicated than he ever should have. And so that's what's ended up happening on it. But I do believe him that the AI was just a tool. And yeah, clearly, he, his goal was to hand draw and just use this much like he would use filtering and everything else. And I think that that is the new reality that we now live in. And these all tools, just like as filters have gotten better. These are all time savers. Think about video editing you and i we we do video you do a ton of video and imagine if it was the old days where you would have to literally cut film by hand yeah to do edits well it was just technical tedium it wasn't a better art because of that it just was tedious i have other like people that do editing they they poke fun at me sometimes because i wasn trained in video editing so they claim that i do things a lot like really old school stuff that just takes forever is inefficient because I don know any different like masking something Right. I create point by point on anything I'm trying to mask and remove the background point by point when there's tools out there that you can just kind of magnetically do it. Uh, even something is as mundane as like creating cues for each frame and moving things in each frame. I do that where most people are like, dude, what are you doing? Like, yeah, it's much more fine, but geez, like you're, you're not getting paid for it. What are you doing? But, and here's the good news. The good news is that we've seen the hobbyist community. I think they've kind of processed this pretty well because most of them are like, I've seen the argument made, the majority argument of, you know what? This thing is freaking beautiful overall. You don't see it. Like the train, the train's under a plastic. You'll never see that. The dragon is out there. But a lot of people were surprised when they went to this, that show. They were like, I'd like find the dragon. Like it's small. So just to find the damn dragon was hard enough. And then once you find the dragon, they're like – so most of the – the majority are like moving past it. They're like, yeah, it sucks.
    54:59
    It's weird. They know how we feel, but it is beautiful and it's whatever. Like because everybody is using the magnifying, honey, I shrunk the kids meme to like – so I think they're moving past it. Well, again, it was only the fine stuff where it wasn't caught because there was an artist involved. If it had been pure AI, it would have been a lot more blatant. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I don't know what they do, though. Do they have a revision? I think we'll see some revised, small revised things. Like, you know, we agree to stuff like the drag. You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of, and this is a stern one that they run into a few times. Misprint inserts. Misprint inserts, exactly where I was going. Like with Ghostbusters and such. Yep. Yeah. So just fix it on a – now this stuff about, well, maybe the bad versions will be more collectible. No, they're not going to be more. No. Come on, guys. Let's not be silly here. You've got the Derpy Dragon version. No one – like the cost value might be the same one way or the other, but no one is going to go out there and throw a bunch of money in 10 years because they want the Derpy Dragon. You've got the Derpy Dragon. That has never been how pinball works. I will – I'm going to be completely transparent here because a lot of people are like, well, I've had people ask what have like have people been canceling their orders and stuff because of this full transparency two people have inquired about canceling because of this neither one of them have went through with it but two have inquired about it on the other hand there has been one person that did reach out and say is there any way that I could get the more rare version that It is out now. If you have anybody that doesn't want it, I would be happy to take that or buy that play field or something. I'm like, okay. So, yeah, it has not affected sales, nor will it really affect sales. No. If someone was on the fence already, maybe this pushed them off from buying at that. But, again, it would have to be someone that was already pretty wishy-washy about it. Well, plus the argument, and we're going too long on this, but the argument of like, let's say somebody has one of these right now. This is how popular this game is right now. Let's say someone has the Derpy Dragon, and the dealer said, okay, you know what? I'll give you a full refund, and we'll have the game picked up.
    57:24
    You see where I'm going? That person would be like, well, I mean, maybe it's not as bad as I thought. They're not going to want to get rid of their game. This game's fucking awesome. It'd be tough. I wouldn't get rid of mine. Even with my little derpy dragon. Him just sees up in the air, too. That's all.
    57:43
    Yeah, he's a special dragon. So that's the AI talk here on the Pinball Show. We've got more discussion about new pinball machines. This one coming from Pinball Brothers. We talked about it being kind of the third leg of the trough jam in Pinball Brothers releasing Predator. We talked about it last episode. since then they've actually released this game a bit of a messy launch in my opinion between the teasing the pre-product launch terms maybe that's a patreon episode tariffs promotional material gaffes no gameplay video then a leaked gameplay video but it was incorrect then the official gameplay video how have you felt about the launch of a plus title predator compared to like Harry Potter Kong and really most of the recent stuff we've seen this year this was not the launch we were looking for the launch we're looking for is in another castle is that what you're telling me I was trying to go more with the Obi-Wan these are not the droids you're looking for but hey I respect the Mario reference I killed them all I killed them the Arnold Clissops and the last of the Gratians. You're at the chosen theme. I hate them.
    59:08
    Wow. Yeah, you thought that. You had concerns about fine detailed AI art flaws in Harry Potter. Well, let me introduce you to their big brother, Predatorp. It's not a tumor. Oh, no. Is it?
