The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round. Pretty good one today. A jam-packed thing. There's been some news, and we'll get to that. But we've got to, you know, you talk about some of the legends in pinball. And I know the Loser Kid pinball guys, they had Joe Kamenkow. And I don't know if you caught the interview, but maybe once or twice you got the impression Joe Kamenkow had a lot of money. As he was talking about flying to Broadway, this and that, the summer home, all that kind of stuff. Not jealous. Not at all. Because, you know what, we can relate to these people, can't we, Martin? well in a way yes uh in that we're into pinball but i can't relate to the opulence of joke coming out of life is what i'm saying but i'm just saying we can pick up the phone and call some of these high rollers some of these people that are really making a lot of bank and that would be our guest right now let's say hello to the marketing director of stern pinball once again And there he is, Zach Sharp. How are you guys doing? Very good. You know, it's nearly been a year since you were on the show. It was the 21st of October, 2020. What's happened since then? I'll tell you what's happened. He got a huge raise, and so did everybody at Stern. Congratulations on the huge pay increase. I'm sure that was, you know, well-received by everyone. Way to go. Did Gary get the memo yet? I'm still waiting. No. Last year, we were talking. I was in Maine for a few weeks. If you called me about a month ago, I was in Maine for the entire month. We kind of just missed that window. But this is an important week for you. Somebody I know turns 40, and it ain't Marty and I. Man, yeah, I turned 40. I can't remember 40, can you, Jeff? No, no. 40-ouncer, maybe. That's about it. Well, happy birthday. By the time this airs, you will be over the hill, as they say, and joining your brother in that category. Remember when you were such a young up-and-coming pinball player, striving to be number one? Now, are you striving to stay in the top 100? What is it for you? You know what? In pandemic years, I feel like I'm turning 50, but you know what? I will take 40 as a win. And I think my new goal is to try to be ranked as high as my age. So, you know, I've got my work cut out for me. Are you still going to tournaments? I mean, obviously, I know it's where you're located, but we've all sort of really put it on hold, haven't we? Yeah, I mean, for me personally, you know, until my kids vaccinated, I mean, it's not even really a question of going out and playing. But I would say the tournaments that I'm dealing with right now is potty training and I am losing. So my goal is to win that battle. It's a fun battle, isn't it? And the thing that sucks, too, I mean, I'm sure Benson is a perfect child, but boys are way harder to train than girls. You know why? Because we're a bunch of pigs. That's why. We are. It's funny just hearing about all of the different things people have gone through with boys, especially when it comes to number twos. I'm not going to get into too much details. No, no, please do. We like that on Fun Around. Go ahead. All right, fine. You know what? Why not? You know, he, for some reason, he is really great with potty training in general, but he will save his number twos at nighttime until he is in his diaper because he will only be in a diaper overnight. But he's not ready for that transition just yet. So he will literally save it up until the night, put him in his diaper. We put him into bed. And then, you know, five minutes later, mom, dad, new diaper. It's like, OK, so we're trying to break that. But we had some success earlier this week. He sank some islands, and that was a win. So, you know, I like to call him Benzilla. So I guess it's appropriate with our recent Godzilla release that, you know, I've got my own little king of the monsters right now. I guess we could talk about Godzilla. I'm more fascinated by the potty training and just memories of one of my kids being afraid to poop. And so they would kind of hold it in and have that face. You know when Andy Samberg did the jizz in my face thing on Saturday Night Live when he just kind of, he would do that. He was like, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. But anyway, enough of the potty training. Oh yeah, you got to. I feel the missed opportunity here, Jeff, is to talk about the experience that the Sharp family have had with number twos. Oh man, that was perfect setup. So. I can't believe I missed. I can't believe you missed it. I'm like, you know, you know, Josh, number two jokes. I'm like, come on, this is a good one. Jeff, you should be on top of this. Well, I was thinking about Godzilla since that's another new baby of the Stern family and looks pretty impressive so far. Okay, how many are on backorder? Because I imagine there's a few along with other titles. This is a really popular one. So give us the deets. You know what, I lost track. I don't know how many hands I can hold up to count all the games that we need to build for not only that, but our other catalog. So business is definitely booming. When Gary mentioned a while ago about, and he did say, a few thousand games are on backorder, I know you can't say, so just nod and no one will hear it. I've heard the number is like 10,000, maybe plus. And is that a good problem to have? Is that a bad problem to have? We obviously know it's because of supply issues, but that could be perceived as, wow, pinball is really popular and the games that Stern and others are making are fantastic and really sought after. Yeah, I mean, I'd say it's always, I say it's kind of first world problems. I mean, I think that's a great problem to have is, you know, demand of your products, regardless of what field you're in. I think there's nothing worse than complete silence and you're sitting on inventory. So I would definitely take the former than the latter. Well, obviously, it was announced recently that there's been a price increase. I don't want to talk about the price increase and the reason for it. What I want to talk about is you as being marketing and PR, the response, how do you react to the response and what is your strategy when it comes to delivering those kinds of messages? And has the response been all positive? Just curious. You know what? People love to pay more money for things. I don't know what you guys feel, but people love paying more money. No, I mean, I think for the most part, there's obviously a vocal minority that is never happy with the price increase. Again, regardless of product, going to the movies used to cost me $2. What's with this $20 and a $50 bucket of popcorn? And I think most part when people take a step back and they look at the landscape of the entire world, not just the pinball industry, that with inflation and price increase, supply chain, yada, yada. it's almost become cliche that people are understanding of these price increases. So from a PR marketing side of things, you try to deliver that message as clearly as possible and hope people understand. And if they no longer want to purchase the product or whatnot, it's like there's only so much you can do. But we're a business that needs to stay in business and employ people. So it's just transitioning with the times. I've been involved with many companies as they've gone through pricing strategies. And it's not like I want to defend the price increase, but having been- Defend it. Just go, just go. Just defend it. He needs all the help he can get. I'm not going to necessarily defend it because I don't know the reason for it. So therefore, I don't have facts to do it. But what I know is this, no company that I've ever been involved in, and I've been in a lot of these, no company goes, hey, let's just fucking put the price up. People are going to suck it up. It doesn't work that way. Usually there is a trigger for it, and usually it is costs go up. So therefore, in order to stay profitable at the margin that you want, you've got to put your price up. And here's the other thing I want to say. It's not like a company wakes up and says, hey, let's do a price increase, put it on the website, and it's done within half an hour. these pricing increases are usually months and months in the planning and then you've also got to have a strategy around how you deliver what the impact is going to be on your your customer your market share whatever it is i just want to say it's not a bloody easy thing to do no i mean you you kind of said it right there and it's not only sometimes people just get fixated on the materials and it's like well yeah you know the price of the materials goes up people who are employed, and again, this is regardless of industries, it's like there's promotions and raises and cost of labor increases. And that ties into the level of effort for producing any product in the market. Yeah. I can't believe you just gift wrapped that for Zach, Marty. Now you've just given him a soundbite to give all the distributors who have to deal with the complaints, it's not bloody easy to do. Way to go. And now Zach can pass the buck off and say, well, well, you know, look at this prominent podcaster, Marty. You know, he's had some marketing experience and he said it's fine. Obviously, none of that. Drive the price up. Obviously, that was not my sentiment whatsoever. No? No, it's not. And I'm not giving excuses. As I said, I'm not defending the price increase. I just know why these things exist. I know that they're not easy. I certainly know they're not easy to deliver to your customers. And that's why I sort of brought it back to Zach to say, well, look, you're the person that manages the communication and the message. How do you deal with it? Really? Yeah. No, I mean, you just, you deal with it. It's just the reality of the world. And you never know what, you know, the next day is going to bring. But, you know, we just work within the means of what we are as a company. And when there's shifts and changes within our control, outside of our control, we just address it. Is this a factor and does it make any difference or justification in what you're doing when you see what the prices are on the secondary market for even recent titles from Stern or things like the banning auction and the prices that went there? When you see what people are willing to pay for machines, does that help justify, okay, I think we can do this? Not to mention we're adding something called Stern Connected. We'll get to that in a second. But does that help? I mean, I don't think it hurts. But, I mean, by and large, I mean, that's not a deciding factor. I mean, it'd be funny just to say, you know, our entire pricing strategy is based solely off of the banning auction. You know, just moving forward, that banning auction just changed the entire landscape. Well, I think the