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Episode 205 - Hold Me Closer, Embracer Neon

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 23m·analyzed·Oct 29, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

KCPC tournament preview; Elton John game reception; Stern allows distributor discounting amid market pressure.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss their recent activities, including a visit to Solid State Pinball in Kansas City for the upcoming KCPC tournament (Nov 10-12). They cover Elton John John reveal at Pinball Expo, which features Steve Ritchie design and Christopher Franchi artwork, with consensus that it plays fast and smooth but remains overpriced. They also discuss Stern's recent policy shift allowing distributors to discount older games, contrasting with JJP's stricter pricing controls that have led to distributor friction and creative workarounds.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack Pinball released two games in a calendar year for the first time ever (Elton John and presumably another earlier title)

    high confidence · Dennis: 'congratulations to JJP because for the first time ever they got two games out in a calendar year'

  • Elton John features 16 Elton John songs including 'Pinball Wizard' and is designed by Steve Ritchie with art by Christopher Franchi

    high confidence · Dennis provides detailed specs from official sources; confirmed by multiple podcast sources (Triple Drain, Loser Kid)

  • General consensus on Elton John: layout similar to Star Trek (3-flipper vibes), plays fast and smooth, fastest JJP ever, strong art, but overpriced relative to other recent releases

    high confidence · Dennis synthesized feedback from Zach Minney, Triple Drain Pinball Podcast, Loser Kid Pinball Podcast who attended Pinball Expo

  • Barrels of Jim Henson's Labyrinth direct sales are sold out, though distributors may still have inventory

    medium confidence · Dennis: stated at Expo; notes uncertainty about distributor inventory levels

  • Some stronger players feel Labyrinth's geometry isn't as refined as initial hype suggested; Elton John shoots better geometrically

    medium confidence · Dennis relayed feedback from unspecified 'stronger players'; no direct quotes provided

  • Stern is now permitting distributors to offer discounting on older games, reversing previous strict pricing controls

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Stern is apparently permitting distributors to offer discounting on games' on older titles; link provided to Knapp Arcade article

  • JJP distributors have used workarounds to discount overstocked games (calling opened boxes 'used,' selling at losses to recover capital)

    medium confidence · Dennis describes distributor tactics around Toy Story overstock; JJP 'blinked' and ultimately allowed discounting to avoid losing distribution network

  • Kansas City Pinball Championship (KCPC) will be held November 10-12, 2024 at Solid State Pinball

Notable Quotes

  • “JJP doesn't keep secrets. They don't know how. So just start accepting that and quit trying to twist these things into Harry Potter and stuff.”

    Dennis @ approx. 45 min — Commentary on JJP's transparent game announcements and the futility of speculation

  • “What is your biggest problem? Well, your biggest problem is your price. But what is your other biggest problem? Your other biggest problem is everyone thinks your games are floaty and slow.”

    Dennis @ approx. 55 min — Summarizes core criticisms of JJP's market position; Steve Ritchie hire directly addresses second criticism

  • “Why is this more than Pulp Fiction? Why is this more than the new labyrinth pin? Why is this more than well, everything?”

    Dennis @ approx. 58 min — Core pricing concern: Elton John at $12k-15k appears overpriced relative to competitive offerings

  • “It's not so much that it's high. It's that it's going to be like a car...J.J.P. depreciation pre-pandemic was always worse than it was for Stern.”

    Dennis @ approx. 65 min — Identifies depreciation risk as key market concern; buyers expect to lose $3k on $12k purchase

  • “They canceled the additional orders and gave up their deposit, which was not insignificant...it's better to lose $20,000 or whatever the amount was than get stuck with these games.”

    Dennis @ approx. 75 min — Illustrates severity of JJP distributor inventory crisis; demonstrates real financial consequences

  • “They'll rip open the top of the box and then call it used and sell them...to get around this sort of thing”

    Dennis @ approx. 78 min — Reveals creative (arguably deceptive) workarounds distributors employ to circumvent pricing restrictions

  • “I will say that I am more interested in Labyrinth than I am in Elton John just because of the theme and how different that game seems and being from somewhere new”

    Tony @ approx. 60 min — Preference for novel design over licensed IP; signals market appetite for fresh design approaches

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanySteve RitchiepersonChristopher FranchipersonJean-Paul de WinpersonElton Johngame

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Jersey Jack Pinball officially announced Elton John at Pinball Expo with full specifications, artwork, and theme details; represents first time JJP released two games in same calendar year

    high · Dennis confirms game was officially revealed at Expo with Christopher Franchi art, Steve Ritchie design, 16 songs, mechanical details; second game earlier in year unspecified but implied Godfather or recent title

  • $

    market_signal: Stern Pinball reversing strict MAP/MSRP enforcement; now permitting distributors to discount older games, signaling market oversupply and learning from JJP's distributor crisis

    high · Dennis: 'Stern is apparently permitting distributors to offer discounting on games' on older titles; contrasted with JJP's stricter historic controls; explicit link to Knapp Arcade article detailing policy shift

  • ?

    product_concern: JJP Toy Story 4 distributor overstock crisis led to inventory management failure, canceled orders, forfeited deposits, and creative workarounds (opening boxes to classify as 'used') to circumvent pricing controls

    high · Dennis detailed example: one distributor gave up $20k+ deposit rather than warehouse overstocked games; others opened boxes to classify as used; JJP eventually allowed discounting when other distributors followed suit

  • ?

    business_signal: JJP lacks sufficient negotiating leverage with distributors; unable to enforce pricing controls when faced with distributor defection risk; distributors holding pricing power despite manufacturer restrictions

    high · Dennis: 'JJP because, you know, they're operating from such a position of strength, caved...they just aren't doing anything about it because what can they do? Their games aren't selling.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.251

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, October 29th. This is episode 205. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. Almost happy Halloween. Almost. so what are what are your is are any of your kids dressing up no they're my kids are you dressing up for that i am i'm deaf i'm i'm gonna be sailor mercury this year change it up i won't go with the blue i'm gonna i'm doing blue also i'm gonna be the blue nihilist flame from super mario movie there you go yeah i'm working on my voice i've been working on the voice Just bring despair to everyone. Oh, what fun. So what have you actually been doing? What I've actually been doing.
0:59
Well, last week I had to make a run up to St. Cloud, Minnesota for a work-related thing. Just a short jaunt. So you drove. Yes.
1:10
I drove me and a bunch of coworkers. We drove up there, spent the night, did a tour of a facility, looking at some equipment that we are debating about putting into our facility, and then drove back. So I tried. We stayed. We actually, while we toured in St. Cloud, we actually stayed in St. Paul, and I tried to get them to go to a couple of pinball places, but no one was really interested. And I had them like sold on one place because it was like an arcade that had some pinball and some regular arcade stuff. And there was like a bar place and it was like a brewery and all that stuff. They weren't open on the day we were there. Like the whole building was closed. Oh.
1:57
So. That reminds me of when my last like real, quote unquote, real vacation was when I went to England. and I went to go to one of their big museums where they have Magna Carta and stuff. And it turned out to be some obscure, to me, British holiday. And it was shut, and we had walked there. Oh, no. Because London was such a – I mean, we did not drive around London. My dad took his vehicle that he had from – because he was working out in Humberside. And we parked it at a – we had a house we could stay at there. And we used the buses, and we walked. which is locked in the rain because, of course, it's England. It's London, so it's rainy. Right. Anyway, so I sympathize. Yeah, that's basically what this was, is this place is like a whole thing, but we were there on a Tuesday, and they are only open like Wednesday through Saturday. So it was like, ah, so much for that. So instead, since there were four of us, everyone decided that they wanted to go to the Mall of America. Oh, the world's biggest mall, or at least America's biggest mall. It is a mall.

high confidence · Dennis: 'going to be held November 10th through 12th this year...at Solid State in KCMO'

  • Elton John Platinum Edition (formerly LE) now has no unit cap, unlike previous LE model which had 5,000 unit max; still priced at $12,000

    high confidence · Dennis: confirmed from Kineticist website details; Collector's Edition is $15,000 and truly limited

    • Labyrinth
    game
    Barrels of Funcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Kansas City Pinball Championship (KCPC)event
    Solid State Pinballvenue
    Knapp Arcademedia
    Zach Minneyperson
    Toy Story 4game
    Guns N' Roses (Stern)game
    Bill Gruppperson
    Pinball Expoevent
    Dennisperson
    Tonyperson
    ?

    product_strategy: Elton John positioned at premium tier ($12k Platinum/$15k Collector) despite comparable or superior offerings at lower price points; depreciation risk mirrors pre-pandemic JJP pattern with 25-30% secondary market loss expected

    high · Dennis comparison: 'Why is this more than Pulp Fiction? Why is this more than the new labyrinth pin?'; explicit discussion of secondary market depreciation to $9k on $12k purchase

  • ?