    59:26
    It's not a Schwarzenegger. It's not an Arnie. We'll get into it. There's two models of the Predator game. The Stealth, which neither one of them are limited per se, $10,995 for the Stealth Edition. And what they're calling a Trophy Package. Kind of confusing because it's kind of its own edition, but not really. You're basically just adding it to the Stealth Edition, but it includes different trim. I'm calling them two models from my business. The Trophy Package and the Stealth Package. The trophy package with the aesthetic upgrades is $12,490. Then you have to add on cost of domestic freight like any time we would, minus some companies do free shipping on Stearns. But everybody else, you have to pay for Jersey Jack games to go from wearer to wearer. Plus getting it overseas, which they're doing a $500 air freight per unit cost on. Plus you have tariffs. We forget you have tariffs on this game. and whatever the tariffs are at that point. This is a lot. It was like 10%, I think. Yeah, I think it's 10% from where they are. Oh, I got hit with tariffs the other day. Somebody wanted an ABBA. I swear to you, they did. Really? They did. And I ordered an ABBA, and they had one or two of those alien Ripley's left, so I ordered one of each of those, and I didn't even think of the tariff shit. I think they probably even mentioned it. After I told you about them, I told you not to be dismissed. And that was back when they were higher. These are the nice tariffs. My ass got hit with $1,800 bill from FedEx. Yep. I'm like, oh. These are not joke levels. Needless to say, I lost money on that deal. So, yeah, and the 10%, these are going to be substantial. Now, what we've done at Flippin' Out Pinball for those ordering a Predator, we're capping that tariff at $600. So we will, as of right now Be careful I know, I completely know what I'm getting myself into Not to say we'll be selling this product forever But as of right now, for those who have ordered We are capping those tariffs at $600 But it ends up being a lot of money for either one of these games Design team of this game designed by Daniel Jansen Andrea Pedretti and Peter Dahlman Game programming Brian Domini Art, Arik Lawson Music, Olaf Gustafsson And then they do have the Alan Silvestri Main theme song as well So that's a highlight Features this game, art Same art package on both models You get this jungle motif No identifiable actors But very much in the jungle Congo, but replaced Predator with... Predator Bad Gorilla. That's right.
    62:19
    Good gorilla. Layout and design. It's a wide body, three flipper game, four ramps, three spinners, three up posts, two magnets, two pop bumpers, one Vakya, seven drop targets. That is two three bank target sets and a single drop target set and numerous physical ball locks. Toys and mechs. There's an interactive... I love that they're calling it choppa with a ball lock. Yeah, they're leaning heavy on that because it's the only thing to lean on. Well, interactive predator, old painless minigun, molded truck in Rebel Camp, interactive yacht jaw, I don't know how to say it, apron display, and a gauntlet knife ramp. Rules and code, there's five main modes, three main multi-balls, hurry-ups, you earn and collect items and crew members, you get through a map and jungle encounter like many modes, and It has wizard modes in it. One I know of is called El Cazador Torfeo de los Hombres.
    63:21
    The Trophy Hunter of Men. Yes. Thank you, Dennis. Animation, no Arnold for now, but there are scenes from the film in the game. Audio and sound, no Arnold for now, but boy is there a sound alike in the game. Production timeline, they're supposed to start shipping in August. now we can jump into our thoughts, what we like about this game. And then we can talk about the reception and the sales of it.
    63:48
    Well, the reception, we can talk about how do people receive this game. It was a mixed bag, to say the least.
    63:55
    Very mixed. Yeah, because we didn't have much to go off of. It was just pictures. No. It was a new video at first. I want to say that initial, when the very first images were coming out, mostly of the cabinet and stuff, I think there was some positivity. Yeah, people were like, okay, I can get behind that. And then hearing that, okay, they got the film, so he got assets, and so people were like, okay. They got movie clips, all right. Yeah, yeah. I think people were leaning positive early on. And, you know, especially if they thought back and remembered the whole Skip B Predator, which was a thing. And this was sounding like, oh, okay, this isn't any of that weirdness. So and then the game, the full game, the play field was back up and back up. And yeah. And so people are like, oh, well, let's see some let's see some gameplay. I've not watched the gameplay myself, but then I've heard people saw the gameplay and are like, I'm not really liking how this looks like it's shooting. And I mean, again, we're coming off the tale of Harry Potter and King Kong, both games of which broadly have been seen as very good shooters. And then there was – I remember when we did our – People are liking Dune. Yes, Dune. I remember when we did our Patreon happy hour. At that time, someone had seen some gameplay, and that was – someone had shown film gameplay, but the animation package, the display package, was not the license or approved package because there was confusion. There was confusion during happy hour, and it wasn't just because people were drinking. There was confusion because the information from Pinball Brothers was that they weren't allowed to use close-ups of Arnold Schwarzenegger. But then people saw the gameplay and was like, there were all sorts of close-ups with Arnold. And they were like, no, it's all here. I don't know what they couldn't use. This looks great. Like the asset aspect looks great. And then it was like, all of that is wrong.
    65:56
    I can't do any of that. And this doesn't really have anything to do with Pinball Brothers. There is a licensing dispute about the film itself involving Arnold Schwarzenegger, and no one's allowed to use close-ups of him from the film right now. Or audio.
