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Episode 251 - Foundation of Bones

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 21m·analyzed·Aug 3, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Jack Danger shifts from Stern game designer to Head of Community role, likely due to project management burnout.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss Jack Danger departure from game design at Stern Pinball to become Head of Community, focusing on the transition's motivation (likely management burnout), business implications, and what Stern gains from the move. They speculate that Jack requested the position change due to stress managing design teams rather than creative work itself, compare his situation to Keith Elwin insights on lead designer responsibilities, and debate whether the arrangement makes strategic sense for Stern given Jack will stream non-Stern content.

Key Claims

  • Jack Danger is no longer a game designer at Stern Pinball and has taken a new role as Head of Community

    high confidence · Reported in Kineticist article and official Stern press release; hosts cite this as confirmed news

  • Jack has one final cornerstone game in development that others are finishing so he can transition to the new role

    high confidence · Stern press release details mentioned by hosts

  • Jack requested this position change himself

    high confidence · Stated explicitly in Stern announcement; hosts confirm reading original press release

  • Jack will stream primarily on Deadflip, not Stern Pinball's official channel

    high confidence · Kineticist article and press release details cited by hosts

  • Jack's Head of Community role reports to a vice president in the marketing division

    high confidence · Stern organizational structure per press release

  • Jack plans to stream non-Stern games and competitor titles, not just Stern products

    medium confidence · Host interpretation of announced plans; specific details not directly quoted

  • Keith Elwin indicated in a Loser Kid Pinball podcast interview that project management/team management is the biggest challenge for lead designers, not game design itself

    medium confidence · Dennis references Loser Kid Pinball interview; secondhand account

Notable Quotes

  • “He is not as near as I could tell streaming on Stern Pinball's channel. Maybe he'll do that sometimes, but he will be streaming on Deadflip was what was emphasized.”

    Dennis @ mid-show — Clarifies the distinction between Jack's channel independence and Stern's branding strategy

  • “The challenge isn't the game design. It's project management. It's managing the team and that he spends a tremendous amount of time managing the team.”

    Dennis (paraphrasing Keith Elwin) @ mid-show — Key insight explaining why lead designer roles are stressful and may explain Jack's burnout

  • “this move does not make any sense from Stern's perspective... there's no reason why stern would say you should be streaming not game designing as well as foo fighters and x-men sold right”

    Tony @ analysis segment — Articulates skepticism about Stern's business rationale for the arrangement

  • “I almost wonder if he gave Stern an ultimatum I need to do this new role or I need to leave that would be my guess”

    Tony @ analysis segment — Speculation about negotiation dynamics and Jack's leverage

  • “I think this fits better with his my sense of his personality. I think it plays to his strengths better.”

    Tony @ analysis segment — Acknowledges the personal fit of the new role despite business concerns

  • “It would have made more sense to me if they were like, all right, we will do this, but part of the deal is that the Deadflip channel is getting renamed to Stern Pinball, and we get ownership of it.”

    Tony @ analysis segment — Suggests potential missed branding opportunity from Stern's perspective

Entities

Jack DangerpersonStern PinballcompanyDeadflipmedia/platformKeith ElwinpersonLoser Kid Pinball PodcastmediaKineticistmediaX-MengameFoo Fighters

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Potential retention strategy: Stern accommodating Jack Danger's request to reduce design duties in exchange for keeping him engaged in alternative capacity

    medium · Jack requested the position change; role allows him to stream and engage with community; unfinished cornerstone game being completed by others

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern creating dedicated Head of Community role to manage streaming, community relations, and marketing initiatives

    high · Official organizational structure change; Jack streaming on Deadflip as part of role; role reports to marketing VP

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Lead game designer role at Stern involves significant project/people management overhead that may conflict with creative-focused personalities

    high · Keith Elwin interview on Loser Kid Pinball podcast discussing management as primary challenge; Dennis and Tony's analysis of burnout factors

  • $

    market_signal: Stern allowing Jack to maintain Deadflip channel independence and stream non-Stern content suggests commitment to organic community influence over branded control

    medium · Jack will stream on Deadflip, not Stern's official channel; plans to stream competitor and older titles; Tony expresses surprise at lack of channel ownership/rebranding

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jack Danger transitioning from lead game designer to Head of Community at Stern Pinball

    high · Official Stern announcement reported in Kineticist and press release; hosts confirm reading original materials

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.246

0:00
Welcome to the Collective Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 3rd. This is episode 251. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. And I have an announcement. We have a new Patreon member, Robert C. Woo, yay! Thank you. We don't have a Patreon topic for you guys on Patreon this month. Well, no, we might this month. We don't have one in this episode. We need someone needs to ask us for something. Right. I don't want to brainstorm stuff. My brain hurts. My brain. So just post on. I post the episodes on Patreon. I'm trying to do that now. So just comment there. And you can join that at Patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers for as little as a dollar a month. What's going on, Tony? Smith transition beautiful transition just like my glasses they transition mine do too I don't know if I'm going to get transition lenses again I really do like not having to put on sunglasses but they detransition so slowly it's mainly a noticeable problem in the winter is when it's really bad now I'm scared because I've really noticed it in the summer it's really bad in the winter I will I've had them for years and I like them I'm not going to get my glasses currently have the mirrored lenses i'm not doing that again no okay that's uh less of a problem here but like it can be problematic during like teams meetings and stuff oh okay because if the reflectant reflecting the computer screen is very good and you can't see my eyes so i look you look like a guy in glasses and animes yes i i i i look all gindo especially if i like lace my fingers together beneath my chin i i look all gindo do you ever in the summer of your feet soaking in a bucket of water and then when no one's listening you just say it's hot no oh okay those were some references that some people might get those were some deep cuts deep cuts it's episode 251 but our patreon supporter butts uh congratulated us on patreon regarding us on 250 and who and he said because i don't think you you saw it i'll quote it it is a number that is large it is it is a large number i had a conversation with somebody the other day and it's like you know we're we're six months from 10 years it's been 10 to 10 years of of doing this that's a long time that you think about it i was so young then i know me too i'm full of life i had hope and dreams and we were and we were still talking about dmd pinballs that were coming out right it was a very different space we were judging like we were like this wwe really our future like that those were the sort of conversations yeah it was that was a definitely a long, long, we've come a long way. It's been a long road. Would you have any other updates? Most of what I've been doing, I know lately has been just, I literally have not played much video games at all. I, I was like, I was telling you before the show and during the pre-show stuff, I, I actually semi unplugged this week. Last Sunday evening, I shut down my computer and everything. and I did not turn it back on until Friday night. I spent the entire week at home computer-free just doing stuff around the house and working on non-online, non-electronic, non-computer-related projects. Yeah, exciting. Yeah. Yeah, I played a little bit of Vampire Survivors over the last couple of weeks, But yard work, did some of that, worked more on black hole. You just tried the black hole. Didn't break it. Didn't break this time. That's the first time I've tried that game that it didn't break. Yes. The only thing is I have to wonder that little gate. Maybe others have had a black hole can let us know because I've not had a lot of experience with a physical black hole. The little gate that makes you drain or not drain, depending on how you do on the lower play field. is it supposed to have enough give that if you basically alley pass or into the right, it will let the ball drain because we both had that happen to us. Yeah, we did. And so I'm wondering if it just needs a tighter spring or that was always an aspect of the game. And you just have to be really careful about an alley pass over onto that side. So anyway, right into us, collect your gamers podcast at gmail.com. If you know the answer to that, before we transition into our topics of pinball and video games, we do have a topic that I decided to go ahead and stick in here from Christie pre-show topic. I think he wrote this in either this morning or last night. I put it in this morning because I didn't it was last night. It was late, late last night because I had updated my notes at some point yesterday evening. This is what he wrote. Hey guys, here's a question to help with a slow week. And thank you Chris for recognizing that this was going to be a slow week because it is. Situation. You wake up today and inherit one million dollars. With that money, you must put a larger game room into your house or add a second location in your backyard. Think a man shed. You must also spend that money creating your perfect game room. Question. What would you put into your new man cave? So that's the scenario. Thank you, Chris, by the way, for the scenario. I don't normally dream like that.
game
Jurassic Park Home Editiongame
Tonyperson
Dennisperson
  • ?