difference is with a company's product pricing, if you do an increase, it's a permanent increase. Like that's just the nature of it. With the secondary market, that fluctuates up and down. And so you can't just go, oh, well, prices have gone up. Let's put us up for $1,000. Prices go down. And then you've got a product that's $1,000 more. I'm not saying that was the amount. Just say no. Did it make it easier to do this price increase with a title that I think is going to be pretty good for you when you've got Keith back at it again, this time with Godzilla and what looks to be a fabulous game? Does it make it easier that this was the game to do it on? I mean, you can ask me, but I mean, I would say it certainly couldn't hurt. Let's talk about Godzilla as well, the release of that. We talked about it a year ago where I sort of made the point that it's getting more consistent from Stern to release a product without leaks. And we had it again. Obviously, you're appreciative of that. I know for a fact that it pisses you off when it gets leaked because people are going, oh, they're purposely leaking it. No, they're not. And it pisses you off because you spend months doing a marketing and release strategy and it gets thwarted. are you pleased with how you've been able to launch these products into market now yeah i mean it never pissed me off so to speak i mean is it annoying at times like sure but for me i ultimately always felt for the game team in everyone who's working on this you know it's a ton of people who are you know who actually buy their ndas that's another discussion entirely but you know they're working on this project in secret for a year and a half and for their project to get spoiled to the world where they still can't even talk about it i actually just i feel more you know empathetic towards them not selfishly like oh they just you know it ruined my marketing launch like and then the second thing that i think is a bigger thing is the licensor relationship you know when a Lucas or Toho, if they see that there's something being leaked prematurely, whether it's on their side or other means, that can potentially ruin relationships with licensors or future licensors that this launch is not safe through whatever channels that you're trying to go through. So I think there's definitely been some good steps taken into place. And I would say I can't be disappointed with how things have been more closely tight with releases this past year plus. I would say in the last few years, a title like The Mandalorian and Avengers Infinity Quest were pretty tight to the chest. Those were real surprises to people. I think we knew Zeppelin was eventually coming. We knew Godzilla was coming because you got the license quite a while ago, and that was somewhat public knowledge. But I think it's been a little more on the surprise side than anything else for Stern. So what you're saying is true. The NDAs are a little more sturdy, if you will, and certainly taken more serious. For the consumer like myself, it is very nice to be surprised. I hate when I am told this is coming down the line because I want to be surprised with everyone else. And it's kind of like going to a magic show and you want to be in awe of the magic. yet if you know how everything is done it kind of takes something away from it yeah and for me like ultimately people can throw as many different big titles against the wall and it's like you might be correct that something will eventually come out on whatever said title but for me from like a marketing launch perspective ultimately as long as there's nothing visual leaked early i personally don't care if chatter happens outside of my control because again like just like with anything in life i can only be in control of what i'm in control with so as long as nothing like visual like video pictures anything leaks prematurely i'm happy with how things have been going do you try to tightly control who's got access to this because obviously i know being very shortly in in the pinball industry that there are a lot of internal and external providers that have access to this information. Do you just rely on an NDA or do you actively try to curtail the spread of that information? I mean, out of the materials that I work on, I have a pretty good pulse on who, what, where that's being seen. But I mean, again, you're talking about so many different parties. We're working on sculpts or molds, working with the licensor and other you know, collaborative efforts that there's so much stuff that is out of my control. Like, I'm not everyone's parent. So again, if people want to touch the hot stove or get whatever endorphin rush by sharing information that they shouldn't be, that's kind of on them. I can go to sleep at night pretty well. And even Josh, it's funny, Josh doesn't know anything, even though he has an NDA and I just don't talk to anyone about anything. So it's easy for me to just never worry about anything leaking because until it becomes public knowledge it's it's a vacuum over here in the sharp household just like Benson's butt holding those poops and exactly let's talk about Godzilla all right that is uh quite something do you think Keith has finally learned how to make a good machine do you think that's what it's come to hey you know what I said and I've said this to you offline I think he will go down as the greatest designer more than the greatest pinball player, potentially, arguably. I agree. I also joke with distributors. It's like, you know, Keith is going to put Benson through college. So, you know, I definitely appreciate all of him and the entire team's effort. Hey, Marty, do you remember when we had Keith on a few shows ago and he said, I'm hoping to get an LE? We've got Zach on right now. What is that all about? Why can't the guy who makes the game get his own LE? Well, he can. Just purchase it through a distributor. Come on. He's making you millions. Dick, move. Give him an L.E. for God's sakes. Hey, you know what? There's no I in team. It's not just Keith. There's an M and an E. Well, I hope he gets one because it looks to be quite something. I talked to your brother who had a few flips on it, like five minutes or so, and he was in awe. That's the thing about his games. I mean, I'm seeing things that are maybe borrowed from other games or great recalls. I mean, that Papa Carpet touch, give me a break. That was incredible. But just, boy, oh, boy, you see a Keith layout and you're like, I have not seen this before. It's so exciting to see every shot be utilized, different mechs, different aspects of the game, flipper placements. He is the greatest. Yeah, I mean, it's just intuitive, creative. it really is something special without question so can i ask you this this is a question that i would normally direct to keith elwyn himself but but you hate him no well yeah but he's he's i save carl d'angelo is that is that the question yeah don't forget i saved you anyway but besides that he would say sure here we go sure to this question which is does he find these designs really easy to come up with or is this something that he really has to work through and work through and iterate and iterate before it comes up with this this great layout and this great design sure yeah see and you saved him i can't speak for him i mean i'm sure he just conceptualized and i mean it kind of shows to his character of such a high level player he just sees angles of shots Like when he's playing, I just think of there's that moment in I think it was called Starpool was the game in one of the Pembroke finals. It was an old EM and there was like one drop target on like the upper right hand side that you can never hit straight on. And he had the ball cradled on the bottom left flipper and he kind of just hit this bank shot. It was like a perfect pool shot that banked right into the drop target. And it was like his first shot at it. It was just like, oh, my God, like because a lot of people were just kind of throwing it up there by the pop bumpers. And it's like his vision is just unmatched. So I'm sure when he's putting pen to paper and kind of trying to conceptualize, you know, certain necks in flow of the ball and geometry, I'm sure it's kind of like Mozart writing some music. It's just sometimes the goat is a goat for a reason. What he does that amazes me is players like yourself and elite players, there's something there that is just going to make their eyes pop out of their head. Yet if you're a novice, if you're a casual flipper, he's got things in there like, okay, well, here's the TRX multiball, for example. Here are easy things you can do. The Doctor Strange disc, okay, that's going to be an easy – you'll have a multiball going pretty soon. There's this on Godzilla as well. Yeah, no, I mean, it's funny because, I mean, I've got every L1 game in my basement. And, you know, hopefully if we can build them quick enough, I'll have Godzilla in there next year. But even just watching my wife play or even Benson, there is that kind of low-hanging fruit that you can bash the ball around and make cool stuff happen. I mean, even just with the geometry of Avengers, Crystal's first game, you know, she was hitting shots and wasn't quite sure like how the ball was going to travel around like the gauntlet ramp or captain marvel ramp and like her mind was just blown like just on the first game alone she's like this is incredible so i'm sure you know godzilla will have that same effect and that godzilla multiball with the sinking uh skyscraper i mean that thing is just mind-boggling cool i guess probably one of the the criticisms that we got for avengers was it was actually probably too much of a mindfuck for people to really understand. It was really, it was just really complicated. Was that on the flyer? This game's a mindfuck? I missed this. That is the words of Zach Sharp. That was on the marketing. That was on the flyer. Yeah, that was the mind gem. That's the perk for the mind gem, actually. It a really good perk So I guess again I thinking about you being the brand owner I know there obviously a lot of people there but everyone sees you as the brand owner Does that kind of stuff impact you as well? Or do you just say, well, it doesn't matter. We've got another game coming out and it'll be something different. And there's just a schedule of games that have different things for different people. I would say it's no different than just looking at the themes themselves, is not even going to the level of what you're saying, like from a code perspective. It's like going to a restaurant and seeing your menu. It's like not everyone's going to like steak. Some people want fish or a vegetarian meal. And it's no different than Jeff wants like a music pin, you know, Led Zeppelin, where somebody might want something more family friendly like Star