    66:11
    Yeah, I guess. I hadn't heard that initially. But then, you know, so as more information, it's basically the launch seemed okay at first. And then since then, every single step is just like, I think this kind of falls into one of your pet peeves where it's like all the decisions made afterwards have only cost sales. Yes. like nothing they have done since the initial like here are the sides of the cabinet uh here is the trans light everything else that happened has not gained a single say sale it's all just lost sales yeah well because what they started out with was something that was so iconic to like if you have to pick selling stuff in pinball is a little different than selling to to the a mass of people because it's a niche little industry. I was just talking to an executive at one of these larger manufacturers this week about it. Like, how do we expand out of, you know, how do we get more people? And I try to remind them, like, I don't know if you do. I don't know if you need to. Like, this is such a niche little thing that $10,000 product is already going to set you in a really small group. So there's only so much you can expand there. But then if you look at the demographic, of who primarily is buying pinball machines, puts you in another little subset. So Predator in and of itself to the masses,
    67:35
    still a popular title, especially with Arnold Schwarzenegger. But to this demographic, with money, and how old they are when this film came, it is like a bullseye. So whenever you announce Predator, officially licensed Predator, you hit the nail on the head you could sell thousands thousands of a predator-based pinball machine if you really have what people recognize and identify with as predator and the big thing is arnold schwarzenegger and they they found cute little ways to say well we got him yeah we got him Yeah, I mean, when they had film clips of Captain Jack Sparrow running on Pirates of the Caribbean JJP, they had his ankles. They had his kneecaps. He had his back. At times. He had a good back there. Yeah, the back of his hat. Yeah. So it's technicality of like, is this semantics of what you got? Yeah, it's Captain. Yes, sir.
    68:48
    Trust us. He sounds sober. Wait a minute. Yeah. So whenever people seen this leaked video of Arnold, they were like, I'm in. I can get past anything else. The price is kind of crazy. Tariffs and all this stuff. There was, again, to chime in, I want to go back to the happy Arnold. I'm not going to name who, but there's someone who was just like, you know, initially I wasn't feeling it, Zach. That's what he's saying. But then I heard, get to the choppa, and I saw him say it on the screen. I was like, I'm thinking about it now. I didn't ask him because then the next day you found out, no, that part's not in there. Well, because he didn't get to the choppa. He did not. No, you don't get to see that. Didn't get to the choppa. We don't get Arnold. It shows the film clips, but then it conveniently cuts him out. Cuts his head off or zooms in real close. It's just like, do the four by three pan and scan and set it up. You just never see his head. You just see a walking muscle torso.
    69:50
    And they're trying to sell this as, well, as of right now, that we're going to keep continuing to try to get Arnold and stuff.
    69:59
    This thing, I'm sure, has been in licensing dispute, the whole Arnold movie thing and the multiple rights holders and whatever. It's probably been for years. Come on, guys. I don't think it's ever going to be resolved. I would like to know if it was like this whenever they signed up. That's my big thing. I think it was. I mean, this is going to be a new thing, could it? It's a really big financial mistake. I was going to ask you that. I wanted to know if you had known going in that you could not have close-ups of Arnold and there was no guarantee that you ever would be able to do close-ups of Arnold or have his call-outs, would you have done this license? Because I wouldn't. I 100% would not. Not with this. If this was for locations, this was the 90s or 80s, it would be one thing. But in today's market, absolutely not. Yeah. Absolutely not. No.
    70:51
    No. Absolutely not. No. It's the same problem. Look at how much better Alien did once the Ripley edition came out and they had Scorn. A hundred percent.
    71:01
    Yeah. So they, of all people, should know. So maybe they did think they were going to get him initially because you'd think they would have learned, of anyone, they would have learned the value of having the star. And this is kind of a situation that usually you can just throw enough money at something that you can get what you want. This one, no, you can't. Yeah. And again, it's from the, I think it's from the Pinball News article, but it sounds more squirt like, again, this wasn't about Pinball Brothers per se. This has something to do with like Fox and Schwarzenegger and then someone else controls some other aspect. And it's just sort of like, there's this thing going on and it involves it. Because, again, nowadays my understanding is when movies happen, it's very common for all the actors when they sign on board that the movie production company or whatever is going to handle all of the licensing of everything about that movie. But when you go back in the past, the individual actors start to get to have a say because that was not arranged. So that's why it's so much harder to get asset packages put together by and large on older films. It varies. It varies by what people might negotiate otherwise in terms of their films. But broadly, when you go back in the past, you basically have to secure everything from everyone. And that's why it was always like a pain for – like, again, Pinball Arcade. They had to do a – they did a Kickstarter because they had to go and get extra money to take care of getting Schwarzenegger to do T2. And they – same thing happened with Rod Serling and Twilight Zone. And I think they ended up changing the art of Fester at the bottom of Adam's family because they never got Christopher Lloyd's rights. It was just stuff like that.
    72:40
    Speaking of, not to go back, but on Harry Potter, you're like, why didn't anybody catch this? What if I told you that Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling's team signed off on it?
    72:50
    No, I believe that. But again, I don't expect them to get out the magnifying glass. They're not the artist. From a distance, it's fine. Like from a distance? None of us saw anything initially. From a normal player's perspective, standing at the game, the art's fine. Like I'm not going to tell you. Why is that the number one played song in the dentist's office? I remember that growing up. I think trauma. My dentist's office doesn't play music. When something happens traumatic in your life, you soak in. It's like PTSD. You soak in what's going on around you. Sight sounds, especially smells. And that one always got me. The sound of a drill being playing through the song from a distance. Oh, no. Somebody is dying back there, and I got to go back there next.