    design_philosophy: JJP hired Steve Ritchie specifically to counter perception that their games are 'floaty and slow' and not Williams-like; Elton John feedback confirms faster play compared to prior JJP titles

    high · Dennis: 'your biggest problem is everyone thinks your games are floaty and slow' followed by Ritchie hire; consensus from expo attendees: 'this is the fastest JJP they've ever played'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Elton John features 3-flipper layout heavily reminiscent of Star Trek Spider; familiar geometry available elsewhere at lower price points; plays smooth and fast but layout innovation criticized as derivative

    high · Dennis: 'This layout is extremely Star Trek Spider three flipper vibes total familiarity'; consensus criticism: 'readily available...don't have to spend nearly this much money'

  • $

    market_signal: JJP games experiencing worse depreciation than Stern historically; Elton John expected to follow pattern with $3k+ loss on $12k purchase; depreciation risk as significant as price point in buyer calculus

    medium · Dennis: 'How many of them want to pay $12,000 and then sell the game for $9,000? And that's what it will be...that's the problem'; explicit pre-pandemic depreciation comparison to Stern

  • ?

    industry_signal: Barrels of Fun Labyrinth gaining traction as direct alternative to both Stern and JJP; sold out direct but mixed hands-on feedback on geometry quality; signaling emergence of viable third manufacturer option

    medium · Dennis: 'I am more interested in Labyrinth than I am in Elton John just because of the theme and how different that game seems and being from somewhere new'; direct sales sold out; stronger players report geometry less refined than hype

  • ?

    event_signal: Kansas City Pinball Championship scheduled Nov 10-12, 2024 at Solid State; multiple tournament formats with tiered pricing; regionally significant event with established sponsorship from Eclectic Gamers

    high · Dennis: dates, venue, pricing tiers, and sponsorship history confirmed; link provided in show notes; described as 'probably the biggest tournament that gets hosted in the Kansas City area'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steve Ritchie joined Jersey Jack Pinball as lead designer for Elton John; represents significant talent acquisition to address design perception issues and deliver Williams-style flow

    high · Dennis: 'This game is designed by Steve Ritchie, legendary designer of Williams, Stern, and Atari fame'; explicit connection to addressing 'floaty and slow' criticism

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Shift from strict MSRP/MAP/floor pricing controls to permissive discounting signals market saturation and distributor leverage increase; older enforcement model no longer tenable

    high · Dennis detailed historical pricing layers (MSRP, MAP, floor); current Stern policy allows discounting; JJP unable to enforce despite attempting to; distributor power demonstrated through defection risk

