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DPP #111 "Spooky Spring Break Special!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·1h 8m·analyzed·Mar 23, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Don interviews Spooky Pinball on manufacturing, Texas Expo success, and industry pipeline news.

Summary

Don visits Spooky Pinball in Benton, Wisconsin for an extended interview with Bug and Luke about their recent Texas Pinball Festival success, manufacturing processes, and game quality. The episode covers Spooky's record-breaking booth performance (10 games sold, 20 games displayed), new game mechanics and testing protocols, and discusses upcoming industry releases including Pedretti's Funhouse remake and rumors of Stern/JJP announcements.

Key Claims

  • Spooky Pinball sold 10 games at Texas Pinball Festival and took additional orders, with more games sold at this show than any previous show

    high confidence · Bug and Luke directly state this achievement in interview; represents their best show performance to date

  • Pedretti Funhouse remake pricing: AUD $13,950 (Pro/Classic), $15,999 (Premium), $19,999 (Collector's Edition, limited to 500 units)

    high confidence · Phantom Tilt reported Australian distributor marketing one-sheet with specific pricing; converted to USD approximately $9,100/$10,004/$13,000

  • Pinball Brothers' next game is ABBA-themed, releasing in Örebro, Sweden on 50th anniversary of ABBA's Eurovision win

    high confidence · Don reports multiple industry sources confirming ABBA theme with specific airplane and helicopter mechanics from 'Arrival' album

  • Spooky Pinball will not have a new game at Pinball Expo (scheduled for later in year)

    high confidence · Don states confirmation of this, though notes six months remain for changes

  • Stern's next game is rumored to be John Wick, with potential April-May release timeline

    medium confidence · Don reports speculation from industry contacts; mentions some give 'wink and nod' responses; previously thought June but contacts suggest April-May

  • Jersey Jack Pinball has something coming 'relatively sooner,' potentially before end of year

    medium confidence · Don reports hearing this from sources; lacks specifics on title or nature

  • TCM and Looney Tunes found minimal issues post-Texas show: one ball trap fix needed (Monica drop target), code bugs in both games, one ball search issue

    high confidence · Bug and Luke detail specific mechanical and code fixes already implemented; bracket for ball trap already tested in production

  • Rick and Morty was produced in limited quantity of 750 units total and is no longer in production

    high confidence · Don states this figure; used to illustrate collector investment potential and secondary market pricing

Notable Quotes

  • “It was literally the best show ever...We brought more games to that show than we'd ever brought to any show. We sold more games at that show than we'd ever sold at any show.”

    Bug or Luke (Spooky Pinball) @ ~mid-interview — Demonstrates Spooky's record-breaking Texas Pinball Festival performance and business momentum

  • “There was never a break. There was never 60 seconds where the game wasn't flipping on high power...nothing compares to putting a game through a show. There's nothing on the planet that you can do that is going to simulate what it's like when you have a thousand different people walk up to your game.”

    Bug or Luke @ ~mid-interview — Explains value of shows as stress-testing environments for new games; highlights break-in period challenges

  • “We didn't design it in a way that was like, oh, yeah, for sure, everybody has to buy both. Some people absolutely will now, though.”

    Bug or Luke @ ~interview — Addresses design philosophy for TCM and Looney Tunes as two distinct games; acknowledges unintended consequence of dual-purchase appeal

  • “We've really come a long ways in the last year on that stuff. Keeping the games a lot longer and testing them every day over the course of, like, a week and a half has really, really helped a lot.”

    Bug or Luke @ ~mid-interview — Details Spooky's quality control process improvements and extended testing protocols

  • “Rick and Morty is not going to be made anymore. 750 is how many were made...this is one that's never been played. It's still in the box. And it's the best version of it.”

    Don @ ~late interview — Illustrates secondary market premium for limited-run Spooky games and collector investment behavior

  • “Everyone keeps telling us they want great layouts with tons of flow and then mechs. But mechs that don't interrupt the flow and add to the game in a positive way.”

    Bug or Luke @ ~mid-interview — Core design philosophy: balancing player flow with innovative mechanics without game stoppage

  • “You just, it's so hard to simulate all the crazy shit that can happen in these shows. You find a ball and resolve them although we didn't walk over and touch Scooby-Doo the entire show.”

Entities

DonpersonBugpersonLukepersonSpooky PinballcompanyTexas Pinball FestivaleventPedretti PinballcompanyFunhouse (Pedretti remake)game

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball achieved record-breaking sales performance at Texas Pinball Festival: 10 immediate sales, additional orders during show, 20 games displayed representing largest booth inventory ever brought to a show

    high · Bug/Luke confirm: 'sold more games at that show than we'd ever sold at any show...brought more games to that show than we'd ever brought to any show...best show ever'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive collector sentiment toward limited Spooky games; Rick and Morty (750 units, discontinued) commands premium secondary market pricing; demonstrates scarcity-driven demand and investment-grade positioning of boutique games

    high · Don: 'There's definitely some people that must have tucked those away as an investment...one that's never been played. It's still in the box...listed a pin side for 15,000'

  • ?

    community_signal: Spooky Pinball facing operational/logistical constraints at Texas show despite record success: underestimated staffing needs for 20-game setup, requesting show organizers improve shipping logistics to reduce $800-1000 costs to $400-600 per machine

    high · Bug/Luke: 'We had some help, but we grossly underestimated...just unboxing the legs to 20 games...been an hour' and Don notes: 'people who couldn't actually haul the game home...shipping was too high for them'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky Pinball prioritizing playfield flow with integrated mechanics that add to gameplay rather than interrupt it; explicit rejection of game-stopping mechanics; TCM/Looney Tunes designed with this philosophy

    high · Bug/Luke: 'Everyone keeps telling us they want great layouts with tons of flow and then mechs. But mechs that don't interrupt the flow and add to the game in a positive way'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.207

0:00
that rumble means it's once again time to spend a little time with dawn time for some dawn tent on episode 111 dawn's pinball podcast this will be an interview episode i went down to benton wisconsin today and talked to spooky we had a spirited discussion want to tell you all about it let's get ready to go I'll tell you what's ready to go. by Stranger Things official Stern shooter rod arrived today for Mad Pinball, Jeff thank you so much I will celebrate you, it has been a long time coming for the Stern accessories for Stranger Things I had to do my own armor I did get the topper although I got that pre-release but I got the shooter rod, and so I'm just waiting, I think I got the official art blades too, I'm just waiting for the UV kit to come and Jeff assures me that as soon as it's in his hands, it'll be on its way over here. So I'm excited about that.
1:21
Don't hate the player, hate the game. What an earworm that robotics song is. I love it. I love that. All right. Hey, what's up, everybody? Don's back here for another episode. What day is it even? I think it's Friday. I went down to Benton, Wisconsin today. battled the elements, survived the spring snowfall. Man, it was traffic was nuts on the way down there. Not nuts as the people on the road, but it was just completely frozen. But I made it. I had a great afternoon down there in Benton, Wisconsin. So I decided to go down there to record. It was so nice recording outside of the Texas Pinball Festival, where it was such a cacophony of sounds, it was hard to really hear anything. So we had a good discussion. I'm going to play it for you in its entirety. Well, the initial recording. We went and got lunch and then came back again for even more discussion for the Patreon members. So five bucks a month. Go ahead and join it. Join for a month. Just check it out. That'll be over on Patreon. There's a whole other half hour plus of content where we were just getting nuts with it. You know, like blinders were off. No holds barred. We just went for it. We went for it, sir. So that was cool. So go check that out after the primary. But this one's still good, too. It's an hour of content from Spooky Pinball. Other news, there'll probably be a podcast later this weekend, maybe on Sunday. But in the meantime, a couple of news items had dropped. I just have to comment on them because it happened. So we're getting the confirmation from, not even from Pedretti, but Funhaus is their next game apparently. Retro Jango's out there talking about it. I did a video this morning. Check that out. Shout out to you, sir.

  • Spooky's new games include out-of-the-box mechanics not previously tested with 100,000+ ball runs, unlike licensed Williams parts

    high confidence · Bug and Luke explain design philosophy and challenge of testing novel mechanics; cite orbit diverter on TCM as example

  • Scooby-Doo will receive two more Wizard Modes this year with continued code updates

    high confidence · Bug confirms this roadmap in conversation about Don's game collection decisions

    • Bug or Luke @ ~mid-interview — Demonstrates challenge of anticipating field failures; shows Scooby-Doo stability through extended testing

  • “I built up the spooky corner, and then I'm sure you guys are going to release another game at some point. I'm going to have to make some decisions...No, we're done.”