    73:36
    All right. Let's jump into what I like, what I don't about Predator. And you can add in as well. But I like the theme. Like I said, that is a dynamite theme. What I don't, though, is there's no Arnold. So is it really the theme? No Arnold. It's got Predator on it. It's got Predator in the art. He's hiding there in the jungle. I haven't seen all the Predators for a reason.
    74:01
    It's Arnold. What I do like about the game... Yeah, that's a big mess. You have to admit, Dennis, for a wide body, this looks to be a pretty compelling layout. It looks pretty good. It looks like it should be a shootable layout. There's nothing exciting about it, though. I think it's unique. I think it's unique I think it looks like a fun shooter to me I looked at it and I thought it looks fine but nothing about it excited me like the toys are nice but it just didn't excite me so I'd say the toys for me like the sculpts again I thought it had some nice looking sculpts and stuff not regarding the layout just in terms of like okay that's my other what I like I wouldn't have done the Kami camp like I wouldn't have done that at all because I don't feel like that really It's the same thing, and I don't get that. It looks good. I don't get it. It's not Predator. It's not. It's a key part in the movie. And Tony described this, I think, pretty well on Eclectic Gamers podcast. That scene is only to allow us to get a feel for the personality of the characters. But the movie is about them being hunted, not them beating up a bunch of cannon fodder. And so tying up a big chunk of the play field to dedicate to that part. I would have just skipped that and instead Billy at the log or whatever. You know, there's so many other iconic elements when they are the ones being hunted. that I would have done the entire thing around again from dusk till dawn. Yes, there's a whole caper bank robber thing going on. But honestly, are we do we care after like the movie? It's like fate. Leave him alone. He's like, see, that's right. We start with Salma Hayek and her. I think I called it a boa, but it's actually a python, her snake. And from then on, that's the movie that anyone would want to pinball the scene around. We don't care about him having a a bank teller tied up on a bed like no one cares about that i'm saying my my my other what i like my third point was i'm with you it it does have a lot of features like this pretty impressive how much stuff they do have in this game between all the mechs i mean three different drop banks uh magnets you got the mini gun it's pretty damn cool like they're right there it's pretty freaking it looks like the world of predator they did a good With the theme immersion. Helicopters cool. With the game turned off. Yeah, and then even like the wire form that goes below the flip. Like, it's unique. It's really, really cool. It's right there. I don't even need Arnold in the art package. I don't need any of that. This is exactly what I need. I would be totally fine signing up for everything visually presented to me. But what I don't like when it comes about that compelling layout, wide body. Typically, I just don't like wide bodies as much. No. But the other one I don't is the assets.
    76:47
    So I wouldn't have shown the gameplay video if – I mean, the way they showed the gameplay video is like the UI is just – it leaves.
    76:59
    I see what you're saying. I don't see much clips. Even the other ancillary character, I'm not seeing much of any. You have to open up mode, and even then, maybe the code expands and they put more clips. like if you don't have arnold pinball brothers and you've got the rest of the film play the whole fucking film at this point like save yourself just play the film what you can because it's like a wallpaper micro you know right right yeah it's going through woods and brush there's nothing there i don't like for not only they don't have assets i mean like they're not showing anything. Yeah. And this, for me, I wasn't going to cite assets, but this would tie to why, I guess, my view on the assets. And that is, I'm going to say the price. I'm going to say it. I don't want $11,000 for this little, like, if you had Arnold and such, I get it. If you had a better display activity going on, I could see it. But especially to get it here stateside, I don't think this is a good buy. I just don't think it is. Yeah, it's a tough one for a lot of people. Like $500 air freight, tariffs even capped at $600, a starting price before all of that. And I didn't even go into the domestic freight of $11,000.
    78:19
    Again, because I'm comparing it to Harry Potter because this is between the arcade and the middle tier, the wizard tier. And it's like in Harry Potter, I get the cast. I get the same level of high-quality scopes and world immersion. I get, in my opinion, better art. AI flaws be damned.
    78:38
    I just don't see it. This is where being a small guy and not having the economies of scale starts to really show. Yeah, you're right. But you have to pay big bucks to get this to your door in the States. And I'm sorry. This is just not. Had they had Arnold and more of the movie assets integrated in, I think people would be able to make the jump. I don't think very many. Some people will still want this, but I just don't think it's strong enough. fight. It's just not strong enough to pull what it could have pulled so much more. Even at this price.
    79:11
    I'm going to say I don't like what they put together at this price point. I would have said, could you call the diehard guys and see what maybe you could have done with that instead?
    79:21
    Your lethal weapon? Go into some of these other movies that should have had a pinball machine, but maybe they're easier to work with. Top Gun, well, rumor has it that J.J.P. has that one, so I didn't think they could do Top Gun. But Beverly Hills Cop, maybe they could do Beverly Hills Cop. The assets, like, Dennis, we haven't talked about it. The sound of like, did you hear that guy? No, no, no, I haven't, so I don't have an opinion on that. I've not gone and heard the sound of like, sorry. The sound of like, they dub over Arnold when you're getting to the chopper.