    • 3:08
    Were you not thrilled by it? It was a mall that was just as impressive as any other mall. It wasn't super busy because it was a Tuesday night, so that wasn't bad. And maybe because it's a mall. And, yeah, also because it's a mall. There was a time. I remember there was a time where there was a mall here. You did not go there after Black Friday. Oh, yeah, it's not worth it. Nope. So, I mean, it was fine. The Lego store was cool. They had some cool stuff. Did you buy any Lego? Did not buy any Lego. Didn't buy any. Well, we did eat there. But other than that, I didn't buy any. We did not.
    3:45
    How could I not? There were like 43 pretzel places and cookie places. It was just all of them. But the Orange Julius place was closed. We walked in. There was an Orange Julius place immediately beside the door to go out to the car. I was like, oh, yeah, they're closed. So I wanted to get an Orange Julius.
    4:06
    But I did know the only thing is we basically made a couple laps and did some walking and looked at some stuff. And I forced them to stand while I detoured into watches of Switzerland and looked at watches for a little bit. I've heard very good things about the selection that watches of Switzerland wields. It's a big player. I mean, it wasn't even a huge store, but their selection was pretty nice. and uh they all everyone went in with me and i was looking at stuff and then everyone went out and waited for me and i they probably saw the prices exactly what i what i what i walked out there like that was really expensive i'm like yep they're like so the the watches you tried on how much did those cost i'm like a couple of them were like four grand the one was over 10. yeah it's kind of like a uh you know the awkward part when people ask you so how much do one of these new famous pinball machines it is it's like that it's exactly like i had that conversation just uh on that trip we were driving and we were talking about stuff and one of the guys was talking about getting a pinball machine for his game room and he's like well what's a pinball machine cost nowadays and i was like well if you want a brand new one it's gonna cost you you know eighty five hundred ten thousand and he's like never mind yeah it's better to look used i actually Incidentally, just as an aside, I had a message. I think it only went to me. Jason Knapp from Knapp Arcade messaged me a photo. He went to some arcade. They had a Campus Queen. Yeah, he sent it to me, too. Okay. Yeah, he sent it separately, but he sent it to me. I was going to mention it to you. Yeah, I told him. Good game, because it's a good game. Ted Zale classic. I quite enjoy it. Yeah, because I think he's doing like a big arcade tour or something like that. Yeah, he used to do those a lot. So maybe he's back at it. so and any video game progress uh i did start playing boulders gate again okay i played it i got it that week when i was on vacation right i put like 31 hours into it work and then work and everything and then i got the covids and i was just kind of down for a bit uh but i kicked back into it and i've put another i don't know 12 hours into it in the last week or so just I did some I respect my character and dove back in and I've been having a lot of fun and I keep getting to the point where it's like maybe I should respect my, no I'm just going to keep playing, maybe I should just start over and do the, no I'm just going to finish this run, like I changed myself when I respect I kept the vast majority but I did change and take a couple levels of paladin on my Warlock and then immediately, without thinking, by just playing the way I'd been playing the game up to that point, I almost immediately broke my oath.
    7:03
    I was like, well, crap. So now I'm an oath-breaker paladin. The worst type of paladin that you could possibly be.
    7:15
    So what have you been up to? Well, I did get Starfield for my birthday, so I have a modern game. Wow. Yes. You're flying around the stars. I do get to fly around the stars. I'll dive into that in the video game section. Some sort of Starfield. Yeah, I was actually playing just before you arrived, so I'm a little over 14 hours in now. Okay. So I've been working on that.
    7:38
    I have a total aside story, so I'm going to call it Umbrella Gate because I can't have a clever name. Now, Tony got me an umbrella for my birthday, a big umbrella, because I wanted one at work because I keep one in my trunk of my car. But I walk to work some days a week because it's only about two miles away. And I thought, well, what happens if I get stuck in the rain? Because, I mean, we ain't singing about no pina coladas here. So I thought I needed another umbrella. So Tony got me this nice big umbrella. Well, I actually had it in my car because it had been raining so much this week. I got to work. I only walked one day. So I drive in, but then my umbrella for the car was in the car. So I used the big umbrella to get back to the car. And I was like, well, I'm driving the next day. It's no problem. Anyway, I get out of my car Thursday morning, open it up. I'm in a jacket and tie, and I'm starting to walk. I grab my bag, grab my can of pop out of the car, close the door. I start walking in, and water is just hitting my face. And I thought, first thought was, oh, the wind shifted. Then I'm like, no, no, the wind has not shifted.
    8:46
    And so then I'm like, is there a tear in this umbrella? So I look into the top of the umbrella. No, there's no tear. The metal industrial strength prongs to open it, when I pulled it out of the car, I nicked the pop can. It was spraying me. It was just spraying me. I'm just like, running my hair into the sprays, brown sprays, all over me. All over. I got it in style. All I could do was laugh because it was so awful. 50 paper towels later, I was serviceable.
    9:25
    It's on my wool jacket. It's on my shirt. It missed my tie. It only hit half my body. I was two-faced. So the umbrella is stronger than a feather can. The umbrella was too strong. It apparently has some sharp – it wasn't like the end tip. It had to be just the edge of one of the little flaps. One of the ribs. Yeah, one of the ribs. It was like, holy crap. How did this happen?
    9:50
    You just wanted to spray it. Half that can was gone by the time I got to the door to open into the building. It was just because I felt – I was just like, I'll just throw it out. I don't know exactly where the hole is anyway. You didn't want to do the whole shotgun everything. Yeah.
    10:06
    This is bad. So there's that. And then kind of related to pinball, I actually got up to Solid State Pinball yesterday. Wow. Yes. So I'll use that as our transition into the pinball segment because one of the things that is coming up is the Kansas City Pinball Championship. You remember the KCPC. Yes, I do. So that is going to be held November 10th through 12th this year. So I figured might as well cover it on this episode because otherwise it's going to be after the fact.
    10:37
    And it's going to be held at Solid State in KCMO. And that's where it was held in 2022. I do have a link in the show notes for anyone who's interested, who wants to get tickets. This is actually three tournaments. Well, it's kind of four tournaments. It's a little weird way to think about it. But so over the two days, they have three tournaments. And then they're also doing a fair strike tournament on the Friday before the official event. So like a pre-conference sort of thing.
    11:04
    The pre-tournament tournament. So it's $25 for that Friday fair strike and then $50 for the Saturday main event, $50 for the Saturday strikeout, and $50 for the Sunday target match play tournaments. Or those three, not the Friday, but those other three, you can do all three of them for just $90 with a combined ticket. So anyway, there's a link there. And part of the reason I'm knowing that, other than it's probably the biggest tournament that gets hosted in the Kansas City area. I think so. Is I believe we have sponsored it every year. And we did sponsor it again this year, every year since it started. Yeah. And so I sent the funding over a while ago. But one of the things that I actually had in my garage still wrapped was a upper play field for Guns N' Roses. And they like to do like a drawing thing to raise money. I think that's to raise money for the nonprofit, for the Kansas City Pinball nonprofit. So I said, hey, I've got this. Do you want it? And Kerry Wing was like, oh, yeah, you could drop it off at Pizza West or whatever. And I thought, you know what? I still have not been to Solid State. It opened during COVID, and I never got there. And I was just like, I'm going to just go and drop it off. So after I did my watch live stream on Saturday, I drove up there, gave it to Nick, and stayed for about an hour playing some games. I didn't remember if I had – apparently I did because I had Pindigo say I had. I must have been at a show one time because I didn't have any memory of ever playing Johnny Mnemonic. But he had Johnny Mnemonic, so I was finally able to play that. I was finally able to put more time on Rick and Morty, which I only played at Zach's house. That's the only time I've played it, yeah. But he sets up his games at about five and a half degrees, so it's so flat and floaty, it didn't feel like a real experience. So I wanted to play it as a proper setup. So we did all that, and so that was cool. And yeah, I really only played the games in the upstairs where there are like 12 games or something. Downstairs, there's just a ton. I think they were running an event later that day because people were – I mean, there were people showing up, especially downstairs. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's one of those things that I've wanted to go, but everything just kind of conspires, and I don't ever seem to find or make the time to head up that way. I haven't even gone to most pinball tournaments this year. No, no, I've been really, really bad about it. And part of it, you know, it's kind of three things for me. One was early in the year with the whole, like, legislative work nonsense stuff. I just – I was so worried about getting ill, and it's so easy to get ill at a pinball event that I just – I was like, well, I can't do any of these until my main hearings are done. So that kind of rolled out a couple months. And then Texas gets in the way of one month, and then it's like – and I made a few, a couple. Yeah, I've made some. And then it was like, oh, okay, now I'm doing the job change. Now I can't be sick for the job change.
    14:04
    I've got excuse after excuse. Plus, as I've often whined about, it's been really cool lately because kind of post-pandemic, we've seen the tournaments experiment with different formats, which I think is really nice. But the problem is I just – it's so exhausting to dedicate like three to five hours for a tournament, and I can't reliably get out of there in two hours. So it's like – unless I throw. So it's just – they just go too long for me is kind of what it's at. Yeah, some of them definitely do that. And I'm pretty much the similar type reasoning. We've been half-staffed for almost the entire year. So I've been doing a lot of weekends. We're actually recording late today because I was working. Yes, this is very late. Well, it's late for us because I was working this morning doing fill-in because we've got people either sick or on vacation or just short-staffed. So I've been doing a lot more of that. And then after that, I'm not really feeling up to it most of the time.
    15:10
    So, yeah, the thing is that I just get to the point where I'm like, I think I'll just sit here and play Starfield or some video game. And that's what I've been doing. So let me take a nap. But but I have actually been playing a lot more pinball lately, like going downstairs and playing my games. So I have been playing. I just more than I had over like the summer and stuff. It's just I'm not getting out and playing very much competitively, which I'm not going to commit to getting back to what I used to do at the level I used to do. But it's a fun social thing to do. So I do want to start trying to hit the pizza. Well, we used to hit two a month. Yeah, no, we were really. But that was also back before we didn't last as long. So it wouldn't be unusual for us to go to 403 Club and be done within two to two and a half hours. And now it's like, are we going to not get our hamburgers? Hamburgers? Oh, and actually the last several times we've been up there, we've not. And one of us lasts too long and we can't get our hamburgers, and that's half the reason we go.