    Don / Bug or Luke @ ~late interview — Humorous exchange about Don's game collection space; ambiguous whether Spooky has confirmed no more releases or just joking

    • Pinball Brothers
    company
    ABBAgame
    Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Spooky)game
    Looney Tunes (Spooky)game
    Scooby-Doo (Spooky)game
    Rick and Morty (Spooky)game
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Brian Allenperson
    Pinball Expoevent
    Don's Pinball Podcastmedia
    Retro Jangoperson
    Phantom Tiltperson
    Jeffperson
    Kerry Hardyperson
    Rob Zombie (Spooky)game
    ?

    leak_detection: Pedretti Funhouse pricing and trim-level specifications leaked via Australian distributor marketing one-sheet obtained by Phantom Tilt; not yet officially announced by manufacturer

    high · Don: 'Phantom Tilt with a scoop. He talked to one of his distributors in Australia who got like a little bit of an early marketing one sheet listing the prices and the three trim levels'

  • $

    market_signal: Pedretti Funhouse trim-level pricing suggests positioning at Stern LE price point (~USD$13,000 for Collector's Edition); represents positioning strategy in three-tier market ($9k Pro / $10k Premium / $13k LE)

    medium · Don: 'for $13,000, they're right at the Stern LE level...right at the little bit above where Jersey Jack is for their platinum level'

  • ?

    announcement: Pinball Brothers ABBA-themed game confirmed for release in Örebro, Sweden on 50th anniversary of ABBA's 1974 Eurovision Song Contest win; features 'Arrival' album mechanics (airplane, helicopter)

    high · Don: 'they're releasing in Olinboro, Sweden, on the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision win for ABBA...it's ABBA. Everybody that knows is telling me it's ABBA'

  • ?

    announcement: Pedretti Funhouse remake confirmed via leaked Australian marketing sheet with three trim levels: Classic AUD$13,950 (~USD$9,100), Premium AUD$15,999 (~USD$10,004), Collector's AUD$19,999 (~USD$13,000, limited 500 units); features new artwork by Brian Allen

    high · Phantom Tilt obtained distributor marketing one-sheet; Don verified exchange rates; Brian Allen artwork confirmed via industry sources

  • ?

    product_concern: TCM and Looney Tunes required post-show fixes despite stress-testing: ball trap issue (Monica drop target) and code bugs in both titles identified after Texas show's 1000+ plays per game

    high · Bug/Luke: 'we found one ball trap that we needed to fix...code bug in Looney Tunes that needed fixing, code bug in TCM that needed fixing...ball search thing'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky Pinball confirmed: no new game release at Pinball Expo (later in 2025), but Scooby-Doo to receive two additional Wizard Modes before end of year with continued code support

    high · Don: 'confirmation that we're not going to see a new game from Spooky at Pinball Expo'...Bug/Luke: 'There's still two more Wizard Moms to come for that game this year'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Stern Pinball's next title rumored as John Wick with April-May release timeline; industry contacts providing cryptic confirmation signals

    medium · Don reports: 'John Wick seems to be the predominant rumor...People that know, I don't know, they give me a wink and a nod...April, May. We might get a new Stern sometime soon'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Spooky Pinball designing games with novel out-of-the-box mechanics (e.g., TCM orbit diverter) that lack 100,000+ ball testing history of licensed Williams parts; requires ongoing field adjustments post-release

    high · Bug/Luke: 'when you're making a new unique mech there's so many problems you can not think over...It pops open as the ball is crossing that switch. It's no joke'