    79:54
    Adrian, you made it sound like Sylvester Stallone there. It sounded like. like he even almost come pout it like whenever he's like running through the woods and he hits brush he's like oh like when he falls and it shows his back it's like you have to go check that out you have to check it out it it rough it so rough and it clear as day too This is like a studio recording Do you think they had a Dutch voice actor trying to impersonate an American voice actor trying to impersonate an Austrian actual Oh, man. Maybe. I don't know. Fascinating. It was just not a good sound to like. Just with him moaning. No, I've not heard that part, so I'll have to go check it out. Yeah, I definitely – for them, I would – yeah. Whenever you find out you don't have that, you just got to put it in reverse. You got to bag it up a little bit. You can't do it. But we'll see where this – we'll see where it goes. When it comes to sales – Born on the 4th of July, they could have done that as a pinball machine. Okay. Probably doesn't make sense for a European company. I was just thinking of another Tom Cruise one since they can't have Top Gun. They could probably afford Born on the 4th of July. Sales were vanilla sky. Let's just go with that, too. Oh, wow. Okay. Sales have not been great.
    81:26
    They've not been great. But better than barbecue. Well. Okay. We're still selling it, and people are buying it, but not great. And I think I'm just giving it a different level of expectation, I think. I'm giving it the level of expectation maybe even more so than I had for Alien from Pinball Brothers same company I thought it could do better numbers than that but the big thing is Arnold here it did everything else looks good the price is tough but if it has Arnold it would have prevented some people from buying but it would still have been what I would have guessed a strong seller I'm a little concerned that Pinball Brothers I mean again Other than the Highway Alien design, nothing has been particularly successful from as near as I can tell. Well, they're built into the whole Pedretti thing too, though. So they have remakes and – Yeah, I know. But how long – I'm just – hypothetically, I'm not asking because I know you distribute for them. I'm not asking you to answer this. I get myself in trouble all the time. Just me talking about this will get me in trouble. Believe me. I'm just throwing out the, like, I don't know, as an outsider, how long they keep running Pinball Brothers making their own designs because it doesn't seem like it's working. I don't think it's the design. I think it's just decision making. I don't know. I mean, Queen's design was not particularly fun. I played that one. Abba was seen as better, but not a hit. But not a hit. They don't have any hits. I don't think for Predator they could have had a Keith Elwin design, I would say. Like, I just, no. But again, they made the decision to go forward with it. So it's on them no matter what. If you can't make a winner, at what point are you a loser? I guess that's kind of what I'm asking. Yeah, it's Arnie or Bust.
    83:14
    I mean, some people I think were asking these questions about JJP. Everyone's like, you've got to just wait until Harry Potter. And yes, Harry Potter is a smash success for them. And so when people ask, when was the last time JJP had a successful game? They're going to say, yeah, Harry Potter. It's even the way they came. Yeah, you would have to go back a few games. Them showing – for the life of me, how in the hell did that video come out that had Arnold in it? That was a killer. I guess someone had some prototype code or code to show the license or something, I guess. I would have – I mean, my resources would have been going into – I just – I would have been so angry at that. I'm sure they are. I'm sure they're angry or disappointed or both. And then the second thing is like, I just don't get the decisions. Like, why come out with a gameplay video the way they did? That's not selling units. Like, you can send it to somebody. Lots of brands screw that up. Lots of companies screw that up. But there's no reason to. It's fucking free. But they almost all do. It's free. I don't get it. Look, look. I still, me and Pepperidge Farms still remember when Stern would constantly do like their live game stream reveals and it would like, and not even, it was not even half the time. It's like 75% of the time, something would go wrong on the live stream. They'd blow through the code too quickly. There's audio issues. It's just, there was always just stupid stuff that they'd shoot themselves in the foot and cost themselves sales and they just couldn't help themselves but keep doing the same old thing over and over and over. So I'm not going to throw Pinball Brothers under the bus there because I've seen even the biggest for years do it wrong. But will you throw them under the chopper?
    84:57
    Sure, because the chopper probably won't land on them. You know, that actually happened when they were filming on that Twilight Zone movie and it killed some actors. It was really sad. Back in the day, they didn't really care about actors.
    85:09
    Only until like the crow died. Like, oh, shit, that was a big one. Enough of that. But let's talk about – I want to hear your top picks. Remember we were doing that. You gave everybody your top picks. Oh, yes. Jersey Jack, pinball, and Stern pit. We got through all the modern games. Yeah. For those of you who don't know, over on Patreon, if you're an official club member, we do the special segment over there. We have been, where Dennis picks his top five greatest pinball machines from each company. We got through Stern, Jersey Jack, Chicago Gaming Company, Spooky, American Pinball. Number three will amaze you. and some of them were very surprising, but we're going to continue that for the club members, the official club members. We're going to continue this week with Sega and Data East. Now we're getting into some very interesting categories that I want to see where you go on these, but all people have to do to sign up to listen to that is go to patreon.com slash the pinball show. Sign up. Buy, buy, buy! We've got a happy hour hangout coming in July. That'll be a lot of fun as well. And then you can get swag. You can get Discord. You can get all kinds of perks and stuff. And it helps us out. So sign up now. Please. Patreon.com slash ThePenballShow. You're going to love it. And we've got to thank some people. Our Screaming Goat Club members.
    86:26
    Our lovely Bobcat. Bobcat doesn't need a voice actor. He don't need a sound delight. Oh, shoot that fucker! Pays for itself. The Panther.