    16:06
    Or maybe three-fourths of the reason we go is for our hamburgers. Anyway, so moving on with pinball, again, link in the show notes to the KCPC for those that are interested in coming to it. We do usually see some people travel from a decent radius away to attend that. what they're not going to be traveling for because I don't think we have any on location at this time is Elton John pinball we brought this up on the last episode that JJP had at that point already confirmed they were revealing a game at pinball expo and so we're like obviously that's after we record and it's going to be Elton John yeah big shock it's Elton John you know let me just folks those of you listening listening to us I know I didn't I don't even have to put there's a reason And I don't put that behind the rumor corner song. When we tell you what a JJP game is, that's what it is. OK, JJP doesn't keep secrets. They don't know how. So just start accepting that and quit trying to twist these things into Harry Potter and stuff. And we tell you it's Elton John. It's Elton John. So endeth the lesson. All right. Now, moving on. So I do have a link in the show notes this time to the Kineticist website, which has a lot of photos and such of the game. So if you want to check it out, go and click on that. Details. They have finally eliminated the limited edition. Kinda. It's no longer called the limited edition. It's called the platinum edition. And it no longer has a 5,000 unit max count. It has no max count. So it truly isn't limited anymore. A good move, especially since they never sold out of LEs. And it's still the LE price, though, of $12,000. And the collector's edition is $15,000 and is the truly limited model. This game is designed by Steve Ritchie, legendary designer of Williams, Stern, and Atari fame. And the art was done by Christopher Franchi. Animation is done by Jean-Paul DeWin and his team. And then software, I believe the lead this time is Bill Grupp, but he was assisted by Joe Katz and Duncan Brown. It does have 16 Elton John songs in it. reading through the list I think they got a bunch of good ones the one controversial one which is in no way surprising me in the game is going to be Pinball Wizard I mean how could you not but obviously location pinball people hate that song because everyone who wakes up drunk is like pinball people just play pinball wizard that's exactly how they say it with their boozy boozy faces and their voices dripping in cheap Michelob light or whatever it is the kids today drink. Now it's ultra.
    18:55
    Now it's those... What were those sparkling hard... White Claw. You said it way more awesome than any commercial for it. Give me a White Claw. I kind of want... What was it? Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget? They need him to voice Be the White Claw commercial. I think there's money to be made here. Okay. So some other things, just feature-wise, or I should say mechanically, it does have a physical locking toy that's a crocodile. It's a rocking crocodile. It's a crocodile rock. It's got a rocket ship sculpt with the flame portion LED'd so it can rainbow bright its way across the stars. It has a tiny dancer who's a motorized toy Which is somewhat reminiscent of the little music box But she doesn't look like a ballerina in a ballerina outfit For the modders I can't wait to see which one of you gets the replacement model For that to make a Tony Danza first Someone probably will And then there is an Elton John toy Kind of in the center back of the game who he moves, he interacts, he's sitting at a piano, and the piano has like this marquee display along the side of it, which looks pretty cool. It did look cool. So anyway, overall, we obviously haven't played it. We weren't at Expo, so we didn't get to try it. Here is the general consensus, because I've already spoken to my other podcast co-host for the pinball show, Zach Minney, who was there and did get to play it. I've also heard already from the Triple Drain Pinball Podcast and the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. They've all given their reactions. Here's the general consensus. The general consensus is the song integration seems to work fairly well for the game, even though some of these were more ballad songs and some of them are a little more poppy.
    20:52
    This layout is extremely Star Trek Spider three flipper vibes total familiarity It shoots great Like those games did feeds a little bit different. I mean, there are some changes. It's not an identical one for like, especially in the center. What they've done is different than what was in, like, there's not that Sandman kick around ball thing. And there's not the vengeance shot with the, instead that's where the piano and the pops are in this game. So it does play a little bit different. Uh, it does play smooth. it does play fast. I've heard multiple people claim this is the fastest JJP they've ever played, which wouldn't surprise me. Because why else would you bring in Steve Ritchie? What is your biggest problem? Well, your biggest problem is your price. But what is your other biggest problem? Your other biggest problem is everyone thinks your games are floaty and slow and really not as Williams-like as you think they are.
    21:41
    So those are the reactions. And in terms of like sort of positives. And the art. People really like the art. I thought the art looked good. Franchi's art. I, it, the game looks good. Uh, and what are the general negatives? Uh, well, we've seen very reminiscent layouts, uh, from Steve Ritchie like this. Like if you want to lay out like this, it's readily available. You don't have to spend nearly this much money. The game is still greatly overpriced, uh, where in terms of where it is in the market. Yeah. Why is this more than, why is this more than Pulp Fiction? Why is this more than the new labyrinth pin? Why is this more than well, everything? And so, So I don't know. My reaction basically remains the same. Other than now, I would like to play this because I think this is going to be right up my alley in terms of geometry. I don't know anything on the rules. The theme doesn't really do anything for me. But in terms of like a shooter, this would be a fun game to play on location. But because of the price, I don't think we see very many of these. We might get one of these somewhere around here in KC, but that's because of just the way our – We end up with LEs when we shouldn't. So we end up with the JJP. I mean, we got Toy Story 4 on location. But did we ever get Godfather? I don't know. I haven't been out to check. But your thoughts? I think the first time we get to play this will be at Texas is my guess. Well, it shouldn't be a huge line at that point. I would think not. I mean, I see no surprises from a Steve Ritchie game from everything I've read and from the videos I've watched. I think it'll be a fun game we'll see when we actually play it I will say that I am more interested in Labyrinth than I am in Elton John just because of the theme and how different that game seems and being from somewhere new so yeah the Labyrinth and I wasn't really going to comment on Labyrinth oh I do want to go ahead and say congratulations to JJP because for the first time ever they got two games out in a calendar year. Valid.
    23:52
    Hey, do you think they have another new game out by the time TPF hits? I would be impressed. I would be really impressed if they did. Well, they ain't going to be busy building these, so that's why I'm asking.
    24:04
    I mean... And it's nothing against the game. No. They are way outside the market norm on this pricing at this stage. And everyone who buys this knows it, because here's the real reason. It's not that they can't find collectors who can pay $12,000 or $15,000. There are plenty of them that can. How many of them want to pay $12,000 and then sell the game for $9,000? And that's what it will be. And that's the problem. It's not so much that it's high. It's that it's going to be like a car, like it used to be. Right. J.J.P. depreciation pre-pandemic was always worse than it was for Stern. With Stern, you used to go, if I buy the Stern Pro game, I'm going to lose $500. A lot of people would put enough time on it to make it feel like, you know what? That would have been $500 worth of coin drop. That's fine. Yeah. But this – that's my issue with it. Labyrinth, just as an aside, I guess they had stated I think at Expo, the Barrels of Fun who made Labyrinth, that their direct sale Labyrinths are sold out. I saw that. But so the way that's phrased, I'm assuming the distributors still have them. But, you know, it's harder for them to know as a company whether or not the distributors still have any in stock. Right. I've heard it has moved very, very well in terms of reaction. The two I've only I mean, there are a lot of people who've talked about it, but a lot of them end up talking about the you know, how new it is, how unique it is, what an impressive for showing it is from a company. I have heard out of some what I'll describe as stronger players that the game's geometry isn't as refined as maybe some people who, when they looked at the photos, were kind of talking it up. Like that it's okay, but it's not like Elton John shoots better. Maybe that's a good way to phrase it. Elton John shoots better, but you'd also probably expect that. Yeah. but I didn't hear anyone react that they hated the geometry the other thing is I didn't hear about any going down so that they held up I think they had four of them anyway just that as an aside well that's really all we can say about Old John because I mean there's nothing else to say until we play it we don't really know much with people having hands on experience I don't want to invest a lot of time talking about it just off of the photos in this instance let's go to Stern so we talked a little bit about them a moment ago regarding depreciation. Well, speaking of depreciation, Stern is apparently permitting distributors to offer discounting on games. Now, maybe this happened in the past, like way in the past. Right. But recently, you know, there's a whole chain at the end, and business people know the, because I can't keep the numbers straight, like we're familiar with usually talking about MSRP. And like when we started getting into pinball, there was MSRP, And then there was the there would be like a minimum advertised price, a map price. And then there'd be a minimum a floor that they weren't allowed to sell underneath.
    27:08
    Now, it used to be, for example, like back in the like when I got my Stern Star Trek, that was back in the days where the minimum price they could sell it for officially was several hundred dollars under the MSRP, which I think may have been the price that they were told that they could only – they couldn't list less than the MSRP in writing publicly. So in that case, like the minimum advertised price was the MSRP. But they were allowed to sell for under that and stuff. And then the rules got tighter and tighter and all of that. One of the things that started to come up lately, and we kind of mentioned it with – or hinted at it with Elton John, But I know about this happening with games like, well, Toy Story 4 was distributors ending up with a bunch of games because Guns N' Roses did great. Toy Story, I mean, people love the theme of Toy Story. Let's pretend that the four is not tacked onto it or we'll tell ourselves that people won't care. They did, but they won't. And then they end up with boxes and boxes and boxes of these games. and their contracts specify that they are not allowed to sell, sell them less than MSRP. The minimum advertised price is MSRP, and the minimum actual true sale price is MSRP. No exception ever unless they come along. In fact, I don't know if we covered it on this show. I know we talked about it on the pinball show.
    28:38
    There was, because this was not, at least not initially, flipping out, Some other distributor just was like YOLO and just started listing the pins for under the pricing and basically dared JJP to end their distributorship because they're like, I can't sit on $30,000 worth of inventory. It's fire sale time. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's a lot of money. You've got money tied up in the merchandise. You've got money tied up in storage fees. You've got money tied. It does nothing. It's just hurting the company. I knew one distributor, and I'm sure this probably applied to others. They had to make this evaluation. There was one distributor, again, with JJP, had ordered so many games, got their first set. We're still sitting on that. I think this was Toy Story. Still sitting on the Toy Story games. They canceled the additional orders and gave up their deposit, which was not insignificant.
