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Ep 47: Jack "Danger" Larson

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 23m·analyzed·Oct 29, 2020
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TL;DR

Jack Danger on streaming pinball, design philosophy, and his role bridging manufacturers.

Summary

Jack Danger Larson, a pioneering pinball streamer and Stern designer, discusses his journey from animator to full-time pinball content creator, his role in revealing major game releases, and his design philosophy emphasizing flow and obscure shots. He reflects on maintaining relationships with multiple manufacturers while staying authentic, discusses themes he'd like to design, and shares anecdotes about celebrity interactions and memorable tournament moments.

Key Claims

  • Jack Danger is Scott Larson's younger brother

    high confidence · Jack states directly at beginning of episode: 'It's actually Jack Danger Larson. I'm Scott Larson's younger brother.'

  • Jack was hooked into pinball by Judge Dredd, not Lord of the Rings which was in his studio first

    high confidence · Jack explains: 'Judge Dredd was your gateway into pinball... when we put the head up on that game, plugged it in and got it going, something about that game just like hooked me.'

  • Jack designed the entire beacon menu system for Jersey Jack Pinball machines

    high confidence · Jack states: 'I then designed the entire Beckon menu system of Jersey Jack's machines. So if you love that menu system, you're freaking welcome, Internet.'

  • The Walking Dead reveal was the first time a new pinball game was live streamed on the internet

    high confidence · Jack explains: 'And that was the first time we ever worked with Stern. And that was the first time a new game was ever released live on the internet.'

  • Jack has been streaming pinball 3-4 hours every night for approximately 6 years

    high confidence · Jack states: 'I play for like three to four hours every night and have for like six years'

  • Rick and Morty pinball was getting Jack DMCA flagged constantly during streaming

    high confidence · Jack notes: 'that game was getting me DMCA flagged left and freaking right every time I streamed it'

  • Jack has revealed almost all of Spooky Pinball's games and most of American Pinball's games

    high confidence · Jack states: 'I got hooked up with spooky and have revealed almost all of their games. Uh, I've done the reveals for most of American pinballs games.'

  • Jersey Jack's core design and engineering team was in Chicago, not New Jersey; manufacturing was in Jersey but everything is now in Chicago

    high confidence · Jack explains: 'the entire core team like designers um and like engineers and stuff they were all here in chicago... but it was all being developed here and then being manufactured in Jersey but now everything is here in Chicago'

Notable Quotes

  • “if you love that menu system, you're freaking welcome, Internet”

    Jack Danger @ ~11:45 — Shows Jack's pride in his contribution to Jersey Jack Pinball's interface design and his self-aware humor

  • “All pinball is great pinball, even if it's like a garbage daddy, East Simpsons”

    Jack Danger @ ~18:30 — Reveals Jack's philosophy on criticism and his respect for all pinball design efforts despite personal preferences

  • “I play for like three to four hours every night and have for like six years... it's hard to just walk in here and be like, Oh yeah, I can't wait to just jam on some Beatles”

    Jack Danger @ ~19:00 — Illustrates the pitfall of turning a hobby into a full-time job and losing casual enjoyment

  • “Pinball's not necessarily the focus but it's the reason you're there”

    Jack Danger @ ~13:30 — Defines the philosophy and mood of DeadFlip streaming brand

  • “I want the game to feel a little out of control. But at times you could make it go where you want to”

    Jack Danger @ ~25:00 — Articulates Jack's design philosophy emphasizing flow and balance between randomness and player agency

  • “That was the first time a new game was ever released live on the internet”

    Jack Danger @ ~15:45 — Marks a pivotal moment in pinball streaming history and Jack's role in pioneering the format

  • “Everyone's idea of what a Harry Potter game should be... The thing should turn invisible. It's going to be levitating on a broom. And if it isn't, then why did you make this game?”

    Jack Danger @ ~31:00 — Humorously illustrates why licensed themes can never satisfy all expectations

Entities

Jack Danger LarsonpersonScott LarsonpersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyDeadFliporganizationJody Dankbergperson

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Jack discusses his pioneering role in live streaming game reveals, starting with The Walking Dead, and his status as a key person for revealing new games across multiple manufacturers (Stern, Spooky, American Pinball, JJP).

    high · Jack notes he's done reveals for Stern since The Walking Dead, revealed 'almost all' of Spooky's games, and 'most' of American Pinball's games. DeadFlip has significant reach in streaming pinball content.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jack articulates a clear design preference for games with fast-flowing playfields that balance randomness with player control, avoiding excessive stop-and-shoot mechanics.

    high · Jack explains: 'I want the game to feel a little out of control. But at times you could make it go where you want to and the ball just doesn't slow down. I don't like stopping and shooting too much.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jack advocates for pinball licensing of modern, ongoing franchises (Pokemon, Rick and Morty) rather than nostalgic 80s properties, arguing pinball needs 'younger, fresher themes' to reach new audiences.

    high · Jack states: 'I think pinball needed a younger, fresher theme like Rick and Morty, especially to prove to other companies that you can reach out to stuff that's still being developed right now. Yes. Not resurrecting 80s themes.'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Rick and Morty pinball game caused DMCA flagging issues during streaming, making it difficult for Jack to produce or retain video content of gameplay.