Wars. So, I mean, I think it kind of runs the gamut, not just from a code perspective, but likewise from a theme perspective. I guess when my head's going is, do you have a post-launch, I guess it's a debrief, an evaluation of the machine and how that changes perception of the brand or does it just not matter game to game? um no i mean we do like a post-mortem but i wouldn't say it's more like how it influences the brand so to speak but i mean you're always going to learn from your latest and anyone who says otherwise is lying because you always want to learn and it's no different than from my job in marketing it's like i'm constantly learning on ways to improve or different things whether in my control or outside of my control that could be better and i'm sure everyone on all the game teams look at a product after it's launched and real world feedback, you name it. I mean, there's always going to be stuff that you can learn about and try to improve, modify, or take a second shot at later. Here's some real world feedback. I was at a tournament. There were about 24 of us. We're sitting in a backyard. It's a barbecue. And I just casually asked, and this is about a month ago when the Stern Connected was mentioned. I said, is this of interest to you? And there were a lot of people that said no and people that said I don't know really what it is yet. And that's a fair assessment. I don't even know what it is yet because we're still going to find out what it all entails. But the people that were adamant, yeah, I really, really want this, were all the young people at the tournament. Is that where you're marketing this or is this going to be something for everyone? It's definitely going to be for everyone. I mean, obviously, could it gravitate more towards a younger generation? Without question. And that's the same thing with any technology. I mean, you'll have a lot of an old school base of pinball players that only want to play EMs or solid state machines because it's very easy and there's no screen to read anything on. Or there's no action button. Exactly. So, I mean, I think we'll definitely have our cake and eat it, too, that it's going to transcend age, race, gender, location, you name it. So, I mean, it's going to be something for everyone. And will there be more value based on demographic? I'm sure. So let's talk about that when it comes to bringing in the younger audience. Because I think collectively everybody agrees, I'm speaking on behalf of everybody here, that in order for pinball to survive into the future, you need to bring younger players in. Because certainly Jeff's going to be dead soon. I'm going to be, you know, wow. Two weeks after me, you jerk. you are significantly older than me. So really there is this talk of bringing in the new, the next generation of players. And when we look at tournaments, we talked about Johannes Ostermeyer last week, and I know that there's a lot of younger players out there. They are still the minority, the vast minority of the pinball community. Confrontational question, but doesn't theme really impact on bringing in the new audience? And I would say Avengers, yep, absolutely. Other things, less so. And does it come down to really what he's going to sell versus what he's going to bring new players in? Again, I think it's both. I think, I mean, there's no reason why you can't have your cake and eat it too. So, you know, Avengers, I think that is pan age. I mean, that's everyone. I mean, you look at Mandalorian, there's no hotter streaming show on television, Stranger Things. But then it doesn't mean that you can't service potentially an older demographic, Jeff, with a Led Zeppelin or something. But again, you look at kids these days and there's kids wearing younger than my niece and nephew wearing Led Zeppelin T-shirts and stuff. So I wouldn't even quantify a band as necessarily just being old because it kind of transcends age, especially when it's such an iconic band or theme. I need to know more about Stern Connected. What can you tell me? What is going to bring an old fart like myself and somebody just as old as Marty? I mean, just as old. You know what? I mean, you should talk to George about that. I mean, I can't wait to get my hands on it more, I mean, personally. But, I mean, I think for your lowest hanging fruit, I mean, it's just going to be a lot of cool stuff, you know, with achievements and other stuff within the game that are just going to be fun to do. It's not going to necessarily be tournament-centric and super serious. I mean, it's just going to be fun engagement. I mean, I don't know if either of you are gamers with like Xbox Live. I am not, but I know people who are, and it's kind of what you make of it. It could be as little or as much, but it's there. Yeah, Jeff and I are actually both gamers, and he messaged me the other night when I was playing. I can't even remember what I was playing. I was playing something, and he goes, what are you doing at home? Well, it was a public holiday. So yes, we are gamers. And I do like achievements and trophies. I'm not obsessed by them, but I do. It's very cool when it sort of pops up on the top corner. But isn't it that like achievements are for location only, not at home? No, both. So, I mean, I think that's like a really cool layer where it's like, yes, you can earn achievements on your home game. but if there's like a special promotion going on for you know stern army locations around the world to defeat godzilla multiball quickly or whatever the achievement is you could have it verified at a location which i think helps promote people to go and play and support i'm going to interrupt you there that's great and fine if you have locations nearby if they have those games if they're part of stern connected and when i'm guessing that the majority of people buying machines now, and I don't know this to be true, I think I'd bet the farm on it. More people are buying them not for locations, for home use. Why not have a two-tiered verification system? So yeah, you get the green checkmark if you're on location. We'll give you a red checkmark if you're at home because we don't know if you've taken the glass off or not. I think you're limiting the possibilities for a home use player by not allowing them to have that certain verification. Well, I think it would be verified as not location and again like i don't know the depth of it i mean that's kind of a george question but if if it's not a verified location then it would essentially be at home marty i thought from hearing it there was no check mark or trophy received if it was at a home location and i would just suggest make make a home version of that so that oh no no you can get achievements at home like i mean it's not just achievements on location okay some sort of verification just to brag to your friends or something like that but yeah i mean well you'll have your own profile that you're kind of populating so i mean i'm assuming that it would work where it's like if you got star thor multiball on avengers at home you get the achievement of starting thor multiball at home but if you did it on a location game as well you'd get that a verified location starting through a multiball it really is whether you look at people like i've said many times on the on this podcast and in person to anyone that'll listen i'm not interested in internet connectivity whatsoever there's there's nothing that has been announced or that i think about that really appeals to me does that i guess concerns probably a strong word but does that factor into your thinking and do you actively try to convince people to get on board or do you just go well it's there for people that want it and if you don't want it that's fine because there is a monetary value to connected sure and i mean i think with games moving forward and they're already built in it's not so much of a sell because it's just part of the ecosystem of a stir machine moving forward it's whether you you know want to adopt its use or not honestly i would say the parallel is no different than competitive pinball. I mean, if you go to a show and this is, you know, the fight that Josh and I have lived for years, it's called, we coin it selling the dream. And, you know, with the IFPA launch parties before my time at Stern, and you're trying to get people to, you know, come on, come over here, just, you know, I'll pay for your entry, just playing this tournament. And it's like, there's a lot of people that are hesitant or have zero interest in competing in a tournament. So it's like, they get enjoyment out of just playing casually on the side where there's some people that they get enjoyment out of playing in a competitive setting. So for me, it's no different than with connectivity. There's going to be some people that's like, nah, I don't care. I'm not going to create an account. I don't care about achievements. And you know what? That's fine. But it's there if they change their mind. They can try it. They might like it more than they were expecting or maybe not. And to me, it's kind of like no different than a tournament. It's like, yeah, I tried it. It wasn't for me, which is okay. I mean, at the end of the day, people are going to enjoy pinball the way they enjoy it. Yeah, but you are actively trying to get people into tournaments through the Stern Army program. That's what I believe it is. So are you actively trying to get people wanting connected? Oh, absolutely. I think there's a difference here. I think there's the IFPA, which we're used to in those type of competitions. I think we're about to see a new layer of competitions with Stern Connectivity, with the Stern Army, with these machines. Something that isn't IFPA related and is probably Stern exclusive. I'm sure Jersey Jack will probably do the same with their Scorbet launch. But I think that is the unknown factor for me and possibly the wow factor once we start seeing these games manufactured with Stern Connected, being able to put them in the older titles. And then it's like, okay, this is something I haven't experienced before. It's something new. Yeah, I mean, it won't be the first to tell you that it's like you don't know what you don't know. So, you know, things will shift, change, adapt based on the landscape. So it's no different than like with connectivity right now. It's like for Godzilla being the first game that is truly connected. You know, once these start hitting locations and homes and people start creating their connected accounts and the retrofit kits go out and the older titles start going out. It's like it'll be interesting just to see the adoption and the interaction engagement. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of key learnings that we'll be watching closely. I use the parallel of almost like audits in a game where Deadpool, you know, it goes out first code release and it's like, let's check the audits. How many people are starting Ninja Multiball? That's a terrible percentage. You know what? In this next code release, we're going to start with a game having the locks lit. You don't have to even light the locks. on the Ninja Katana ramp multiball. And I would expect nothing different with connectivity. Competitions will be interesting for sure. You mentioned it's tough for you to get out because Benson's not vaccinated. So I know you were scheduled to go to District 82. I talked to your brother. It doesn't sound like that's going to be possible for the Sharp boys. You've got Chicago Expo coming up later this month and also the Stern Factory Tour. Are we going to see Zach Sharp at either one of these? uh my guess would be probably not but i guess you never know you know i can neither confirm nor deny oh my god get a new line is that is that my 40th birthday present to you guys yes thank you uh do you accept returns actually i got a more important question um you know for some of these new titles i was wondering and i'm asking for a friend do you take deep root credit at all Oh, man. Oh, wow. Is that too soon? Yes. I don't know. I'm just reading on behalf of email. We get a bunch of emails and questions, so I had to ask that. I do have another question, too. Somebody was asking me about these titles, and they're coming out. I remember not too long ago we would see four kind of cornerstone titles a year. It looks like it's going to be three this year, and I would assume that's part of the supply issue and the backorders. When you have so many backorders, are you kind of laying off? maybe the new title releases. I know you've only got this window where you have the license to be able to produce, but if you just throw out a title and you're like, okay, here's Godzilla, good luck getting it until, I don't know, March. And we speak from outside the US where it certainly takes a lot longer. Are you holding back on the titles a little bit because of this? I wouldn't say necessarily, because again, you have windows of your contracts to sell a particular license and every game's independent. I mean, just to use an example, and this is hypothetical, But, you know, say that there's a backorder of Mandalorian, but we have all the parts in on Godzilla, but we're missing one piece on Mandalorian that we're waiting for. So we can only build Mandalorian up to a certain point, but we can't ship them because we're waiting on parts. But we have all the parts on Godzilla. It's like, wouldn't you keep the factory moving and build Godzilla to ship Godzilla? or would you just wait for that one missing piece to come in on Mandalorian before you would move forward on a new game, hypothetically? Keep the line moving, man. I can tell you from experience, keep the line moving. Yep. Feed the beasts. Yep. Bring in the cash. So, Marty, as we wrap up this interview with Zach, do you still stand by your decision saving Zach over Josh? And, Zach, would you have, in fact, maybe perhaps saved Marty, which was the factor in him picking you over Josh? Well, for me, I mean, I would save me over Josh. Just hypothetically speaking, you were saying if you were drowning, you know, I have done a half Ironman. So, you know, I am very good at swimming, biking, running. So I can physically save you probably better than Josh. No offense. So, you know, it was very strategic of you to pick me. And then I guess in an inception level kind of way, me saving you ended up saving me. Or is that Interstellar? I don't know. I'm kind of messing up my Christopher Nolan movie. Fuck, it's Dunkirk, I think. I don't even know. Or Tenet, right? Yeah. I'm running backwards while you're saving me, saving him. I'm sleep deprived. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, guys. Yeah, look, it was very simple for me. I thought to myself when, you know, you did the Stern tour for me, and I know that you do a lot of Stern tours. You'd said to me at the time, you do a lot of them. but usually you do groups and I was sort of a spur of the moment and you're like yeah you know what I'll make time for you and that's when I thought he did it for me too so don't get sound like you're so special no I'm sure he does Josh Sharp wouldn't do that is all I'm saying no good point that is true so there's my point yeah I remember Escher at the Papa World Championship when he won the last one and I think he had to go to the washroom and I I think Josh gave him grief over that. Yeah, go ahead. The clock ticked. Something to that effect. Do you remember that, Zach? It sounds like something Josh would do. What a dick. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Well, happy birthday again. Congratulations on the price increase, the new car that you purchased with that. And I guess we've got to find – where do we send the invoice for doing this show for your appearance here on Final Round? Don't think this is free. just don't send it to or if it's a invoice send it to uh josh's address to his attention please we're screwed he's good he's good at payment eugene's good at uh paying the bills over there okay zach happy birthday buddy welcome to the 40 club uh it was a good 10 years long ago for both marty and me but um anyway uh enjoy and uh best to you the family and benson's poops awesome thanks see us thanks man there you go zach sharp my favorite of the sharp brothers obviously what did we learn though jeff in all seriousness probably a good thing that they did these increases on the godzilla machine and i think i've heard other podcasters talk about what's it going to be like on the next one is the next one going to be that loaded what are your thoughts um uh what do you mean by loaded if you look at the premium what we saw in godzilla and even the pro. I know it's scaled back a little bit. There's a lot in there, I think. Let's overlook the $300 for the Stern Connected piece, but the supply really has dictated that the price has gone up. I mean, again, that secondary market, people are paying these kinds of prices. So I've had distributors say to me, here, I'm selling it to you for this deal, maybe giving you a league deal or whatever the case may be. And you know how many guys turn around and flip them for another a thousand bucks or so or just sit on it for a couple years and sell for even more especially the le's well i hear what you're saying because last episode we joked about the fact that we'd seen godzilla and we hadn't and now we have seen it i still am curious about what you're saying about this game being different they're like obviously what you're implying is that it's got more in it, therefore it's a good time to do a price increase because I see no more, no less than what Avengers has got in it. If you look at the Avengers premium, that Doctor Strange disc is pretty unique, the subway, different ramps and stuff, but that's all settings. The tower is pretty cool in Avengers. But I look at that building, I look at the magnet, that's pretty unique, the Mecha Godzilla, those are three things that stand out to me on Godzilla as wow moments. Sure. they are wow moments i in my mind i'm i'm thinking about bill of materials and what goes into it i think they're on par and i'm not trying to sort of negate that that argument and therefore say well the price increases is not at a great time i agree with them having to do a price increase at whatever time they have to do it because i know i know for a fact that the cost of materials has gone up significantly. And people, us, the public, will look at that and say, well, you know, that's just the cost of doing business things going up. Well, they are a business. Businesses, I've said this so many times before, businesses exist to make money. Because businesses that exist to not make money are not-for-profit. They aren't a not-for-profit. They are a business. Therefore, they need to make money. And they need to make a certain amount of profit and margin. and if your costs go up to maintain your margin, your price has got to go up. So... I agree. Sales make the world go around. Obviously, in my radio world, I'm directly into sales, but everyone in the building is, especially if you're an announcer too. Wait a minute, they're not selling commercials or anything like that, but no, but every time they turn on the mic and talk about a promotion going on at, let's say, whatever fast food chain, and maybe you roll up the rim on a cup to see if you win a free coffee or something like that, and every time they go on air and say, you know what, they say one in eight win, but I've rolled up 22 and none of these things have happened. Do you not think that client calls the radio station or that radio station chain and says, um, yeah, we're doing a lot of advertising with you. Do you want to tell that guy to shut the fuck up? So it's all about sales. And I mean, you're right. This isn't a nonprofit company. They have to keep the lights on. They have to employ a lot of people. They have to have a lot of inventory in stock so that they can make these games. So that just sits there. It's money out, not money in. so anyway that's that's all i'm saying is that i don't begrudge them putting up their prices i mean fortunately i'm not really in the market at the moment so it doesn't really impact me a lot of people are a little bit antsy about it and fair enough what's really interesting for me and i don't know whether this is australia or whether this is worldwide but i know that previously when I've wanted an LE, I've had to put a deposit down. And usually in Australia, it's been about 50%. Whereas now it's about 80%. If you want an LE, you've got to pay a deposit. It's like, I think it was like $11, 500 just to put a deposit down to get an LE. And then wait the several months because it takes longer to get to Australia. That's a nightmare. But again, you have to have good faith in companies. I think it's easy to say with Stern, piece of cake. But as I was saying, justifying these prices going up and looking at Godzilla, the latest, I do see a lot more in there. And think of my last LE, which is the Zeppelin one. There's more in that Godzilla than in my Zeppelin. And yeah, there's that unique electric magic mech that I have disabled because it's a pain in the ass when it doesn't sit right. So really, I've just got an open play field with some ramps. Godzilla, there's a lot more to do that building alone spectacular I like it yeah yeah I know you hate key fuck I say something nice about it first of all I say that building it looks interesting because there multiple layers but it not that impressive a bit of engineering marvel So I'll just say that. But second of all, I love the fact that it's got the puppet carpet on it. That's so cool. And there's a Twippy there. Oh, yeah, I heard