    29:36
    Still, it's superior to set. It was just like it's better to lose $20,000 or whatever the amount was. I don't remember what amount it was, but it was thousands. Better to just give that up outright than get stuck with these games that won't be able to be sold. Legitimately couldn't even be sold without being selling. You'd have to sell them at a loss because that's what the used prices were at. Right. By the way, to tie a bow on that tale about that one distributor, I guess other distributors started to ask J.J.P. like what's like what's going on like this is being publicly displayed on social media and stuff that they are selling them for that they're not even i've heard about distributors playing games like they'll they'll rip open the top of the box and then call it used and sell them and things like that to get get around this uh sort of thing and in reality it's still like new yeah no no they yeah yeah they'll say it's like new and then it comes in the box and it's like why is it in the box like oh yeah no someone they opened it up and they look and they're like no no, I don't really want it. And so it's a used game. And it's like, no, it's not a used game. It's not a used game. You're tearing the tags off the mattresses. You can't do that. And anyway, J.J.P. blinked. But when other distributors started to do the same thing, and J.J.P., I guess, had a meeting with folks saying you're not supposed to do it. And then everyone was just like, watch us. and JJP because, you know, they're operating from such a position of strength, caved. Yeah. And I don't think they ever gave them permission. They just aren't doing anything about it because what can they do? Their games aren't selling. Right. And they have to have the distribution network to put games out there. Yeah. So Stern may be learning a lesson from JJP, maybe just knowing better about this because they've been around longer. Who knows? Anyway, got a link in the show notes to Nap Arcade. It discusses this a little in more detail if you're curious. But they have apparently given permission to the distributors on older games to go ahead and be allowed to advertise reduced pricing in some – I don't know the detail. I haven't spoken to a distributor. This is all from the Nap Arcade article. Right. So other than I saw some like forum or online discussion somewhere kind of going over this because according to the article, Led Zeppelin and Turtles Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are eligible because there's an example ad where someone's like you can save $1,000 or whatever $2,000. Now, I don't think we're shocked especially about Led Zeppelin being on that list I saw on a discussion not in the Nap Arcade article but one of those online discussion things, I had heard reports that Rush is eligible as well. Wouldn't surprise me Wouldn't either, me either because by all accounts that I had been hearing, Rush is not getting produced anymore. There's just no demand for it. I think this is a thing, maybe this is just bias from me seeing it, but it sure seems like, at least recently, music pen sales are just below other pen sales. It seems like other than GNR was huge, but for the most part, most of the music pens, it just seems like there's less of them out there. I think your perception it would be interesting to see a study on it I think your perception is pretty accurate though, that's my impression and I think it stems from a couple of things one is obviously music is deeply polarizing for people there are some people that have very very eclectic tastes but most people fall into distinct camps and we've started to see enough variety in the types of, even if a lot of it's quote unquote dad rock I mean Foo Fighters to Guns and Roses to Elton John to ACDC to Metallica to Iron Maiden I mean these are very different styles of music that someone might love Metallica and hate Iron Maiden it's completely conceivable so that makes it very very polarizing I know plenty of people antidotally who have noted like they love certain games but they would never own it because they can't stand the music and they don't want to swap out the songs or whatever they need to do to get around it But the other thing about music pins is if you're someone who buys a game to go through the story, most of the music pins don't take you on a story. Now, pinball companies are trying to alleviate that. Like Foo Fighters is trying to take you on this adventure of fighting these aliens and such. And we saw kind of like how Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle out of Spooky wasn't really – even though it had Alice Cooper music, They very much didn't promote it as a music pin. It was a journey through a haunted castle. So there are those sort of strategies, but most of the games are going to pull a Zeppelin, a Rush, an ACDC, where you're doing stuff. The stuff may vary. I'm not saying there aren't real modes in it, but it's not telling you this grand tale of whatever. They're just there to jam on the pinball machine. I think the thing with pinball companies is I think they look back to what 2012, ACDC was like the game that showed like pinball was back and Stern was back and it was this huge hit and because of that I think they farm the music pin fields a lot because it worked before so why can't it work again I also, this isn't very fair to the people who get stuck coding the games but I also think there's less thought that has to go into structuring them because they don't have to write a story that would make they still have to balance it the rules are still just as in depth but i mean they don't have to come up with a bunch of storyboarding like well what are we going to do like how what what what missions are going to know what tracks do you have stick them in come up with modes for each track they don't have to integrate like doesn't have to like if rambling man was a song in a pinball machine your shot wouldn't have to ramble no one cares see nobody cares so i don't know i mean i think that's i think that's a valid point because you don't really have to tie it all in together into a narrative. I was initially shocked to see how it felt quickly Rush went off the line at Stern,
    35:44
    in part because it was sort of, I mean, it won a number of awards, Rush did. Granted, you could argue it was a pretty weak year, so maybe that's how it did it. Right. Also, I think there's a lot of volume that comes out of Canada, and this was like their one thing, so they made a lot of noise. There are a lot of streamers and podcasters out of Canada, and they all talked up Rush, but apparently their money either isn't where their mouth is or they didn't have enough mouths.
    36:10
    But I never got the impression it did bad. Led Zeppelin, I got the impression it did bad. It did, yeah. And having played the pro. I heard plenty of people who. I'm not surprised after playing the pro. I was just like, this was as disappointing as I feared it would be. And I really like Steve Ritchie layouts. I bet that premium plays a lot better, but ugh. Yeah, I've heard a lot more good buzz on Rush than I ever did on Zeppelin. I've talked to a lot of people who really like Rush. But you never could get into Rush. I never really got into Rush. It's just one of those. It never really clicked for me. Some games, you know, they just kind of click, and this one wasn't. That wasn't one of them. Foo Fighters, on the other hand, that one clicked.
    36:51
    I don't know. Is the difference because of the narrative? Is it the difference because of the music change? Maybe. Who knows? I don't know. My guess, or at least for me, in terms of like I prefer playing Foo Fighters over Rush, even though I prefer Rush music. I'll tell you exactly why I like Foo Fighters more. It's easier. It's easier to play. It's got longer ball times. It does. And longer ball time games, I think, resonate with people, especially people like me. I mean, yeah, I own some hard games. Like I own Walking Dead and I own Sinbad, for example. But Star Trek, long player. Godzilla, fairly long player. True. I mean, it's just, yeah, I like to feel like I'm doing good. Yeah. Anyway, last of the pinball items, CGC. So apparently they did complete their first official Pulp Fiction machine.
    37:44
    Good for you. So we'll see if they actually. No more prototypes. We'll see if they actually start building and shipping them because they originally targeted Q3 of this year to ship games. Now, obviously, we're also not in Q3 anymore. We're in Q4. So it doesn't sound like on paper they're that far behind if this wasn't just like a, oh, yeah, we're making sure we have all the parts. It could be a low-rate production where they haven't spun the line fully yet. I've heard they're splitting their duties because they're not done with the Cactus Canyons. so I heard they're splitting line production time between they're doing both they're running both in tandem is the plan so I don't know how many Pulp Fictions a week are going to come out maybe a lot if they continue as slow as Cactus is maybe Cactus remains the really slow one because I don't know what they're struggling with on Cactus but Cactus has been a problem since day one that I've never really understood just like I never really understood the sheer popularity of it anyway I mean, I've played the game. I enjoy it. It's easy. That's why. It's easy. No, it is. It's an easy game. It's an easy game to win. It's got long ball times. It's 90s Williams in a nutshell.
    38:56
    I think that's why people like it. It feels like you're making progress in it. It's not the theme. No one cares about cacti.
    39:06
    So, I mean, that's just my take on it. But CGC has been slow for a long time. It's downright frustrating because their pricing is like, in my opinion, of all the manufacturers, their pricing is like really good. Like they're really competitive for the amount of stuff in the games. And their build quality is really good. But we saw the same nonsense with Monster Bash. And remember all the delays? Finally, it seemed like once Monster Bash was done, it was built and they got through it. But CGC, I have no confidence in their build speed. So I just, like with Pulp Fiction, even if I loved it, I'd never order it until pre-order style. I'd just have to wait. I'd probably just buy it used, let's be frank.
    39:56
    Anyway, that's all I really had for pinball because we got a lot of video game stuff. We got a lot of video game stuff, but we'll go through it. It's not as huge as it looks like from the notes. It looks huge, Tony, and I'm worried. We have a beautiful segue because Pen Ball FX. Oh, the Zen game? Yeah, the Zen game from Zen Studios. They're owned by Embracer. I did not know that. Yeah. That doesn't sound good to me. It doesn't. Things are not looking so good, Tony, but continue. Do you have good news for us? I do not. Embracer has laid off 30 employees from Zen Studios. I don't have a percentage of how many of the employees for Zen that represents, but Embracer, as we've talked about multiple times this year since their fallout in May when they did not get a giant round of funding that they thought they were going to get, has been in major layoffs. And Zen Studios is now affected by that. How is that going to affect Zen going forward? I don't know because I don't know how many games they've been putting out lately maybe this was after Embrace, I don't know when Embracer got them they changed their funding model they put out a new I last played Pinball FX 3 but I guess they put out a Pinball FX 4 and then they were trying to do a subscription service style for it I think and then they did the whole you have to buy their currency and everything's in an odd number and all that stuff. So I think they've been turning out tables, but I have not paid any attention to it. Yeah, I've neither. I would say if anyone with Zen studios, I guess who's still there. Cause if you're not, then I guess you're not. If anyone was then still there, did your, did your little YouTube channel thing Like are those people gone Cause if so can I have the neon sign that says the pinball show i mean because that would make sense well i mean they started their show after the pinball show podcast was started and zach was didn't like that they used the exact same name and i said well they have a neon sign though because it was in the background they had a neon like they went to the trouble to get a neon sign we don't have a neon sign that says pinball show but if they're not using it anymore i embrace her i don't even need this in people embrace her You're hurting for cash, right? I'll give you 50 bucks for that sign. I'll give you 50 bucks. So you let me know, and we'll make arrangements, and I'll get you paid, and you'll get me the pinball show sign. Thanks. See, some good news may have come out of this. Some good news could have come out of that. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they listen.