    product_strategy: Jack Danger's final cornerstone game is still in development but being completed by other team members rather than Jack

    high · Stern press release and Kineticist article both note others finishing the game to enable Jack's transition

    • 5:47
    So I guess I'm going to open with certain. It's a million dollars, but we have to. he noted we have to put in this larger game room or this place a shed or whatever so some portion of the money has to go to that yes how much do you think we how much is that like i don't know i i don't i don't know here's my thought what's your thought i i like the concept of putting in the the larger like the location in the backyard like a man's shed i like this but i i i would go pretty good. A he-hovel? A he-hovel? No, I don't think it would count as a hovel because if I'm going to do that, it's going to be like a good size. It's going to be a borderline, what's the new phrase for it? It's going to be a borderline barn dominium. It's going to be I'm going to throw up a metal building that's got room to store some vehicles and stuff inside of it in addition to everything else. A Chateau. Yeah, a Chateau. Something pretty decently sized. So a lot's going to go into the building. I was thinking I'm going to probably have to earmark. I don't know how much that would be to put something like that. I was thinking for my part, I was probably going to say, I probably got about half a million to play with and assume half a million to do the renovation. That's what I... Half a million is a lot of money. I mean, that's a heck of a renovation. you can rent the entire house. The whole house. All right. Are you replacing the copper wiring in the walls with gold wiring to have better? I like good conductive quality.
    7:29
    So no, probably no. I don't know how big. Again, I don't know how big. All right. Maybe I'll focus a little bit less on the money. So let me just go. But I want to note it because a million dollars does only go so far. Right, right, right. I can't do everything. You could always pull the Breaking Bad, and you could just cover a pallet in $1 bills and then lay on it. That's a good point. So I guess here's kind of what I would probably do in this sort of man cave scenario to give you a sense of it, what I think kind of – that seems reasonable within a million dollars. So pinball portion. I'm thinking space for 20 games, maybe 25. I'm really reluctant to go bigger I already think that's an awful lot because my general rule of thumb is once you're past a dozen games keeping everything working can start to become a chore so I guess let's say 25 I'd have space for 25 games 15 to 20 of those would probably be newer titles 5 to 10 would be older ones but I'd probably get all the older ones restored so that I wouldn't have to worry so much about all the maintenance because, again, we've gone to people's homes where they have tremendous collections, but so much of this you have people volunteering to try and get the stuff up, but it's just a lot. It's a lot to maintain. So I'd have that. I would like a single lane bowling alley. I think not a shuffleboard, not one of those. I'm like a single lane bowling alley. My rec room downstairs where I have my pinball machines, the weird long narrowness of that room made me think, was that like the dream in the 80s? My house, I think, was built in 83. Was that like the dream was like, here in middle America, everyone's going to want to have a bowling alley space in there? Because it's a weird shape of a room. It is a really weird shape of a room. And so I always thought it seemed like it was designed to have a single-lane bowling alley. So I would have that.
    9:28
    I would like to have... Arcade games, I'm not as particular. I'd say space for six, maybe. Probably a main cab. I have a main cab already that I keep in the garage. But Mame Cabin, and maybe some of the classics that I remember, like Ascena Star, maybe a couple of, the Alien light gun game. I think I deserve that as a trophy. I've already basically bought one with as much money as we dumped into the, Dave and Buster's years and years ago.
    9:56
    So maybe half a dozen of those. I'd like a claw game, because kids love the claw games. So I'll do a claw game. A claw.
    10:05
    And a skee-ball. Okay. And that would be the main thing. Probably put a poker table in there, but it probably won't get used for cards very much, just like I have one currently. And all it's used is – It's a flat space. Stuff is stored on top of it. It's a flat space that you have pinball stuff on. Right. So that would probably be the main things I would strive for.
    10:28
    I don't want to go, like, too full arcade. I'm not really a billiards person, so I don't see myself putting a pool table in.
    10:36
    That's where I'm at. Maybe foosball. and air hockey when the kids were young. They all loved the air hockey table I had. It was so loud. It was super loud. So it had to go.
    10:49
    Like I said, I would go for something a bit like the kind of barn to minimum something with a little living area but it's mainly like a couple car garage type area but taller and wider for projects and to keep vehicles because that would be a thing I'd want to you know, have a motorcycle or two kept in there and maybe a project vehicle. And then I would probably have six to 12 pinball machines would be my target goal.
    11:21
    And with a building build, I mean, obviously I wouldn't include like motorcycles or stuff into the million. That'd just be my current motorcycle and looking for other project things in there. but just to have some extra space to store. But I would say six to 12 pinball machines, a couple arcades. There's not very many that are on the list that I would really care that much about to get, but there's a few.
    11:50
    I think the big thing would be having a nice area set up with a properly laid out wall to mount some good, to have some, a good sound system put in and a really nice projector to have. I was just saying theater projector wall. I should have said that. Two levels. And the lower level for all the game stuff because upper level sucks. Absolutely sucks. But a theater-style setup, as much as I like to watch movies, it is really a no-brainer. It's almost surprising I've never bothered to really do something like that, as is. I don't know that you have a spot that would really work very well for it. I don't feel it. This house has too much light in any place other than down in the game room area. And the game room area, because of the weird shape, was never well suited for film. It would never work for it, yeah. Because you can't get far enough away from the screen. Right. That's why I like the concept of having it slightly larger. You put in some nice – now, I don't want to build in the theater seating type setups. I don't really like that. But I like the more big – do the big sectionals where it's like the giant U-shaped couches and all of that stuff. maybe get one of those really, really nice, huge Ottomans that are made to go between the sectionals where you can close it in and it's like a giant for where everybody can put their feet up on it. Because I found over the years that I'm not a huge fan of the couches with the built-in recline and all of that stuff. I don't really like that nearly as much as just a normal couch. But having an Ottoman to put your feet up on would be nice. And I know they make some big ones. I've seen some interesting sectionals where they make these big Ottomans that you can literally push them in the sectional, and it basically turns into this enormous double king bed. And then you can pull the sectional out, and it opens it back up, so you can go in and use it like normal but put your feet up on the sectional. Stuff like that. Something like that with a really nice, well, very smooth, well-done white wall that I could have a projector on. I think I would use the heck out of that. I do also want a setup with a sink where I could basically put out catering, stuff for people. Oh yeah, like a wet bar type thing with a big buffet. Like when I host here at my house, my kitchen has a long enough counter that I'm able to lay out all the pizzas or all the whatevers. I have plenty of room to do that. But it's not where any of the game stuff is. Now again, here my house is a front back split. So it's actually you can be in the kitchen and dining area and talk to the living room really easily, but all the games are further level down. So if this is all its own isolated space, it should have a place where you don't have to go and traverse to go get food because here you have to go up two flights of stairs to get to the food. And I think part of that is being a front-back split is front-back splits. They're nice for stuff like that, for hosting and all of that, but it makes for some weirdly shaped rooms like your game room. It's very weird. Even this living room is weird. Even the living room is kind of a weird shape. So it's just, I think that's just a part of what the front back split is. I should burn it down. No, it's perfectly fine. It's just weird. Like, why is the ceiling this tall? I have this tall, huge ceiling. Oh, yeah, you've got, like, the giant cathedral ceiling for some reason. And it makes no sense. Yeah. But, hey, at least you don't have the popcorn ceiling thing that they did back in the 80s. I think my house was five years too late for that trend. I had the popcorn ceiling growing up, and my folks' house, I think, was from 74 or 76. So I remember the popcorn. Yeah. We can do without the popcorn ceiling, but you know, as we're so far off topic. No, no, it's still games. Technically related, but here's the thing. I need a popcorn breaker in my game room. The thing that everybody misses from the 70s is the conversation pit. Oh, yes. A tripping hazard, but they look so cool.
