One night in Bangkok in the world's your first stop. The bars are temples but the pulse ain't free. You'll find a god in every golden question. And if you're lucky then the gods are sheep. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. It is the greatest time to be in this hobby since I've been in this hobby. It is absolutely insane. Every single week, we're waking up to a new game that is either getting people excited or turning people off. But I think everyone's excited because why wouldn't you want more pinball in the world? And now we've got all these great pinball options, and we've still got Galactic Tank Force to go. But let's talk about what happened yesterday with Pulp Fiction because I didn't think this game was going to land with that much enthusiasm. We saw the blurry photos of the game. And I just want to say this right now. If you have not watched the straight down the middle, like featurette on this game, it is Greg and Zach's greatest video to date. I don't think I've seen a video that gets me more excited about a pinball machine than this video did for Pulp Fiction. And when you listen to the team who made this game, Mark Ritchie, David Thiel, and everyone over there, these guys are so excited about this game. and the fact that Quentin Tarantino worked on the game with these guys, I mean, that's all that comes down to. I want to talk about this game and what I think this game is doing to a lot of people. I think this game is reminding a lot of people that you can have a lot of fun in a pinball machine and you don't need a ton of stuff on an LCD. Wait a minute, Kaneda. You don't even need an LCD screen. Like, what if the music is there? What if the call-outs are perfect, right? When you hear these Pulp Fiction call-outs, they will transport you to those scenes in the movie that you love. And I'm just going to say this, and I'm being totally honest. This game is bringing out more of the theme than freaking Godfather is. And that's what I kept feeling like when I watched the featurette on Pulp Fiction. It's like their passion was just oozing out as they talked about the game and everything that's going into it. And then I remember watching the Godfather featurette and they had a more of like, well, you couldn't just make a Godfather movie. So we had to make a mobster game and then skin it Godfather. And I'm like, nope, this game is Pulp Fiction through and through. You are going to hear from all of the characters in the movie that you love. And everything on the playfield itself is a visual cue to Pulp Fiction. Everything from the Royale with cheese to the pawn shop to the watch. And look at that briefcase that opens up. And my gosh, the sculpts actually look like the actors in the movie. They don't look like some Looney Tunes character. This game just looks cool. This game looks cool. And look, there's some of you out there that might say it looks cheesy. It doesn't look good. It doesn't look modern. And that's why I think people are responding to this game. Because Quentin Tarantino wanted it this way. And it just oozes cool. I don't know why I keep using the word oozes. But when I look at this game, and I mean it when I say it, when I look at this Pulp Fiction machine and knowing how popular Pulp Fiction is in the freaking movie world, how iconic that movie is from 1994, knowing that there will only be a thousand Pulp Fiction LEs with this topper. This isn't going to be like Cactus Canyon where anyone can go buy the topper. When you stand back and look at this machine, I think we're looking at a machine that is going to be timeless. I think we're looking at a machine that is going to stay in people's collections for a long time. And I think we're looking at a pinball machine in which anyone who walks up to it can enjoy it and have fun and not be overwhelmed by some overly complex like rule system, not be overwhelmed by everything lighting up at the same time. And maybe all of us needed a little bit of a reminder that pinball fun can come at us in many different shapes and forms and I going to be the first one to admit I was wrong I said no display This game is going to be dead on arrival but it not dead on arrival people In fact, this game is selling really, really well. I've been speaking to some of the biggest distributors, and I bet all of them, I mean this, all of the thousand LEs are probably going to be spoken for today. And you could argue like, Canada, wait and see, wait and see. Well, look, here's the thing, people. We waited, we saw Pulp Fiction, and I think we're seeing enough. And I mean this, we're seeing enough where a $1,000 deposit on this game is not even much of a risk. You have to put twice as much money to secure a Scooby-Doo in which there's going to be twice as many Scooby-Doos. And this game looks more interesting to me than Scooby-Doo. This game looks more interesting to me, I'm just going to say it, than Godfather. I just like what they're doing with this game. It just looks like the kind of game you're going to walk up to. You're going to hear these sound clips. You're going to hear these five iconic songs. You're going to see the dancing on the topper. And you're just going to have a smile ear to ear. And I just don't feel like you're going to get that from every single new pinball machine that comes out. And I will again compare it to Godfather. If you love the Godfather movie, you're not going to walk up to that pinball machine and have a smile from ear to ear because they nailed the theme. and it's not really their fault because Godfather is a bad theme for pinball and we're seeing it. And Pulp Fiction is a perfect theme for pinball. And when you hear these call outs and they're cursing at you, and I'm not going to use curse