    42:39
    Paradox and Harebrained Studios, or Harebrained Schemes, have parted ways. What? But Lamplighter is just the bestest game ever. You tried it, and you spoke so highly of it. I did not try Lamplighter, but it is definitely not the bestest game ever.
    42:59
    I don't know how to feel on this because I love Harebrained Schemes. I've played every Harebrained Schemes game, every major, let's go with this, Harebrained Schemes game up to Lamplighter's League. Obviously, I've got over 1,400 hours in Battletech. I've played through their Shadowrun games. They were all great games.
    43:22
    But they laid off 80% of the studio, and then they're like, you know what? We're just going to part ways. After firing them. Yes, they fired 80% of Harebrained Scheme's studio, their Harebrained Scheme staff, before Lamplighter's League even came out, like while they were doing polish work. They fired 80% of the staff. And now they're going their separate ways. Paradox is going to maintain control of Lamplighter's League, maintain control of the original Battletech but that does not appear to stop them in any way shape or form from making another Battletech or going on to something else entirely because the rumors that came out of the people that were laid off was that when Harebrained Scheme the very first thing they came up with was they wanted to make a second Battletech game and Paradox was like no because we don't want to have to get licensing for Microsoft. So, no.
    44:17
    Well, Paradox or Harebrained, if either of you have a neon Battletech sign, let me know and I will pay $50 so Tony can have a Battletech neon sign because he loves Battletech. I do love Battletech. I'm just putting that call out there. Whoever controls the neon sign controls the spice. To my Steiner banner that I got. I don't know if they got one, but let's just put that call out there. Just in case. It's a neon day. Skull and Bones.
    44:49
    I remember E3s with Skull and Bones. Oh, gosh. That's totally coming out. No. Completely coming out. It's scale bound. I mean, it's not going to come out this year when they said it was going to come out. Skull and Bones. But they're saying 100%. It'll be out next year. No. Skull and Bones. It seems, I feel, it's been 84 years. It's been 11. Okay. It's like, is it older than Star Citizen?
    45:16
    Not quite. Okay. Development started in 2013. The game was officially announced in 17. And now they're saying early 24?
    45:31
    This game was originally supposed to have been released years ago. It was supposed to be out before Sea of Thieves. Yes. Because I remember when Sea of Thieves was coming out, I was like, that's not that pirate game. like the ubisoft dark and gritty one is it no no this is rare and yeah what happened to the other thing oh skull and bones it's still being developed okay still all right uh they originally they they were originally supposed to launch it like first or second quarter of this year and it didn't make it uh they've also announced at the same time they made that announcement they announced that a major unnamed game that was supposed to release in march has been delayed to later in the year and the overall thoughts is that's their star wars game that they've been working on they're not saying which game was delayed but it's major but it's major and the thoughts are it's the star wars game okay so uh now in some actual good news as should be a surprise to absolutely nobody super mario brothers wonder is selling great yes it's reviewing great it's supposed to be a good game uh they it is the fastest selling mario game in europe it is the fastest selling uh mario game on switch in japan uh so nintendo has definitely got another good sized hit on their hands yeah it's been a really solid uh run with nintendo ever since the switch yeah And that's what it's sounding like. I've heard multiple people talking about this being one of the swan song titles for the Switch because the Switch 2 rumors are becoming more prevalent. Yes, the Swatch. The Swatch.
    47:19
    I smell collaboration. The reports are that the Nintendo's system that they have, their version of like Xbox Live and the PlayStation on all that stuff is supposed to be going very well and make switching to a new system whenever one is released easier to retain all your stuff. Okay.
    47:46
    Last week, or not last week, last episode. It's been a long time. Two whole weeks. We talked about the PS Slim is coming out in early November. Yes. And it's expandable. So even though it doesn't come with a disk drive, you can add a disk drive. Okay. Well, I mean, that makes sense with the USB ports. It does. But apparently it has to be a certain proprietary Sony disk drive. You can't just add any disk drive. This reminds me when Microsoft had the proprietary, like for the 360, the proprietary hard drives. Yeah. And you have to have an internet connection when you install it the first time to make sure that it is proprietary. That's not too bad. I mean, other than what it's there for is DRM. Right. That's what it's there for. Well, some people like it. I mean, some people don't use the disk drive anymore, I'm sure, so it's fine. Right, and that's why they're not selling. That's why the slims aren't coming with them because so many people don't like disks anymore. You can save some money on the bill of materials without it. Yeah. Now, TwitchCon has been running, in what I consider anyway, a major surprising announcement. Twitch is no longer restricting simulcasting on other platforms. That is pretty big news. I knew they were considering it. Right. And they had a couple groups that they had special deals with to allow it.
    49:15
    In the critical role. In the critical role, people. But they say it is now being released for everybody. Unless a streamer has an exclusivity agreement, they're not allowed to. And the only rules are that the Twitch stream can't be lower quality than any of the other streams. And the Twitch stream has to be the primary stream. so it has to be the one where most of the chat interaction is supposed to be okay well i don't know how you control that but okay right i mean you can promote it that way but right but that's going to be what they're pushing um i don't know i someone told me they it seemed like some of the people they were watching on twitch not huge huge people or anything but had jumped over to youtube A lot of people have. And I got asked, like, Dennis, why do you think they're doing that? I'm like, I didn't know they had, and I don't know if it's just the money share at this point. I mean, YouTube ad money is big money. It's – with Twitch, again, as just an affiliate because our EGP Twitch channel is affiliated, it was – all the money is really from subs. Like you get half the sub money, and that's basically where most of the money comes from. Whereas like on my watch YouTube channel, while I do have subs, I don't have very many because it's a newer feature and who wants to pay me money to talk about watches? But I make most of my money on the ads, and I get like 70% of the ad revenue that YouTube pulls in. Most of it goes to the creator. So whereas like the subs and stuff are like the 50-50 split. So how does the does it tell you completely off topic on your watch that what percentage is coming from actual ads and what percentage is coming from prime? Not. Yeah. But YouTube premium subscribers. Yes. I can even see it by video. Cool.
    51:18
    Because I know that's a big thing is YouTube has rolled out new algorithms that are blocking a lot of the a lot of the ad blockers. Yeah. So I have not seen a I did not feel like I saw an uptick in my ad revenue right after that got announced. That's a little weird because I've had an uptick lately, but that's because I've done there been some new watch releases. So I've done some first thought videos and those have done well enough that I get, you know, if I get a few thousand people watching them, I, you know, I'll get a few bucks out of the out of the ads. so um yeah no it's it's really interesting because uh this is total aside but when we started up the pinball network uh early on the original plan we had for this it's like how do we like the podcasting was easy because we knew we'll we'll just put everything under one rss and i actually do breakout rsss for people that like don't want to listen to me and zach but want to listen to the history podcast silver ball chronicles like you can just like i've got that set up i manually do it but with streaming the original thought was well people can have their own channels but what if we have them to stream under the pinball network and the reason we didn't do it was the revenue split because twitch doesn't have the ability to because the only fair way to do it would be like if don't planet flip streams on monday and uh and jedi mcmuffin streams on tuesday you'd want to give like if people were donating bits and stuff it should go to the person who was actually doing it right and tpn wasn't going to keep any of it it was just a straight up split off of off of how the videos were performing youtube would easily let you do that like i could make an arrangement with someone just use my channel and say hey if i want to have a you know do a big thing with a collaboration thing i could do a split and just track that one video and know exactly how much it made and how it made it like stickers shouts you know subs whatever super chat super chat yeah that's what super chat and they got their super stickers so yeah we just we couldn't do it and i always thought that streaming never worked the way it should have with the network because we couldn't unify it in a way that was fair right without it i mean we there's we we had options that we could have done but none of them felt fair and so anyway that's just a downside of twitch there's multiple downsides to twitch but now you can simulcast so it's okay i'm sure they've saved their company now see to me that definitely screams of please please don't leave our platform oh yeah i mean what else can they do but plead well i mean i guess they could adjust their revenue splits but if they're hurting as bad as i think they might be they probably can't bring themselves to do it honestly the biggest loss for me uh where i kind of wish i had twitch is how much of the twitch subs are amazon prime a bunch of them yeah so i don't have an amazon prime like people have to actually pay me money to subscribe on youtube they can't just do that oh yeah it's part of yeah it's part of my membership in this you know major thing like if netflix subs got to get one free donation to on youtube i'd probably have more people subbing to my 99 cent club because it's 99 cents and then that's the other thing though with youtube is you could pick your levels and pick my tears like i did it like the cheapest I think I could.
    54:38
    Or at least as cheap as I was willing to go. It's not even a buck. Come on. Join. It's not even a buck an episode. That's right. You get emojis and badges. Badges? I just added a new emoji. A thick watch. The emoji's name is Thick.
    54:53
    Because we've been seeing a lot of them. A lot of thick watches. The Awesome Games Done Quick. One of our favorite watches in January. Yeah, not watches as in wristwatches. Watches as in viewing. Yeah, or viewing things, the speed running. Big charity event. Yeah. Summer Games Done Quick is fine. Awesome Games Done Quick has just always hit better in my mind. It raises more money. I think it's... Because it's not in the summer? Exactly. People are out doing stuff. That's a good summary. Yeah, yeah. No, it's people don't want to be outside in January. Right. Well, except in Australia. I mean... Right. Or snow skier people. But even then, they still come inside because it gets cold. They're in by then because they've broken a leg or something.