    15:52
    Where the whole room is a raised floor, except for the giant conversation pit the middle of it yes you're going to get a drink in the middle of the night you just fall down and break your neck because you forgot about the pit yes i need a conversation pit well i'll have like the movie theater ropes to rope it off when it's not in conversational use that's that's i like that that's a good one all right with a million dollars could you put hydraulics so that you hit a button and it drops into the it drops into the floor and you've got the conversation i might have to give up the theater for it. And then you hit another button and it comes back up to be a normal floor.
    16:33
    It has to make the hydraulic sound. Yeah. That'd be fun. Okay, but I don't have the million dollars right now to do that project, so unfortunate. But thank you for the conversation topic. Yeah. Let's move to Pinball.
    16:47
    So Pinball. If I had a million dollars just for a game room, it'd be great. As Chris noted, there is very little in the way of news of note in the pinball space. There's only really one item that's happened. It's pretty big news. You and I both saw an article in Kineticist that touched on this. In fact, I have a link in the show notes regarding it, but I've heard other podcasts cover this as well, and that is over at Stern Pinball. There has been a major change in the designer lineup, and that change is Jack Danger, who has designed X-Men, designed Foo Fighters as two cornerstones. He also did the Jurassic Park Home Edition before that. He is shifting and no longer will be a game designer for Stern. Instead, he is taking a new role, which is referred to as head of community. Again, the Kineticist piece has a number of details on this. But given additional information that came out, because I read the original press release, and it didn't share a whole lot other than it talked a little bit about his next cornerstone game that he'd been working on, because designers are always working on the next project. Um, so a few of the highlights are that I wanted to go ahead and provide to the listeners, uh, so that they have some context. Uh, so Jack does have that other game still coming out. It's planned to be his last title, at least his last cornerstone title. However, uh, as it's been described, he's not actually finishing the game. Others are actually finishing the game so that he can go ahead and start being the head of community and basically take on that new role now. Um, In terms of what Head of Community will be doing, Jack is returning to his roots. He's going back to streaming. He is not as near as I could tell streaming on Stern Pinball's channel. Maybe he'll do that sometimes, but he will be streaming on Deadflip was what was emphasized. That makes sense because it has the bigger audience. So he also has noted that he plans to stream more than just Stern games. So there could potentially be competitor titles streamed, older titles streamed, so on and so forth. He's noted he does plan to do instructional content from time to time in terms of game design, because he has been a game designer and things of that nature. Most of the streams would be happening during work hours. So, again, because he's working for Stern and this would be his job. So it's going to happen during the day. and Jack has indicated that this was his idea. He requested this position change and the way Stern has handled it in their structure is this is under the marketing division and he reports to one of the vice presidents in marketing. So your thoughts. I agree with what you said about like from a channel perspective, Dead Flip has a lot of followers already. So it makes sense from an audience perspective to continue to use something that already has a built-in base.
    19:45
    He also has built-in ties in that position with Twitch. Sure, but... Okay, let me start with the last item, which was Jack requesting the position change. That in no way shocks me, because this move does not make any sense from Stern's perspective. like the from there's no reason why stern would say you should be streaming not game designing as well as foo fighters and x-men sold right there's no reason to have him not be your designer no no i i no no knowledge no no certain no no no inside baseball or anything like that My assumption is that designing is such an interior lack of contact type position compared to what he used to and his personality type that it probably is very straining on him because he's used to being very just outgoing and energetic and interacting with people all the time. And from a designer standpoint, you're spending most of your time designing, and you're working with a design team, but it's not the same thing as interacting with fans and people and just kind of being a social, outgoing animal. And I can see where somebody who comes from that kind of background could definitely, it could be very stressful for them to lose that contact, to lose that context.
    21:35
    Yeah, I do agree that being head of community does feel like, and I don't know Jack well, but it does feel like it's more in his personality lane, though there's no, I guess, rule that one would say that a game designer has to be introverted or less outgoing versus not, though obviously the role has different priorities. I was listening to the Loser Kid Pinball podcast, and they actually raised a really good point that I subscribe to, because Jack can always correct the world in terms of what was the motivator. But this comes from Keith Elwin. I guess in one of their interviews with Keith Elwin, they were talking about being the lead designer on the game and what all does that mean or what's the challenge of being the lead designer? And Keith had indicated to them, the challenge isn't the game design. It's project management. It's managing the team and that he spends a tremendous amount of time managing the team. You and I, Tony, are managers. Yes. We manage a number of people. Yes.
    22:42
    I could definitely see from what I've seen how Jack behaves on Twitch and such over the time that that aspect he may not have considered because his homebrew design stuff was always just him. And then all of a sudden you have a team. And oh, can it suck. Can it suck to do HR people management? And if it is as big of a piece as Keith indicated to Loser Kids, I could definitely see why Jack was like, this is not nearly as fun as I thought it would be. I thought this was going to be a creative exercise, not people management.
    23:17
    Right. And that's a very valid position that I hadn't even considered. And I hadn't initially thought of it either. I had always leaned more towards that. And I've talked, you know, I don't know.
    23:33
    There was always an issue in terms of how much Jack didn't come in with a big design background in the space is maybe the best way I would put it. As near as I know, like mechanical design, layout design. Like he he had worked on some stuff, but that wasn't most of his channel streaming.
    23:53
    And I had heard very I still just remember one time on his dead flip Facebook page, I believe it was where he posted a picture. And it was the meme with Big Bird sitting in with all the corporate people around a conference table. And he had he had the head caption on it or something was basically said, how I feel when I sit in on the Stern meetings. like the stern design team meetings it was uh it was it's an imposter syndrome meme where you know he didn't feel like he belonged now this was very early like after foo fighters had come out but i think it was after few hours but anyway it was early and i i wondered you know we heard different things about how many people were helping again these are design as a team sport at stern a lot of people working on these things so i had wondered whether or not he was fully comfortable with the design aspects and how much he was being able to do and come up with and make work on his own versus what was requiring other people to help with and whether that issue whether he never really got truly comfortable with the role or not but it makes more sense to me after hearing josh and scott that the part that was hard to get comfortable with wasn't learning the actual like the math of the design and stuff but rather okay what's the software engineer need now oh Oh, great. He's fighting with a mechanical engineer. Oh, great.
    25:13
    Because I a shocking amount of my time is spent on that stuff. And I don't like it. Oh, I understand. I'm I'm I'm.
    25:24
    I spend so much of my time dealing with issues and drama and stuff that it is. it is it makes me glad that i've not have an even higher role than i do because i assume it would just get worse the higher you get and at the same time there there there are 100 days where you sit there and just go oh why did i accept this i could have just been working yeah i think people such as yourself that you basically have worked your way up the chain in a very specific field have that remembrance of, hey, I used to just do technical work and I was really good at it. Yeah. And now you have to know your technical work, but that's not what most of your time is. Most of your time is dealing with other people that you're like, why are you guys just not good at this technical work or can't get along with each other doing this technical work? And for me, where I came in more as an outsider,
    26:29