    • 2:56
    Also, Phantom Tilt with a scoop. He talked to one of his distributors in Australia who got like a little bit of an early marketing one sheet listing the prices and the three trim levels and a couple other details for this new game. So these Australian prices for the Pedretti Funhouse remake are $13,950 for the classic, $15,999 for premium, and $19,999 for the collector's edition. Now hold on, those are Australian dollar prices. And your homie just checked the live mid-market rates, so that classic edition of Funhouse, $9,100, You could go out and get a used one right now for around $6, $6.50, maybe bargain a little bit. But that's going to be one from Antiquity. If you want a brand new one, never been played before, also with updated mechanisms, and sounds like they redid the mechanics of the Rudy head, and it might even have that 2.0 kit in there, $9,000. I guess that's not terrible. The game's terrible, but the price is not terrible. I'm kidding. It's just of all the Bally Williams classics, Funhaus does not rank highly with me. I don't find the gameplay all that inspired, and Rudy Head kind of really freaks me right the hell out. So it is what it is. If you like Funhaus, I dig the music. And, you know, it's a Pat Lawler special if you're into that. 9100, get the classic version. But it sounds like the higher trim level is going to have new art from Brian Allen. I haven't seen that yet, but this is the guy that's redone some of the translights. He has alternates for Cactus Canyon, which looks absolutely fire. His Whitewater looks great. Bram Stoker's Dracula he did. The Fishtails is phenomenal. So Brian Allen does good work. I haven't seen the Funhaus art that he did, but I got to think that it's probably pretty awesome. So $9,100 for this classic. If you want to get the better art, the premium is $10,004, which, I mean, that's $1,000, $1,300 more, give or take. And then the collector's edition, limited to $500 it seems, will be $13,000, just about even. Now, I don't know if these are the prices that are going to hit the U.S. market. This is coming from an Australian marketing email, marketing sheet. But it gives you kind of a rough idea of probably what kind of scope we're thinking. You know, so for $13,000, they're right at the Stern LE level. They're right at the little bit above where Jersey Jack is for their platinum level. So if you want to have like the best trim level of Funhaus for some reason, there you go. That's coming out. So I can't wait to see what it looks like. I'm sure it's going to look like absolute fire. And it's probably going to play reasonably well. Now, we haven't really seen anything from Pedretti yet that they've made.
    5:31
    But, you know, so quality-wise, you know, we won't know until the pudding has finished cooking. But that is coming out. When is it coming out? I don't know yet. Pedretti's been teasing some stuff. It's been popping up on Nap Arcade. But I was surprised it went over Nap Arcade. I didn't see this confirmation or the prices. And I know Jenga's out there. He's been working pretty closely with them. He put out a video today. So I was expecting there'd be, like, some official marketing stuff, but I haven't heard anything. Haven't heard from Jeff about this. If he's selling them, who knows what's going on there. But maybe by Sunday we'll have a little bit more information about it. Also in the news, Pinball Brothers is right around the corner with the disco darling ABBA pin that is unreleased and merely speculation at this point. But all signs are pointing towards this song. I mean, come on, they're releasing in Olinboro, Sweden, on the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision win for ABBA. So come on, it's ABBA. It's ABBA. Everybody that knows is telling me it's ABBA. It's got the airplane from arrival. airplane. It's got the Bell helicopter from Arrivals of Balak. That looks cool. That looks cool. I like that mechanism. I love me some mechanisms. So, hopefully the game shoots well. I'll play it at some conferences. Maybe I'll play it at location. Probably I won't be playing it at District Dawn anytime soon. But we'll see how they do for their junior release here. Otherwise, rumored games. J.J.P.'s got something, and I heard it's coming relatively sooner, like maybe before the end of the year. Stern, though, I'm hearing their next game. Still not sure exactly what it is. John Wick seems to be the predominant rumor. People that know, I don't know, they give me a wink and a nod. I don't know how to read that. That should be coming probably pretty soon. I was thinking June. People are telling me April, May. We might get a new Stern sometime soon. That's pretty quick, quicker than I was thinking. Is it going to be a Jack Danger game? Is it going to be a John Wick? Is it John Borg's long lost game that got shipped and cancelled? I don't know.
    7:22
    We'll get to Spooky here in a second, but it sounds like there's confirmation that we're not going to see a new game from Spooky at Pinball Expo. So there's that. But, you know, we've got six months between now and then. A lot can change. Let's get to the interview with the boys.
    7:38
    I'm back in Benton, Wisconsin with your friend and mine, Bug and Luke of Spooky Pinball. We're just going to have a pinball conversation, we've decided. We're back from Texas now. The weather has caught back up with us. It's snowing outside. Bug and Luke, I'm back in your break room. What's going on? I'm learning how to talk down the throat of this microphone, as I've been instructed. It works best down the throat, yeah. We've been practicing our vocal fries, they call it. Very popular in the metalcore singing community. Luke's going to give a good, like, any minute here. I can't do it. When I'm hearing, it's so different when you hear yourself talk through these. It just makes you want to try. I actually like it. It's quite the enhancement. Absolutely. I mean, I just turn it on, and I'm like, oh, yeah, it's that character I play on the podcast. Let's go.
    8:22
    I do always notice that when I turn on your podcast. I'm like, oh, that's his announcer voice. It's amazing. You have a good one. Do I have a stream voice? No. Well, I guess I don't think so. I don't think I really do. Should I have one? Am I supposed to have a streamer voice? I don't know. Monica's at home right now. You have a telephone voice. Somebody calls and it's like, oh, hey, yes, I'm Don. This is about that cable bill you're looking for. Well, I assure you the money has already gone through. There must be a problem on your end. And she's like, why do you talk like that on the phone? because I have mental problems. I don't know.
    8:54
    I don't know how you do it. I can't do it. You turn the microphone on, and my voice just goes monotone.
    9:00
    And play it safe. Whenever I get a phone call, I go instant Tony Soprano. Yeah. So how'd Texas go for you guys? People want to know that apparently. We're still tired. Yeah. I am still just recovering. I was going for three days nonstop. I got into some bad gummy bears or something. It was just a wild time. Jeez. We heard about that. No, I mean, we brought more games to that show than we'd ever brought to any show. We sold more games at that show than we'd ever sold at any show. We had more people in our booth at that show than we ever had at any show. It was literally the best show ever. Yeah, I was going to say. It beat every record we ever had, and it was really hard, and it was really fun. I was kind of calling it early on. I'm like, you know, because I've played these games, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Looney Tunes. I got them both at home. Thank you so much for hooking me up. If you buy both, you get to jump the line, I think. But I was like, other people need to play this. And this was the first expo where the public at large was able to get out there and play them. And I called it. I was like, you guys are going to have the busiest booth of the show for sure. And every time I came back, it was like I couldn't walk through the stack without rubbing elbows with everybody. It really never let up the whole time. I mean, Don loves Looney Tunes so much that he texted us last night. He was like, hey, can I play Looney Tunes when I'm there? We're like, dude, you own both.
    10:19
    I want to play it. I just want to make sure I get to play while I'm there. It was weird. I traveled all day to get down to Texas, and I'm like, I haven't played Looney Tunes today. This is weird. It's been like my daily thing.
    10:30
    No, we had a really fantastic show. I think we sold 10 games while we were down there, not counting all the orders that were placed while we were there. Yeah, we were taking orders while we were there, too, because a lot of people don't want to bring home a show game. They want the brand-new unboxing experience. They're like, I wanted to wait until I played it, and now I played it, so, yeah, I want one now. One of the biggest things we faced, too, I noticed, was people who couldn't actually haul the game home themselves. They had to get shipping from the shows. They wanted to do that, but it was too expensive. So I'm definitely going to suggest to the show promoter for next year, see if we can get a more reasonable cost for people to be able to ship games home from the show and get them out of there. Because I had a ton of people that were like, I would love to buy this one right now. But the shipping was just too high for them. Which, yeah, I imagine it's pretty tough to figure out how to get your price on shipping a game randomly at a hotel in Texas and get that to a reasonable price and everything. Yeah, I wonder if they could. Every show seems to have at least one of those guys, which is always great.
    11:30
    To just have that option available at all is really cool. You wouldn't think it would be there. Absolutely. I mean, I think there's an opportunity just for the logistics of, can you pallet this game for me and put it in a box and ship it? Like, you know, okay, game's got to go. Get out of here. And it's like, what do you do with it? You know, throw it in the back of your Civic? You know, how do you get it home? How do you get it down to DHL to go ship? And I've been doing some more shipping now that I've been, you know, kind of rotating my games through the collection. And there's a big price difference from come to my door and pick it up and take it to someone else's door versus can I take this thing 20 minutes down the road to a terminal and have it shipped to another terminal? So that's what I was kind of getting at. Maybe the show could, like, work with a company to get all of the, you know, all the sold games from the show to the terminal at once and send it out. I know there's plenty of cardboard boxes available at the show. You're not kidding. That's not a problem. I think, you know, if somebody could show up with some pallets and say, if you buy a game, you know, $80, we'll pallet it for you and take it over to the local point-to-point. And then from there you can work on getting home delivery. And then you're in, you know, $400 to $600 and not, you know, $1,000. Yeah, that would be fantastic for us just because, especially bringing this many games to shows now with, oh, I'm sorry. That was awful.
    12:41
    I moved my chair. 20 games. Well, first of all, we have to bring help in the future. We had some help, but we grossly underestimated. Me and Bug were like, we're going to be able to do this ourselves, right? We're going to be fine. It's just 20 games. And we underestimated the difficulty of 20 games. Just try unboxing the legs to 20 games. You'll be like, damn it, it's been an hour. You're just putting leg levelers on. You're like, I've been kneeling here for an hour putting leg levelers on. Which, not to just complain, but the problem was we literally worked the full day Wednesday at Spooky, hopped in the truck right after work, drove down to Texas, and then immediately set up all 20 games in the booth at Texas, which Don's looking at us like you guys are bitches. Yeah, he's like, this guy's a master. I don't know how you do it. He's awake for days at a time. Luke and I are not built that way, man. For those of you listening at home, Spooky Pinball's machines come with the legs in a separate box packaged with inside the refrigerator-sized box that you get. They're not just thrown in there where you can just kind of dump them out, throw them on. You need to assemble these things. You have to unbox the unboxing to get to them. I've heard other companies don't do that. We do get a lot of compliments, though, on our packaging. We get a lot of compliments on our packaging. I mean, I've unboxed several of your games now, and I haven't had any problems with scratch cabinets, scratch decals. Missing parts hasn't been a problem, and that's probably because it felt well they're packaged leaving here. We get a checklist for that missing parts. That's always the embarrassing thing that happens to every company. They send stuff without a power cord or this or that. It happens to everyone, man. It's so easy, man. It always sounds so obvious. I think we're pretty good at that now. I don't think that happens anymore. I'm pretty sure we put the checklist in the freaking box. It is. Yep. Every single one I open. They literally have the checklist in the leg box of here's everything we did not forget. Yep. They have to fill it out, and they put it in there before they do it. Do you ever just throw in an extra set of leg balls just because, okay, now we're good. I know they're going to be here. Before every show, I grab balls, cords, and leg bolts, and I just toss them in my show tote because you never know. And at this show, I had a lady come up to me. She was like, hey, we brought our personal Rick and Morty, and I'm missing three leg bolts. That's a very weird number to be missing. Everyone comes to us for extra stuff. Yeah. Like, you guys got a power supply? You guys got this? You got that? And we're like, yeah. I should throw them under the bus. I loaned David Fix a power supply. Oh, snap. Oh, jeez.