    high · Jack notes: 'that game was getting me DMCA flagged left and freaking right every time I streamed it. So that content almost I don't know if I have any videos of me even playing that game.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.249

0:00
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We are on episode 47. With me, my co-captain as always, Scott Larson. And Scott, why don't we hurry and run through the friends of the podcast before we get to our awesome guests that we have this afternoon. Okay. First and foremost, Zach Minney and Nicole Minney, Flippin' Out Pinball. If you want to check out a new pinball machine or any of the accessories, please reach out to them. They're easy to work with, and they have always been easy on us to get our machines when we're looking for things. Also, look at lit frames. If you have that trans light that's collecting dust in the corner and you're trying to find a way of illuminating it in your game room, please check out lit frames.
0:47
Brian Allen is also on our list. He does alternate trans lights for Williams Ballet Classics. He has Monster Bash. He has Medieval Madness, and he has Attack from Mars. Also, he is working on a Whitewater alternate transflight. He also has Blades. And if you're really into discs, he has disc golf things for you. We also have Mike Lund with Beehive Pinball.
1:20
And what does Mike do? He does reproduction play fields. If you're looking for stars, that's what he's starting out with right now. And you can check out some of his work online at BeehivePinball.com.
1:32
And also my friend's blog, check out the Pinball Loft. If you want to check out his insights, he got adventures. And so he also talked about his experience with that. It's very down to earth and accessible. Sometimes it's easier just to read something. Now that we've got the friends out of the way because they are awesome people and we want to put a little spotlight on them, I am going to introduce our guests today. I personally have been following this man, I think I posted 28 months, and that's when they started coming out with the Amazon Prime. This gentleman's been a huge factor in the pinball community, bringing it to light, kind of out of obscurity, and not only to pinball people, but kind of gamers as well. You know him, so please give us some flippers and butts. It's Jack Danger.
Greg Freres
person
Judge Dreddgame
Lord of the Ringsgame
The Walking Deadgame
Deadpoolgame
Wizard of Ozgame
Ed Robertsonperson
Scott Deniseperson
Rick and Mortygame
Avengersgame
Ninja Turtlesgame
Hot Wheelsgame

manufacturing_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball's design and engineering core was always in Chicago, with manufacturing occurring in New Jersey, but operations have now consolidated to Chicago.

high · Jack clarifies: 'the entire core team like designers um and like engineers and stuff they were all here in chicago... but it was all being developed here and then being manufactured in Jersey but now everything is here in Chicago'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Jack designed the beacon menu system for Jersey Jack Pinball machines, representing an innovation in player interface design.

    high · Jack states: 'I then designed the entire Beckon menu system of Jersey Jack's machines. So if you love that menu system, you're freaking welcome, Internet. I think it's like the most beautiful thing.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Jack is acknowledged as a key connector between multiple pinball manufacturers, having worked with Jersey Jack, Stern, Spooky, and American Pinball in various capacities.

    high · Jack discusses working across manufacturers and being 'the handshank and the wink between all the pinball companies' as mentioned by the podcast hosts referencing a Head2Head interview.

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Jack expresses difficulty maintaining casual enjoyment of pinball after 6 years of streaming 3-4 hours nightly, suggesting streaming intensity has changed his relationship with the hobby.

    high · Jack explains: 'it's hard to want to play pinball casually just for fun... it's hard to just walk in here and be like, Oh yeah, I can't wait to just jam on some Beatles before I get to work.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Jack notes that Hot Wheels game's complexity with many strategies can overwhelm players, though he frames it as 'an awesome problem to have.'

    medium · Jack states about Hot Wheels: 'there's so many different things you could do on the game that unless someone tells me hey Jack, why don't you see what you could do in placements in a race because there's so many strategies you can do to blow that game up it sort of overwhelms my brain'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Jack discusses specific playfield layout challenges, such as the left ramp on Ninja Turtles being mechanically difficult for him to shoot consistently, suggesting potential design considerations for aiming difficulty.

    medium · Jack notes about Turtles: 'My brain hates that left ramp on that game, and for some reason it just won't let me shoot it... my freaking old man brain will not let me shoot that ramp.'

