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LIVE! Barrels of Fun! Factory Tour!

Cary Hardy YouTube Live Streams·video·26m 20s·analyzed·Aug 26, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Barrels of Fun factory tour reveals aggressive vertical integration and expanded production capacity.

Summary

Cary Hardy conducts a live factory tour of Barrels of Fun House facility with founder David Van Ness, showcasing the company's vertical integration strategy including in-house cabinet manufacturing, wood and metal shops, fiber laser and CNC equipment, and prototype development. David confirms Dune Pinball is shipping (currently at unit 180+), discusses Barrel Ball implementation for Dune pending licensor approval, and reveals the facility has expanded to ~13,000 sq ft with capacity to potentially develop multiple games simultaneously rather than one per year.

Key Claims

  • Barrels of Fun now manufactures cabinets in-house using birch plywood, eliminating reliance on external cabinet suppliers

    high confidence · David Van Ness during tour: 'these are actually cabinets that are made in-house now so we do our own woodwork in house now so we are 100% responsible for our own cabinets'

  • Dune Pinball is currently at unit 180+ and shipping every week

    high confidence · David Van Ness: 'We can look up the numbers out there. There should be like 180 or something like that' and 'Dunes are ready to ship. 100%. They ship in every day.'

  • Barrel Ball will be implemented in Dune Pinball pending Legendary Entertainment approval

    high confidence · David Van Ness: 'I did submit something to Legendary just recently and they're actually pretty happy with the direction it's going. So yes, Barrel Ball will make it in a Dune themed version.'

  • Barrels of Fun now uses fiber laser and CNC equipment for rapid prototyping, reducing iteration time from 4-6 weeks to 1-2 hours

    high confidence · David Van Ness: 'Typically that would take us anywhere between four to six weeks. Now, as long as we've got the design, we can spit it out within an hour or two.'

  • The facility has expanded to include an 8,000+ sq ft R&D and sample production area

    high confidence · Cary Hardy: 'that whole back side there's about 8,000 square feet that is all our R&D Sample games are all made back in there now'

  • Barrels of Fun has capacity to produce multiple games simultaneously rather than one per year

    medium confidence · David Van Ness: 'with the new space that we have and be able to stretch out how we are, we could hypothetically do multiple games at once. So it just comes down to, is the game ready?'

  • Luke Hsu (Pokemon Pinball homebrew creator) recently joined Barrels of Fun as a mechanical engineer

    high confidence · Cary Hardy introducing Luke: 'he's our new Mechanical engineer here... he made Pokemon... he is the man behind it'

Notable Quotes

  • “We are 100% responsible for our own cabinets”

    David Van Ness@ 11:29 — Signals Barrels of Fun's commitment to vertical integration and quality control

  • “Barrel Ball will make it in a Dune themed version”

    David Van Ness@ 10:32 — Confirms upcoming Dune Pinball game mode pending licensor approval, directly addresses community questions

  • “Now, as long as we've got the design, we can spit it out within an hour or two”

    David Van Ness@ 17:54 — Demonstrates dramatic improvement in prototyping speed through in-house manufacturing capability

  • “With the new space that we have and be able to stretch out how we are, we could hypothetically do multiple games at once”

    David Van Ness@ 20:35 — Indicates potential shift from one-per-year release schedule to parallel development capability

  • “This whole backspace we had to basically close the walls in. If need be would you have even more room to expand? Yes so there is actually one more building down that side”

    David Van Ness@ 24:02 — Reveals additional expansion capacity available if needed, though David expresses focus on efficiency over growth

  • “I don't need any more headaches, I want to get this as efficient as possible and just basically keep making really cool games”

    David Van Ness@ 24:24 — Clarifies Barrels of Fun's strategic philosophy prioritizing operational efficiency over aggressive expansion

Entities

Barrels of FuncompanyDavid Van NesspersonCary HardypersonLuke HsupersonDune PinballgameLabyrinthgameWinchester Mystery HousegameBarrel Ballproduct