    15:01
    Fixed it for you. It's cool that we use the same stuff as interchangeable, I guess. Yeah, no, it was cool. A lot of people hit us up for parts that shows. We're well stocked. There was even like a really high profile just released game, incredibly rare, that was missing the power cord, I think, too.
    15:19
    Haggis. Oh, sorry. Well, it might have been in there. That box was pretty messed up. That's true. Probably, yeah. I'm honestly proud of them that that game still came out of the box working as well as it did because it was sideways. It probably made it all the way until two miles from the convention center when it went on a truck and then fell over on the power jack.
    15:41
    Screw this. We're not letting them have this. God. Can you imagine? That's how it goes, dude. That was fun. I was all around and underneath that game at the show. Yeah. I thought it was crazy that Kerry Hardy, that wasn't planned, it sounds like. Well, I'm sure he received numerous financial compensation for doing that from what I'm hearing. I don't know. He's like, damn you, Don. Shut the hell up. It sounded like he just saw it or someone had just mentioned that there was one palette came in. Yeah. And he was just like, hmm, I want to see that. Yeah. And he recognized other people would probably want to see that too. I was over there and it's the Oblivion Edition, right, the colorized centaur. Like he's doing a Ted Turner thing of colorizing things that were never meant to be colorized. And I'm like, well, this is supposed to have that boss topper. Do you have that? Can I unbox that? And the Nitro guys were like, yeah, let's go find it. We'll unbox it. And I'm like on live stream, super excited. I'm going to unbox the Setsar topper. And then, of course, it wasn't there. I think they had a labyrinth topper or something. Was it there at one point? No. Okay. I was going to say that would suck even more if it was on top, strapped to the game or something. Oh, and it fell out or something. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Out there somewhere. Floating in the ocean. Getting a message in the bottle. No kidding. It's over in Fiji right now, floating up to the shore. Shipping games is scary, man. It is scary. I've been telling people I want to get them. You know when you go to the store and you buy paint and they shake it up for you in that little machine? I want one of those for pinball machines where I shake the crap out of it. I finish clearing the game We wrap it up We put it in the shaker thing that simulates shipping And then we put the game back up and clear it again Because God anything can happen It so weird Yeah, just turn the shaker motor on for 20 minutes and then. Yeah.
    17:22
    We got a really good process in place now, though. Oh, yeah. We've really come a long ways in the last year on that stuff.
    17:29
    Keeping the games a lot longer and testing them every day over the course of, like, a week and a half has really, really helped a lot. It's pretty bold to just unbox 20 games and put them out there for the public because, like, any game has a break-in period after you open it up, and, you know, especially the first show. That was the first show. That was the first time they've gotten 500 continuous plays without a single break. There was never a break. There was never 60 seconds where the game wasn't flipping on high power, you know. Yeah. But that was its first real test in a sense of, like, nothing compares to putting a game through a show. There's nothing on the planet that you can do that is going to simulate what it's like when you have a thousand different people walk up to your game and play it at a show. Like, yes, it's been on location. It's not the same because you get a lot of, there's breaks in between people. A lot of people don't really know what they're doing when they play pinball. Some of them are really good. But like a show is literally as soon as the game ends, the next person in line is hitting start and beating the hell out of it again. This is stress test. And it's like, it was the first show I'd been to. And they're doing it in strange ways. They're doing stuff like the game is still closing out its end from the previous game, and they're just mashing the start button 15 times. Yeah, spamming buttons that have never been spammed that way before. Yeah. I mean, we try everything we can to break it before these shows. Obviously, when we're testing, like, Luke Peters on TCM, just, you know, he'll hit a hook lock, and he's like, all right, and then I spammed the start button, launch button, and action button all together for 30 seconds to see if it breaks anything. Like, you just, it's so hard to simulate all the crazy shit that can happen in these shows. to a game. You find a ball and resolve them although we didn't walk over and touch Scooby-Doo the entire show. We've been doing it for a while. Everyone's caught everything that could be caught. You start to just find all the variables, any problems that come. One thing we do, we set ourselves up a lot, is we do really out-of-the-box mechs. Anytime you're doing a new mech that hasn't had 100,000 balls run through it. 20 years of testing. When you're just putting a Williams part or a Williams mech in a game, you know that thing's gone through the ring. You know that's a vetted part and everything, but when you're making a new unique mech there's so many problems you can not think over. I'm thinking of that diverter in the back right of the playfield that lifts up. Yeah, the orbit diverter. It's not like it pops open and then you can start locking balls. It pops open as the ball is crossing that switch. It's no joke. Yeah, I had a guy this week that was like mine is not letting the ball in there and I'm like, that is so strange we're not having that problem. It was simple as there's a set screw on the bottom like any drop target or up post. You just lift it up about an eighth of an inch, boom. It works every, he's like, oh, it works 10 out of 10 now. No, but legit, dude, like, that show, I mean, we set up 20 games brand new out of the box. And then, you know, over the weekend with TCM Looney Tunes, we found one ball trap that we needed to fix. Luke already has that bracket made. We've already been testing it on the line all week. The Monica drop target trap. There it is. Yeah, it's that one. Yep. And a code bug in Looney Tunes that needed fixing, code bug in TCM that needed fixing. And other than that, the games were rocks.
    20:24
    It's the ball search thing. Just one ball search. Oh, yeah. If it clears it, they're going to be fine. I mean, there's no fatal flaw in the layout at all. No. You know, it's four flippers, four ramps, under flipper shots, fun little mechanisms. Yeah. The meat grinder just grinds. Yeah. Yeah, we haven't had any problems with that. No, that thing's been all right. Surprising. Yeah, I guess that would be a mech that I would expect. Okay, this is a new thing. They say the grind doesn't stop. Yeah. I would have expected that one to throw us a few curveballs. Maybe it still will, but it has not yet. That one's actually been really good. Yeah. I love that just every inch of this layout for both of the games just has something there to do. And I think even without that grinding mech, it would still feel like a full-featured game too. But, like, the fact that that's in there too and, like, works as a diverter, it's mechanical, it's kinetic, it's a ball lock mechanism, it's a gameplay element, and there's, like, more code fun things that you can do with it. I mean, everyone keeps telling us they want great layouts with tons of flow and then mechs. But mechs that don't interrupt the flow and add to the game in a positive way. Right, right. That's all we're trying to do. Yeah, yeah, nothing that sinks into the play field. You have to wait to reset before you can start again. So, yeah, man, I was super enthusiastic about these games from the moment I played them. I ordered both of them. I thought momentarily, and I was ordering two of the same version of the game, you know, with the same shots and layout, a bad idea. And, like, I haven't felt bad about it at all. No, you won't. No, they're so different, man. Yeah, it sounds like a sales thing from us, which is why a lot of people probably don't. I don't even blame. I wouldn't believe it if someone told me, but it is actually that different in this one. Which, for the record, we don't actually think anybody out. We don't think anybody's intending to own both of these forever either. We didn't design it in a way that was like, oh, yeah, for sure, everybody has to buy both. Some people absolutely will now, though. Yeah, no, it's turning that way for sure. People ask me, of course, so, Don, which one's better? Because they're on the fence. And so well done picking two themes that people feel strongly about Looney Tunes. They feel strongly about TCM, too. To the point that they're like, I could actually go for either one. I don't know which one to do, Don. Which one should I get? And I'm like, don't look at me. TCM already has so much code in it, and it's got such a cool atmosphere. It really makes you feel something in that sense.
    22:34
    But I think Looney Tunes, well, Looney Tunes will see more updates, obviously. And I think that one's going to grow into be really, really, really stellar. It's going to get pulled back and forth between which one's definitively better for probably the entire lifespan of these games. Yeah, I mean, if I had to pick one that I had to sell and the other one to keep, honestly, I don't know which one I would pick right now. Really? Yeah. I was waiting to see. Are you going to let one go eventually? What are you going to do? You got to let one go. You can't have all spooky games in your basement. I can imagine. You're going to get in trouble. Don's spooky pinball podcast. So I built up the spooky corner, and then I'm sure you guys are going to release another game at some point. I'm going to have to make some decisions. No, we're done. And Scooby's bolted, allegedly. Dude, it's butter. It looks so nice where it's at. That's a tough one to let go. It's got two toppers on top of it now.
    23:24
    And it's still getting updates. There's still two more Wizard Moms to come for that game this year. Yeah, I still haven't really fully embraced all that yet. So it's just too early for them. But then I'm looking at my sterns like, I got Elvira, man. I guess my Godzilla I've probably had the longest, so I can always make room there. And, I mean, I say I'm out of room. But there's still more room. There's a basketball court. There's a lot of Godzilla out there, I guess. So you'd have the option there. You'd probably be able to get one of those anytime. That's what I always tell people when they're like, I'm on the fence about selling my Godzilla for one of your games. And it's not to put on the salesman hat or anything, but it's like, I promise you'll be able to get another Godzilla. So I've owned a Rick and Morty. Loved to have the Jerry ramp in there. You guys came over to play it. We streamed it. And then I had an opportunity to swap it for a big Lebowski. and so as much as I loved my Rick and Morty, I was like, this is a good deal. I should go for it. And so now I'm thinking like the other day, you know, let's see if I can swap it back. So I went on a pin side and, you know, the prices with the softening of the market, I could actually pick up a Rick and Morty for less than the trade value and less than the price I paid for it initially. So like I can get it again. And in my searching, some mad lad has a new in box Rick and Morty, butter cabinet for sale in the box down in Los Angeles, listed a pin side for 15,000. And I'm like, oh, man. Dude, he secretly wants a spooky basement so bad. Yeah, he's like, I'm getting rid of all the other games. But, like, for the opportunity to pick up. It's like the Hulk inside of him. He can't hide it. Like, Rick and Morty is not going to be made anymore. 750 is how many were made. And this is one that's never been played. It's still on the box. And it's the best version of it. And there's probably not a lot. I mean, there's definitely some people that must have tucked those away as an investment type thing, just imagining that they'd be able to sell it in mint condition someday. But I don't know of any. That's usually double money. Once a year somebody opens a new in box Alice Cooper or Rob Zombie, and I'm like, where have you heard of that? No kidding. I saw one.