    I have knowledge of the field, But what's fascinating to me is it just takes one person. Oh, yeah. I mean, just within my own portfolio, I've got over 100 employees. And one person can suck my week dry, just suck it dry dealing with nonsense. And I'm just like, one person can destroy a team. Yes, absolutely. And so, again, I don't know that Jack's team's had any specific issues. But even the littlest thing has to be managed so that it doesn't spiral. It's very draining. And I'd say the one thing that Jack always conveyed to me whenever I'd watch him or listen to him speak is that he's a creative. He wants to create. And that's not creating. That's managing. Yes. It can suck. So I think that would make a lot of sense in that regard. what do you think though about the immediacy of the transfer it sounds like he's not even wrapping up his own cornerstone there's other people who are stepping in burnout that's my thought too I almost wonder if he gave Stern an ultimatum I need to do this new role or I need to leave that would be my guess it's a real concern Yes. I was always a little surprised he became a game designer, a lead game designer at Stern. And I always suspected, because we know about Twitch and the streaming and all that, we also know, thanks to the Twitch League, how much money he made for one of those years. And it was like, it's a lot of time and a lot of work for really not all that much money. Yeah. And the stability was probably very attractive. So I always assumed he went to Stern, not because he didn't like streaming, though. Maybe he was burned out from it, but rather it had kind of plateaued in terms of growth. And he wanted some stability, maybe some health insurance. You know, he's got a family to raise. Yes. You stability what you do when you're when you're when you're single or married with no children and stuff, you're much more willing to take risks than when you've got a full a full family that you're concerned with. That is for sure. Now, what are you thinking that Stern thinks they're getting out of this? Because that's where I see a lot of advantages to like Jack. Like, I think this fits better with his my sense of his personality. I think it plays to his strengths better. I think a lot of people in the community will probably welcome this. I really struggle to see much advantage for Stern, other than to say it's an experiment to see how maybe this helps with their marketing strategy. I think a very good, solid, well-liked community manager can do amazing things for a company.
    29:30
    Just looking on, like, there are several video game projects that worked through their entire early access where the engagement with their community manager is the reason the games became as big and popular as they were because they were very good games. But the community manager who kind of pulled everything together and kept everything going and kept people engaged are what really helped and built it up. And, I mean, if this works out well for them, I mean, it's Stern. Let's be honest. They're already the best-selling, most popular company out there. This isn't going to hurt them in that way, in any way, shape, or form.
    30:12
    But one of the weaknesses Stern has always had is their launches have always, like their launches were always kind of lackluster until they started getting help from putting them together and planning them. They've started picking up, and this is just going to help continue that because that's exactly what the type of stuff that this position in my mind will be a big part of. We'll be driving stuff like that. I don't know that it's going to be a huge swing of the needle. I don't know if it's going to have as big of an impact on them as just how well the games he's designed have sold. Actually, I can guarantee you it's not going to have as big of an impact. But I think at the end of the day, it will more likely than not be better than fully losing all of the capabilities that he brings to the table for them. It would have made more sense to me if they were like, all right, we will do this, but part of the deal is that the Deadflip channel is getting renamed to Stern Pinball, and we get ownership of it. And we'll guarantee you in exchange, like we'll pay you for the channel or whatever as part of the deal. Like it because where's the branding? Where's where's the value from Stern's perspective to let him stream non Stern? Like that's all the parts where I'm like, it's like he's from Jack's again, from Jack's perspective. I'm like, this seems like a big win. He's getting it sounds like he's getting every single thing he asked for. And I don't I just don't understand from Stern's perspective where that value all is. Oh, yeah, stream a Jersey Jack game. Sure. Yeah, stream from 12 to 1 p.m. Yeah, there's going to be great audience retention at that. It doesn't seem like it's fleshed out in a way that makes really strong business sense to me. We don't know what the terms are. Well, but we know what he has said he gets to do. We know what he said what he gets to do, but we don't know what the background terms are. We don't know. No. Because we don't know the background terms. That's true. It could 100% just be that, like we kind of talked about. Jack's burned out, and this is what's required to get Jack back to a point where he can make a game again. This last game might have been too much. He might have just been burned out after so many years of concentrating on stuff so different than what his background is. And it could be a thing that after a year or two, he's back into it, and he's designing games for them again, or at least small ones here and there. and it could be completely based around just them wanting to hold on to him to where they can get it when he's got it in him to do it it's an interesting idea okay well i don't know obviously so i i can't drive this topic any further i don't know anything we don't normally spend this much time talking about people changing there's just literally nothing going on There's nothing. There's so little. We are grasping at anything to talk about. I do not care. I suppose I would care if I sold games. I would be annoyed that one of the best-selling designers is not going to be a designer for any company at this point. I suppose that would be annoying to me, but I don't sell games, so I don't care. Right. But people find it interesting. A lot of people really like Jack and like his channel, so I think it will excite some people, but he'll just be streaming more, regardless of whatever the conditions were.
    33:37
    Do you actually watch streaming anymore? No. I don't either. I haven't watched streams in years and years. Not really since the pandemic. I'm the exact same way. I barely listen to pinball podcasts anymore. I still have a few.
    33:53
    I mean, I guess. David Dennis, who hosts Silver Ball Chronicles, which I do listen to, asked me just the other day, which of the new pinball podcasts would I recommend? And I was like, I don't know any of these new pinball podcasts. Right. Like the newest pinball podcast that I added to my – I haven't even added the new Flippin' Out pinball podcast. Because there is one now, by the way, with Ken Cromwell, who used to do – was it Special and Lit? He used to be at Jersey Jack Pinball. He's doing one with Greg Bone. Yeah, good. I bet you that's a good podcast too. Well, that one I can't listen to because members of the Pinball Show Discord have demanded that they get free access to the TPS Discord. And it's like TPS Discord is not the Flippin' Out Discord.
    34:45
    No, they can subscribe if they want to be on the Discord. That's how it works. I ain't Flippin' Out. I don't care how hard you guys try and make me because, of course, a lot of Flippin' Out customers like to listen to TPS. Right. No, I mean for understandable reasons. And I can understand why people would think that you were part of the flipping out family. Yeah, I could see it. And that you are a flipping out employee. I don't even know why this would be brought up. We haven't even put out a TPS episode in a month. It's like, maybe we need to get our own house in order before you start trying to make additions to it. Right. The comments came before we went on a hiatus. But, I mean, a hiatus isn't that unusual. Well, hiatus was just it was planned, and it's more like it just got canceled at the last minute. Yeah. Because people have been busy. Right. I mean, that's not that uncommon for TPS to take breaks here and there. Yeah, but that's usually in the spring. It's not usually in the summer, in the doldrums. Okay, time for the drama, so it's all burnout. Yeah. I don't know. No, it was Zach's been too busy on the one weekend and then the last weekend, And then the weekend before he was busy and then I couldn't do because I had work trip. I couldn't do any other days to record it. Like I could only done the usual. Oh, you come on. You could have recorded on the plane. I could have, but I don't like. And the last time he asked me, did I want to ask me on the last time? Did I want to do a guest, you know, bring on a guest or do a solo episode? And I was like, to talk about what Jack Danger streaming. That's all that there was. Right. There is nothing else to talk about that anyone would care. Well, you talk about designing your dream game. No, I didn't have that suggestion until this morning, so I didn't know. It's a great suggestion. I didn't know. I kind of want a conversation. I didn't have anything. I want a conversation. I've been telling everyone it's because Zach has been overwhelmed with the Predator sales. There's so many Predator sales. and this is fitting for the transition to our last pinball piece here there's been so many predator cells that chris hansen is knocking on the door so many that's that's bad that's bad so richard a wrote into us he actually has a couple of topics for us but it's actually a fairly lengthy email so i'll get through that first and then uh i'll i'll hit on the topics but Hi guys, two small possible topics for you. I would like to continue off of the art topic I brought up last time. You two had a very interesting conversation, brought up some things I did not think about. You two mentioned how Indiana Jones is not really Indiana Jones. You talked about how similar things were done for other licensed themes. I do not remember the titles you mentioned, but maybe Lethal Weapon and things like that. Here is the first thing to discuss. We know that Predator, see, I've tied it all in, was done with the idea of the player being Dutch. I do not know why they want the player to be from the Netherlands. Oh, the character Dutch. Sorry, dad joke. Tony will understand. I appreciate it. I think people's biggest complaint is there's no Arnold in the game. What if they had gone old school and done the art on the play field like they did for many of the games you discussed last time? Put drawn version of the characters on the playfield, drawn close enough to be recognizable, but not so close as to require licensing.