Signals

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Barrels of Fun has significantly expanded in-house manufacturing capabilities including cabinet fabrication, CNC/fiber laser equipment, brake press, and plasma cutter for rapid prototyping

    high · Tour demonstrates 4x8 router, fiber laser, CNC brake press, plasma cutter, and wood/metal shop all newly in-house; David states prototyping time reduced from 4-6 weeks to 1-2 hours

  • ?

    production_signal: Facility expanded to ~13,000 sq ft with 8,000+ sq ft dedicated to R&D and sample production, enabling parallel game development potentially replacing one-per-year cadence

    high · David confirms facility capacity for 'multiple games at once' and mentions dedicated 8,000 sq ft R&D space previously used as call center

  • ?

    product_launch: Dune Pinball confirmed shipping weekly, currently at unit 180+, with delivery timeline of end-October/early-November for direct orders

    high · David: 'Dunes are ready to ship. 100%. They ship in every day' and 'currently on 180' units

  • ?

    design_innovation: Barrel Ball (Barrels of Fun's signature mode) being ported to Dune Pinball with Legendary Entertainment approval for thematic variant

    high · David states: 'I did submit something to Legendary just recently and they're actually pretty happy with the direction it's going. So yes, Barrel Ball will make it in a Dune themed version'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Legendary Entertainment actively reviewing and approving game feature requests for Dune Pinball, indicating collaborative relationship with licensor

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.079

0:00
at barrels of fun ladies and jelly spoons just to prove my point it's reversed right now mirrored or whatever but uh we'll wait for we get some people in here yes I know a lot of you probably got jobs and you're busy doing something but we're gonna have a David Van Ness give us a tour of the factory for those that have not seen it. And then I think we're gonna have a live Q&A session a little bit later as well.
0:42
What's going on Chad as we're getting people in here? Once we get a decent crowd, whatever we want to consider decent, then we'll begin the tour. But I guess while we're waiting let's switch over the camera here to check out Dune while we wait for people to get in here and reverse it around here so you can go see me my ugly mug
1:17
how's everybody doing Well, let's see if we can find old David. Where's he at? Where's he hiding? They're just going to let me roam these hallways unsupervised? That can't be good.
1:51
Do not bend. David, you ready? Me ready? Yeah. Two seconds. Are you scanning already? Are you running already? Yeah, we're live. I'll keep them entertained. I'll dance a little bit or whatever, man. You got to do what you got to do.
2:11

Barrels of Fun sources playfields from multiple vendors including CPR

high confidence · David Van Ness: 'our playfields we get them through multiple vendors that's anywhere from CPR and onwards' and hints at potentially manufacturing their own playfields in-house

Legendary Entertainmentcompany
CPRcompany
Pokemon Pinballgame

high · David notes he submitted Barrel Ball concept to Legendary and 'they're actually pretty happy with the direction it's going'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Luke Hsu (Pokemon Pinball homebrew creator) recently joined Barrels of Fun as mechanical engineer, likely bringing homebrew/custom design expertise

    high · Cary Hardy introduces Luke as 'our new Mechanical engineer' with 2-3 months tenure, 'he made Pokemon... he is the man behind it'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Barrels of Fun intentionally managing growth and avoiding expansion overextension; David declines additional adjacent building despite availability

    high · David: 'I don't need any more headaches, I want to get this as efficient as possible and just basically keep making really cool games'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Barrels of Fun experimenting with alternative cosmetic technologies beyond Evergloss decals for future games based on thematic fit

    medium · David discusses discovering new cabinet finishing technology and considering varied approaches: 'if I see something that really lends itself to the storytelling of the license'

  • ?

    product_concern: Minor manufacturing defects identified (oversized cabinet causing playfield alignment gaps); company planning scratch-and-dent sales with 'bags of goodies'

    medium · David shows cabinet with gap issues: 'they put the play field in as extra gap on each side so so that will end up probably in a scratch and dent style'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Barrels of Fun maintains significant pre-positioned inventory; another shipping container delayed by one day causing reduced activity

    medium · David mentions 'Another container coming in. Actually, it was meant to be today, but they've delayed it by one day. So that's why things are a little bit more quiet'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Barrels of Fun sources playfields from multiple external vendors (CPR and others) but is exploring in-house playfield manufacturing capability

    high · David: 'our playfields we get them through multiple vendors that's anywhere from CPR and onwards' and hints at future in-house capability; tour shows playfield preparation area