    86:38
    Thank you, Panther. His sound delight would sound like a little kitten. the falcon we appreciate your support frank you know the falcon is a sound alike the falcon is the most famous sound alike uh who oftentimes is paid to dub over the screaming soaring bald eagle yes it's true because bald eagles their cries are actually kind of silly Yeah, look at them pussy cries.
    87:10
    The bell! Ding dong, Charlie. Ding dong and thank you. We got a thank you for you. Sign here, here, here. And yeah, we did tip it over. And there's glass everywhere. But, you know, sign it. Now you're responsible. The dude. Thank you so much, dude. Hey, this is a private residence, man. Do you think somebody could pull off a sound alike of the dude?
    87:39
    Yeah, maybe. I guess the dude was... White Russian. They did get him mixed up in that film. I'm the dude, man. That's true. Your dudeness. I'm not that Lebowski. The rooster.
    87:55
    You're going to rock out with my cock out. Thank you, Josh, for the continued support. I don't think there's anything that sounds like a rooster. Have you ever heard one of those fat ass pugs try to bark?
    88:07
    They're like, yes, yes. That's rooster like. I can't wait to see my signs up. We're going to make them one of those fucking French bulldogs or pugs. Bitches can't even bark.
    88:22
    Sound like a child. Can't even breathe. They are cute, though. Over at Discord, we are talking all about Harry Potter, AI, a lot of discussion before shit hit the fan. We had some of our members that were bringing up some of the differences in the different artwork. So it was actually enlightening. Helped me come to a determination of my thoughts, too. Okay, before we end the show, we have to give them what they want. There was no AI being used in the manufacturing. Because I don't even know how to use AI. Or I probably would for this week's pinball market trends.
    89:01
    I like your style, dude. You'd have more accurate results if you used AI. I just, I was just going to say it because I knew where you were going. It's probably true. Trending up this week, ladies and gentlemen, this is the machine that has surprised our team over at Flippin' Out Pinball. Out of nowhere, like a phoenix.
    89:30
    Like a phoenix. Here he comes. It is Jaws. For the last week, Dennis, we have sold more Jaws than Harry Potter. What in the hell is going on? Jaws pinball. Like, it was such, like, I was trying to look to see if, like, something was, I guess it's just the whole July 4th thing. And this is the summer blockbuster. There's a lot of stories being written about it. I can't think of any other reason why it would have such an uptick in sales. To a significant degree, it wasn't like, oh, we sold one and we have it in a couple weeks. Multiple machines sold this last week. Very odd. Is that not odd? It's not like you've got a code update or accessories. Just boom, Jaws Premium selling crazy. Because it's good. I think you're a little dismissive of the toys on Jaws Premium. It's good. We've sold a boatload of them. I know. You still are always like, I don't know why they're selling so little. But it's this last week we've seen. I don't know why. It's because of the 50th anniversary. I'm guessing so. And they ain't waiting for no stupid black and white one. Take that back. They want it now. I'm just saying. So Jaws Premium, for whatever reason, is the big, hot pinball summer blockbuster. Move over, ape. All's trending up this week is the uncanny X-Men and John Wick with the big code updates, Dennis. What? Thank God. I'm going to call this the pumping of brakes. I'm not sure John Wick's actually trending up. These damn things were coasting down this hill faster than I was wanting. So, thankfully, these code brakes. I think this is some wishful thinking, at least with John Wick. I think that's some wishful thinking. It was like Dennis listened to na-na-na-na-na, licking his dulce de leche, and somebody coming and swiping his ass. Oh, God. I think I just messed up my mic. I hit my mic. Why'd you punch it? Where are you? Why do you sound like an Arnie voice sound-alike now?
    91:35
    Now he's in the distance. Here he comes. He ran by. I want to see Arnie lick an adulterated LH. Yum.
    91:48
    All's turning up this week. So, yeah, the Uncanny X-Men, the breaks have been, thankfully, it's not bleeding anymore. Those codes, updates have stopped the bleeding. Thank you, Stern. And I think they're actually going to turn the other way. I've been calling it forever, and like a meteorologist, I just want the sun to shine on it. Also training up this week are this trio, Harry Potter, Evil Dead, and Dune. You want to know why? Yes. Tell me why. Those are the three games right now that if you were wanting to buy one and own one today, it would cost you more than what they are new in box.
    92:30
    I don't know. Yeah. Those are the three titles right now that are holding value. I understand it's because they haven't made all the Evil Dead yet. They haven't made all the Doom shit or the Harry Potters. That's why if you want one right now, you'd have to pay more than what they're going for because you've got to pay a premium. Very true. But objectively, still, they're more expensive than MSRV, if you want one. I always struggle because people will message me, usually weekly, hey, do you have a running overflow list for Evil Dead? And I tell them, technically, yes, but I just want to save you time. There's no use in joining this list. Tell them what number they'd be. Yeah, like, what? Because nobody has dropped out yet. So they're like, well, that's bullshit. Why wouldn't you? And I'm like, well, think about this. If somebody doesn't want their game anymore, right now they can sell it for more than what they got in it. So they would just sell their spot. They wouldn't contact me and be like, hey, I want to be out of the nonrefundable deposit and lose my money. They would just sell it for more. So I tell people if, in fact, somebody on my list wants to get out, they're just going to sell it. So we could probably get you one, but it's going to be more that customers are going to want more than. And they're like, oh, you're jacking up the price. I'm like, no, I'm not doing anything. I'm just telling you, being real with you, I'm just going to get rid of it right now if it's worth it, right?