about that too. So, no, I like it. You know what? We fucked up. If we had given them a reach around, there would have been a reach around on it. No, that's exactly right. No, no, damn it. But no, I actually really like the look of Godzilla. It's one of those things, you're probably in the same boat as me, is that as soon as a new release comes out, everybody under the sun messages me to get my thoughts on the game. And this is what I think. I think layout gameplay looks absolutely phenomenal. My only gripe is it's not as gritty or grungy or dirty or filthy or angry. It's comic art. Yeah, that's the number one thing. And nobody's knocking. Zombie Eddie has done a lot for pinball. No question about it. Jeremy, you are a savior to this industry. Oh, for sure. People like you, like Christopher Franchi, like Martinez, like Joel de Guzman, Dirty Donnie. these people have really elevated art over the last little bit. But if I have to look at all of the ones that Jeremy has done, I mean, we're talking all stellar art packages. One has to be your favorite, and one has to be your least favorite. Out of what I was thinking I wanted to see for Godzilla, this would be in my least favorite. It doesn't mean it's bad. It's just not what I was expecting, whether it's darker. What's your favorite? What's your favorite zombie yeti art, then? Hmm. I know it's not really art because it's exactly what the image is. When I first saw Iron Maiden, I was blown away by that. I would say Turtles was pretty spectacular. Oh, yeah. I really do. But then I can equally say Avengers was just as good. So I'm not a Primus guy. Primus is great. Godzilla is equally as good as Avengers and as Turtles as well. I think it's just our expectation of Godzilla. My favorite is actually Deadpool. I like Deadpool a lot. we're talking about a wonderful art package. It's full. When you're playing that in a dark location, it's not the greatest. I like that there's just so much art on there that when the game is dark, it's not the best looking play field, in my opinion. Whereas because there's not as much on something like Iron Maiden, the whole play field isn't art. You can see the ball travel a little bit. And again, there's a lot of red. That was the first thing that jumped out at me, But, I mean, Deadpool is a perfect game, all things considered. The art, the layout, the rules, no complaints on this guy. It's just, if I have to pick my favorite, I really think, and it's not my favorite game, but that Turtles, when I first saw it, I was like, wow, that's a good looking machine. Yeah. I remember when I first saw Turtles, I went, you know what? I think now Zombie Yeti has absolutely come of age when it comes to color balancing, image depth and image spacing and the use of negative space. I just think he absolutely nailed it. And from there, we're just seeing consistently great art packages from him. So there you go. I agree. Yeah. I mean, the dream team once again for Stern with Godzilla and we'll have to see what's next. I'm excited. Yeah, for sure. What have you been up to the last couple of weeks? What have I been? Do you know what? Really? Not a lot. Because. Hi, Anne. We were so close. So close. Well, because I'm just letting you know, I mean, everyone knows that we're still in our sixth lockdown, but we are now going through an outbreak and numbers are increasing significantly. So I bring it up because, you know, when we're really asking how was your fortnight, we're sort of really asking, how are you? How are you going? What have you done that's making you happy? This stuff right now, you can tell our state is right at breaking point. I mean, you know, we've had earthquakes. We've had riots. We've had just, oh, my God. I can just sense now people are at breaking point. Yeah, for sure. It's not fun. But, I mean, we heard Zach talk about it. Are you going to be playing at Expo? Are you going to be playing at that District 82 mega tournament? I talked to Josh Sharp last week. He was signed up for it. They're not going to probably either. And Chicago's in his backyard. Yeah, there's a lot of people that are not. But you get the choice. At least they have a choice. We have a choice. It's worse in Australia. We don't have a choice. I interviewed Dr. John, and we were talking about it was kind of the start of your current wave when Brisbane Masters happened. So that was the perfect storm. It was the end of July. IFP didn't kick in until August 1st. Now you've got this pandemic and lockdown. Yep. So the people only in the Queensland state could go. Maybe a few southerners sneaked in. But yeah, it's not good. And that's months ago. And here you are. I know we joke about the Ian thing, but breaking point. Yeah, people are fucking sick of this thing. Yeah. Look at how I was when we look back at the show, how mentally fucked up I was last year, almost a year, 14 months ago. Let's do a drinking show. as in i don't give a fuck remember that maybe i was about to say maybe we didn't do the drinking show but every show is a drinking show for me so i don't see how i stand to benefit from that just to let people know a little behind the curtain thing we record zach during the week because heaven forbid he would give us his time of day on weekends no he does it on the stern dime uh so we do that and then marty and i record on the weekend where marty can let his hair down a little bit. But I say that. You work six days a week, so this is Sunday for you, Saturday for me. Yeah. And we had to squeeze this in because my two weeks is more exciting about next week. Fucking hell. Come on, man. Be happy for me. Well, let me finish what I'm going to say because ultimately I am really happy for you. But one thing you probably know about me, I don't get jealous of just about anything. I just don't. We're not done yet. Go on. Well, I just don't. I don't covet other people's things, their experiences or whatever. I just think good on you. I'm really fucking jealous that you're going to Germany. Again, just because of the situation that I can't leave my state, let alone my country. And I just think fucking good on you. That's just really exciting. That's what it was. Thanks for saying that. That's what it was for me when I wasn't able to cross the border. Do you know how badly I wanted to go to the Rochester Pinball Collective? We talked to Kat last episode to see Bruce, to see Ron, to see, all these people that I really care about and I haven't seen them in a long time. It sucked. Zach, I mean, it would have been fun to play. These guys could not go. So that drove me nuts because that's an easy drive. You look on the Google map. Same thing for Cleapin earlier in September. and I want to drive to Chicago Expo. No, I might have to fly there, which is a ridiculous expense. But you're right, at least I have the option. Germany should be a lot of fun. I leave on the Monday. Again, we're recording this on Saturday night. You know I'm going to spend a couple days in a town called Dusseldorf. What do you know about Dusseldorf, Martin? And don't Google. Isn't that where Kraftwerk are from? That's exactly what I wanted you to say. That is exactly where your favorite band is from. Formed in 1969. Finally in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, yes. the legends of electronic music. I've been in other parts of the world where, I think it was Bath in the UK, which was legendary for the band T-Rex. Maybe it was Brighton. It was one of the two. Forgive me for being wrong. I knew it started with a B. But it was shrines everywhere to Mark Bolan of T-Rex. And your good buddy, Hashman, is a huge T-Rex fan. So I'm wondering if Dusseldorf will be the same for Kraftwerk. And so, Marty, I'll be looking for some Kraftwerk things. Just whatever you can find. Anything craft work, but just make sure I don't have it already. Well, what do you have? The thong collection? Go on. What else? By thongs, you mean flip-flops, yeah? Well, that's what you call them there. We don't... No, budgie smugglers here. Yeah, thongs here go on your feet, not around your penis. So, just letting you know. And up your crack. So, I've got a lot of box sets. I'm not buying you albums. I'm buying you something to wear to say, look, there's the badge. I'm a craftwork guy. Well, then I've got T-shirts from their 3D tour. So the robots, the man machine, and Autobahn. There you go. They're my T-shirts. I have a feeling if I see any in the stores, I'll be having to send you a text that you'll have to respond to. So there. We'll do it that way. I'm just saying buy me anything is what I'm actually saying. Okay. Yep. Thong. the other thing i did and again thank you for asking in my last fortnight is uh got a chance to talk to a friend on pinball profile now when we're recording this i haven't released it so you'll hear it between now and time final round comes out and he said to say hello to how's marty i talked to mark silk oh mark silk and the reason i talked to mark is because i know that pretty much day one that it was announced he went to london to see this queen pop-up shop yes i saw the photos and i had to ask him i know how much he loves queen what do you think of the queen pinball machine obviously a prototype but first impressions for you marty what did you think um um can my voice get any higher am i talking to ryan c what the hell um i don't know I don't know. Okay, my first thoughts were, oh, yeah, I did hear that Highway did have the rights to Queen, but there was just all this rumour and innuendo that somebody else had got it. So I looked at it and went, oh, okay, interesting way to launch a new game, but probably a cool way to launch a new game. I think it's brilliant. Yeah. And then I saw the layout and I went, yeah, it actually looks, it looks all right. It looks all right. Fine. I'm going to go with it. My voice has gone high again. Yeah, sure, I'm fine. We just mentioned all those great artists. That's the first thing that jumped out at me. It's like, oh, fuck. It's a prototype. I don't want to shit on it because it's certainly a theme I want, but I want to see a little bit more. Didn't look the best to me, but that could all change. Again, prototype. I'm excited for it. I saw that they had 14 songs, which is cool. I mean, I look at games like ACDC 12, Zeppelin 10. Guns N' Roses had 21. This had 14. So, you know, the second most, if you will. The set list was interesting. My son Brady is a massive Queen fan, and I said, Brady, I want you to name the 14 songs on there. I've not seen the list of songs, so... How well do you know Queen? Well, I think if you remember, it was about a year ago, I went and listened to their entire discography from beginning to end, because I never had. I've probably only really listened to their hits And that was where I discovered Invisible Man Which is my favourite Queen song of all