  • $

    market_signal: Barrels of Fun transitioning from committed one-game-per-year schedule to event-driven releases ('if the game is ready')

    high · David responds to question about release schedule: 'If the game is ready it's ready to roll' and notes new facility enables parallel development

    • I'll show them the bathrooms while we wait. Can you show the bathrooms? It's a wonderful lot. There's a mic right there, believe me. Does it matter which way? I got a magnet right here on mine. It's whatever you want to do. Does it matter which way? people in chat can you hear David Van Ness here? Can you hear me? You'll regret that. Can you hear me? Testing. Playfield's in tomorrow. Tomorrow? Yep. Alright let's see here currently not seeing. I've got one of those too. Live chat all messages visible. All visible. All visible. Actually I wonder if we can go into the prototype room oh no I need to hide it yeah there's one left in there so that's actually technically the old prototype room so well actually I guess that's the whole point of what we're gonna do today is we're gonna walk the floor it's around lunchtime and we've actually have the whole new space over there which is like 13,000 square feet oh yeah we're gonna show you all that but maybe they having a pizza party today who knows right we're still owed one by the way he hasn't delivered so again uh this is the sub-assembly area um on my left which is it's actually on your left now too is the back box assembly that's nick over there he's putting the back boxes
    3:41
    so uh he's doing his little thing so everything comes in the individual bits and they get put together in this area. On the right over here, Victor's not here, he's on that corner, here's where the Williams live. So all our PCBs that control the Williams will go here. So these are finished ones that just need the PCB added to it and then it goes into the game itself.
    4:04
    It's a big old boy. Big old boy. So the actual core itself works independently from the body itself. so if i can see the magnet going up and down in there so that moves independently as well as
    4:22
    the worm itself so they all work independent to each other so two linear step motors right there and now i better put it back to where it was so it can sit
    4:34
    like i'm going to assume that my chat just for whatever reason isn't working but you know we We got people on here, but... We got people? We got all one? Yeah, yeah. All one of them. All one of them? It is in the middle of the day. People are probably working. Well, ideally, as I would say, they got any questions they should ask. Because they have the opportunity, we can ask anyone here. So... Like, I don't know why. It should... I mean, because it says all chats, live chats, all chats are visible. No one wants to talk to us. No. But it's unusual that I don't have any kind of chats at all. Usually, people say hi or whatever, but... They don't want to say hi. Yeah. So as you can see here, these Baker racks, they're getting ready to go onto the line. So everything comes in in the individual pieces. They make the wire harnesses, put the pig tails on, and they're ready to rock and roll and go on the line. So we've got everything from drop targets, slingshots, wire forms, dumpers.
    5:30
    Slings, drops, dumpers with their extensions for the dumper. slings wire forms with their optos on it you know it's funny that I just popped on the Wi-Fi still have the password everything saved I don't change it you guys still my dad I might was still the data all right so a Chris telling me the chats working but I'm just not seeing it so it's not that I'm ignoring you guys I just know he is he's in yeah I'm glad that the chat showing up for you guys but I'm not seeing it for whatever reason on my end. Rollovers, plastics, again they do that all in here. So you can see our team down here. The golden samples over there, Kerry if you remember that, the golden samples are when they're making stuff they will take this off the wall and they will compare it and just verify that the right connectors are on it. That's the known true template basically. 100%. So and this obviously changes to whatever game we making So they crimping and doing all the fun stuff Oh Jonathan coming through So we are in mid break We got our wiring harnesses over here So this is actually where they pull all the wires. So we make them in-house as he's clipping them together. So we have all our different color wires and then this is, they use this as a template and they'll wind it all the way through. Again, if you've seen the Stern tour, this is basically the same concept. They sit there and just . It sounds exactly like that .
    7:13
    Over here they're making more mechs, so there's so many parts in our game sub-assembly, we actually had to make room out here for them. So, inventory! Everything that we buy, we buy all the parts ahead of time. So basically, this is all our stuff to make the games that we need to do. So we actually have another container coming in. Actually, it was meant to be today, but they've delayed it by one day. So that's why things are a little bit more quiet around here, because we're preparing for another load to come in.