    38:11
    They could have done away with the clips from the movie, done something more animated in style. Think King Kong or the recent Jurassic Park. Bouncing off of that topic into something related. Can you two talk about screens on the back box? Now that they have become standard, things like Predator are required to have movie clips or find a workaround. Pulp Fiction seems to be the exception to this world of larger TV screen DMDs. What size do you prefer? Jersey Jack's large full back glass size versus Stern's smaller size? Personally, I like the smaller size and having the more traditional trans light. I think it is interesting in Virtual Pimble that they are moving to having full DMDs like on Stern machines. Many building cabs have this style set up. Even for older DMD games, the DMD will be on a 10-inch display, for example. The DMD is framed with art to give it the full DMD look. Here is an example. He provides an example link. On new non-real world creations, Pinball FX has gone to the full DMD style. Lastly, I wanted to comment on the portal backglass from Multimorphic. Talk about, in my opinion, a large backglass done poorly. I have attached the image. Hopefully it goes through. It did go through. The image is from the NAP Arcade post. The image is fine. Not really my thing. my criticism is about how the scores are represented in small rectangles. Reminds me of buttons on programs from the Windows XP era. From a company that does a lot of digital things for their games, this looks so uninteresting, like the task was given to an intern to do. If any of this gets picked up for a topic and you read any of this, can I get your country southern voice this time? Richard. P.S. If you've not heard episode 12 of the Dirty Pool Pinball Podcast, it is worth listening to. He has a person that is big in the virtual pinball world and has strong ties to the real pinball world. The topic of virtual pinball is something brought up with you a couple of months ago and really want to revisit at some point.
    40:13
    Okay. There we go. And no, Dirty Pool, I think, is one of those newer, especially judging from episode 12, one of those newer podcasts I have not heard. Yeah. Because I didn't know about it because I don't look for new podcasts in pinball. All right. So that was a lot. he only really asked us to touch on two topics and he just shared his thoughts on some others. On the Multimorphic, I think I said with Portal, when it came out, I didn't really judge the score displays themselves. However, I was not, a lot of people were, but I was not a fan of the art approach in general. I thought it should have looked more like the video game and less artistic for lack of a better word But a lot of people disagree with me on that I don recall what your thoughts were on the portal art Maybe you were one of them who was like no it fine I thought it was reasonably well done
    41:03
    And then regarding the Arnold and all of that, was that this first thing? Yeah, no, that was his first official question, so we'll just jump to that.
    41:14
    What do we think of if Predator had gone old school with the art? So that was his first question. I think it would have been a fine option to take.
    41:22
    I would have been... Actually, I would have been okay with it, but I don't know how well it would have actually sold because I think the hobby as a whole has moved beyond that style. There are some people out there who are into it, but there were enough complaints that there was no Ellen or in the Alien game to know that people are not accepting of that in this day and age. They expect the license to have everything. They're going to want the actual depictions. They're going to want the actual video clips.
    42:02
    I think the hobby as a whole has probably moved past it. I'd be okay with it, but I think overall it would probably not do as well. i i agree like um i mean i don't buy games based off of art in general like it's not it's not my area of concern so i i'm okay with it but uh no i it would not have worked and uh the issue is so pulp fiction and i was i was double checking exactly how they had done it So I'm showing Tony now just as a reminder. Pulp Fiction doesn't have a screen. I know. Had Predator gone like that, then yes.
    42:49
    Now, that hurts your sales. Like, Pulp Fiction, guys, don't. Like, Pulp Fiction isn't selling like Medieval Madness remake. Do I know that for a fact? No, I do not. I'm confident in my statement, however. Like, it's an old school style. And the only reason it's an old school style that I had heard was Quentin Tarantino demanded it be an old school style. Otherwise, they would have gone with a much more modern approach and integrated. I mean, I'm not surprised that's a demand from Tarantino. So if Dutch is stylized and you go old school and you've got like alpha numerics and all of that, or you went with a DMD old school, then sure. The whole thing with Arnold is primarily about him in the clips. So the only solution that would make people feel like you weren't obfuscating the fact that you didn't get the full rights is to have it so that there's not a screen that's showing movie clips. That's your only – you have to do like what Stern used to do where they didn't have to deal with that stuff would be like, we'll just dotify everything, like how Iron Man is. I don't mean just like the drawn arts of Star Trek. I mean the ones like Transformers and Iron Man where they flat out took movie clips and then dotified them. It's fairly sloppy looking, but it's so stylized because of that process, because of the limitations of the dot matrix that that's not Robert Downey Jr. It's not an issue. There's no conversation to be had. I think there's an argument to be made that because of the timeline when it set in and when Predator came out, that Predator as an alphanumeric game would be awesome. There's potential to it. It has to be built right. It has to be built right to do it. But immediately, by making the game look old, you immediately alienate people that only like modern-looking game design. And there are a lot of people that are like that. There are.
    44:48
    People are allowed to like what they like. So what do I think if Predator had gone old school with the art? If they didn't change anything else, no. In fact, I think you would have probably had more complaints. Probably. Most of the complaints aren't about the art on Predator. Yes, they've gone with a very jungle-looking theme instead of focusing on the characters. I think that actually is fine. I don't think you need to go old school to get Dutch in the art. The problem is that you're showing movie clips and you don't have him in the movie clips, which is exactly what, as you mentioned, Ellen Ripley, Sigourney Weaver. That was the whole issue with Alien. It's like, well, you're playing as Ellen. Yeah, well, I want to see me because I'm a star. I'm a big star, and I want to see me. And that game sold really well once they put out the Ripley edition for a variety of reasons, but not the least of which was they got her, and they had plenty of clips of her with it. So, no, the art alone, it's the screen. You'd have to get rid of the screen, and then you can justify it. And if you've gone DMD or earlier, I think people would have been accommodating at that point. But if you've got an LCD screen and you're showing movie clips,
    45:54
    Arnold better be in there or else. We're now seeing the or else. Yeah. I think that's very true. Now this, I know you've touched on with me before. I can't remember if we did it on the, I thought we did it on the air, but maybe not. So screen sizes. So what do you prefer? He's a Stern fan. He doesn't like the giant JJP display. I hate the giant screens. I absolutely despise the giant screens. In all honesty, even the small screens are more acceptable to me, but I don't know that I consider them actually better than those very high-definition DMD style we got right there at the end of DMDs before everyone went to LCDs. We started getting those really high-definition DMDs, a few of them. I kind of like that, or even LCDs that are basically just a DMD style. But for me, it very much falls into the I don't necessarily care that much about seeing the movie clips, and I think it is important to me because of the amount of real estate a pinball machine takes up and the fact that no matter what you do, a pinball machine is going to be the center of whatever room it's in.