    • 2:16
    It's actually Jack Danger Larson. I'm Scott Larson's younger brother. For those of you that didn't know that, a little fun fact for you there. I didn't know that. Who was your dad then? We don't talk about the milkman.
    2:33
    As you can tell, I also have tattoos on my knuckles, and I try to look like an awesome pinball personality, too, in my nighttime.
    2:45
    What's going on, guys? Not so much. How are you doing today? Just hanging out. Another busy day in pinball land. Dude, I want to point out, so I know we've had this back and forth. People behind the scenes don't usually see this, but we've been talking about doing this recording for a year and a half since Texas Pinball Festival 2019. Yeah, buddy. And like I mentioned, oh, yeah, I was going to say, not to cut you off, but I've been dodging you guys like Neo in the Matrix. We keep trying to set this up, and then something always gets in the way. I don't know what's going on, but I'm glad we were able to line this up. Heck yes. Well, I thought pinball was easy. So, oh, there's the gratuitous Robert Mueller reference from Scott.
    3:30
    Oh, my goodness. OK, Jack, the first question I've got to ask you, I've wondered this for years. Is danger really your last name? Sure. Absolutely. Well, I didn't know if it was like Slash, you know, Slash.
    3:45
    That's not his real name. Slash's real name isn't just Slash. No, no. but if you ask him it's his real it's his real whole name but yeah slash is his middle name it's actually and then ash so it's sl is his first name it's a you know a rare family name from the old country but you you know you joke about that but i know a lady that her her first name is spelt j and then a hyphen and an a how would you how would you pronounce that jah jah jadasha jah get out of here i'm dead really dead serious that's awesome wait how did that that seems like some uh that's like some some sci-fi name stuff wait what what did she go jadasha oh okay is that legit that's not that's not an urban legend it was on a birth certificate so uh OK, because I see a lot. So I'm working in in medical field. You hear a lot of these urban legends and you're like, ah, there's there's really no Lomangelo and Arangelo running around there. But everyone says they know someone whose brother, whose sister has that name. Well, what about the the kid that Elon Musk had where he was just slapping a bunch of characters on a piece of paper? Oh, yeah. The letter salad. It seems like if you're a celebrity and you have a kid, there are two routes to go. One is that I'm just going to name my kid just like any other kid. Or, you know what? I want to make sure that the kid, everybody knows that they're special and I'm weird. And so I'm going to name him Apple or Moses or something like that. Or Blanket. Oh, my gosh. Well, that's actually his middle name. And wasn't he Prince Michael II? Wasn't that really his name? Man, I want rich parents. And a goofy name.
    5:38
    That seems like a meme waiting to happen. You know, they're always like, if you lived in this mansion, but you had to slap someone, would you do it? Now it's going to be, if you had rich parents, but you had to have a really weird name, would you do it? What would that name be? Yeah. There, there's one for your danger wall.
    5:55
    I think mine would be, mine would be LMNOP, so. LMNOP? Well, yeah, Jack Danger. It's actually Jacques Danger. It's French.
    6:08
    And that's where we're going to leave it. That's cool. I've always been curious because I know I've asked other questions, but I've never asked if Danger is – and then you posted something. What was it? A couple months ago about your dad and his album.
    6:24
    Is that true too? Oh, no. That was Harvey Danger. Yeah, I know. Why can't you go with Harvey Danger as your dad?
    6:33
    I mean, yes. Harvey Danger is my father. They had some great hits in the 90s. You may remember Flagpole Sitta. It was written about my mother.
    6:43
    It was great. You've got to ask these hard-hitting questions because if you don't, people are actually going to believe that Harvey Danger is your dad. True. True, true.
    6:53
    I love the Internet. Oh, my God. It's so good. Well, if you've ever tuned into a Jack Danger stream, you know that he loves the Internet. The hearts, the lighting. it's it's really it's it's more of a mood than it is a show right it's like it's a feeling yeah baby i like that i like that yeah we're we're we're a mood we're just trying to we're trying to set a tone for the evening sit back relax it's uh i i like to say like pinball's not necessarily the focus but it's the reason you're there yep you know like um you're just there to hang out there just happens to be pinball being played i agree scott do you want to go ahead and ask a question uh yeah i'm sorry i was booting up my phone since i actually just woke up uh because lucky well yeah because i i stayed up until three in the morning last night so gross yeah i was working on on call so man that's rough hey thank you for your service martin you know what it is a job and we are fine with it sorry my my phone just went it had a seizure so i just need to pull up my uh stream i'm pretty for sure this is all going to make it into the podcast too booting the phone at eight minutes in here we go so when did you first get into pinball that's the first question and second when did you say i want to do this as my full-time job oh geez i got into pinball about eight or nine years ago um some friends of mine went to like a trip in seattle and they discovered pinball for themselves. And when they came back, they were working in this animation studio that I was building at the time.
    8:34
    And they're like, oh, pinball, it's so awesome. I'm like, yeah, whatever. I don't know what the heck you're talking about. And then one of them bought a Lord of the Rings and needed to store it in my studio. And that was my first like recognition of a pinball machine. I'm sure I'd seen them everywhere in bars before and it didn't mean anything to me. But it was when this Lord of the Rings came in and we flipped on it for a little bit and I wasn't really sold on it. I was like, what is this? It's like electronic furniture just sitting in the corner taking up space. And then that same gentleman bought a Judge Dredd very shortly after. And I was like, if you don't have room for these in your house, we can't keep putting them in here because these are humongous.
    9:15