    7:45
    A few Goblin Topplers left. so technically this is where the line is where everyone is doing sub assembly and getting ready for the container so but this is where our rotisseries are which i know everyone keeps asking if we're going to sell these if we get time i will make a flat pack of this for you guys eventually oh man so nothing like it it. Acker let me know how the audio is coming in, can you hear David and me pretty good? Can you hear me? Yeah. Oh we have to do this again. So station two obviously is all our main mechs that go onto the game. So this is all the hardware that goes on. Station three is all our PCBs. PCBs, targets, everything goes on.
    8:46
    We're actually showing where all the switches and all the posts go so they can keep track of that. This is the wiring harness station so this is where they'll do all the wire harnesses and so forth. Okay audio super great that's good to hear. I don't know why the chat's not showing up on my screen it usually does but evidently so everybody else can see chat but the guy that's doing the streaming but all right
    9:12
    so a test station here so when the game is done this is actually where we test everything so if we had flippers here we would be actually out of test the whole game so we test the coils the switches the LEDs everything is here this is the final station before it goes over to QC over here So you can see we've got five cabinets, four cabinets waiting for playfields. This one just went in this morning. We have two people in QC. So when a playfield is done, it will literally slide up alongside the cabinet right here. And then when there's a cabinet here, they will lift it in. So this also goes through a pre-check as well. A couple of top questions I'm being told via text messages. is where are all the barrels? Where are all the barrels? And the other one is will you implement barrel mode onto Dune? Barrel ball? So I will say officially, so the licensor has to approve whatever goes onto the game.
    10:21
    So I'm always very hesitant to say it's going to be in Dune. But I can tell you I did submit something to Legendary just recently and they're actually pretty happy with the direction it's going. So yes, Barrel Ball will make it in a Dune themed version.
    10:42
    We've got a few cabinets for sale still. For you homebrewers out there. For the homebrewers. Look at that.
    10:52
    Get some nice, oh, this one even has the clip. So whatever is on the floor, it's the same price no matter what. He'll throw in these for no extra charge on this cabinet. Yep, that one in that cabinet. Oh, it's even got the ground braiding in it. And look, even got the leg brackets.
    11:09
    Look at that. Oh, man, that's a hell of a deal right there, guys. So come on down here, Kerry. So they're working on back boxes over here.
    11:23
    So the cool thing about what you're seeing here is these are actually cabinets that are made in-house now. so we do our own woodwork in house now so we are 100% responsible for our own cabinets mm-hmm which is actually kind of nice
    11:46
    yeah it's funny people we've had comments like oh it's something wrong of your your armor no it's the spice it's the spice is on video it doesn't do it justice guys what this looks like and feels like right here just when you see in person it definitely much more glistening shiny see if I can do on the quality I can with what I got here but so over here this is the prep stage so this is where they'll stop putting on the decals there's not ever gloss decals and literally just pull off the backing on the back and line it up to the hole boom straight on so much nicer than vinyl decals is that going to be standard across all future games that kind of a so interesting that you say that because like i would have said about four weeks ago absolutely but i found some really cool new tech that I'm like, man, could you imagine that on a cabinet? So I was like, dude, I love the Evergloss decals, but there's some really cool tech that I saw. I was like man that would be awesome on a cabinet So you going to probably try something different in the future I don want to mix it up every time but like with the themes that we working with and if I see something that really lends itself to the storytelling of the license that we working with I kind of want to do it. Someone's asking what kind of wood are you using for your cabinets? This is birch. Birch seven seven layer? Yep. Seven layer birch? I think. Oh eight. Oh no hang on one two three four, no it's five. My bad. I think I'm gonna play fields because I'm dealing with that right now.
    13:38