    47:22
    That having it not be visually appealing when it's turned off is a problem. Having an enormous screen that takes up almost everything so there's just the tiniest scrap of a back glass type thing at the top with a turned off machine is inferior to having a turned off machine that has a beautifully done back glass.
    47:50
    Because even turned off, not being lit up, they're still good to look at. And I feel like that is important because they eat so much real estate in a room. it has to be it has to be art it has to stand up on its own it's it's kind of like um if you have your if you've got several machines and you put covers over them to protect it from sunlight and dust and all that stuff and you never take the covers off then it's just a giant gray lump it's like people who have fancy cars who take a dust cover off once every like once or twice a year and drive it a little bit on the perfect day. They don't really do it. That's not the kind of person I am. That's not the kind of way I see it. It feels like you lose a lot of it when you just treat it that way. Yeah, those are some good points. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the big screens either when they're turned off. I mean, that's my big issue with JJP. It's an issue I have with the multimorphic look. I get it because from an attract standpoint, when the games are on is when you would want an attract mode and then they're lit. And I mean, I understand the argument, but it's just no, I just don't. I just don't need the screen to be that large. I don't really think it adds anything meaningful to the immersive experience. Certain screens are fine and it would be tough to do a lot different if you want to use movie clips. My favorite actually that I that I thought had a tremendous amount of potential was actually Deep Root. They had that really long, really narrow. That was so kind of retro cool looking. But I don't think it was dots. It was still actually going to be an LCD, but it had a really weird ratio. So I have no idea how that would have worked with licensed movie material stuff. And it was probably a terrible idea from that perspective. But it was so special, just like how dots were so special. It felt really respectful to the concept of pinball to try and do a weird screen like that. not throwing in a laptop screen, which is what I feel like when I look at a Stern. And that's because that's what it is. Yeah, and I don't blame them. To do a big, long screen like that, that is a custom-built screen. Sure, and I'd rather see a game be $7,000 instead of $10,000 because of a screen that got weird. But nonetheless, a cool factor, I give them thumbs up for that because it was cool. And I was always perfectly okay seeing screens in the play field over having a big screen on the back of the box.
    50:34
    Yeah, no, there were, I mean, there are so many different ways you could do. Yeah, that's a good point. Like putting that sort of information. Because again, all you really need in the back are the scores. Yeah. so and jjp experiment i mean they always had their big screen but they experimented with trying to provide information like undialed in through the phone and they you know they had things where it was like uh and that was a highway pinball thing let's have the screen in the in the play field where the eyes are looking and a lot of people were really critical of the concept at the time that is like other than like leveling the the window out and stuff which i mean you have to deal with like that on black hole and jaws and leveling out all sorts of things on pinball machines, I thought it made a lot of sense. It does. Because that is really where you're looking. I know a lot of people are used to trapping up and looking up, but it's not like I don't know where to look. Like it was right in your face. You knew where to look. Right. And the thing is tablet screens and phone screens are such a common design or such a common item now that you can easily get cheaply those smaller screens to be used in that sort of situation. Because I think, and I could be utterly wrong, and it probably wouldn't sell at all. But if I had a machine that had like a more DMD style with a nice big back glass or even just straight up old school alphanumerics, and then it had a screen inset in the play field or on the side of the play field where it was something that it wasn't eating back box real estate, I think I'd like it. I think it'd be nice. It'd be there. It'd be visible. you wouldn't have to look away from play to see it. And, yes, there wouldn't be stuff for the other people to look at. But you know what? You're the one who put the quarters in it. Yeah, no, I don't. People aren't, other than like one time, people aren't really standing there just watching all the clips and stuff. I've been in a lot of tournaments. And let me tell you, the last time I was standing there watching the other person play is when we're like neck and neck. It's about the only time. And even then, I mainly just care about watching the score. I'm not trying to see what they're doing.
    52:43
    So anyway, Richard, thank you for the topics, and hopefully you enjoyed the discussion. Video games, Tony. I'm done with pinball. Video games. I was called out. You were. I was deeply called out. And I didn't do it. You didn't do it? No, I was called out on the Discord because last episode I did not mention Donkey Kong Bonanza.
    53:08
    And to be fair, that game was blowing up. Its sales were huge. Huge. Its reviews were very high. It's on the Switch, too. It's been a decade since there was a Donkey Kong. Yeah, there hasn't been a Donkey Kong in forever. And you were all, meh. Yeah, I admitted it. It's like, I'll admit it here. I'm not a big fan of Donkey Kong games.
    53:35
    I've never cared for them. I don't. It's never been my thing. I'll go a step farther. If it wasn't for nostalgia, I probably wouldn't care that much about Mario games either. I don't play them anymore. Yeah. It's just, it's what it is. I don't, but I never had, I never had the Donkey Kong thing going on. It just, it was never my thing. So I didn't really think about it. It's got some neat stuff.
    54:06
    It's, it's got a like super highly destructible environment that has been getting rave reviews. It's just one of those things that I kind of ignored. And I was rightly called out because the Switch 2 is brand new. And honestly, it's the biggest sale on Switch 2 since Mario Kart came out with launch.
    54:29
    So, yeah. Nope. It's out there. People love it. It's a huge touchstone for people. Just not necessarily for me. So. But if you do like Donkey Kong, I hear it's great. Yay. Donkey Kong.
    54:46
    So. Layoffs. No, but thriving. They're thriving. Microsoft is thriving. $4 trillion or whatever. They just passed some threshold. Oh, yeah. No, no, they're huge. They laid off 9,000 people in the middle of their best time period of making money ever.
    55:10
    The CEO of Microsoft, in a series of talks, he acknowledged the layoffs and how it hurt so bad. I want to express my sincere gratitude to those who have left like they had a choice.
    55:23
    Their contributions have shaped who we are as a company, helping build the foundation we stand on today. And for that, I am deeply grateful. The foundation built on their bones. Right? It's like we broke you. We destroyed you. We were making tons of money. We were highly successful. and we laid you all off to let AI do your job, which makes us even more successful. I mean, it is one of those out-of-touch things that's right up with right after the layoffs first started when one of the Microsoft execs was telling people, it's like, well, you should use AI to write your resume and your strengths and weaknesses. And you should research AI to help you build for your future and all of that because AI is great. Yay. AI.
    56:20
    I mean, congratulations. We're doing amazing. We're firing you because you made AI to do your job. Maybe the AI wrote that statement because it's not very good. Oh, man. Kind of a tabletop crossover here. Hasbro has announced that the Final Fantasy crossover for Magic the Gathering made $200 million day one. Wow.
    56:52
    That is the most magic has ever made in a day. the Lord of the Rings set which was their previous most popular crossover set took six months to hit that point the Final Fantasy set has sold insane the scalper prices are crazy there are cards selling online for thousands of dollars wow it is I admit I have a couple I bought like three packs when I was at a local card store just because I was like, let's grab these. I just want to grab a couple packs and see what I get. I haven't bought any more. I haven't played Magic since late 90s, early 2000s. But I was like, I'm going to grab a couple Final Fantasy packs.
    57:45
    But it is interesting. I mean, they've sold so much. The art's good. But it'll be interesting to see. I don't know if I can think of another franchise that can top that.
    58:04
    Pokemon. Pokemon Magic Crossover. Okay, yeah, maybe. But I don't know why they would do it because Pokemon has its own card set. It seems unlikely. And I think even there, I don't know that Pokemon would, because Pokemon has its own card set, I don't know that the sales would be as big as Final Fantasy. Maybe not, but it is very beloved. You know what might? You know what could fight it?
    58:32
    Legend of Zelda. Yeah, I just... I don't... It's tough. I just feel like there's more of a world built in Final Fantasy. There is. I was watching a podcast. It's weird saying I was watching a podcast, It's one of those ones where they record it and they stream.