    55:42
    They're all clumsy. They've released their schedule, and they have some interesting highlights that I'm kind of looking forward to.
    55:51
    Peanut Butter the Dog, a trained Shiba Inu, is going to speed run Gyromite, an NES platformer that uses Rob the Robot. Basically, his owner has made a custom controller and trained him to hit buttons on command.
    56:11
    So he's going to do a speedrun of a game. But the dog doesn't know how to beat the game himself. Correct. The dog has been trained to hit buttons. It's just like when people lay out the buttons that say things and then teach their dogs to hit buttons. To swear at them. Yeah, to swear at them. so it's the exact same thing but you know you know how you know how much money they're going to make on that speed run no how much it's going to be a lot it's going to be huge i if that is not just a massive gain i would be amazed yeah it it helps that it's a shiba inu because they're like one of the cutest dogs yeah like a welsh corgi is like the only thing that's going to top it Right. Because everyone's going to – and if you named it Ein. Yeah. Or if you had a Shiba Inu crossed with a Welsh Corgi, so it's got the body shape of a Welsh Corgi but the hair and face of a Shiba Inu, that would be both of them. That's true.
    57:08
    But – We can't do that in time for January. Yeah. And teach it. And train it. Pretty fast. And teach it. There's also a Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Any Percentage run, which should be no surprise considering Zelda Tears of the Kingdom just came out this last year. They're doing a Last of Us Any Percent run. They're doing a modded Hades run. Two players, one controller, three weapons.
    57:36
    Okay. I'll have to see that one to fully understand it. I mean, I like Hades, but it's like, okay, that's interesting. I'd kind of like to see how they do that.
    57:49
    They're going to do a 100% nightmare run for Doom 2016. Doom, that is a crowd favorite. It is. With the people love, especially if it's in person, which I'm assuming it is. They do weird hybrids. They are. I think they hybrided it because they were staying out of Florida. Right. They are in Philadelphia, I think, or Pittsburgh or something. They're in Pennsylvania, I believe. This is where they're doing it this time for the in-house thing. Yeah, Doom is a huge fan favorite. I've seen the Doom runs where it's like any percent do every glitch. Hey, look, I just completed Doom in like four and a half minute type runs. I learned some tech back when I was playing Doom from watching one of these games done quick things. Yeah. But you know what speed run they're not having? they're not doing the speed run that has the new record set for Baldur's Gate 3. Because Baldur's Gate 3 now has a new record set for the Baldur's Gate 3 sex speed run. One minute, 58 seconds to get to the first sex scene. Okay, wow. That's very fast.
    59:05
    So. Did you set that record? I did not. Oh. I actually have not actually had one. I've steered away from every one that it started. It's like the path lays out to start romancing characters, and I've steered away from them all except for one. And apparently it's the one that doesn't happen until, like, the end of the game. So that or I'm just really bad at romance. One of the two. But I've been targeting one single character that I've been kind of trying to do the romance path for, and it's not done anything yet much. So we'll see.
    59:50
    Minute and 58 seconds. Yes. It's just like reality. The Fallout TV show finally has a release date. It's like April 12th. Okay. So a couple weeks after my birthday. I have no idea what to expect from it. I don't know. I mean, I have hopes because I like Fallout. And it's on Amazon Prime, and they've done some good shows that have been based off properties. But they've also done some horrible shows based off properties. For every Ring of Power, there's a Wheel of Time. I haven't watched the second season yet. But your wife loves Wheel of Time. I know, and we've talked about it a couple times, and we've never actually started it. We have to have a conversation. We have to have a conversation about it. We do. We talk about watching it. Well, that was like the last season of The Witcher. We started it partway through the season. I just told him, he can just finish it without me because I just don't actually care anymore.
    60:54
    I'm just done with The Witcher. I just don't even care. Spider-Man 2 is out. Go web. I've heard that's doing pretty well. It sold 2.5 million copies in the first 24 hours. It is the fastest selling PlayStation.
    61:12
    You know what, though? Another Spider-Man game would probably do pretty well. But no, it's the fastest selling PlayStation Studio game.
    61:22
    I've heard really good things for the most part. I've heard some complaints that there's some graphical downgrades from the first game. Some people feel like. but everyone I've talked to or read articles from who have played it seem to be enjoying it quite a lot. Um, I don't have a PlayStation anymore, so I don't have a chance to play it. Uh, we'll see since this is not a Microsoft title, it's not directly available on a PC immediately.
    61:55
    So, and in what is one of the, biggest changes or changes, biggest surprises. Chris Roberts has announced that squadron 42, the single player narrative game that is part of a star citizen is feature complete. Wow. And is now in the polishing phase. Dude,
    62:25
    what does that mean? It means they expect it to take two more years. They have no firm dates. They're saying it's going to be another year or two because now they're trying to polish the gameplay.
    62:40
    I don't know. This game was supposed to be released in 2014. Yes Yeah No I saw an article about this so of course I clicked on it And I saw they were talking about all the actor captures with John Rhys and Mark Hamill and stuff captured in 2013 I was like, wow. Yeah. Wow. I mean, they've got Gary Oldman and Gillian Anderson are some of them. They've done all of this stuff years ago. I saw Recently that Lance Riddick's Last game he did voice capture Is slated to come out soon But They recorded this stuff A decade ago Who knows who could have passed that was in that game And it's not come out yet So we'll see I'll play it as soon as it comes out Because I'm a backer So I get it I get it. You believed in this vision. I believed in this vision a long time ago, and I've not played any of the alpha stuff. I didn't play in any of the Star Citizen alpha stuff. I've not done any of it since their initial release of here's a hangar with your ship that just sits there and you can't do anything but climb into it and look around. That was the last time I touched it. So we'll see. But speaking of John Rhys-Davies, he is making a voiceover return for the Lord of the Rings Return to Moria. Oh, you sent me a link to the trailer, and I played it, and I thought, oh, they have a pretty good impersonator. No, they have John Rhys-Davies. Okay. They brought him back to be – So now are you interested in this game? I remember seeing this at the Game Awards or something, and it looked kind of janky. And his graphics still kind of look a little low-rent. The graphics are definitely low-rent. But he might pick up his axe and go, jackpot, one!
    64:47
    Because it is a survival crafting game where you are rebuilding Moria. So it's got an interesting premise. But, you know, Lord of the Rings games are so hit and miss. Yeah. I mean, there's been some trash besides Golem. There's been some trash.
    65:15
    But there's been some good stuff. I just don't know. We'll see what this one's going to be. I'm not going to preorder it, and I'm not going to be an early adopter, And I'm not going to be a player very in the beginning. We'll see what happens.
    65:33
    Speaking of seeing what happens, next week is the return to BlizzCon. Hopefully without con suites where people get sexually abused. Hopefully without yelling at players that they have phones and they should be more excited for playing a game on phones.
    65:54
    with all the issues they've had in the past, and then with the Microsoft buyout now completed, I think it will be interesting to see what comes out of the talks. But looking at the schedule, there is no secret, hidden, to-be-revealed talk. Everything is on games that are out currently. So there is no forward-looking stuff from what I can see. Everything's about Overwatch 2 or Diablo. Well, they do a lot of games as a service, so that may be enough.
    66:31
    With Diablo having just dropped and all the changes that they've kicked out in Overwatch 2, there's no real surprise that there's nothing new slated. I would assume they're working on something. I'm sure there's something new for like WoW, but we'll see. Yeah, more vanilla.
    66:53
    Well, no, there's more of the maybe an expansion of the hardcore servers. Maybe. I'm a little surprised you had this whole list of stuff. You even referenced Gollum, and you didn't bring up Skull Island, the Rise of Kong. How could you not bring up Skull Island, the Rise of Kong? This game is now on my dollar menu. I'm like McDonald's. Ba-ba-ba-ba-bad. that's what my dollar menu is if golem and skull island reach a dollar i'm buying them and i'm playing them and i will review them personally on this channel that's the plan that's the plan get cheap enough first i hear skull island makes golem look good yes and apparently uh reports are that the uh the skull island game was produced under a big shock really restrictive uh constraints especially time yeah amazing i can't wait to see see the how that happened yeah or what happened according according to uh uh an article from the verge uh that i just pulled up to because i wanted to look at how bad the graphics were again uh the developer iguanabe said that they started that game in june 2022 and it was supposed to be done june 2nd of this year one year development process like it's a pinball machine it's just so terrible oh i i really look forward to i sure hope it gets to be a dollar soon um this was where i was going to go ahead and uh go ahead and talk a little bit about starfield provide some feedback on it because you've got 14 hours yeah a little over 14 hours in and it's an interesting mixed bag.
    68:44
    So the too long, didn't read opening summary is, I think the game is fun, but it probably does not meet anyone's expectation.
    68:56
    Maybe that's a fair way to phrase it. But it's supposed to be infinite and expanding and all that stuff. It's huge. Okay, so here, let me do the positives first. the i have not encountered any notable bugs in the game at all like notable i only the the biggest complaint i could possibly give you is i had one moment in fact it was yesterday when i was playing where all of a sudden my character froze like a hidden load almost it like i thought i was locked up but after about 10 seconds it resolved and everything was fine you were carrying too many Maybe. I do carry a lot of stuff, but not sandwiches because that's already been done.
    69:40
    The faces look better than they used to with Bethesda games. They don't look great, but they look better. And that varies a bit. But Bethesda had a long history of creepy face problems. If you go back to, especially pre-Skyrim, what was Oblivion, I think was what it was called. Like those were super, like I almost played a lizard face. Just so I looked better. Yeah, just so I looked normal.
    70:09
    But, so that's improved. The gun gameplay mechanics feel good in this game. That's something else where I've never always been super, like Bethesda's making improvements in it, but it never felt like Mass Effect or like Bioware or anything. I've always felt that the thing with Bethesda was, like with Fallout, VATS could mask that. I love VATS. So I was always cool with it. But in reality, if you were just doing the regular gameplay, it was just like serviceable would be how I describe it. It's like Mass Effect 1, speaking of Bioware.
    70:43
    So there's that. The expansiveness is difficult to – I mean, yes, the game is absolutely massive. I was looking for a star system to jump to, and I apparently did – it was super close to where I was. I was just looking at the star field map, and I'm just going to the right, and I'm just like, when does this end? Oh, my God. Why are there this many star systems? This is too many star systems. Galaxy's huge. Yes. So there's that.