time Great song I'm assuming that's not on the list though Not on the list There are some obscure ones So Brady nailed right away Well Bohemian should be on it We Will Rock You We Are The Champions Yep, three for three there Then it got a little interesting Oh, Radio Gaga? That's my favourite Queen song That's on there He said Flash on there? Nope Yeah, I wouldn't expect that to be Pretty exciting song It would be good for pinball I think Okay What about this for a pinball Think of this You're in a multiball Stone cold crazy Things balls are going everywhere Or even better Keep yourself alive 0 for 2 They're both not in there Yeah they're not great songs What about this for a mode Fat bottom girls Or bicycle race Not in there No nor should they be Don't stop me now That should be there It should be in there for sure That should be there What about this when you're pressing player too. Just a quick note of you're my best friend. That terrible song. No, definitely not. Awful song. Middle of the road. Not terrible. What about Proud to Think of Love? Another one by Sadust? Bites of Dust is in there. Crazy little thing called Love Is Not. They've got songs like Hammer to Fall, which was huge at Live Aid, so I'm okay with that. And again, by the way, I Want a Break Frame? Yep, that's in there. Are you looking? Or are you guessing? No, I'm trying now. I'm looking up now. Under Pressure with David Bowie? Nope, not in there. No, that's licensing. Well, that's what I was wondering too about this coming out with all live versions. This could be easier for licensing. Are they live versions? They're all live versions. There's a song called One Vision. Good song. Not bad. Yeah, not bad. Fried chicken. Yeah, I want to break free. Do you know what I mean by fried chicken? Yeah, yeah, it's the end of the song. Gimme, gimme, gimme, fried chicken. Fried chicken. So, anyway, let's get excited again. Queen, What a great theme. There are a couple of music themes I'd like to see. This is obviously one of the two. The other one might be coming in a few months. I have no idea what that could be. And Queen is universally and globally a loved band. It's not a, jeez, I don't really know that band. Everybody knows Queen. So good license for the Pinball Brothers. Just got to make a good game now. Yeah. Yep. I don't know. It's one of these situations, and I know this situation only too well being where I work, where I think it's good to say that it's been released. It's good to say that there's actually a Queen Pinball finally. But there's just a big question mark on Pinball Brothers and whether they can actually deliver a great pinball experience. You've played Alien, correct? Yes. But the highway version, right? Yes. I haven't played the Pinball Brothers version. I played the highway version. I thought it was neat. I've always loved Full Throttle. I think that was a very underrated game. When it worked? When any game works. So let's just give that the benefit of the doubt. If the game works, that's when you evaluate the game. You could say the same about Alien, too. Alien had a lot of issues. I've heard good things, so we'll see. I mean, listen, if I had to say I would like company ABC to maybe do this Dream License theme, Pinball Brothers wasn't the first to come to mind because I'd like to see mass production, maybe better costs, maybe more things put in there. But we could be pleasantly surprised. And I say that, Marty, because look at your own little company in Haggis Pinball, how much people are very impressed by what you guys are doing. And at first it was like, okay, what do I really know about Haggis? Well, you've got some good momentum going and the Bally license, Kelts, whatever other original games you come out with, people are going to be on board Haggis kind of the same way they were when Spooky just kind of kept growing. So maybe this is the path for Pinball Brothers. I have no idea. I have to be careful not to endorse them, by the way. But that's why I said before, appreciating that I'm in the position that I'm in at Haggis, because it's the same thing. I think if Haggis all of a sudden came out and said, we're going to do a Queen Pinball, I think people would go, hmm, but can you? Can you do it justice? So that's why I was saying, you know, understanding that I'm in that same position, making the same comment. Hey, listen, we've seen machines be remade. This isn't the first Godzilla machine. This isn't the first Jurassic Park machine. the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we're seeing games remade. So that's great that Pinball Brothers has Queen now. Maybe there's another Queen one 5, 10 years from now. Who knows, right? Right. And speaking of remaking games, I'm assuming that was your segue. It wasn't, but go ahead. Well, there was also some really interesting news this week. And interesting because I just have had this conversation with Oz Eric, you know, who streams on Melbourne Super Bowl, about Cactus Canyon, the remake. And it's all but been announced, even though it wasn't officially announced, but they've now come out with an official announcement saying that the rules for Cactus Canyon Remake are being redone. And... Dun-dun-dun! Lyman Sheets and Josh Sharp. Aren't you excited to see Lyman is doing something? Fuck yes! Yeah, e xactly. And I've always said, always, that Cactus Canyon is an okay game because of its rules. The layout is pretty generic. It came from the cookie cutter era, but it doesn't make it a bad layout. It actually makes it a fun layout, but it was just a pretty bland beige rule set. Even though it was funny, it had some good call outs, but the actual framework of it was just pretty bland. Now you've got a fantastic person on rules and Josh Sharp. What did the guy in our chat say? And I'm sorry, I can't remember who said it. You know, you've got Lyman Sheets. He's the George Michael Wham. But Josh, he's the Andrew Ridgely. I don't care who he is, as long as they both wear those Wham shorts. That's all I care about. Yeah, for sure. Truth life. So I am now on board with Cactus Canyon Remake. That right there is a game changer for that particular game. Rules make the game. You can have the greatest shots. If the rules aren't likable, forget it. We talk about, is the layout great on Cactus? Not really. Well, now you're probably going to have hurry-ups. You're probably going to have risk-reward. Different things we haven't seen before. I mean, there's a lot on that play field, too, with those gunfights and the draws. Who knows? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There is so much going on the play field as far as insets and what you can do. I think it was probably about three months ago I looked at the layout, and with my new rules design and game design hat on, I looked at it and went, what could you do with those inserts? And bang, idea after idea just came to me because of what's laid out in front of you. It's so much harder. It's harder in the fact that if you've got an LCD screen, you can rely on game direction on the screen. But if you haven't got inserts or certain inserts have locked you into a certain path, that's what makes it harder. We shall see. I gave Josh shit. Josh and I actually recorded on Thursday for a pinball profile. this fucking thing comes out the next day I'm like you ass give me a heads up I'm like I hate throwing shows out and we agreed that we were going to throw it out because we will do this update and who knows what else and record that for a week or two but I respect that he had an NDA and couldn't say anything and he actually said I didn't know they were going to release it either this soon and he did say his brother Zach didn't know so I mean you gotta respect the NDA so that's fine I hope It's available at Expo, and we'll see. Boy, even with all these supply issues, all these games are still coming out. Wow. Yeah. You asked, what did we learn? That was the biggest thing to me that I didn't get really a clear answer on. You are so far in back orders. 10,000 wouldn't be unrealistic to say for Stern, but you keep coming out with new titles. Is that just to take money away from your competitors? I don't get it. Do you? I need help understanding that. I don't. No. I honestly don't know. The line's got to keep moving, but if you don't have the parts, what's going on the line? Don't know. I'm sure things are. I don't know, and I'm not close enough to know, but the back orders is getting freaking crazy, and distributors saying that people wanting to buy are noticing that. And with the price increases, I've seen people say, there are videos out there. I'm priced out. Yeah, yeah. Could be. Sure. But new inbox games have gone up, let's say, 5%, 10%. I'll tell you who's priced out. The second-hand market. Those people that are getting into pinball now. You in Australia cannot get something decent for less than $8,000. Yeah. That's so funny that they're saying we want to do the connected thing. We want to do the connected thing to reach younger people. Younger people can play Fortnite and Call of Duty for free on their game consoles. You can spend a few dollars at an arcade if there's a location. How many locations are near you? None. Moondog has a few games. I know Ryan's got a few. Not near me. Okay. There are none near me. I mean, I could drive 45 minutes to Toronto. No, that's what I'm saying. I could drive probably 45 minutes to Moondog. Yeah. This is an interesting time in pinball. It's crazy. Pinball prices right now are crazy crazy. Like, if you remember a year ago when everyone was like, oh, my God, COVID prices. Now we're in mega COVID prices. I just don't understand how it was bad. Now it's extreme. Oh, speaking about getting paid, shouldn't we? I think we need to get paid. It's time for our sponsor of the week. No Time to Die, the latest James Bond action film, hits the theaters this week. It's going to be a climatic thriller as actor Daniel Craig is set to hang up his role as 007. The search is on for the next person to take up the mantle as the legendary secret agent. And he might be right here in the pinball community. I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name. The name is Bond. Josh Bond. Imagine the possibilities with Josh Sharp as Bond. You could remake several of the classic films. The Man with the Golden Plunge. for your IFPA only. You could redo these movies. A View to a Tilt, You Only Lost Twice, and the classic Dr. No Major. Here's a clip from the remake of Gold Flipper. Okay, Gold Flipper, you've made your point. Do you expect me to talk? No, Mr. Bond! I expect you to die! And fuck off! Nobody does it better than Josh Sharp as James Bond Except qualified talented actors but other than that he second to none marty i know james bond is on the big screen but you still on the small screen you still streaming