    25:20
    I saw a Rob Zombie get opened new in box. That is still the nicest play field. That thing is so, it's just bulletproof. I don't know what it was back then. They were just perfect. I had the chance recently, it was this year that I finally got to play a Rob Zombie. I tracked one down. A friend of mine has one in town. And, you know, I was thinking, oh, okay, it's an early spooky game, so it's not going to play even as good as Alice Cooper. But the game's super fun, and the call-outs are incredible.
    25:45
    I still cite it as probably one of the best performances of call-outs in our company's history. And we've worked with some grade-A talent over the years. Dude, Rob Zombie's call-outs in that game, though, he really gave it. Like, he meant business when he was doing those. He understood the excitement and turned in extra credit. Yeah, like I want to use that as an example for a lot of actors that we work with now. Like, this is what I'm looking for, but in your style. Right, yeah. I don't just want the call-outs culled from your album. We're playing a pinball machine. Make me regret thinking I could play this properly. I want you to be rating me. I want to hear it. I think the Pinball Palace still has an AMH on location being played every day too, don't they? I feel like there's secretly actually 400 AMHs out there.
    26:29
    No, there's not. Because there's so many on location, and then I always see about one per show when we go to shows, and then I swear I get at least a couple people at shows who tell me they own one. And I'm like, I know there's only 150 of these, but it's starting to feel like 400. Yeah, I promise. I screwed a lot of them together myself. You were secretly selling them out of your basement. No, I swear I wasn't. I know my dad wasn't paying that close of attention to you. He was just thrilled somebody was in the shop making them. One game for Charlie, one game for me. No. He was squirreling away a couple parts in his cargo shorts. No kidding. Assembling them at home. We always used to joke about that on the assembly line all the time. Yeah, and then it happened. Anyway. No, no kidding.
    27:11
    Well, that's fine. Yeah, so Scooby-Doo is still in production. You guys are building the Bloodsuckers. Are you building the standard ones yet? Yeah, there's a couple over there right now. Yeah, you can go see them if you want to. I do. It was weird. I have two standards over there right next to Looney Tunes CEs. And that is just a funny sight. Those two games next to each other is interesting looking. That's funny. It's cool in general just to see that building flowing so many titles out at once right now. If you would have told me two years ago we were doing that, I would have actually gotten pissed. I would have been like, no. No. Hard that sounds. I'm dying here, man. What do you mean we're going to build four games at the same time? It's getting easier. Dude, it's nothing. We're getting good at it. Yeah. You guys are done with the TNAs, right? Yeah. We're done with those. I don't know. We're probably not going to revisit that one. I think we're done. I think that was. I'm pretty sure we're all done. Yeah. I mean, there's how many of them out there is there? 700-something? 250 second run, 550 first run, I think. 800 of them. 800 is a lot of TNAs. Yeah, yeah. I think we're done. I don't think you guys need extra inventory on the line. Sounds like you're doing awesome. No, let's get up to seven titles on the line. Yeah. Just build them all at once. We'll make them all. I know. I feel like adding another one in there. We'll see. So are you going to stop with the play field that you had for TCM and Looney Tunes and just keep putting different themes on it? That would be the only two for that one. No. No, we're not going like quad theme. We're not that ambitious yet. We're probably done with the dual themes too. I want more variations of the meat grinder.
    28:42
    Well, it's weird because you can get away with using the same mech again if it's like 15 years later if you're other companies. I don't know if we would get away with that. We could just extend that. There's tons of cool things you could do with this. You could turn that worm screwdriver into a sandworm even. There you go. Sure.
    28:59
    They don't make that motion. No, if you do a sandworm, it has to eat the ball. I've been informed. We've been informed by you. We have been. Yeah. If you ever see a spooky sandworm, it will have to eat the ball. If there was ever a dune pin, I think it would just be sandworms and ball eating. There's the dual theme, Beetlejuice and dune.
    29:19
    People do occasionally ask for dune. I'm not that familiar with it. I don't. It's bizarre, man. Is it? Yeah. I don't know. I hear they're great. I haven't seen the new ones yet. I'm kind of waiting for them all to come out so I can just binge it sometime when I'm in the mood. The people that are into it really seem like super fans of it. I wonder if they're fans of the novelizations and then they give the movies a pass. I remember watching the original movie when I was a kid. It's still hard to understand. Well, that's because it's Lynch. Yeah, David Lynch is just one of my favorite directors. Oh, yeah. His movies are – you're not understanding that forever. The whole goal is to not understand a David Lynch movie. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. His movies, I don't want to say they make no sense, but they aren't exactly clear-cut as to what exactly is going on, and I freaking love it. He's one of my favorite directors. I lack all the knowledge on the film director thing. I get all of my information from Corwin. My uncle used to say watching movies with me was like watching with the director. Oh, jeez. Imagine being eight years old and watching that original Dune for the first time, because that's literally what happened to me. I was like, okay, blue eyes, weird kids, flying drone, and this guy is totally gross looking. There's a slug in a tank. It's pretty uncomfortable. Yeah. I like it. Let's make the game. And now it's kind of just like Zendaya in the Desert, I guess. Yeah, I genuinely don't know. We've called it the same. It's like all the new young hot actors, and it's a huge deal. Yeah, and they took the nose thing from Battlefield Earth, I think. Again, I haven't seen that movie really either. Couldn't tell you.
    30:46
    There's just too much. I can't watch this much media. There's so many. There's too many things coming out. I've got to fit my hunting shows in. I know. I got to learn about buying deer tags in Arizona. Yeah. That was really funny on the drive down. Oh, my God. We had Matt Kemp with us. He's from New Zealand. Yeah, he's from New Zealand. He finished Halloween Ultraman. Oh, right. He's a wizard. The guy is really, really good. Do we announce anything about his future? He's going to program more games with us because he's freaking amazing? Well, you could have made it sound cooler when you just said it, but yeah. You heard it here first. Breaking news. Matt Kemp will be doing more games with Spooky Pinball in the future. So you have more than one coder then? Yes. We have like four. We literally have four coders. I don't know where this... Probably going to be five soon enough. Yeah, I know. We're actually kind of looking for another. Hit us up. Yeah, no kidding. Four is apparently not enough anymore. We just have so many projects going. Yeah. So much to do. But Matt Kemp got a whole deer hunting podcast in. Yeah, so he learned a lot about deer hunting and getting elk tags in Utah. The fact that there's a 90-minute podcast just about how to buy deer tags is so incredible. Whoever's driving on our road trips gets to choose what we're listening to, because odds are they're going to be the only one awake anyway, because it's through the night. And Luke usually has some very fine cuisine of hunting podcasts. And it was literally episode upon episode of how to buy tags in different states. Did you know how many rules there are? Dude. Tell me more. Buying tags in other states is more complicated than pinball, and I'm not exaggerating. It's like a really intense lottery system. Genuinely, the whole hunting thing is so much more complicated than pinball is I can't even fathom it. It is crazy. It's not natural. There's something wrong with it. So I figure it's just like Big Buck Hunter, but like in real life, right? No. It is so complex, dude. It is. You still lose points if you shoot humans accidentally, right? Yes, absolutely. and years off of your life as well, actually. Not only that, but you were banned for 90 days from getting an elk tag in Utah. More than 90 days. We were driving through a construction zone. He's like, so only $10,000 for hitting an employee, huh?
    33:02
    He's like, seems kind of cheap. I guess that would seem abnormal if you're not from here. When he said it, I looked at it, and I was like, yeah, that is kind of cheap. It's the cost of doing business to some people. $1,000, there's got to be other fines. I imagine you're getting more than that. I hope so. If not, we need to change that. That's probably also a point on your license. A point or two. Maybe 10. I don't know.
    33:26
    Let's see. I mean, I guess if you're a high roller, you can hit a few a trip. It's like when you park in handicapped spots, and you're just like, what? That's a $400 parking spot. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, yeah. So I do that all year. I get popped twice. That's worth it. Oh, my God. $800 and I'm right next to the Walmart doors? That's not right. It was like a $200 charge for driving in the carpool lane? Yeah, sure, it saved some time. I'll never forget this one time I was hanging out with Scott Denisey, and there was a burger fest in town. It was this big festival of burgers.
    33:57
    Adequately known. I was like 14 or 15, and we were rolling up to Burger Fest. It was huge. There were so many people everywhere. I was like, oh, man, we're going to have to park so far away. Scott rolled up to $15 parking. I was like, whoa. Whoa. Your dad would have never done that, man. No, he would not. You couldn't wrangle 50. To this day, my dad would not do that. No, no chance. And I just remember being like whoa Scott He would bring his bicycle and ride a mile to the concert before he would pay for a party Dude Scott was explaining to me paying for something like that Sometimes in life, it's okay to pay for a leisureful experience if it makes it that much better. I'd be like, well, no Burger Fest for us, kids. We're going back. Dad would have been like, we parked there. You're not getting a single burger.
    34:44
    There's your burger. It's parked over there. My brain chemistry got changed that day. Enjoy this fancy lot. No kidding. My God. I never knew that story, actually. Oh, yeah. Burger Fest was great. You got to go to Burger Fest, and I think it was in Huntley. What other stories do you have hiding in there? I don't know, dude. I live a crazy life. Story time with Bug.
    35:01
    I mean, here in Benton, I just had to pay that guy in the corner $10 to park up front, so that was like a bargain. They're doing that again? No.
    35:08