    71:11
    You can dive into super, super detail, like customizing your ship. You can buy new ships. You can upgrade components on your ship, but you can also go there and physically build, buy the modules and build them together Lego style and make the ships and shape them and stuff. and the game will tell you, like, this won't work. Like, you'll die. You can't fly this. Things like that. Same, you can do outpost building where you can go and, like, build the habitats. Like, the base building in Fallout 4, but with, like, just more. There's more stuff to it. Because you're, like, building the gathering. Like, you build those outposts to gather resources for you and stuff. So it's super, super expansive. um so have you made a custom ship or you still just find like i i was i am i'm flying a i've upgraded but i'm still flying the default stock ship i was actually today working on building uh i was i've messed with the ship builder twice now including today and i almost went with my build but it warned me that it was too it was like it was it was too lopsided it was like you're gonna need to add other stuff to it and i'd already spent so much money if i committed to it i was just like you know what it's too hard to figure out right now at a center of gravity problem and that's probably uh what i would i guess i'd open with as a negative is it's i feel this learning curve is pretty steep and that's going to alienate a lot of people if you don't put in a lot of time to to figure some of the stuff out it's just like the base building the ship building it yes it's detailed and nuanced and thus it's cumbersome very cumbersome uh i i become confused uh looking and comparing at like just weapons and stuff i see up arrow so i'm assuming they're improvements but then i look down below at some other stats and i see other figures that show red and i think am i like is this like an equivalent exchange thing am i i'm not really clear necessarily what's an upgrade and what isn't uh on some things especially the ship things regular weapons seem much more clear to me there's a lot of variety on those weapons as well but it It also feels like I find a lot of basically the same five weapons. And it doesn't help that all the main ballistic ones all use 5.57 millimeter rounds. So I wind up running out of pistol bullets because I used them all in my assault rifle.
    73:35
    I mean, that's a me problem. I probably should have paid attention to that. But I guess we're going back to the lasers.
    73:41
    So it's so expansive in that regard. It's cumbersome. As I know, while the star field is vast, incredibly vast, lots of planets within those systems, lots of moons, you can land on lots of them. There's not a lot to do on almost any of them. So it's a mile wide and an inch deep in a lot of parts. So now, again, this is probably, you could argue, quite realistic. I mean, how many deep, cold, frozen, nitrogen-based planetoids are going to have anything cool on them? There are heaps of barren, lack of atmospheric rock. I mean, most of the planets are not – there's no life. You might go there to mine, like land on them. Most of the places I go are frozen with nothing on them except maybe an outpost.
    74:33
    And there's a saminess to go – like when you go into the buildings and stuff, it's really cool because you see them from the outside. and you actually go into them and it's all content. It's not like, here, let's just load screen. Oh, yeah, it's a whole base under a mountain. No, you saw it all from the outside. You know exactly how big it is. And those rooms were like you could build your outpost the same way and those rooms literally exist and you see them from the outside. Technically, very, very cool. Practically speaking, very, very dull. Not a lot to do.
    75:02
    Again, the gunplay is fun, but it's kind of like that's where I, when I said that I don't think it really is going to appeal to what anyone expected. And I didn't necessarily know what to expect, but I know what I like. And what I like is Fallout. And I knew this wasn't going to be Fallout. Is it like Fallout in space? Yes, in a lot of ways. But unlike in Fallout, there's not that clean way of being like, here, you're supposed to go to New Vegas. You start walking. What's that icon off on my little tracker thing? Let me turn my head and go off on an adventure in that direction. because of how navigation works. It's not like that. You have to be very deliberate, unless you're following quest markers. You have to be very deliberate about going, oh, here's that system. I'm going to fly to that system. Oh, look, there are eight planetoids in this system, like three planets and then another five moons. All right, do I need to choose to fly to each one? You can't manually fly to them. You got to fast travel to them, basically. So you jump, grab, drive, fast travel to a system, and then to go from planet to planet and moon to moon, You can't just point and hit the booster. You got to then go to the menu and it's tedious and then choose to fly there. And then when you're there, yeah, you could dogfight Wing Commander style. There's something dogfight. If you're going to land, it's all clicking a button. So it's just a bunch. And again, like Fallout and stuff, fast travel is in there once you get to a place so that you don't have to redo the tedium of the journey. So I'm not lamenting that there's fast travel. but for a space game you don't do a lot in space you do a lot on planets and the planets are obviously the gas giants you can't land on and all the other planetoids a lot of the stuff actually isn't all that much walking really or it's or it's goofy and you you just fast travel to the another checkpoint near this oh there's an unknown place on the planet well let's just fast travel the ship tell the ship to fast travel to that to land go there you see what i mean it's It's not exploratory in the Fallout way, which is the way I like it. It's exploratory in this, like, if you want to go and visit all these stars, you can do it. There's not a lot to do at most, any of them. Right. It's just open and it's all procedurally generated.
    77:17
    Or not all, but large chunks of it is procedurally generated. I mean, it just depends. If you're really into the exploration, you could probably really get into doing that and finding stuff. But this is not a lot to find because this is not, I mean, how much nickel do I need to mine? How much water do I need to find on a planet that's frozen that can't support life anyway?
    77:38
    The thing with Fallout, because it wasn't procedural and because it was much more limited in scope, like basically every little pip, as you know, as a veteran Fallout player, every little pip on the map, there's like a story involved with it. Now, actually, back to the positives. Like, the mainline story and a lot of the quests that aren't just like they do the Bounty Hunter quests, they're pretty good storytelling. The main story is interesting. I think it's well done. So the game, I think, is a lot better than I feel like a lot of people are giving it credit for. But I think a lot of people were basically hoping for Fallout and space, and it just doesn't play in that sort of way. and I think it compromises the exploration in order to allow you to have all these star systems. So there's nothing to do with most of them. You'll go there to find a bounty hunter in space or a bounty hunter in a base and get them and it's like, okay.
    78:36
    And yeah, Fallout had that stuff too. Oh look, you're on your way. Oh look, more super mutants. Oh look, more. Oh look, more super mutants. Oh look, a deathclaw. I guess I actually need to be afraid now. You know, things. So there are things like that. Or in New Vegas, the Cazdors, because those were the most horrifying things. Plus, there are levels listed on the systems. So even though you, in theory, could go anywhere, it kind of heavily suggests, hey, this, like, I have a quest. I've had this quest since, like, my second day playing the game. It wants me to go to a level 30 star system. I'm level 15. Go for it. Which I just got today. Maybe I could. I don't know. The problem is when I'm in space, I've gone to places that say it's level five, and then I get blown out of the stars by two crimson pirates or something. Anyway, but overall, it's been fun. I play it in shorter bursts than I do Fallout. Some of that just depends on what's going on. But overall, I do think it's a fun game. It's just I really want a new Fallout, I think is what it is. So, but mechanically and stuff, there's a lot there that, that, that's really quite an accomplishment.
    79:47
    But you spend a lot of, I'm just, I spent a lot of time inventory management. I spent a lot of time, like my ship's cargo hold got full. I don't know, like, am I supposed to save all the resources? I don't, like building stuff just feels really key. I finally started doing research yesterday because I misunderstood the research system. I thought I saw things and what it needed and I'd see like zero of two, zero of two. And I thought that meant, oh, I don't have any argon in my inventory. No, I did. I did in my cargo hold. it said zero of two because i hadn't committed any to the research and so i didn't click on it because i thought i couldn't finish it and then it's like oh no i just haven't assigned anything to it it's just like okay so now you're behind on that stuff too uh that are they're broad i mean there's a lot of there's like five major skill trees and so it again uh kind of kind of overwhelming laid out in a in a traditional way but not as you know you don't get the little fun perks like Fallout has and stuff. So, yeah, it's been fun. I mean, that's good. But Baldur's Gate might have been the right choice for you. I've thought that since reading some of the Starfield reviews, I think going the Baldur's Gate route was the right way. Because I know from talking to other people, there are serious things in Baldur's Gate that I've missed, that I know I've missed. I could probably go back and do some of them, but I know I've for sure missed some of the stuff. which just means fodder for another playthrough. I mean, I'm already planning an evil playthrough. Yes, very evil. Yeah, and you can still do like, I mean, I took pickpocketing in Starfield. I've done it a few times. I had a companion who didn't like it when I stole stuff, though, so I've swapped that companion with a more Zarya-type companion.
    81:32
    Yes, take what's in their pockets. Yes. Yes, that's what we do. I make illegal drugs because it's good money. Things like that. I need money. I got to upgrade these ships somehow. It's just easier to buy them and try and build them myself. When I build them, they're like, your thing looks like a stupid Welsh corgi and it's too long. Leave my ship alone. It's doing what it needs to do. It's being adorable, earning money.
    81:56
    But that's all I had. So that's my little summary of Starfield. But, yeah, I'm still – I mean I'm not tired of it. Oh, that's good. So keep playing it. That's my main game I'm playing now. I guess I'm wondering if that's a game that's going to see a lot of expansions and DLCs because there's all the space for it and stuff to do. I don't know. I mean, they could. But I just want a new Fallout and not 76. Yeah. I want a real Fallout. I miss the wasteland. Well, they've not announced anything, but we know they're working on the follow-up to Skyrim. I know a lot of people are into that, and I enjoyed Skyrim, but not as much. Again, I'm a Fallout. I'm a Fallout boy. Yeah. Isn't that a band? It is. Okay. Thank you. With my non-deliberate joke.
    82:50
    I think that's it. So, folks, if you want to reach us, you can email us, eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. You can support the channel at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. And you can also go and not really support us, but I guess comment if you want on our Facebook page, facebook.com slash eclectic gamers podcast.
    83:09
    We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks. I don't know if I would really expect heavy news at this stage. I wouldn't think so. I would have thought all the big stuff is out now. I would. Unless somebody's deciding to try and do a little secret slip. A little secret Santa. A little secret Santa slip-in. Even then, I wouldn't expect it in two weeks. I'd expect it four to six weeks. We'll see, and we'll be back then. But until next time, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See you.