    But when we start moving this thing in, I'm kind of looking at it. I'm like, Judge Dredd, I remember that movie, but it wasn't based on the movie, so I was doing a little research. But when we put the head up on that game, plugged it in and got it going, something about that game just like hooked me. The humor, the call outs, the shots, the big like rotating planet. Something about that game was like, I need to go on the Internet and look up how to beat this game. And that's when you fall down that rabbit hole of like you never get to win a pinball machine. So here's the strategy on how to survive the longest. And here's all these different skills you can learn. And it really just that game just sort of hooked me overnight and haven't looked back since.
    9:57
    OK, so I love that you had Lord of the Rings and that did nothing for you. Yeah. Judge Dredd was your gateway into pinball. I don't know of anybody else who has that gateway into pinball is Judge Dredd. I get that a lot. They're like you had freaking Lord of the Rings, bro. And you're saying Judge Dredd got you into pinball. I don't know what it was, man. And I just, like, as a pinball fan now, obviously, LOTR is like a fantastic game. But that, just at the time, never having noticed a pinball machine before, it just didn't really. I think this is what it is. It's what you talked about. It's like almost the ambiance below the glass, right? That's the spinning planet and stuff like that. Because I've ran into this problem, too. Like, I'm trying to get my kid into pinball. And he loves it here and there. But I just bought a Jurassic Park Pro, which is just an absolute fantastic game. But the second we get it open and we get it going, he's like, why isn't the TRX moving? I'm like, dude, I didn't buy that edition. I think that's the problem is if you want people to get hooked in, I think that's why people gravitate towards those 90s Williams games. It's because they got the moving – like World Cup Soccer is a fantastic machine for a good price. You got the goalie moving back and forth. It screams the goal at you. You know, but to a more advanced player, they're just like you're getting into multi-ball and then trying to beat Germany.
    11:17
    Yeah, it's like it's setting an environment under there that might feel alive outside of what you're doing. You know, have some animatronic things moving around. Have a giant ball spinning. Have a planet that's moving.
    11:30
    Even if like you're not good enough to ever shoot up that left ramp to get up into that planet, it still lights up and moves. and there's a crane there and it looks cool and it just fills in the game. It just makes it look more full. It's taller. It's more packed.
    11:45
    But yeah, that really spoke to me, that game. And we have one here, an acquaintance of ours, one of the viewers on our show, bought one and knew my history with this game and then left it here for us to stream for a while. Awesome.
    12:00
    Does it still hold up now? It's still a freaking blast. And the humor is still right there too. And there's like little secrets you could do in each mode to like make different things happen. Like when you shoot the sniper tower, if you can shoot the sniper tower mode and then shoot it again and then hold in the launch button, instead of the guy just getting shot out of the tower and then getting impaled by a fence, a dog will now come in and piss on the guy.
    12:25
    Right. It's like little things like that. It's so funny. The game is so good. Oh, I love it. That's like finding the lost world in Super Mario Brothers. Oh, it's so good.
    12:40
    So then what made you decide, like Scott said, what made you decide to go, hey, this is cool, but now I want to make this my job? Well, when we first, I say we as in the collective group of pinball dudes that were in my studio, when we first got into pinball, we dove in headfirst. We went to all the tournaments when a quote unquote bar league started up in Chicago. That's where the four of us were like, we need a name. And we came up with dead flip. So dead flip was just a group of four dudes that played in this tournament, this league that we had here in Chicago and subsequently went undefeated to win that whole thing. It was, it was really awesome. But when, because I was an animator and so were all the rest of the guys in there, we got hooked up with Jersey Jack. So Greg Freres came over and art directed a shoot for the Wizard of Oz where we were doing, we had an actress dressed up as the Wicked Witch doing the movements and then we replaced her face with the actual witch's face.
    13:50
    I then designed the entire Beckon menu system of Jersey Jack's machines. So if you love that menu system, you're freaking welcome, Internet. I think it's like the most beautiful thing. I know I'm blowing smoke up my own rear end here, but it's yeah. Anyway. So once once we got to see like the the behind the scenes stuff in pinball, I wanted to know more about all the manufacturers and just, again, learn as much as I could. When I find a hobby, I try to just completely consume everything about it. and the streaming thing was completely on accident where I was just trying to record myself and my friends playing pinball to see if we could get better at like like see the mistakes we were doing and try to fix that and then one of the other animators that were in the studio were like hey you got to check out this twitch thing and we started streaming and it really just sort of started snowballing from there but we didn't go I didn't go full-time streaming and not do anything else until about maybe two years ago okay yeah well that's cool that's cool that like you were a part of kind of the foundation of jersey jack as well i didn't realize that i thought i was essentially in jersey jack or not jersey jack in new jersey and then they kind of migrated to chicago but they've always kind of been here huh yeah the entire core team like designers um and like engineers and stuff they were all here in chicago obviously their main animator Jean-Paul DeWin lived overseas but it was all being developed here and then being manufactured in Jersey but now everything is here in Chicago well I know that one of my favorite episodes is when Head2Head did interview you and they told you you're kind of the person that has the kind of the handshank and the wink between all the pinball companies because you've helped Jersey Jack, you've helped Spooky, I mean obviously you work with Stern, you've helped with American pinball. Um, why is that? Like I, you just, you right place, right time or, um, I think just because I was sort of like surfing the front of this wave of promoting pinball and just, you know, I, who knows? I think it was, uh, it might just be right place, right time. Yeah. Um, I, I also like very early on would reach out to everybody and be like, Hey, you know, I do the same where I show off these games. No, it's not a podcast. No, it's not. I got, it got called a podcast constantly because a lot of people did, they couldn't wrap their heads around the idea of this like live streaming thing.