    Damn it. Oh, man. Ben 10. Should we talk business? So I want to get a TCM Looney Tunes. I contact my distributor now. When can I reasonably expect to get one? I think we're still in that range where any orders that come in right now can be done this year yet. Okay. By the end of the year. There's going to be a certain point of ordering where if you just don't have your order, it's going to take a little bit longer past that mark. But our goal always is to get all the games done in a year. That's always what we're shooting for. So basically, as orders come in, I ramp up production. Well, I should say I tell Corwin to ramp up production. And then I complain about it a lot. But no, but as orders come in, I look at it. I see how many games we have to build before the end of the year, and we will change how many games we make per week to just continue to make that happen. So that's why a lot of people were asking me early on, on launch day, they're like, when can I expect my game? When can I expect my game? It's like, I don't really know because if we come back from Texas and get 500 orders, you're going to get it a lot sooner than if we come back from Texas and get two orders. So it kind of all depends on just how many we keep selling. but we always try to keep our backlog.
    36:17
    We're trying to keep a certain level of backlog so that we're always keeping, you know, workers busy. We don't just want to not have anything to do for three months and have to lay a bunch of people off. But we're also trying to balance that with getting everyone their stuff in a timely manner. So we will, as more orders come in, you will see us just scale up, scale up, scale up. And that's not a hard thing for us to do. That's not a challenge for us at this point.
    36:39
    So basically, yeah, but if you're ordering right now, you're still in this year. And we're taking orders every day, too. Morgan lets me know every single time. And Scooby, too. Someone asked what day yesterday. We're selling Scooby, like, every day now. So it's like... Until that game sells out, I'm selling it until the sun burns out. I mean, that's the thing, though. Like, it's just a moving target all the time now. Because as Scooby is still available, orders come in for that every day. That changes our numbers. Orders come in for Looney Tunes every day. Orders come in for TCM every day.
    37:09
    And we've got those Scoobies in a box ready to go right now, too. We built stock games. Yep. So we're just building our little hearts out. And we'll keep doing the, we'll keep, I'm trying to keep, you know, 10 or 20 Scoobies always sitting in a box. That way they're there for people. They can just grab them. And, you know, it's kind of a goal of ours, I guess, basically, to have games available like that. And how are you getting games to Europe? Do you have to, like, fill up a shipping container first and float it over there? Yeah, so that's a popular thing. We should actually kind of go over that. So maybe I can point people in that direction. it seems like we have some people that are really questioning, I guess, the number system right now.
    37:46
    We do build the games in order to an extent outside of, like, extenuating circumstances. So when we're originally, people are like, well, do game numbers matter? Do they not matter? They do matter. That is your game number, and, yes, we are building them in order. There are things like, for example, show games. We have to get games to shows. And when those come up, okay, it's like the week of Texas. All right, guys, we've got to get six Looney Tunes and six TC under this show. Those games just get a number. Whatever number Morgan happens to have available or whatever one's next. Open slots, basically. Yeah. Wherever there's a spot, she just throws them in. So show game numbers mean basically nothing. They could be anywhere. They could be – it all depends on when she's doing the paperwork. If she's pre-planning a month ahead of Texas and a month ahead of Texas, there's this slot of five numbers open, that's where they're going to go. So those mean nothing. So there's some confusion on that. I'm going to sneeze or something.
    38:43
    But we literally do try to build it as close to exactly in order as possible, but you just have to remember that distributors have a set block of numbers. Sometimes we have to get that game to that distributor a little sooner. There's a few circumstances where the numbers get a little mixed around, but honestly it's barely even. Sometimes X distributor will be like, hey, let me know when you have five of mine ready. Because some of these guys, like, some of these guys are really awesome. They just go pick up the games and deliver them to their customers for free. Just because they're just, you know, if they have them local, they'll do it. That's awesome. So they'll be like, hey, let me know when I have five ready. I'll come down and grab them with the trailer or whatever. Yep. So sometimes that message. So some people will be like, oh, well, I had, you know, this number. It's like, well, that's because your distributor is literally going to drive your game to your house, man. and set it up for you. So, yeah, like, you lost a week or two, but they're going to, like... So, if you're way busy this week, he's going to pick them up next week. Exactly. And in that week, you know, we built more games that week. That's exactly it. So, people are like, well, how could you get this one before me? It's like, we were still building while those four were sitting at four. Like you said, with the European shipments, we've got to fill a container. We can't just build one European game and then fly it out there and trade it. Yeah. $3,000 or something. So, that's another thing. But we'll try to do that in a fair way. So we'll look and we'll say, okay, you know, here's some European numbers. We'll try to get to kind of the midpoint of it, and then we'll build all of them. We won't, like, bump those way up or bump them way back. We're trying to get in the middle. We're trying to do it in the fairest way possible. But the reason I don't do any other companies even do a number, they give you a number. I don't think so. I don't believe so, right? Unless it's a super limited LE of, like, zero of 100 kind of thing. I don't think they do numbers. And then another thing, another big factor, too, is when we send you an invoice, if you're like, hey, a person that wants to get it, pay it right away. Because as soon as you pay it, that game's going online right away. Because one thing that we run into a lot is when we send out an invoice, I don't know how long it's going to take someone to pay. So I might send out an invoice for game number 201, and we planned on building that game that week, obviously. But if they don't pay the invoice for four months, it's like, yeah, that's in a different order then. So we always have to kind of have enough invoices floating out there that we have paid games ready to go. And what I was finding when we used to absolutely follow the number system, like, to a fault, like we're following this to a T. I thought we were about to get the biggest F-bomb.
    41:13
    We used to follow it, like, to an exact T. So it would be like you build this one European game, and then you build this one customer's game, but that customer didn't pay for it for three months, but this other person paid right away, but then they didn't get as early a game as they could because we boxed up three games that weren't paid for at all. This is silly. So it's like, now it's like, okay, you're up, you're ready to be built, here's your invoice. If you pay it right away, it's going straight on the line, and as soon as it comes off the line, since you're paid, I can ship it out that day. Nice. Otherwise, we used to, we had points, like during Halloween Ultraman, we had 200 games piled up sitting there, and it's just, it's silly to do it that way. It's really not worth it trying to keep track of the exact numbers. It's going to go out in order at this amount, so you'll get it exactly at this point. It's like, guys, there's so many different circumstances out there that that might not be accurate. You're just going to stress yourself out and make yourself upset. I would look at it as more, but it is fairly accurate, too. If you're number 150, that's about give or take when you're going to get that game. I think you guys are more than fair here. A game that released relatively this year is going to be built and delivered this year. So as far as pinball goes, that's amazing. Yeah. Thank you. That's one thing, too. I've been trying to tell people, like, hey, we're doing kind of the same thing now. We release. It's about the same amount of time until games start to land at shows and on locations. It's about the same amount of time until we finish the whole run. We're pretty consistent now.
    42:38
    I mean, we're just – this is – it's what we do. We're settling into it, and we're just going to keep rolling. And your production is set up such that you don't have to, you know, completely finish this run and retool to have something else. I mean, you can kind of pivot to move as orders come in and out. Which that has been phenomenal. Freaking massive.
    42:54
    My God. That's been changing for us just in these last few years here where, you know, because it did used to be this game ends, everybody's on the next game all at the same time. And it was a nightmare. Yeah, and you got 40 people trying to get their questions answered and get trained all at once. Training 40 people on a completely new job. That is horrifying. It was the worst. It was the worst, man. So this time, being able to still have Scooby on the line and pull people, you know, this week it's like, okay, we're going to pull five people and move them over to Looney Tunes and TCM. And then the next, you know, two weeks later we'll pull five more over. Being able to slowly transition that has led to way better training. People are getting their questions answered a lot better. It's just better quality. Everything's better. It's better for everyone because it's less stress on the employees, too, because, I mean, they don't have a good time when all of a sudden, you know, their build is done. and then we're like, all right, here's the new one. You have to be perfect immediately out of the gate. Instead, it's like, okay, slow down production just a little bit so that your employees have some extra time, pull a few of them over, really take the time to explain everything in depth, let them get their questions in, all of that. It's been phenomenal. I can see it in their eyes that they're handling it a lot better. I can see it in Luke's eyes that we're handling it a lot better. It's literally better for everyone. The toughest time in my life every year because it comes about, We built ourselves into this, and it's actually kind of tough. We are always transitioning to a new game right as show season is starting, basically, or right before show season is starting. Yeah, I mean, you were December with Scooby-Doo, and then I think you were November or so, just after TPF for these two. Yeah. I mean, after Expo in October. And I come right out to work with Corwin and getting everything new on the line. It's all hands on deck when we transition. It's AJ, it's me, it's Corwin, it's everyone. Luke Peters is testing stuff. I mean, we pull everyone to make sure that that game gets on the line as well as it can, and it's still a lot. It's hard every time. There's no escaping it. There's no escaping that. It's just tough. I think what I'm hearing is based on, and this is because this is what I want to hear, your pattern of rolling back a month earlier each time. I think this year, with Chicago's Expo in October, that will line up with your next game there confirmed, it sounds like. Not a chance. Zero chance. I love the themes that you guys have. Scooby-Doo, I was like, yes, give me that game. These two came out. Yes, I gobbled both licenses. You guys seem very excited about what you have coming in the future, which makes me excited, even though you guys have sworn you're not going to tell me, and I don't know. I like that. I like being surprised. But I can see your tells, like the twinkle in the eye, about what you guys are excited about. You've got licensing worked out. You're only getting licenses where you can get all the assets that we want. You're making people do custom call-outs for the machines and not afraid to pay for that because you've been able to kind of budget engineer everything else that you have.
    45:50
    You know, I'm just like what I have. I want more, sir. I think we've just really been coming into our own, I guess, in a sense, just with licensing, with builds, just layouts, everything. We're getting it figured out pretty good here. Yeah, we got a system down. We're all getting more experience in our roles and everything. I mean, TCM and Looney Tunes is a killer layout. It's so good. It's good. And it's the biggest. The programming was farther ahead than we've ever had the programming. We got those Whitewoods to those guys so early, like 18 months before launch.
    46:23