    What about the bottom piece? Nice and solid. Actually I can show you in the cabinet shot. It's not MDF on the bottom though. No, no MDF. Go look at my battery Star Wars and see how much that sags. So this is where they put all the cabinets together but what you guys are really going to be interested in is our woodwork shop slash metal shop. They're wanting to know where the David Bowie shrine is at. That's in my office. He's got the cod piece and everything in there. That's the after-hours show. We're going into the dirty area. This is the dirty area. So what you see here guys is barrels extension into the vertical integration of more of our own parts. So what you see here is we've got a 4x8 router.
    14:36
    It's actually not running right now, we can come back later on where it is. So we can do our cabinets, anything with wood we can now really do in-house ourselves. So what they're doing right now is second operations. Look you're gonna see... No, you might not see one in action right here. I guess someone's asking, I'm not sure the information that you give out but who does your playfields? So our playfields we get them through multiple vendors that's anywhere from CPR and onwards. At the end of the day we've had so many interesting things happen with playfields. It doesn't matter who you get them from it's about how we cover our warranty. So basically we have a 12-month warranty on our game. If there's something wrong we're going to take care of it no matter who manufactures the playfield for us. But let's just say what you see here is us potentially going to be doing our own stuff.
    15:31
    Yes, dunes are ready to ship. 100%. They ship in every day. Look at that nice clean line. I might like to do it the first time it spits it out. Yeah, shoots it across the...
    15:52
    Now we are back to the tool chain. I just love watching this stuff everyday. watching this stuff every day.
    16:16
    So, you get a wall. The last amount. The last of the labyrinths. They will ship same day. So basically they prep all the pieces on their own Baker rack. They go over here. They start assembling them They glue them up and then they go directly over to the assembly line
    16:39
    Now I'm not going to take you back there but that whole back side there's about 8,000 square feet that is all our R&D
    16:48
    Sample games are all made back in there now. So that small little space is where we used to do it And now we do it all over in that space here There's some bottoms ready to go in. Come over here. Someone's asking I guess what number of dunes are you up to now? We can look up the numbers out there. There should be like 180 or something like that. So this is the plasma cutter. Has been used for a while, but we use this to do really heavy laser cutting, uh, plasma cutting on metal Uh, we did a lot of our prototyping and that there Actually, there's stuff on there that's in uh game three and four. Oh so You can get back over here. We have our own cnc brake press uh Basically with this and our fiber laser back over the other space now we can wrap a prototype really really quickly. Typically that would take us anywhere between four to six weeks. Now, as long as we've got the design, we can spit it out within an hour or two. At least for testing and figuring out how much we screwed up. Whereas before you'd have to send files over to a third party and wait. Well, a lot of the times we were 3D printer. The only problem, you can come in, it's alright man. A lot of the times, we'll design it in metal, and then we'll modify the metal part and turn it into a 3D part so we can shoot it and see how it feels.
    18:24
    So while we're waiting for our vendors to buy us a sample part, we would do a 3D version of it just to get the feel for the shots. Now we don't, we still use a lot of 3D printing, but now that we can fabricate ourselves, it's kind of like we can actually get it very accurate. So, again, we would wait for a sample to come in two to three weeks. Now we literally have it the same day. Someone's asking, if they ordered a dune today, how long would it take to get delivered? Depending who you talk to. So you could buy it directly from us. If you bought it directly from us, you would get it. He's going through the test procedure right now. This takes up to 45 minutes. Just to hit every switch. Every switch, every magnet, you name it, they test it. and then after that check they actually will go into actual burning and that burning will go for another 25 minutes so if there's anything loose that's when it will come out so what were you saying about the photographer you asked so most distributors if you bought it directly from us it would be the end of October early November some distraction most distributors don't have stock they have got a backlog but that doesn't mean you can't call around and see if someone fell out of their order or they got it because we're shipping every week so number I see that wrong that a that a game that that ain accurate that not accurate so yeah someone asking so that how we do do we do request and i don know if that was a good thing or a bad thing oh though or someone want a particular number yes someone's asking is the 180 there you go yeah so they're currently on 180 179 178 Little Shop of Games right there Oh Little Shop of Games Marshall's going to be getting those over there in Flo Rida Oh sign off But someone's asking is the plan for Barrels of Fun to release one title per year still or is that If the game is ready it's ready to roll So literally with the new space that we have and be able to stretch out how we are, we could hypothetically do multiple games at once. So it just comes down to, is the game ready? Is there an opportunity to get another one up and running? So that even goes from seeing manufacturing. If someone wanted to do something special, we have now the ability to be basically a turnkey solution.