    16:28
    Um, and yeah, I got hooked up with spooky and have revealed almost all of their games. Uh, I've done the reveals for most of American pinballs games. Uh, Stern, I've been doing their game reveals since the walking dead, which is, that was a lifetime ago. Um, Walking Dead is where we sort of created the idea of live streaming a brand new machine as it's being revealed that this happened at Expo. And that was 100 percent right place, right time. I was sitting outside of a door holding all my streaming gear, which was like poles with duct tape and stuff on them. And Jody Dankberg comes out of this door and he's wrestling with this Walking Dead sign. I didn't know who he was. I just got up and helped him. He's like, hey, you're that guy that has that podcast. And I'm like, yeah, that's me, I guess.
    17:19
    And he's like, hey, you should come do that on The Walking Dead. We're going to show it off and then have a big tournament. And that was the first time we ever worked with Stern. And that was the first time a new game was ever released live on the internet. And it was all like our relationship has just grown from there.
    17:39
    That's awesome. A pioneer of sorts, if you want to. Listen, I'll take it. Okay. Jack, the pioneer danger. I'm not full of myself, but I'm kind of full of myself.
    17:53
    So, Jack, when you go from a hobby to it being the main thing you do every day, what are some of the pitfalls that you found that you didn't know were there? Oh, geez.
    18:05
    I will say that it is hard to want to play pinball casually just for fun. I do find times where I'm just like, I know I'm going to stream pinball tonight for several hours. And if I, I'm surrounded by all these games that anyone in pinball would just be like, what the frick are you doing? Not playing all of these. But because I play for like three to four hours every night and have for like six years, it's hard to just walk in here and be like, Oh yeah, I can't wait to just jam on some Beatles before I get to work. And then, you know, do the stream tonight. If a new game comes in, obviously I'm, I'm spending all the time in the world on that thing. But yeah, it's tough. It's tough. I, I love what I do, but it's hard to yeah, I don't know.
    18:59
    It's just keeping that interest up with the whole collection instead of just knowing like, I'm going to do this thing tonight and just have fun with that one game this evening. What about what about relationships you have to maintain? I mean, this is the challenge with with podcasts. For the most part, we want to be we want to have good relationships with people, but we don't really since it doesn't really affect my job. If I have a critical thing to say, I feel free that I can say it, whether or not I if I if I need to or I want to. But if you have relationships with these with these companies, how does that limit you in what you feel like? I can say this. I can't say that. I, I, this is always the challenging thing when you start, uh, mixing the water. Yeah, totally. Um, I typically never have anything negative to say about pinball machines and it's not that I'm like a fan boy in any regard. It's just, you know, it's, it's not my place to say something sucks, right? A lot of people put a lot of time and effort into making something. And if I'm not a fan of it, you know, I, I can say I'm not a fan of it, but I'm not going to be like, man, this ramp is garbage. And I, you know, I, why would anyone play this game? All pinball is great pinball, even if it's like a garbage daddy, East Simpsons. It's just, I, I just, yeah, I just don't have any real negative opinions on anything pinball. I will say things like I fricking hate this game, but that's just me when a ball drains on me and I'm just frustrated in that moment But yeah I have no place to nitpick anything that someone spent all this time and effort on making I like that point of view as well because I think I don know we we all kind of do a new reveal comes out and and people nitpick the crap out of it you know and we don't realize the behind and you kind of get to see the behind the scenes of what's being made. And I mean, 13, 14 months down the road and it finally gets revealed. And I know Keith L once said this too, you know, he's kind of, he's kind of done with it by the end of it. It's like people are first getting to see this for the first time. And I've been working on this for 13 months, you know? and so I don't know I'm kind of right there with you just take a step back yeah be a little more supportive absolutely I mean you can have your opinions but there's no reason to like go all in on trashing something because it's just not your cup of tea what makes a game something that you tend to like is there a style that you tend to like in a game, whether or not it's a diverter, a different layout, flow, trap and shoot, interesting, interesting art package, interesting rule set, anything that jumps out that you're really excited when you hear about it. I like really obscure shots. I think that's why Deadpool is one of my favorite pinball machines with that cross shot to the ramp. A lot of, I mean, I don't like saying the designer's name, but there was a designer who's no longer designing pinball machines or in the hobby at all. Thank God. But created some some wild, wacky designs that I just love. I love randomness, but I also love flow. So I want the game to feel a little out of control. But at times you could make it go where you want to and the ball just doesn't slow down. I don't like stopping and shooting too much.
    22:36
    It's okay if it's thrown in there, but I'm still learning to get better at aiming, and I don't like target practice all that well. So I want that ball to be flowing around the play field as fast as it possibly can. My favorite games right now are Batman 66.
    22:55
    I don't know. That game just flows really well. There's not a whole lot of stop and go. Deadpool, and then I would have to say Jackbot, which is actually super stopping going now that I think about it. I don't know. Yeah, it's kind of a sniper game between the eyes and then getting that casino shot up around behind the ramp. Frick, maybe I don't know what I like. It's all completely random. So one of the things I was looking at recently, a lot of people have been ranking this year's pinball machines from favorite to may not the top of their list. So I'm going to give you a list. I want to see which ones are your favorites from this year. So we have – let's start with the recent ones. Have you played Guns N' Roses yet? I have not had the privilege to play that game yet. Okay. We'll leave that one off the list then. We've got Avengers. We've got Ninja Turtles. we've got Hot Wheels and Rick and Morty wasn't this year, was it?