    So being able to put, we got programming pushed ahead. We have the best programming team we've ever had by far. We have an amazing rules team now. The layouts are getting better and better. We have some freaking killer stuff coming. And then a bug over here knows how to license now. He is a nasty licensor. He is a master. It keeps me awake at night.
    46:45
    I think about it a lot. More than anything in this world, I'm thinking about licensing, what to get.
    46:52
    Yeah, we got some really good mid-level management starting to get built up, too, as far as the production line goes and the QC stuff. We got some really good. Our employees are more experienced, too. We have a lot of tons of people here that have been here now for five, six, seven years doing their jobs. I mean, Seth's been wiring playfields for seven, eight years now. He's done well over 1,000 playfields himself. Oh, probably. He's got more than that by now, isn't he? Probably. I don't know. How many games have we made? And the production here just keeps going now, so it's not like you have to bring in a crew for a production run and then, okay, contract crew, you're out of here. You know, reapply when we're ready to make something else. And that's what I keep trying to stress to people is these are people, real full-time employees that we keep for years. We're not trying to build a run of games in three months and then kick everyone out of the building for nine months. That's not, that's not a conducive way to run, at least not in this area. That's not a conducive way to run business. You're not, I mean, you just can't, you really want to bring in a whole bunch of temporary workers that don't know pinball.
    47:54
    you know, don't care about it. And just because a lot of these, like Seth every day after work, he's, he's playing pinball in the, A lot of these people actually really enjoy the hobby and care about what they're doing. When he's wiring a play field, he legitimately cares, like, how good does this look for the customer. Like, it matters to him. And I think that does make a really big difference. And then just the experience. Like I said, I can walk over and, hey, Seth, we need five Scooby-Doos today. He's like, okay, no problem. Yeah, that's awesome. So, and the next day, hey, Seth, we need five TCM. All right. It's just we have people that are experienced. They know the games, and they can do whatever. And I did want to talk about this because you're the licensing guy here. People probably do the same thing to you. It's probably weird all Yankovic all day where strangers will come up and say, oh, hey, here's the three themes I really want you to do. And in your head, you're thinking, yeah, Doofus, I've heard of Friday the 13th before. But what you don't understand is I went to that licensor 10 years ago. We had that conversation. They were so hard to work with that it would have came out like completely terrible, so we've abandoned the product. But, like, you're not allowed to say that, really. So you just have to kind of go, oh, wow, yeah, I guess that would be kind of cool. And then the next person is like, oh, hey, there's saws over there. You guys should have done saw. And you're like, in my head I've got ten reasons why it doesn't exist already. Yeah, it's – that is the worst part about the licensing side of things. The problem is he wants to do all of them too. Yeah. First off, yeah. It's like we've thought of that too. Yes, that occurred to us. Yeah. But that's also the worst thing about the licensing thing is like I can't – I just can't say anything. I cannot say anything. People are like, how was it to work with that licensor? My answer is going to be it was good because you can't just walk around being like, oh. We reached a mutually beneficial agreement. God, it was good. You can't do that. Some of them are really great, though. Some are really, really fantastic. Some are fantastic, and I think we make it pretty clear when we're working with one that we think is fantastic. But, yeah, no, it's really changed my mindset when I look at other things people have done. And it's actually, I don't consume almost any negative sort of media anymore where people are like the top five worst of these. Because it's like, now that we've been on the inside of a lot of how stuff gets made, it's like, guys, they were definitely trying their hardest. They definitely had the right intentions and good hearts behind it. This shit's just really hard sometimes. When it falls through, is it just like, you know, this is the cost to be able to do this and we can't really budge any more than this and it's just not financially going to make any sense? Actually, I would say to this day that's never stopped us. I was going to say we've never – There's never been a price tag that we said no. Nope. We're going to make it happen. And we would probably be transparent. Like if we had a theme that was like outer space level good, we'd be like, hey, guys, listen. This is costing us like $2,000 a game. If you're interested in it, we're going to do it. We don't know how many people will be interested in it, but here it is. If you hate it, you hate it. I'm sorry.
    50:45
    I think – I guess we would approach stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, cost has never been the thing to turn us away from something. Is it a big sell to tell people or educate them on what it is you're actually trying to do and they just don't get the concept of you're making a pinball machine, I need call-outs for this, I need to put things on the screen? Pinball is particularly hard to explain to a lot of licenses because, like, guys, we're in such a small bubble here. This is such a small niche thing. Most people out there don't understand the depth that pinball goes with these licenses and the assets and everything. They just know, like, oh, there's pinball machines. bells and chimes, flippers, ball, you know, you just slap the logo on it and there's like music or something and that's it. And you start talking to the licensor like we need all of this, all of that. The amount of times I've been told by a licensor, no one's ever asked for that before. Yeah. It's like really crazy. Or we be like we need this much footage and they be like um for what Yeah They like why the hell you making a documentary bro We never even been asked for all that It our job to present it in a way to them that shows like hey this is why this is going to be probably the most high collector item of this product that you ever see I mean, it doesn't get much bigger or more high-end for an IP than pinball as far as collectability goes. because that's the comparison people make all the time when they're talking about, you should do that license because people over there, they'll buy $800 props. And it's like that is still nothing compared to pinball as far as price goes. So, yeah, explaining to licensors and making it as easy as possible for them to get what you're doing and just being as professional as possible. Making it as easy as possible for them so you can make a good product is really important. I do get the feeling, though, that pinball is the hardest thing they work on. I do, too, and I feel so bad for them. Yeah. Every time I'm like, sorry, dude. We kind of mentioned pinball machine. They're like, oh, no. Because they've either dealt with it in the past and they realize how intensive it is, how much stuff. I mean, everything has to be reviewed and approved. Yeah. Well, they're used to a commercial that's 15 seconds. And they're like, okay, here's one cut scene. It's like, can I use this in this way? And they're like, yeah. And, dude, these companies are huge. Larger than anything most of us ever work with. Like there are just thousands and thousands of employees who have a system on how to get these things made in a way that they know will get streamlined and approved. And then, yeah, you show up and you're like, I need original this, this, this, this, and this. And they're like, oh, brother. Yeah, they're like, we haven't approved that much stuff for this IP in the history of it. Yeah. With as popular as pinball is becoming, though, it's got to at least be getting a little easier. At least these companies, when you come back to them, they say, oh, yeah. Okay, we remember what you were doing last time. You do have the benefit that they think it's cool. I think it's so darn cool every time I show my Warner Brothers guys stuff that we're working on he's like oh man he's like can I get one of those he's like can you print that out for me I'm like yeah brother we showed one art once and I can't say who it's by I'm just trying to make sure I don't say who it's by we showed one art once and he was just like this guy is good can I get prints of all of this for myself I'm going to look up this guy after he's just like hardcore fanboy and out. This is freaking amazing. Is there a moment that you get to, in my head I picture this, you walk into Warner Brothers Studio with the finished production game and you can unveil it amongst the council of folks who make these decisions. Like, this is what we were doing. This is why we've been working so hard on this. And they're like, everybody applauds and stands up. We've never done that, have we? No. That would be a really scary idea. Yeah. Because they walk up to it and they're like, nah, that's not approved. Yeah. Oh, okay. I see how that could go sideways. Yeah, it could be in your mind. We have to recall. And then they walk up and they're like, you got to change all that. It's like, oh, shoot. That happened on Rick and Morty with Cartoon Network with one thing. They got the whole game done. And then the reps actually for Cartoon Network came and visited. Remember? They came to the shop. Yeah, Adult Swim. Adult Swim, sorry.
    54:41
    They showed up and they pointed out like one thing. And they're like, I never saw that. They were totally cool with it and they definitely did everything. They don't miss a thing. But it was like they walked up to this pinball machine that has all these parts on it. and he looked at this tiny little square and was like, we didn't see that. Oh, okay. Noted. And Charlie, I've never seen Charlie change so many colors so fast. Like, whoa. Wet spots started on the floor in front of him. No, but they were totally cool about it and everything. They're like, oh, yeah, that looks fine. No problem with that at all. But it was just crazy that out of, you know, a thousand items that got approved. I just tore a napkin. It was so loud. Oh, God. So it's like, you know, the ink isn't even dry, and you're just like running out of the building like, don't take backs, don't take backs. Yeah, right? They signed it. I can't believe it. Let's do the thing. Yeah, no, they were top notch though. They know what they're doing. No, yeah, these guys are professionals. They really understand what they're working with. They don't miss a beat. And no, it's all really cool and great to work with in its own special way. And I got a call last night during my stream. It was really funny because I felt my phone vibrating, and usually I just never check my phone during a stream because that's not professional. But I knew I was waiting on a phone call all day. I was in the middle of streaming Rick and Morty. I pulled my phone out away from the camera, and I checked it, and I knew exactly who it was. And I was like, oh. Straight stream pauses. How funny would it be, though, if you just ran out? Sorry, guys. I have a lapel mic. Oh, no. Oh, God. What was funny? Hey, it's the guy from Gremlins. Call me back. Yeah, no kidding. As soon as the stream ended, I pulled out my phone. I hit end stream, and as I was hitting end stream, I was pulling out my phone to call them back. And like two minutes into the call, I was like, I really need to double check that that stream is off.
    56:23
    That will happen at some point to us. I'm going to slip. I'm going to slip up on stream someday. For sure. It is inevitable. The best streamers in the world do it. I am not the best streamer in the world. I will do it. Let me go ahead and pour you an old-fashioned here.
    56:38
    Something that happened to us recently, kind of a funny story. We were working at a future game in the middle of the shop on a weekend. It was like a Sunday, wasn't it? Saturday? I don't know if I'd tell this. Yeah, it's probably fine. Some dude just walked in. Just walked in? Yeah, just walked in. He was like, oh, hey. And I'm like, oh, my God, you cannot see any of this. Please leave. Yeah. Whoopsies. Anyway, that's why the door was locked when Don got here. Yeah. Oh, security progressively keeps getting just a little bit tighter. Yeah, we keep adding, like, more cameras and more keypad locks because there's just so much stuff. Because it started, there was virtually no security because it's bent in. Oh, you can tell them the Leatherface story now.