as much i try to stream as much as i can usually every sunday i didn't last week also that happened in my week my back is fucked right now i can actually barely move i've found it really difficult to actually even get myself up out of bed. It's been that much pain. And it's just, it's hard to go and get a massage or go and see a physio. It's, you know, thanks, Ian. So, yeah, there you go. That's what I'm saying. That's not good. I have noticed this because every night I always click on Twitch to see who's streaming. And, you know, there are a lot of different pinball streamers, yourself included. Ashman Danger Ray, Oz Eric, Stacey Borg when he does it. You've got a bunch there at Melbourne Silver Bowl. And there are others, certainly in North America and the UK and Europe and other places. I'm not seeing them on as much anymore. Have you noticed that at all? Or do you check? I mean, people have lives, but there were more three, four months ago. I think when everyone was in lockdown, because a lot of the world's not in as much lockdown as they were. So I think that's part of it. I think when people were in lockdown, they went, you know what? I've got some cameras or I've got software or I can go and buy some cameras. and I can set up my stream. It's one thing to set up your stream, but to create a community or a culture and keep it going, that's the hard part. It is for podcasts, too. We know that from all of our endeavors. But, yeah, streaming, I just figure you spend so much money on the gear, and you probably have a game or two or several. You know, I've never streamed. I've had GammaGoat come over and stream here. I've been on streams. I'm going to be with JDL Pinball. You'll be able to watch a lot of these tournaments in Germany on their sites. So I invite you to do that. But that's a lot of money in gear. I know how much you've spent. Gosh, you even have different gear for the big tournaments, don't you? Yeah, I've actually got three sets of streaming gear. So one's my mobile platform, which Oz Eric's got at the moment because I gave it to him during lockdown. Then I've got my decent home set up. Then I've got my tournament set up. So when you've got all that stuff, you kind of want to stream, don't you? What I love about your stream and other streams, it's the interaction. It's the chats. The pinball is fine. That's all it's about. It really is. It's a good community. I get a kick out of that. But I'm not seeing it as much lately. People are busy, I guess. No, I agree with you. I think it's a couple of reasons. I think people aren't as locked down as they used to be. And I think people realize that it's more than just putting some cameras together and having a stream. it's hard work it is hard work look the difference here is with this podcast we put it out there and we have no idea we honestly have no idea whether one person listens or 10 000 people listen and there's something really liberating about that when you're streaming and you can see that one person's watching and then a half an hour later two people are watching and i'm not i'm honestly not saying this for me now but back in the day when i first started i if i got 10 people watching my channel i thought that was fantastic whereas these days you see a lot of the streamers where there's a couple of hundred people watching and then there's other channels where there's one or two people watching and and streamers get to see their stats live how many people are watching and i think that can put people off because they are spending a lot of time they have spent a lot of money on equipment and you're just not seeing the numbers come through and it's interesting you used to say that because i'm going to do somebody a favor so because there is a guy that watches my channel and he's streaming as well and he's relatively new but he's a really really good guy i'm pretty sure he's from germany i think his name is stefan and i want people to go to his Twitch channel. So it's twitch.tv slash lash underscore Stefan. So L-A-S-H underscore S-T-E-F-A-N and I just want you to follow this guy's page. Whether you watch it or not, I don't know. That's not really, obviously that's important but he's a guy, again, he's spent a lot of money. He, you know, chats with me and he's just trying to build a channel. He's got 135 people that like his page at the moment. Nice. 135 now. No, I'm not huge. I've got 1,300. Whoa. No, but that could have been a hell of a lot more had I bothered to promote all these years, but I don't. Let me get the tape measure here. We're going to do a dick off here. Hold on a second here. Go on. Well, Jack Danger's got something like 30,000, right? Yeah, but he's getting out of it, isn't he? I don't know. Is he? I thought I heard someone say he's kind of stepping back a little bit. Listen, that guy, he's going to be working for Stern soon. I mean, let's- No, that's exactly right. But all I'm saying is there's people like Les Stefan who are just plugging away, seeing the numbers, and you know what, guys? Just go to his channel, click like, subscribe if you want, but we've just got to keep the momentum of people going. Because coming back to what you're saying about some people start, and I think they go, because you just can't build the numbers because the big players have got the market share. And it's really hard to take that off them. Does he have a hot tub? I don't know. Haven't seen it. I haven't seen it yet. Just a little helper there, Stefan, if you want to get the numbers up. I think streaming requires the most amount of money, probably has the smallest viewership. Podcasting certainly involves a lot of time, minimal expenses. Yep. And most podcasts are getting 1,000, 2,000 downloads. YouTube. The guys who are doing YouTube get thousands of views. So did we pick the wrong thing? Whether it's streaming, whether it's podcasting, should we be doing YouTube? Which is harder. A lot of editing, right? If you give a shit. Yeah, at least with audio, you can do an edit. That's fine. When you've got to edit vision, that's just so much more time. And, you know, there are people I've seen some channels that I watch regularly where they get, you know, per episode and they might do one or two episodes a week. they might get 50,000 views, which is not huge when you've got some that are getting millions. No, it's not. From what I heard, someone was telling me, and I think this might have even been Damien at work or his wife, Georgia. It says something along the lines of 10 million views on YouTube equates to $100,000. Okay. Maybe even more. Maybe like 100 million views. No, no, but let me tell you. So if you think about somebody getting 50,000 views, how much revenue are they getting from YouTube? I'm not doing the math. No, either am I. It's fuck all. But what happens is these people, and this is what we need to do. We need to probably, if we are interested in money, which I'm not, but it's Patreon, it's OnlyFans, it's MySpace. It's ReachArounds. It's all those other revenue streams where you get a much larger cut of the money. Revenue from YouTube is nothing. And revenue from Twitch is minimal as well. So, there you go. Cameo, what's next for us? We've got to figure out what the next thing is. Although, remember when we bitched at the end of the last episode and we said, look, no one's listening. If you don't reach out to us, we got a few responses. We got a lot of your responses, so thank you everybody for reaching out. Quick, let's go through a few of them. Clark Fraley, who he and Laura have been to Bulls and Balls in Germany. They sent us a nice note, too. Well, also, you and I have been drunk with Clark. Let's not forget that. I did forget it until I was reminded. It was at TPF. Yes. Oh, that's right. Clark was taking pictures. He was doing video. So not cool. Yeah. No evidence, for God's sakes. Anyway, thanks, Clark. Who's EM Dungeon? Jeff, my dude, you're not alone. We never get a lot of emails, either. It is a truly sad one-way life we live in this podcast world. But this is why we have pinball. Have fun in Germany. Be safe. Cheers, Jim. Thank you very much. So we also got another one from Kevin Peterson. He said, last show you mentioned that Mustang would be great to be rethemed. I know Jeff really hates Big Buck Hunter, so maybe it just needs a new theme. What would make Jeff enjoy that game more? And then I saw the conversation back and forth, and you made a lot of lies, effectively. Bullshit. Okay, we agree on a lot of things. you'll never get me to say big buck hunter is a good game ever no it's not true it's actually a good game but the reason why you say you hate it is oh the buck never works now that's not true it's actually not true i have played so many of that game the buck always works and then you were saying oh the bird shot straight down the middle no it's not no it's not it's just not it's probably happened to you once and then you've gone oh they're all like that that's how you speak that's I speak in an email? You still got your balls tight from before. The bird feed needs a ball safe. That's what I said. I didn't say it going straight down the middle. I said it needs a ball safe. Why does it need a ball safe? Why does it need a ball safe if it's not going down the middle? Does on a lot of games. Never. Modes. The modes are fucking terrible on Big Buck Hunter. The spinner. Nothing like ripping a spinner. Oh, I just hit pops. That did nothing. clunky, clunky game. Big Buck Hunter sucks. There's an email if you want to send it to us. Final Round it. Final Round Pinball. What is it? What's our fucking email address? FinalRoundPinball at gmail.com. The same it's been for over two years. Yeah. There's that. What else do we get? Mick Fitzy. Hi, guys. Just reaching out. I enjoy the podcast. Thought I'd drop you a note. She said nobody says good day. There. Keep up the great work. Thank you, Mick. That's awesome, Mick. And again, we are just so pleased that people did reach out because we like to have a conversation. This is from Jeff L. in Milwaukee. Jeff, I'm already started listening to your podcast just before COVID hit. I'm not all into tournament pinball, so I wasn't sure if this would be a keeper for me. But it turns out that I love the way you guys interact with each other. And I became hooked. Now, I'm still not in a tournament play yet. Not too many tournaments that I'm comfortable going to at the moment. But I may be interested in starting up a little tournament or two in my basement. He has 14 machines. and quite a few friends. I hear you talk about different types of tournaments, doesn't know what they all are. I've tried to look them up, but my Googling skills aren't good. So he wants us to go over the formats quickly. A pump and dump is what you would see at a major, major tournament. This is a multi-day tournament. So