words, but this game I'm hearing is going to have more curses in it than any pinball machine ever. And it looks to me like it's going to be like Rick and Morty if Rick and Morty was fun to shoot, which it's not. You know, what's funny is like when you look at pinball, we have so much emphasis on ramps, like ramps return the ball to the flippers. I get it. And it is fun to have the ball return to the flippers. And then we have so much emphasis on LCD screens and what's on the screen. But this game is reminding everybody that pinball for the most part should be below the glass. Look, I wouldn't argue if this game had an LCD screen and they showed clips from the movie, but I like what they did here. I like the way it looks. And I think this game is really challenging some of our perceptions about pinball and value because you could ask the question, Chris, after everything you say in your podcast, is this Pulp Fiction game worth $10,000 or $9,500? And here's the thing. Now in the climate of pinball in 2023, I absolutely think this game, which is also 50% less money than a Godfather CE, it's 30% less money than a Stern LE. And I think this game with its global appeal, is going to be a game that is going to hold much more value than anything else in the market. Again, if you ask me, like, would I buy this game? Absolutely, I would buy this game for this much money because I don't think you're really going to lose money. In fact, I think this game is going to be a game people want for years and years and years to come. And I know I haven't played it yet, but I'm just looking at it. I mean, it looks like it shoots just fine. I mean, it's for the most part, for the most part, it looks like a fan layout. I probably would have liked a third flipper in this game to hit those pawn shop targets. We don't know if gameplay is going to be great or not. I can feel it. Like I can feel the vibes in this game. And I think once that music comes on and once you hear those call outs, I think people are going to fall in love with this game. And look, the market is speaking on this title. Jersey Jack's Godfather didn't sell out. They're having a hard time selling the LEs of Godfather. Foo Fighters sold out. So they did something right there. this game is going to sell out by today FOMO is not dead people I mean we all know FOMO is not dead see the thing about FOMO is it only happens when something is put in front of us that is really really enticing and again I think at this price all of a sudden now 10,000 feels like the new six thousand dollars in pinball and it is right spooky games used to be like six grand now they 10 and so I wasn surprised when they announced this game for 9 bucks It also looks like there a decent amount in this game And how do you put a price And here the hard part right How do you put a price on owning the only pinball machine on planet earth that Quentin Tarantino has endorsed How do you put a price on the only pinball machine on planet earth that the man himself was involved with? How do you put a price with the only pinball machine on planet earth that as Samuel Jackson and John Travolta and Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman doing call outs, Harvey Keitel and Quentin Tarantino. How do you put a price on all this? It's just going to be a special pin. And I completely misread the room on it. I completely was off saying it wasn't going to land and it wasn't going to be able to compete with all these modern games. And it's Mark Ritchie's return to pinball. And when you watch the feature ad and you see Mark Ritchie, you see his passion. In 26 years, he's been waiting to come back to pinball. And he comes back with a really unique game. And so I think it's going to do tremendously well. I think this is bad news for probably Galactic Tank Force. But not really. And here's why. Because Galactic Tank Force is going to get revealed in about a week. It's going to be a much more modern, zany pin. It's a much more different direction on pinball. The other good news for everybody else with Pulp Fiction is they're not going to be making these Pulp Fiction games until October. October! October, seven months away. Like, is this going to be Cactus Canyon all over again where you put your deposit down and then you wait like a year and a half for the game? And maybe so. And maybe that's why they revealed it right now. Which begs the question, why did they reveal it right now? And probably CGC needs to know how many parts to order and they're trying to get ahead of that. Really strange because everyone else is announcing games that are on the line right now. But this is a game where like, You're going to put $1,000 down and you're going to be willing to wait for it. And then you're not really going to think about it until your game is up on the line. The other part I really like, it's in the contract with CGC. They will not take your final payment until your game is two weeks from the line. So that's good. Because I think a lot of people paid for Cactus Canyon LE in full and then they wait it forever. They're also going to let people who have a deposit down on Cactus Canyon roll that deposit onto Pulp Fiction. So you basically can hold your Pulp Fiction spot with your $1,000 deposit for Cactus Canyon. So I also like that move. Royale with cheese, the pawn shop, the watch. There's a magnet. There's lots of spinners. Ripping them spinners. There's drop targets. The other thing I thought about when I saw this game was how stupid does James Bond 60th look now for $20,000? I mean, look, James Bond will shoot better than this game. We know that Keith Elwin is the master of flow. I don't think this game's going to have the same flow of James Bond. It's not even about the flow. It's about