    23:54
    It might've been January. It may have been, we can put it in the list. This isn't really official. We'll put it on the list. So, so you got Turtles, Rick and Morty, Hot Wheels and Avengers.
    24:05
    Which one would you go to first? I've been having a ton of fun on Avengers right now. That game, that game has a uniqueness that I haven't seen in a while in pinball for sure.
    24:19
    Turtles is great, and it's packed. My brain hates that left ramp on that game, and for some reason it just won't let me shoot it. Not the center ramp? The left ramp? The far left ramp.
    24:33
    Yeah, not the one that you hit with the upper fiver. Nope, just your basic. There's a ramp there on the left, and for some reason my freaking old man brain will not let me shoot that ramp. I don't know what it is. I really have to like stop reading chat, focus up, stare at the dang thing and then shoot it to make it work. My I just my internal rhythm just doesn't like where that shot is.
    24:56
    It's the Raphael skill shot. It's hard to hard to. Yeah. But yeah, Turtle Turtles is rad. I've I've played that game a lot of different iterations and the code keeps getting better on that thing. the Hot Wheels game by American Pinball I have that here in the studio and that game is a blast but there's so many different things you could do on the game that unless someone tells me hey Jack, why don't you see what you could do in placements in a race because there's so many strategies you can do to blow that game up it sort of overwhelms my brain a little bit But that is an awesome problem to have that there's so much to do on that pin.
    25:43
    And then what else were we missing? Rick and Morty? Yeah, that one. Yep. Scott Denise, bro. I mean, that's all you got to say. The humor on that thing is great. I wish I still had it, but that game was getting me DMCA flagged left and freaking right every time I streamed it. So that content almost I don't know if I have any videos of me even playing that game. Crazy. Even the video was getting flagged on that. So it was rough. But I think pinball needed a younger, fresher theme like Rick and Morty, especially to prove to other companies that you can reach out to stuff that's still being developed right now. Yes. Not resurrecting 80s themes. Right. Right, right, right. Well, and you've been kind of on the bandwagon of newer titles for a while now. I know that you've been kind of pushing, I think, Pokemon's one. I know that's not like a super new title, but it's the it's the largest franchise period, you know, and the fact that it has had several video game pinball machine adaptations and we don't have a physical one. Come on. Yeah. Come on, pinball.
    26:52
    But I know I know it seems like and we always joke about this whenever whenever you tune into dead flip and you're talking with them, there is at some point in the broadcast. there's going to be like themes that people want to talk about. It's hard to avoid. I mean, it's, I don't know why we keep coming back to it. And I'll even in the moment, I'll be like, why did I say that? I just open, I just opened this like can of worms that I can't stop the chat from talking about what they want to see in pinball or just, you know, I'll be shooting, be like, man, you know, like, Oh, that'd make a cool shot in like a power Rangers game or something. And then just off they go for into the sunset, talking about everything they want in their, uh, fricking, I don't know.
    27:33
    Everyone wants original themes. I don't know that that will ever work again. Uh, there's, there's some people like for the big manufacturers, I don't know that you're going to see any more original themes. Uh, you got games like kelps and stuff coming out, which is fricking awesome. Um, but when it comes to themes that people are asking for, ah, dude, I don't know. it is all over the fricking board.
    28:00
    So you're not going to make that guar pinball machine. You know what? I think I've only seen the one person ever ask for guar.
    28:10
    Harry Potter. People will not shut up about, but I promise you, whoever makes that game is not going to make everyone happy, you know, because every, yeah. Everyone's idea of what a Harry Potter game should be. The thing should turn invisible. It's going to be levitating on a broom. And if it isn't, then why did you make this game? It's the same thing as it's like when a book comes out, everyone's like, which book do you want to be adapted into a movie? They're like, oh, I want that book. And that comes out. They're like, yeah, but the book was better. I mean, it really just wasn't what I thought it was going to be. So it kind of stinks. Because it's not what you pictured in your head when you were reading the thing. Right.
    28:52
    Oh, it's rough. Yeah. Themes. Anyway. Yeah. It sidetracks my broadcasts, and it just sidetracked this podcast. Hey, well, let's sidetrack it more. What are your top five themes that you want? Oh, gosh, my top five.
    29:08
    Let's say I'm designing pinball machines. I would like to make a Power Rangers. I would like to make Beetlejuice. I would like to make a Pee-Wee's Big Adventure pinball machine with a lower play field you can never get to, which is labeled the basement of the Alamo. I think that'd be fantastic. That'd be awesome. Just a complete troll lower play field.
    29:30
    Pokemon, obviously, I think it's such a great idea. And if I had to throw another video game in there, I don't know. Something like I want like a Dungeons and Dragons, another D&D pinball machine. Oh, I actually have flashbacks about the Dungeons and Dragons when I was playing one at Rocky Mountain Pinball Show. I was launching the ball and it had such a hard time getting around. And so finally I pulled it back and really shot it and it broke off a post. Oh, no. And I felt so bad because the post kind of rattled down. It was near where the outlaying was. And I'm like, I'm just going to turn off this machine and put a note on there. Sorry, bro, your post broke.
    30:18