you keep playing the game over and over again, therefore doing entries, that's the pumping and dumping of the money until you get the highest score possible. That's not something you're going to do at home. Match play is very likely something you're going to do at home. It's me playing another person or in a group of four, and there's software that will walk you through that. Head-to-head, it is just as is. Pin golf is a little more difficult. I wouldn't do that at your home. It's a little more complicated. But you're probably looking at match play, wouldn't you think? I would say, yeah, match play or maybe even group knockout or... A strikes tournament. Strikes tournament is a good one. So, Jeff, a strikes tournament, super easy. Maybe it's three strikes, maybe it's five strikes, whatever the number you pick. You basically have groups of four or three and whoever's in the bottom two positions If they finish third and fourth, they would get a strike. Once they have three strikes, you're out of the tournament. That's also available on matchplay.events. I think at a later stage, we will go into more detail around different tournaments and the pros and cons. But just as a quick scattergun, here you go. Look up a strikes tournament. I think that will be absolutely suitable for your situation at home. If you can do it over multiple days, I would then do a match play as well over a couple of days. I know you're stuck there, Marty, but I did sign up for a big tournament, TPF, in March. So this past weekend was... Now, I know you probably haven't signed up for that. Even if you went, it wouldn't be for the tournament's sake. But it's so far down the road for you right now to think what's going on in March and if you'll even be out of there. But I'm looking forward to going to that event. They have two tournaments there, the Classics, which you basically play eight games and have to try to put up your best scores. And then it's a limited number for the main event, too, and then on to playoffs. So those are really unique. and it got me thinking of all the great players in Texas, right? I mean, that tournament sells out immediately. 140 in the main, 240 in the classics. I want to do well in there. So that's where I need your help, Marty. There are a couple of Texans that are in this tournament, and they're really good players. In fact, they probably both won it. So this is where we find out who Marty saves and who Marty... Oh, God. The players are. Both have been on this program before. I know one of them. Colin McAlpine, former Pinberg winner, Texas legend and the other Robert Byers of Top Rope Pinball who has put money in our pockets buying a reach around Marty, I'll give you the scenario they love their guns in Texas and sadly they were getting a little careless at the gun range who takes the stray bullet is it Colin or is it Robert wait so this is actually not even me being able to save somebody, like okay it is you saving it and I'll tell you why no this is getting crap No, because at least in these other scenarios, I can do something about it. This is a stray bullet, which I have no control over. All I'm saying is, who dies? Marty. That's not fair. Marty, you fired the bullet. Okay, so it's not a stray bullet. It's actually me. Well, it's your shitty shot, and you're going to fucking peg one of these guys. Well, no, because here's the flaw in your logic. Because what happens if I'm aiming for Robert Byers? That's who I want to shoot. But because I'm such a bad aim, I get Colin. so... I don't want you to be up for murder for fuck's sakes, alright? There's a death penalty there. That's basically what you were saying is, like, I know what's happened. Like, in the previous fortnights that we've been doing this, you're like, oh, Martin's got away on a technicality, like, oh, you know, Stu could probably build something to get him out. You're now just basically wanting me to be a fucking cunt. Is really what's happening. It's actually just the summary of it now. I don't need anything for you to be that. But because I am such a nice human being, and I want everyone to live, and I'll endorse every fucking pinball company, as you know. Oh, for sure. Yeah, exactly. Pinball Brothers, number one. I want you to have a little bit of thought into this. So I want you to think about these two individuals and what they mean to you. And if you need a refresher, here they are. Oh, no. You definitely want to choose me and not Robert Byers. First, Rob's big claim to fame is that he's won a IFPA Texas Pinball Championship. I've won four. Oh, and some little event called Pinberg. Second, I have much better fashion sense than Rob. Just go watch his stream sometime. Third, Rob is trying to one-up you, Marty, by getting plastered on the stream. You're much better at it and more entertaining. Last, don't throw me off because I'll bring a bottle of gin. Rob will just have a bottle of nasty sweet tea vodka. That's hilarious. Bottle of gin. What a suck up here. Let's see what Robert has to say. Marty. You have to save me. It's Rob. It's Top Rope Handball. It's the guy that connects with you on drinking streams and in your competition. And plus, who else would the final round make fun of if I'm dead? You have to save me. If you smell what the Rob would like to be living. I don't know if that laugh is because you find those funny, which I do, or you're maniacal and you know you're about to put a bullet in one of them. Okay. Okay, this is tough. This one is tough. Like, before, I'm just like, ah, I don't give a shit, whatever. This is tough because... What, you want another bullet? No, I do like both of them. What's actually... I'll tell you what's really funny. Stu Thornton, who you know works with me at Haggis Pinball, absolutely loves Robert Byers and thinks he's fucking hysterical and especially loves all the intros that he does on the show so he's always asking when Robert's coming back on the show so if I kill Robert then I'm letting down Stu and Stu I pretty much kind of left to his own devices on that plane so I feel like I will be trying to kill Stu twice then when I think about Colin McAlpine I do probably talk a lot more to Colin than Robert. Maybe you've run out of things to say. Maybe I have run out of things to say, but he did talk about gin. So even though Robert said, you know what? Hey, we're drinking buddies. Yeah, we are. But who's supplying my alcohol? Because Colin McAlpine is going to supply my alcohol. So I think what it's going to come down to is who's had a good life versus who needs a bit more time to actually have a good life. If I can throw in one more thing. Sure. Did I ever tell you that Robert Byers is a professional back masseuse and could help you with your injuries? Oh my God. Okay. All right. I'm sorry, Colin. If you knew the pain I was in right now, you would understand my decision. I am saving Robert Byers. So myself and on behalf of Stu Thornton, we are both saving Robert Byers. Unfortunately, Colin, you've got your Pinberg win. You've got your four Texas wins. I think you've had a good life. I think it's time for you to die. Okay. You wanted this thing to be dark. Yes, it is. Robert is not a masseuse. You're fucked. I'm sure he's good with his hands. Get those sausage fingers to Australia. Speaking of people dying, we have to talk about this, Jeff. Oh, fuck. What? Go on. Before we go, we have to talk about Squid Game. Okay. See, now, I was debating putting the people in Squid Game for this challenge, but we'll talk about it now. We will not spoil anything. Ryan, first of all, sent me a thing. Have you watched this? I said no. At 3 in the morning, I watched it. I said, I'm like, I just saw the first episode, and wrote to you, you've got to watch this. Remember when we promoted The Boys? Anyway, I've only seen one episode. I'm going to see two more tomorrow. No spoilers. I don't even want to say what it's about, but it's worth watching. You know, even before Ryan had mentioned it, because he mentioned it on Facebook as well, a lot of people had mentioned to me something about Squid Game. What I read this afternoon is that apparently it is about to become the most watched Netflix show of all time. So, who has the license for it, for a pinball machine? Get on it now. Get on it. Pinball Brothers, Haggis, Spooky. It's got Spooky written all over it. Watch Squid Game. It's something. Watch Squid Game, guys. It's... Can't say anything. It's South Korean, so it is South Korean. The only thing I'll say is... Watch subtitles. Don't watch the dub. No. Watch the dub. No, I watch the subtitles. No, this is bullshit. I started watching the dub and I turned it to subtitles. No, no, no, no, no. What, you can't read? No, but the thing of it is, you're reading down the bottom. If you're reading what's happening down the bottom, you're missing what's gone into the visual of this. So I would say watch the dub myself And people have said Translation's not 100% How would you know? How would you know? Because you're not watching the subtitles And the sub at the same time Anyway, doesn't matter By the way there Mr. Mansion Not everyone has the size TV that you have In your theatre fucking room How dare you? So the distance between the subtitles That wasn't a TV It's a big screen isn't it? It was a projector Yeah So the travel that my eyes have to go from the text to up where the action is, is not as far as you. No wonder your back's sore from fucking lifting your head watching Squid Game. Look, it doesn't matter whether you are watching in subtitles or with it dubbed. Just watch it. What I was going to say was that because it's South Korean and one of my all-time favorite movies, even though it's, you know, fairly recent. Parasite. Is Parasite. Yep. There are some similarities. So, yeah, Boon Joon-ho was Parasite Doctor. There must be just something about the Korean film style. There are some similarities, but then there's not. But anyway, there you go. Just watch it. That's all we're going to say for Squid Game, although future participants and losers of Who Does Marty Save will be participating in future Squid Games. We'll just leave it at that. Where can people reach us? They can reach us on email at finalrampinball at gmail.com. Instagram is FinalRoundPinballPodcast Twitter is at FinalRoundPin and FinalRoundPinball on Facebook and also on YouTube apparently there's still some clips there not until we get 100 million views and we start getting paid by YouTube forget it alright this is where I say Auf Wiedersehen yay I'm so jealous man but I am genuinely happy for you have a fantastic time no doubt we are going to speak I hope whilst you're over there let me know how you're going and make sure you bring back an extra suitcase full of Kraftwerk merch. Thanks. You got it, buddy. Talk to you in a couple weeks. All right. See you guys.