    93:50
    Yeah. I explain too much. Nicole always says I go into the weeds too much. You probably do. You're complicating things, Zach. You are. Why do you complicate it? I try to be honest with people. Just tell them no. No. I'm like, no. I'm not adding you to a list. No, there's no point.
    94:08
    They ask you to say there's no point. There's no point. You won't get it. So there's no point. And then on Pinside, they're like, this guy, my other dealer said that I can go on a list, but this guy, unfortunately. Is that one really Pinside post worthy? Oh, yes. I get it all the time. One of our customers had a Harry Potter. Oh, my God. You probably have seen it online, but a lot of these listeners have. The FedEx driver is delivering this. He's got it on his ring camera. Trending up as this video. It's so good. and it's proof that they damaged it and I don't have to pay any money out of my pocket. Oh, nice. So he has a lift gate and the poor guy, he seems like a sweet fella. And he... The driver or who? The delivery driver. Yeah, he's on the lift gate. Okay, I wasn't sure if you meant him or the buyer. Oh, the buyer is fantastic. He's good too. But this is the delivery driver. Puts it down the lift gate and for whatever reason, still don't understand why he already had cut the straps off of the pallet. Oh, no, from the pallet. Oh, no. But he manages to get it on a pallet jack. First day on the job. It even bobbled at the end of the lift gate, and the guy that was the part of the owner had a guy helping because he was a worker, and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, you need help? And that guy goes, I'm not going to let it fall off this thing.
    95:31
    Like America's Funniest Home Videos. He pushes the pallet and hits the side of the sidewalk like a lip. And he goes, boop. And then you almost see it in slow-mo.
    95:47
    And it just falls on its side. And he's like, oh. And then you hear Arnie. And then they, God, just get to the lift gate. and then they pick it back up and act as if it might be okay. And there's glass that's coming out of the bottom of the box.
    96:15
    That's going to leave a mark. It's just a flesh wound. He just said, I'm not going to let it tip over. And then he hits the lip of that sidewalk. Oh my gosh. I felt so bad. Wow. So, yeah, he was devastated. Devastated. What number is he now? I know.
    96:39
    He and his wife. Yeah, does he get top priority? Like, what's the rule on that? It depends on what dealer you go through. Thanks for that cue up there, Dennis, because with a flipping out pinball, he doesn't have to worry. So most, I think a lot of dealers, you would have to wait until they send it back to Jersey Jack and repair it or exchange it for a new one. And that can take not to throw JJP under the bus. But the last time I had a damaged game, it was like a year and a half for them to fix it. It was a toy story.
    97:08
    So that wouldn't be – even Stern is going to average to repair probably two to six months. So that would suck for a customer. I think a lot of dealers – I mean, what are you going to do? You'd have to wait. but with flipping out pinball we had a brand new harry potter ce shipped out the next day even even for you that that's impressive right i mean can you ask for better customer service than that so yeah i could ask i could ask for anything we will be waiting for however long it takes to get that insurance submitted claims adjuster to take a look at it them to repair it it's going to be a long time alright let's trend some stuff down we've been talking about it this whole episode we got to trending down is Timu Arnie it's the Timu Arnold Schwarzenegger that we got his decapitated body his sound alike it's trending down it's not what we wanted the only way that this is successful this sound alike is because it is made fun of so much that it is now an endearing selling future. And I don't know if it will get to that level of troll.
    98:24
    But that's Timu Arnold. And I cannot continue Market Trends without trending down Timu Dragon. Oh, no. Isn't that a Ukrainian iron belly dragon? I think it is. There's a political joke there, but I'm going to stay away from it. And those go to Derp the Three-Eyed Dragon. Thank you.
    98:46
    I got to trend it down. It's just that bad. Also trending down this week is GTF. Why am I kicking that poor game when it's down? Well, American Pinball recently announced a special where they're selling the signature editions for $79.95. New in box.
    99:06
    $79.95. Is that the one that turns into the tank? Yeah, and that's the top edition. Remember, there's two tanks. In addition, I can't ever keep the names of the versions. This is the one with the full signed apron and supposed to come with a thermos and with the, what else did I have? The lenticular back class.
    99:28
    $79.95 originally. When that came out, Dave Fix was like $15,000 or $20,000, $25,000. I told Dave Fix, hey, heads up, before you release this, don't because that's not going to work. And then he got mad at me. didn't reply and all this shit and i'm like i'm just trying to help as your salesperson like we can't do this this ain't gonna work and they did it anyway we're gonna do it anyway and you did it anyway got my gtf9 of saturday that's my seal version We've got all kinds of good stuff going on.