    58:54
    They stream live when they record and then they post the VOD. I was watching the VOD. They had a guest on who's a professional magic player. I guess you would call them professional magic player. They're a streamer who streams magic. They play in tournaments. Most of their life is based around Magic the Gathering. They were talking about how many people want them and this and that. and how they were talking about how they're in the process of trying to get all of the SIDs because there's so many SIDs. They want every SID because they love SID. So they just have to have all the SIDs. That's a lot of SIDs.
    59:32
    I mean, that kind of sounds bad. That's a lot of SIDs. Oh, man. Itch.io is a digital distribution platform kind of like Steam. they de-indexed all of their not safe for work adult games because they were getting pushback from payment processors for allowing the content there is a advocacy group out of australia that has been for years putting out complaints to these various companies it's like well you produce adult games. That's, this is terrible. Or you sell adult games. This is terrible. And they never got any real traction. So they started working on the credit card processors, which if you remember, there was a thing a couple of years ago where the credit card processors were pushing back on like only fans because of their adult content and everything that was running an only fans that originally said for like a day that they were going to dial back adult content and then that boss and then that guy got fired and and they're like no we're not isn't that the whole thing yeah yeah it was it's yeah it's like it's like nope we don't want to go out of business we're still doing this so um they they de-indexed it while they did a comprehensive review of their adult content uh to try and meet the requirements that the payment processors to the credit card companies were requesting. But in a matter of pushback what they did was they listed and moved to the forefront any and all free adult games Because well they didn have to go through credit card processing so they pushed them to the forefront and front-paged them and indexed them to be easily searchable and found.
    61:39
    And they're working to meet their requirements. This happened to switch to Steam not that long ago, and Steam kind of went through and removed a couple of games that are like, oh, this one's a little objectionable because of its content or whatever. But for the most part, Steam is large enough that they were able to go, ah, nah. because steam's big enough that the credit card processors were able to, were, were not necessarily so happy on the concept of cutting off that kind of that large of a revenue stream for, uh,
    62:21
    I'm surprised. I'm going to go with puritanical. I don't understand why this is getting any traction with payment processors. It, nobody even pays attention to who the payment processor is. There's like no bad press that can happen to them. Right. I just don't understand. It is so weird that it is getting the traction and that that's how it's getting the traction. And that's how some of this has gotten traction in the past. It's so weird. It's just the credit card companies don't want to be, certain of them don't want to be tied in like they are allowing that type of thing. I don't know why. It makes no sense to me. It's weird. It reminds me of the whole satanic panic. Dungeons and Dragons is evil. your kid is playing Dungeons and Dragons and they're going to become an actual wizard or a dragon and summon Satan and all of that yeah it's what's old is new is again I guess we'll see how that goes Hades 2 it's about to come out they haven't announced the date yet but it's very soon they've put out their final early access patch you don't get to play it for a year Dennis. Why? Because you're not playing it on PC or Switch. No, I am not. So you have to wait because it is a Switch exclusive. Just like Hades was. It was? I forgot about that. Yeah, it was a Switch exclusive for a year. Well, I'll be patient. So you're going to have to wait a year. I'll let you know how it is because once it comes live, I'll pick it up. Yeah, you'll get it. I didn't get it early. I got every achievement in the original Hades. That's impressive. I know. That's why I'm telling you so you're proud of me.
    64:01
    Are you proud, Daddy? I did it. Are you proud, Daddy? Just made you be proud of me. I have all the achievements of Dark Souls, too. Respect me.
    64:12
    I got good. Did you get it on the DLC? No, I didn't get the DLC. I got good. Baby, you're just a baby, baby gamer. A few weeks ago, we had talked about the level of insanity that some of the new game pricing were coming out as, specifically with them pricing Outer Worlds 2 at $80. I mean, I really liked Outer Worlds, but when I saw that, I was like, oh, that makes me so sad. Yeah. Well, it made a lot of people sad. Enough people said that Microsoft has performed a U-turn and they are reducing the price to $70 instead of $80. And they are in the process of refunding people who had already pre-ordered that $10 difference. I still think $70 is a little high in my mind, but it is better than $80. So we'll see How that goes with other games Switch 2 Has taken the record as the fastest Selling video game hardware in US history It even It's even outsold the PS4 did really well It did and Switch 2 has taken better Bioshock 4 Which has been in development Over at Cloud Chamber they utterly failed an internal review from 2K Games who came to check the status of Bioshock 4. And when I'm saying utterly failed,
    65:49
    2K reportedly the game's narrative failed to impress them. They terminated the head of the studio and they moved the creative director to another role entirely that has nothing to do with being creative. and the game is basically starting over i mean ouch i wonder if it was really that terrible or their standards really i mean all right bioshock 2 is basically a rehash of bioshock bioshock and bioshock 3 were really good narratives yes so i really liked all three of them though they were fun and and apparently bioshock 4 was not fun so they just more like bioshock bore am i right so it's yeah so that's going to be delayed while they completely redo the narrative they'll be able to finish up the bioshock 1 remake they will except for they canceled it oh okay well because apparently they don't need to remake that never mind that remakes are like overseller are like outselling everything right now but that's weird weird decision and you don't have to be creative you just remake it right you just have to take everything you have and shiny it yeah one of the thing is is a lot of these remakes are being kind of you know it's like 90 percent ai doing the work yeah so microsoft has plenty of it microsoft can help you out they're they're situated they dropped the price from 80 to 70 because they've saved enough money firing 9 000 people they didn't need that extra 10 dollars we'll throw the consumer a bone right maybe a bone of our former employees that we built the foundation on oh in my mind the ceo of microsoft is walking just across the skulls it's it's like that scene in terminator where the where where the t-800 is walking across the skulls but he but because it's microsoft and they're still trying to be professional but hip so he's got the blazer on nice pants and then like chuck taylor's and he's walking over the skulls of fired employees because he's still got to be hip so he shows he's still wearing maybe every step he goes sorry sorry thank you for your service sorry appreciate you couldn't have done it without you finger guns he's like uh uh uh um oh oh what was his name from happy gilmore who fingered into the oh shooter mcgee yeah shooter mcgee or whatever it was yeah he's shooter so you should be happy dennis battlefield six is officially announced they've officially put out information and and i'm sure you love the battlefield games i i did love a lot of them But they're only mildly making changes to the multiplayer. I mean... Yeah, I mean, so far, I have looked at some of the reviews. Some people have had early play access. The open beta starts relatively soon. But it actually does look like they went back to how Battlefield 4 and 5 were looking.
    69:08
    And are not 2042-ing it, which was very disappointing. So, yes, I am planning to try. I'll probably try the beta on this because this was my favorite shooter. Yeah. From what I heard, the big change and something they've gotten a lot of pushback on, enough pushback that they're talking about, like, making a mode that doesn't have it, is that they unlocked weapons from classes, archetypes, whatever they call them. Right. Okay. So to be a camping sniper, you no longer have to be a recon. Right. Okay. Yeah. And most of the games it's been, yeah, that recons get the sniper rifle. Supports would get the light machine guns.
    69:54
    Yeah. They had them set so that your class pick was basically driven by the weapon types you wanted and the tools you got. Right. So it sounds like they're keeping the tools, but they're unlocking the weapons. I mean, it is a change. Not all change is necessarily bad, but I guess if the tools are still the main thing, I don't care too, too much. There were some universal weapons in some of the later games. Like one of my favorites was the Sega shotgun in Battlefield 4. Well, yeah, because who doesn't love a rapid-fire semi-automatic shotgun with, like, a giant... My victims didn't seem to love it. It's good they weren't in my party chat, because you know how obnoxious I am, and every time I kill someone with it, I go, Sega.