    21:03
    And this is our new little toy. Is this something that you're real proud of right here? Is this your new toy? What's so cool about this is just the ability to give us the freedom to experiment. So basically we've got a nice little fiber laser here. It's a small footprint, but this is what allows us to really experiment and try really zany, crazy stuff. It's like, hey, we thought about that. Well, can you draw it up? Yeah, we draw it up. Okay, let's just cut it and see if it works. so but it cuts we can weld with it so that this actually comes out we can weld and cut independently so um it's kind of funny it's like even when it comes we're fixing up our own games it's like oh we need a little bracket as i will just throw it on the on the fiber laser cut it and then take it over the brake press and it's done you got a whole new part that didn't even exist before so so you know what we can walk around the other side i'm not gonna let you in look we even have bad cabinets oh what's bad about it too high too wide oh too oh wow so okay here i thought it was only a okay that's too wide this is before you guys started doing house so now so we're gonna do this one less thing we had this going through and everyone's doing fine and then they put the play field in as extra gap on each side so so that will end up probably in a scratch and dent style just like the other ones this is called bad wire forms cool thing is what we're probably gonna end up doing is if people next stage of when we sell more scratch and dents, we'll put in a bag of goodies.
    22:58
    Probably bring it to the show, this kind of thing, and a lot of people are out there that want to buy that stuff. So basically everything on the back side of here is the prototyping and sample line. So everything back on that side. Say hi, Luke. Hello. He's actually our new, he's not really new anymore. You've been here what two months three months now?
    23:23
    You need to give him some bigger monitors those are that's pretty hot so I would say Yeah, so he's working on some cool stuff. He is the new Mechanical engineer here is then another added to our crew you may know Luke Luke made Pokemon
    23:44
    So although the home You want to talk about home Pokemon pinball machine? He is the man behind it. So I'm not going to distract you. So yeah so basically this whole backspace we can walk around the outside. This used to be a call center so we had to basically close the walls in. If need be would you have even more room to expand? Yes so there is actually one more building down that side on the other side of us. I don't know if they're moving out though or not. You're like I'm going to take over everything. No, I won't lie, I am happy with the space that we have. I don't need any more headaches, I want to get this as efficient as possible and just basically keep making really cool games. That's all I want to do. So basically this is the other side, so all this behind here is prototyping. We accidentally took this space over literally a month and a half ago. So that's three months behind where it should have been. So.
    24:50
    Well, that is about it. That's the tour. All right. Questions. Well, I figure we can probably go set up in the conference room and do maybe about a 20 minutes before you got your meeting. Yes, sir. Yeah. So, guys, I'm going to end this stream and I'm going to start up another one. and that's when we'll be able to do a Q&A with old David Van Esch right here, and you can ask all the hard-hitting or softball questions you want to. No, what's the point of soft?
    25:20
    That's right. David wants it hard, guys. Give it to him hard, and we'll have fun here. We'll have a good one. Well, let's walk around the back side here. Okay.
    25:28
    They can see the other games in one place. All right. Say hi, Reggie. Hi, Reggie. There's always one.
    25:41
    And when they have breaks, they love to play pinball too. With our eclectic amount of games that we have, where else can you play Space Shuttle Congo and America's Most Wanted at once? Yeah, you've got a variety here, that's for damn sure. Yep.
    26:01
    Alrighty. Back to your space. All right, guys. I'm going to set up a separate stream, and we'll start the Q&A with David. So just stay tuned guys here another give me another five of ten minutes