    That game has one of the sickest freaking beats as a soundtrack. If you go back and listen to it, I want to sample that and have someone rap over it. It is amazing. Oh, yeah. So you've been doing this for a while now. You've rubbed shoulders with some pretty popular people, not only in the industry but outside the industry. Who has been your favorite person to be – maybe interview or get to play some pinball with and why? I'd say the coolest quote-unquote celebrity experience I had was when Scott Denise and I were delivering the first TNA to Ed Robertson's house up in Canada. We took a road trip. We hand-delivered the thing when we got there. Ed's like, cool, here's my house. I'm going to leave for two hours to go do a show, and you just go set this up. so scott and i are in ed robertson's house and we're like this dude just trusts us to like be in here and he's gone uh like i i don't steal but i'm like i might have to steal now that like he's just leaving me to this like um but once he came back and we started streaming that that was a blast that is awesome i do remember that that reveal stream wasn't charlie was supposed to go with you guys but he didn't have like his passport or something right yeah i think that was what the issue that's what they found out that he had never left wisconsin or something and he's like in wisconsin which is essentially canada how yeah but no that was that's great no i do remember that was that was a great reveal stream as well uh hanging out there with ed robertson and whatnot so well the funny thing talking to ed and when you hear i we've never interviewed ed but he he has a great way of disarming people when they feel very much uh awkward like and that's his job and his job as a performer and he's been doing it for years but that's just normal to him and when people sometimes it gets really hard for them to get above that celebrity i know you from this one thing and so it's hard for me to connect with you on a normal level and he's like hey that's cool want to play pinball so yeah i like that it's a great way of just saying hey you know i appreciate that you're a fan let's go do something that is a level playing field. Let's just go play. Yeah, he's a super solid dude. I love Ed. He texts me pictures of the weirdest crap at all hours of the night. And I just, I wouldn't have it any other way.
    32:50
    No, it's funny. I would love to at some point interview Ed because I've actually seen him a few times in concert. And it's such a fun show. And just to know that behind the scenes that he's actually a nice guy. A lot of these celebrities, when you meet, when you peek behind the scenes, you're like, yeah, I kind of wish I didn't know what their real personality was. But it's just, yeah, that guy's actually kind of a kind of a tool. Yeah. So it's it just seems really nice that this guy is just genuine down to earth and it doesn't feel like there's this barrier between you and him. Absolutely. We are lucky to have him as a pinhead for this hobby, for sure. Well, it's awesome that he loves pinball so much he named one of his albums after, you know, this. Yeah, how wild is that? That's awesome. I mean, what a champion. Thank you, Ed, for your service.
    33:40
    I love, I don't know if you've ever had this where you're in a conversation with someone that's really not into pinball, and you're trying to, you know, get them excited for it, and they just look at you like, no one plays pinball. And then you're like, well, you know, Ed Robertson of Bare Naked Ladies, like, he's huge into pinball or, you know, Slash from Guns N' Roses. and they look at you like, no. You show them a picture or something.
    34:03
    There's other people that aren't, that are normal that actually play this. Yeah, we were at this place called Bottom Lounge here in Chicago right when Black Knight came out, and we set up the game, and we were doing a photo shoot where Scott Ian of Anthrax was in town. So he came to this venue. He might have actually been playing at the venue. Um, but we recorded him playing his game. Cause he was the one that was like shredding on there with Brendan Smalls and all these people in this bar, everyone, he was just open to everybody. Anyone could have just walked up to him and like slapped him in the head. Uh, not that they would, but like, it was that open that everyone's like, that's Scott Ian. And what the hell is he? Why is he playing pinball? Like, he's just sitting there. He looks like he's having a good time. And everyone's like, is that, is that Scott Ian? I'm like, yeah, he did the soundtrack for this pinball. machine like that's a new pinball machine yeah they still make them could you believe it they still make pinball machines internet it's awesome yeah that's basically a and my my main job is just working at a hospital but when when people say you know hey what do you do well i i have a few pinball machines really it's always the same thing really huh how many do you have i have 14 Really? Huh. Do they still make those? Yeah. Oh, really? Okay. Can I come play them? It's always in that same progression where it's such a weird thing that people just don't see. Because I grew up in the heyday of arcades. But now since all the arcades are dead and now there are kiddie gambling joints in the Chuck E. Cheese, that it's hard to actually say, no, they actually made these things so people would go in and pay money and play them on location.
    35:54
    Yeah, they still make those. It's definitely the question we get all the time. If I go to conventions with Stern, there's people coming up and be like, hey, your name's what? Jack Danger? Cool. They still make these things? Like, yeah, dude, come on.
    36:08
    Or just streaming this stuff on Twitch, the people coming in and be like, hey, my great-grandpa had one of these. Like, shut up, kid. Come on. You can go play these anywhere. Well, what's the reaction? like CES? Because that's not even a pinball show. That's just the consumer electronic show there in Vegas or whatever. We are more, I think, a pit stop in between technology things. We get a lot of people coming over to record video and ask us about it. But we're not folding cell phones or drones and stuff. So yeah, we usually have lines around our booth, but it's just people there to just have fun, which is really the goal with a pinball company.
    36:55