    70:37
    Every time. And, Tony, I kill a lot with it. Sega. It's in the game. Wait, that's EA. They just say Sega.
    70:51
    Oh, look, he's running across the room. Sega. The game was broke. I remember it was four, three or four. That Sega was broken, though, because it had some serious range. And I just be like, why do I have to be close? because it's called the shotgun. I don't understand. Sega.
    71:09
    It just got sniped with the shotgun. Yep. Yep, that happens. Maybe uninstall. Chefs do that. Wow, what a good movie.
    71:21
    Okay. So yes, I'm looking forward to it. I'm not looking forward to the $70 price. Yeah, that's definitely an increase in price.
    71:30
    Nintendo has had their showcase and made a bunch of announcements. they did announce a price adjustment to all of their original Switch versions. Obviously that's going to be an increase. They haven't announced how much it's going to be but it's going into effect soon.
    71:47
    They also announced a whole bunch of games some of which are not that important. Like Donkey Kong. Like Donkey Kong. There's a new Monster Hunter story coming out like Monster Hunter Story 3. Here's the important announcement. there's a new Katamari game coming out and it has multiplayer so that's what I've seen that has the internet like going nuts not DBZ? no because that's been out on everything else for a year it's just coming out on Switch 2 just like they announced we recently saw at the Chrono oh what was that game called? Chrono Trigger? No, not Chrono Trigger. That time game we saw at the Xbox on the Xbox thing. Oh, yeah. I don't remember the name of it. Chronos something or another. Chronos? Was it just Chronos? It might have been just Chronos. That's coming out on Switch, too. Okay.
    72:43
    What about the Campfire Simulator, Tony? Do you want to talk about Campfire? I do. It's the most exciting game of the year. Okay. In standard Nintendo fashion, they're putting out a game called Chilling by the Fire. and it's literally a campfire building simulator you build a campfire you lay the wood you light the fire that that that's i mean it is the most nintendo thing it is it is more than an animal crossing or a harvest moon thing it's literally what you do i built a fire that's what i'm doing it teaches you how to lay out a campfire i mean i see value to it and they They have a history of charging for tutorials. They do have a history of charging for tutorials now, so here you go. Chronos, that's the name of that game.
    73:35
    I'm just trying to see if there's anything else in my notes here that's really important. There's a prequel Octopath Traveler game coming out.
    73:44
    They're getting Star Wars Outlaws, which is good for Star Wars Outlaws. Maybe it'll sell. Yeah, it hasn't done very well. The reviews were decent. The reviews were decent, but it didn't sell very well.
    73:57
    So we'll see. Oh, they're getting both of the first two Yakuza Kiwamis. So those were very popular games.
    74:10
    The recent announcement has shown that out of PlayStation, six of the top 10 best-selling playstation games this year are all from microsoft yeah i uh i saw a couple articles talking about a despite you know fan criticism the it's like the numbers are showing why microsoft was like let's start selling our stuff multi-platform because we're going to make so much money sadly we still have to sacrifice yeah i was and onto the foundation of our empire But hey, we're doing great. We're doing great. As a reminder for listeners of Eclectic Gamers Podcast, I do actually own shares in Microsoft.
    74:53
    Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you. Supporting the AI. This is why you always say thank you to the AI. Outside my index funds, I presently only own shares in two companies, and Microsoft is one of them.
    75:09
    All right. Good to know. the other one's playboy uh close tyson tyson the playboy of chicken uh and if you're wondering the microsoft games that are in that top 10 are horizon 5 uh elder scrolls 4 oblivion remastered uh call of duty black ops 6 doom the dark ages Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Minecraft oh yes, Minecraft and Indiana Jones are probably a big chunk of that money I'm sure they are so I wonder how Sony feels looking at the list of best selling games and they're just going we didn't make any of these they're probably like but we have all the fans, we haven't fired 9,000 people yet probably because they're not in the AI race to acknowledge And, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Bungie's apparently, like, in free fall over with them, so. Wouldn't surprise me. But they were in free fall. All the other places they were, too, so I don't blame Sony. They're just always in free fall. Bungie doesn't know what to do without Master Chief.
    76:20
    And we'll finish up with this beautiful little discussion with some more Sony. Nice. Sony is suing Tencent. Tencent, the huge. The huge, massive Chinese gaming developer. That's a big dog. The biggest gaming company in the world.
    76:37
    They're suing them for ripping off the Horizon games. The Hide in the Tall Grass games that fight robot dinosaurs? Yeah, exactly. I've not played them, but I've seen them. They're great. They're great fun. I've played the first one. I enjoy it quite a lot. But apparently Tencent's newest game, their Light of Motrium game,
    77:00
    looks identical to Horizon. and has almost identical story beats. They even made the cover art look almost identical to Horizon Games. Okay, so subtle, not so much. It gets worse.
    77:19
    They started, so when the second Horizon Game came out in 22. In 23, Tencent started developing the Light of Motrum game. in 24, they approached Sony to pitch making their own horizon game. And Sony's like, I don't think so.
    77:45
    And then Tencent just went, okay. And then in 25, they dropped this game that is horizon zero dot with the numbers filed off.
    77:57
    Wow. Okay. Well, so, so I guess, so at some point they went, you know this is like an exact copy we should probably see if we can just call it a horizon game and and be okay with it and so he said no they're like man we've spent the money put it out what are they going to do we're the biggest we're the biggest video game company in the world okay i guess we'll see what happens yeah well i mean the thing is is how how much luck are they going to have getting anything out of them they're not suing them they're not suing them in in a chinese court no they're suing them in a in a u.s court there i guess what their hope will be would be to have the distribution platforms delist the game that would have to be the goal because i don't see them getting money out of them but yeah the best they could do is like it's kind of like what happened with um there was this x-men game i had on the 360 i forget the name of it wasn't a particularly good game but uh it was made by silicon knights you'll probably remember the story and there was a court thing about licensing or something and long story short the the games were ordered to be destroyed so no place legally was really allowed to sell them anymore but it had been for sale for so long some people have them right and like privately i'm not required to get We were like, I could sell it on eBay if I wanted to, but the best buys in Circuit Cities of the world all had to get rid of them. Circuit City. Yeah. Bad bitches.
    79:31
    And the Wiz. Wall of Books. Katie, Toy Store. Hastings. I'll give you. Oh, we've seen so many fall. Kmart.
    79:42
    Blue Light Special. No, I don't think so. More like a destroyed special. Very sad. All right. That was a video game. Well, we actually had a full-length episode. Yeah, we had a lot of good ones. There was a lot. I was like, there ain't much content. And Tony's looking over at me like, you're from none of your stupid little baby section. But in video games, there's a lot of stuff. Well, yeah. I mean, we had a lot of good talking in the pin and balls. So anyway, if you want to reach out to us about this episode and anything we covered, you can always email us at CollectedGamersPodcast at gmail.com. That's where corrections can also be sent. Facebook.com slash CollectedGamers is another way you can reach us. but email honestly is better. Again, if you want to support the show, patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers exists for that purpose. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we should be back in a couple of weeks. I do feel like we're getting close to another Stern release. So pinball wise, I would expect that we are. We're still a ways out before we'll see the game awards and new, all the trailers with that. But video game stuff is a little more evergreen. I will throw out there, I don't know if I'm going to have time. Last time I went to Chicago for a work trip, I went to Logan's Arcade. Yes. I am going to Chicago again in late September. So if I get a chance, I'll either hit Logan's again or Galloping Ghost. He's another one that's been recommended to me. Email any other recommendations to us at CollectiveGamersPodcast.gmail.com so Tony can consider other options. There are other options besides Galloping Ghost and Logan's. Right. But, yeah, just to know, I already have like half of my nights planned out with work-related stuff. It can be tough. And it might end up filling the rest of them out. But if I can get one night free, I will attempt to go to another arcade. Okay. Cool. All right. Well, until a couple weeks from now, my name is Dennis. I am Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.