    100:12
    Seal, Puff the Magic Dragon. Who sang Puff the Magic Dragon? I can't remember. Some stoner. I don't know. Save a buck or two in this week's Pinball Market Trends Deal of the Week. Buy, buy, buy! Deal of the Week is a Looney Tunes CE. We're selling over at Flippin' Out Pinball. Had this thing at like $7,500. It's got some plays on it. it's seen some life. It has put a lot of smiles on faces. A little bumps and bruises here, which is why it was so cheap at $75. We've marked it down to $72.99. For you, listener, the deal of the week, Pinball Market Trends, it's $69.99. For Looney Tunes, people love that game. Bye, bye, bye. Bye, bye, bye! Pinball Bounty, I'm still looking for the stuff that you know I'm looking for and you can't find it. As always, I'm here to report the facts because numbers don't lie. Neither do I. I'm Pinball Market Trends. Get to the dragon.
    101:07
    Where can people catch you? You can always email me, eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. Or the pinball show at gmail.com. Sign up to patreon.com slash the pinball show. Become a member today, please and thank you. Straight down the middle is a YouTube video series that I do on pinball. Go follow, like, and subscribe there. And I've got to talk about the sponsor of this show, Flippin' Out Pinball. When I buy my pinball shit, I buy from Flippin' Out. From toppers or play stereos, I've got it figured out. Flippin' Out. Figured out. When I think of pinball, I think Flippin' Out. Figured out. When I buy, buy, buy, I buy from Flippin' Out. Buy, buy, buy. Follow, like, and subscribe to Flippin' Out Pinball. We're trying to get to 10,000 subs or 10,000, I guess, subscribers on YouTube this year, by the end of the year. That's our goal. We're far from it, so we need some help, people. We're also trying to get to 10,000 followers on Facebook, so do me a solid right now. Plus, if you follow us on Facebook, you get all the used games that pop up. So go do that now because we're close to that. I think we're like 8,500 or something. So we're super close to that, and we'd like to do so the natural way through engagement. So please follow there as well as TikTok. I'm doing the X now over at Flippin' Out, so follow us there. Instagram, all that fun jazz. Product showcase for flipping out pinball this week. It's got to be Jaws Premium because they're selling so well. Plus the interested list for Jaws. If there's a special type of Jaws that's about to come out, why not get on the list today?
    102:45
    Expression Light Pinball Topper. We've got those coming in. So order yours. Order your Harry Potter Predator. Order your King Kong Pro Premium. I still have a couple of LEs. Dune, Dungeons, Metallica, Uncanny X-Men, John Wick. Kids are talking about those games right now. Labyrinth, Pulp Fiction, you want it, I got it. I'll figure it out. GTF Special, $79.95 Signature Edition. Trade in a game if you want any of these games. Trade me in your old game that you're tired of playing, and we'll send you a new one, or we'll send you a really nice used one, whatever you're wanting. flipping out pinball media channels we've got joel engelberth he just streamed harry potter he streamed dune uh we've got a new harry potter tutorial out there coming soon a simpsons pinball party tutorial and we have a dune tutorial coming soon he had a lot of fun him and jared on the stream they love dune and i think they're going to be streaming that either this week or next week this week we might throw in uncanny x-men i haven't decided yet flipping out pinball podcast The new one, episodes one and two are out with Ken and Greg. Episode two, they dive into Harry Potter pinball. Again, can't thank you enough for the support of the pinball show and of Flippin' Out Pinball. Continue to show that support so that we can continue to dump all of that love back into content that we create, customer service we provide, and new innovations in the industry of pinball. All right, Dennis, I know that after getting hit in your car, you know, licking your dulce de leche could feel like two cars coming two different ways but uh teaches people something i was just thinking on all our discussion we had about predator and i've wondered like pinball brothers if they if they look at like spooky i wonder if they look at spooky and they have like this this the whole thing think i'm thinking iron man the whole uh obadiah stan stain whatever his last name was i can't remember his last name obadiah remember obadiah i wonder if they have that whole moment where they're like they're trying to do this they don't have an They don't have a proper Arnie. There's a guy going in and they got their little their prop chopper and stuff. And they're like, Spooky was able to build this in a cave with a box of scraps. And they're just they're trying so hard and they just don't. They just I don't know. I don't have any answers. I just have I just have questions. A lot of derpy stuff this week. I think they're jealous. I think the next spooky game is it already sold out? I always think that based on Evil Dead and what we've been seeing this year, I think it might already be sold out. And always practice safe pinball. And whether or not you guys noticed throughout this entire episode, I've been trying to get out different quotes. And I checked all of them off except for one. It's going to explain what I've been doing because until we record in two weeks, we will have already passed through July 4th. And here at the Pinball Show, Dennis, you know what special occasion marks July 4th, don't you? Yes. And that is? Your hints were obvious. Yeah. What you doing, Terry? I don't know. Maybe some people didn't notice. I was able to, say, hold his hand, Chico. Two cards come in two different ways. Back it up. Yeah. Put it in reverse. Oh, Lord. What you doing? And what you doing, Terry? I love you, Terry. and we're going to close out the show with what we do every year and that is a dedication to the world's greatest internet video hold your hands Chico hold on two cars coming you got two cars coming two different ways
    106:37
    here you go Bag up, bag up, bag up, Terry. Put it in reverse, Terry. Put it in reverse. Oh, Lord. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Lord. Oh, Jesus. What the, what you doing, Terry? Terry, what the, what? What the, what? Oh, Lord. So rosy and green I like it So rosy and green I like it So rosy and green