vibes. Like, James Bond does not have cool music in it. James Bond doesn't have call-outs from the James Bond characters throughout the movies. James Bond feels like a half-baked idea that isn't really executed very well. The LCD screen in the middle of that game is ugly. The one scoring reel is also ugly in that game. I think it was an interesting idea by Stern, but I think they failed horribly at the execution of it. I feel this game is the complete opposite. I think they took a game, they had a creative direction they wanted to go in, and I think they freaking nailed the execution of this game. And if you just bought a James Bond 60th, you must be staring at the screen being like, crap, maybe I should have listened to Kaneda and waited and saw what came out here. Because this is just a much cooler game. That's the other thing too. it's just so much cooler than James Bond 60th everything about it is cooler I mean look at the topper on this game and look at the topper on James Bond look at the cabinet right the cabinet on this at least it looks like a throwback cabinet it's super cool compared to the James Bond one of the ugliest cabinets Stern has ever assembled oh man I'm like running out of breath the March Madness continues and now we get to Galactic Tank Force the final game there been like eight games revealed since like Scooby and batting cleanup is going to be David Fix and Dennis Nordman I a little bit worried that some of us out there are not going to be responsible with our money I'm a little bit worried there's no more money left to go around. There really isn't that much money left to go around. I mean, you guys have to pay for your James Bonds and your Foo Fighters and your Scooby-Doos and your Godfathers and your Queens. How is there still money left to buy these games. It is the greatest moment to be alive in modern pinball buying history. I'm not saying these games are the greatest, but we have never experienced six to seven new games in a month and a half period of time ever before. It is a buyer's market. It is a buyer's market, people, and that is a good thing. We're getting great content from straight down the middle. That featurette was the best thing they've ever done. I mean it. We're getting great passion from pinball designers young and old. I love it. We have young designers like Scott Danesi and Eric Minier and older guys like Mark Ritchie. We have Steve Ritchie that wants to make a statement over at Jersey Jack Pinball. I just hope it's not Elton John. We've got companies trying to figure out how to make Godfather into pinball, how to make Pulp Fiction into pinball, how to create a Foo Fighters game, which we all canceled off a year ago. And now it's like this awesome 80s cartoon Foo Fighters Adventure. Scooby-Doo is out there breaking down on location left and right like people forgot about spooky quality like it was all of a sudden going to change overnight. I mean, come on, talk to operators about Scooby-Doo and how well it's holding up on location. And yours truly, Canada's Pinball Podcast has set a record this March for the most amount of subscribers, 576. I'm heading to Texas. Brenda got me a little goat trophy that I might have to display if I go six for six at the Twippies. And speaking of Twippies, I don't think anyone cares about last year's games now that we've got so many new games. I mean, they should just rethink the entire Twippies and have an 11th hour voting about what's our favorite new game and have that as a new category. Everybody, I look forward to the madness continuing. I'm loving this Pulp Fiction game. And I also think this is going to be a game people are going to be able to scalp and flip for a little bit more money than they paid for. The scalping days are over for the most part. But here's why you could scalp a Pulp Fiction. If you get one for $9,500 and they sell out, there's room north for this game to go. If you buy Foo Fighters for $14,500 with tax and shipping, I'm not sure there's room for that game to go up. There sure as heck ain't no room for Godfather to go up. Jersey Jack is the one company, and I mean it. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse with these guys or horse head in bed. They got the pricing all wrong. They just went too high, and that is why people are just waiting on the sidelines. Like Jersey Jack's new business model, like Jersey Jack customers now, all of them are like, if I just wait a few months, I'll save a couple thousand dollars and these games will be new in box because distributors have to unload the inventory. You know, what's funny about these companies is they have to use like mafia tactics to get distributors to buy the products. You know that like Jersey Jack goes to distributors and is like, you need to buy this game or you're not going to get the next game. And so there's a lot of fear. Like how many godfathers do I absorb? And I'm still staring at a wall full of toy stories. Stern's not having that problem with Foo Fighters. We're not going to see that problem with Pulp Fiction because it's going to take him like two years to make it. Scooby-Doo buyers are regretting going in early. You're going to see those Scooby-Doo deposits, which people spent $2,000 on. Now, all of a sudden, you're going to start to see those deposits sell for like $1,000. Like you could have saved $1,000 if you just waited. I don't think you're ever going to see $1,000 off on Pulp Fiction. I don't know. It's a great time to be in the hobby. There's so many options. And now the next game is David Fix's batting cleanup. Will this tank game, will it be able to find customers in such a crowded market? I'm loving it, everybody. Have a great day. We'll talk to you soon. It was Apple walking next to me