    57:15
    Leatherface story? I want to tell this story first. This was like a month before Scooby-Doo came out, and we had a prototype cabinet up in our office upstairs. And we had a friend. I'll say it. It's Scott Millman. He's a good friend of ours. We've sold him a few games, and I see him at tournaments and whatnot. He's a great guy. Running with the back pocket in Dubuque. Yeah, yeah. And I think he was buying TNA. Yeah, it was the day that we took sales on TNA 2.0. And he comes upstairs. He's looking for us so he can give us the deposit for his game because he just wanted to do it in person. We were like, hell yeah, that's fine. And he comes upstairs. He can't find us. And he asks a random employee who doesn't work here anymore, not because of this story, but just figured I'd throw it in there. Just to be clear, yeah. Yeah, random employee who does not work here anymore. And he asks, hey, where's like Bug and Squirrel and Luke and them? And he goes, oh, they're in here and they're in this office. And he walks over and opens the door to the office. And Scott walks in. and there's a Scooby-Doo cabinet just sitting right there. And he's looking straight ahead to the right. And we're like, hi, Scott. And he's like, don't worry, the blinders are on. And we're like, how good are they? Oh, man.
    58:30
    So that door has a keypad on it now. So his body's in the freezer still downstairs. He doesn't want to leave the building. No, but, yeah, there was probably a solid month where, you know, Luke's office has a bathroom tile window thing that you can't see through. It's a window, but you can't see through it. I've tried. It's all patterned over. Yeah. But he sets things on this window sill sometimes, and he happened to set a flat guide of Leatherface against it. No, no, that was the sculpt. Oh, it was the sculpt. That was the actual sculpt from the game. It was the sculpt from the game, which the shadow makes it huge. Yeah, you can imagine. You can just walk by outside the spooky pinball factory. All you see is Leatherface like this. He's literally just a leather face holding a chainsaw above his head, silhouette on his window. And it's like, hey, bro. Outside the front. My office, I guess, is outside the front door, too. So anyone walking into the building could just see the silhouette of leather face looming in the window. Which we need to do that with themes we don't have. Yeah, right? Like, I want to put Michael Jackson up there, like, hand in the air. I should probably actually check that now, because people are going to look for that. Yeah, you need to send me that photo. I mean, honestly, and I don't know if it's because I'm so dense, But I would have saw that and been like, oh, yeah, they like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That's cool. Well, Don, we literally showed Don on accident a side rail for TCM before it came out, and he didn't say a thing. We were showing him the powder coat factory, and there was a chainsaw side rail sitting on the ground. And I looked at it. I looked at Luke. I looked at Don. And Don was just la, la, la, la. Yeah. I was probably like, oh, look, they messed that one up. That doesn't look like the jack-o'-lantern. Yeah, right?
    60:04
    Idiots. These guys are dumb. It's hard to make it through the tours without a clue here or there. Every tour we do, I find one thing that I'm like, whoops. Like I had a Wile E. Coyote metal cutout stuck to my toolbox for a while. Oh, yeah, you did. Yeah. Which actually, I knew it was there, and I was like, screw it. You had the speaker grill cutout for the laser. Yeah, the Wile E. Coyote cutout. It pays to have a dumb friend like me, I guess. It is everybody that we brought through. Nobody pointed it out, unfortunately. I kind of wanted it. And I forgot until I got back, but I should have gone to the TPF booth and looked for clues, because that one year when Halloween was out, you had a Scooby-Doo blanket or something laying in the background. Yeah, we haven't done that in a while. We forgot, too. So here's a fun fact for you.
    60:48
    During Scooby-Doo production, early production, somebody had asked me. I'm always on pin side, obviously, and I try to help people whenever I can. And a guy asked, he's like, hey, is this switch gate supposed to be adjusted like this? And I was like, oh, no, it's supposed to be this way. So I took a picture quick in my office with my phone, and it was the Scooby-Doo switch gate with Texas Chainsaw and Looney Tunes in the background behind it. And this was like a week after Scooby came out. Yeah. Oh, geez. Yeah, yeah. So this is way early, like when you don't want things leaking. Yeah. And I cropped the image down to where it was just this small switch gate, right? Well, when I went on to Pinside and I posted the picture, I grabbed the uncropped image on accident. Because it usually refreshes your list, so you choose the last image in it. So I chose the last image in it. Since I was already in the comment, it didn't refresh my gallery, so I just clicked the last image. So it came up. So then I posted the next two games in the Scooby thread.
    61:52
    And there was two people that saw it. Both of them direct messaged me and were like, hey, don't worry about it. I really respect you guys and what you do, and I would never want to mess up a future launch for you like that, so don't stress. And I was like, I am going to send you a refrigerator box of merch right now and maybe $10,000. Jeez, man. He called me. I was just like next door working on the games. Oh, yeah, this is the best part. He called me. I'm trying to remember what you said exactly. I didn't know how to delete the picture. You called me. You were like, I need help. You were like, I posted a picture. It leaked something. I don't know how to delete it. Yeah, so on Pinside, there's the trash thing. And I sprinted faster than I have in my adult life across that shop to get to the office to help. Because you can drain a post on there, and it's just so you don't see it. Oh, yeah. You have to actually go in and edit it. Which, what the hell is that, Robin? God. I need to text him about that. Like, dude. Yeah, no kidding. But it was only up for maybe 20 seconds, so it wasn't very long. It was long enough that two people saw it, though, which is crazy.
    63:02
    My heart was racing for a while after that one. That was not great. Yeah, so if you can do that again, you have to make sure your naked butt's visible in reflection, so everybody's attention will go to that and won't even notice the games. That's genius. I didn't know people knew that I did game design naked. No, specifically he lights a candle and turns on very, very gangster rap. I call it my thinking candle. Yeah. I do. I light it next. It's vanilla. And then, yeah, I just kind of lock in, and it's CAD time. My thinking candle. Yeah. I turn on some music that people would make fun of me for listening to, and I do my thing. We've gotten through some layers here. Yeah. We're getting deep now. Yeah. Isn't it great when I have nothing prepared? Yeah, this is fun. This is actually, yeah, this is way better. Just talking is easy. Yeah, not to be an offense. Some of the questions that we usually get are, like, tough. It's like, hey, what is your favorite this? What is your that? Like you said, it's like, I don't want to talk about that that much. I've been asked that 564 times. Tell me about the ways you messed up around the office. Oh, okay, here we go. Yeah, that's way more fun for us. Now we've got some stories. Tell me about the last three people that got fired from there. Somebody yesterday said, well, they must be doing this game because Luke must have immediately ran over and told Bug that this comment happened or whatever. So therefore, I've declared – and I'm like, these people are grossly underestimating how often in a day I run over to tell Corwin something stupid. He gets so mad when I don't remember things that he says. I'm like, bro, you tell me 300 things a day that you're like, you have to remember this. And maybe one is real. I'd be like, you need to do this, this, this. I had one comment that a person had this problem, and we need to make sure this never happens again. And also, this person said they wanted this theme, and this podcaster did this. And I do that. That's my morning routine with Luke every day. Every 11 minutes. And then I smoke all day.
    65:05
    That's awesome. Don's like, this sounds amazing. He smokes a cigar for an hour to let the nicotine soak his brain from all the things that I told him in a day. Makes sense. Yeah, I don't think anybody would blame you for it. No, we haven't gotten addicted to anything yet, so that's cool. No, no addictions. I'm a clean, I didn't even, I smoke cigars now, but I. That is the crutch. Never even smoked my first, well, I've obviously never even had a cigarette. I've never smoked my first thing until I smoked a cigar like two years ago. Yeah. And the drinking is like, if you're in pinball, just give up drinking. If you're working, if you're in pinball, you should drink. It's a great time. If you're working in pinball, dude, it's just not worth it. Can you imagine? It's just not worth it. Also, if you're 21 and betting Wisconsin drinking, you're way too old. Yeah, right? That's such a pre-teen thing.
    65:58
    No. Luke and I keep it really clean. We got a lot of stuff to do, dude. We can't be hungover. We literally don't have time. We're here seven days a week every freaking week, man. There's not a day. If I get three hours a day. The other day I got three hours of daylight in the evening, and I was stoked. I was like, oh, my God, I got to go out and do my own thing for three hours in peace and quiet. It was amazing. It's incredible. I walked up. The first thing I told Corwin the next morning, because that's the first thing I do every day, is run over and tell him stuff.
    66:27
    Sometimes angry, sometimes happy. Yeah, dude, I got to ride around in my golf cart for three hours last night and breathe fresh air, and I feel so great today. Where is this golf cart? Let's go do that. We can do it. Oh, it's fun time. Let's go. We can go to my house if you want to. I do. My deer mounts and whatnot. Yes. Yeah, we can do that. That would be fun. This is a lovely room of death.
    66:49
    All right, when's lunch? Yeah, any time. We can go to lunch. We don't have to stop the podcast to do lunch. We got the flat top stove over there. Oh, yeah. I probably have some steak in the fridge. Yeah, when Zach, Benny, and Greg Bone were here shooting the trailers for the next game. Luke disappears for half an hour. Yeah, they're like, where did he go? And I come back, and I smell like a steak. And they're like, dude, why do you smell like an entire cooked cow right now? I'm like, I eat a steak, one-pound steak every day for lunch.
    67:17
    I don't know what it is about pinball, but every single day we go to the store, we buy a cheap slap of steak, throw it on the grill at work, and that's our lunch. If you're going to be in pinball, you're going to be stressed enough that you just need a pound of protein every day. That's amazing. Well, thanks so much for letting me come down here and bother you guys again for an entire hour. Yeah, let's do another hour. Let's go. I'm ready. When is the other hour for Dawn After Dark, which is the new Patreon series that I've done? Yeah. We get rid of the sensors and the filters. We just go nuts. I'll have to join that. Absolutely. I'll join it. It's only $5 a month. I mean, why would you not? You don't get rich in pinball, but I have $5. Excellent. Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate it. Hopefully, you'll let me come back sometime. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right, thanks.
    68:03
    Spooky Pinball, thank you so much for that amazing interview. There's more to come, too, and it will continue in the after show after we got lunch on the Patreon. So I'm going to be putting that up tonight as well. Love you guys. Come on, check out. It's five bucks. Go tickle your fancy and see what's over there. Anything else, go ahead and e-mail me at donspinballpodcast.gmail.com. If you're a grandma and you love e-mail, it's a great way to get at me. Otherwise, if you're froggy, hit me up on the Instagram, donspinballpodcast. Put more content up there. I got short form videos on the YouTube. More to come there later. That's also Don's Pinball Podcast. And 1,200 of you are now liking and following the Facebook page. I love it. Keep that energy up because it just helps me to do even more fun content in the future. We're blowing up, man. We're having a good time. We're playing pinball. Let's get at it. Later, everybody.