    By the way, I say we, I got called out for this a lot. I say we a lot when I'm talking about any pinball manufacturer, but it's the royal we, right? When I say we, I'm talking about my audience. I'm talking about the people I'm working with. I'm an independent contractor, but it is a freaking meme that I'm like a full-time employee at every one of these dang companies. Hey, that's a good meme to have. I rather be the bro for all the pinball companies as opposed to the villain. So absolutely. And I have I mean, I also do have Stern business cards, but they say the senior director of drinking, trolling and meme development. So I'm pretty sure that's not a real job at Stern. But that is awesome. Yes. I'm more the king of sarcasm. But other than that. okay i gotta ask whenever you're in chat i know that when people subscribe or they they do bits or no it's mainly with subscribing sorry you do the flips or flippers and butts where did that even come from so uh i it is weird yes i will also admit like when new people come in they're like what the heck is this dude talking about you know flippers and butts um when we first got partnered, we got a flipper emote. So it used to be just flippers up, right? Um, flippers up, flippers up. And, uh, then Stern dropped off a new WWE machine. When it first came out, we unboxed it. We sort of revealed it in my studio. And, um, during the stream, we unlocked a new emote slot from people subscribing. And, um, there was, uh, an extra ball animation on wwe if you ever play that game and get the extra ball it's two butts that fly in from either side of the dmd and collide with each other so these two butts come in they smack each other then they fly away and it says extra ball and i was like that's it like we need a butt emote um but because we only had two emotes at the time uh whenever someone would subscribe i'd be like hey flippers up but because we had two people are like just posting whatever they want so i just made it a thing like yeah flippers or butts or flippers butts what you know so it wasn't always flippers and butts it was just or but it just sort of a you know turned into that and now that we have like i don't know like freaking 30 emotes it's just we stick to those two it's a nice little inside joke for the people that have been around forever that is awesome i never knew that yeah something good came from wwe i did i i need to play that game again because i feel like that game gets a bad rap but also every time i play it i'm like maybe i see why just this game gets a bad rap just contact raymond davidson i think he's won like 10 of them oh he has yeah he has like a couple in a box or in boxes somewhere right like sitting in seattle or something yeah well i think eventually because he would he would win all the tournaments and usually it was a hey pick a stern of your choice and then finally they said here you got wwe pick a wwe of your choice exactly oh yeah i know sorry it's you know that's the problem everybody wants to have a hit every time but sometimes you kind of uh ground out so yeah i i can't even find one of those around i i don't even know where i would begin to go find a wwe to even give it like another chance yeah i think that's kind of uh that's kind of moved for obvious reasons to the back parlors of pinball history fair enough you should just come to vernal we have one here weirdly enough so oh bring the kids for the dinosaurs and we'll go play some wwe man you got all them dinos up there dude i did i think the last time i streamed wwe was there was like an outdoor festival that invited me to come stream pinball like outdoors and it was a nightmare to do because of glare and sound and everything and we found a scoring bug in that game and I essentially broke the machine scoring on it and that's when I finally had my first conversation with Wason who was the programmer on the game and he just sent me a laundry list of everything that was like bugs he found and I was like cool dude I'm sure we're all waiting for that code update. It's totally coming. totally coming i love wasting to death man he is the coolest cat over at cern he is pretty cool well and i see him often on the when you guys do the reveal streams it always seems like waste and pops in oh yeah he he very good at um keeping the conversation going he very uh knowledgeable about what going on in the game uh code wise geometry whatever uh he could just look over know like where we at and fill chat in on what going on in the game code geometry whatever He can just look over and know where we at and fill chat in on what going on So it's nice to have him around.
    41:42
    That's the crazy thing. Anytime you're streaming, when you have the commentators on there, when you have someone who knows the in-depth analysis of the rules, it makes such a difference because they will say, well, he or she should go for this shot, or they should do this because that would do this. And it opens up a complete new realm for me because I'm not a rules guy. I know enough to be dangerous, but nothing really to be a tournament-level guy where he's like, well, I really want to hit these shots because it'll give me the most points. So it's really interesting to find that.
    42:19
    During those reveal streams, my brain is on hoping the broadcast is going well versus like listening to what rules are being, you know, spewed into my ear. So when I'm flipping, I'm just flipping. And if it looks like I know what I'm doing, then that's complete happenstance. Like I'm just doing my thing. If someone says shoot here, then I'll shoot it. But if they're like, hey, Jack, going into this ball, make sure you shoot this three times and spin this, and that's going to unlock that. And then go over here and be like, I'm just going to flip the ball and make the game look good. So that's what's going to happen. One of my favorite moments is when you were streaming Deadpool and you're blowing up the game. And wasn't it Gomez that walked over and said, hey, you need to train the ball or something. We got to get this.
    43:05
    Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, man, it's been fun doing the reveal streams for them over the years because we now have strategic hand gestures and words we'll say if we need to stop doing something. but it's been a learning process moving up to this. Well, especially with this year with COVID. I mean, how much different has it been having to go over those hurdles with Stern?
    43:34
    So COVID has, it's been interesting because usually I see all these games like being developed from idea to finish.
    43:46
    And Avengers was the first pinball machine out of Stern in a very long time that I didn't see. I saw Keith put the Avengers Tower and maybe the captive ball on a whitewood. And then that's the last time I saw the game before the production game came out.
    44:02
    But yeah, it's been wild. But like going back there now, it feels like nothing's changed. There is like masks and hand sanitizer and clear plastic barriers literally everywhere. So it looks like you're walking around like a creepy abandoned hospital with just like how much plastic is just everywhere.
    44:26
    But, you know, they're still cranking away. So we're back to where we were. But for that period of time, it was pretty wild being all remote, having to have meetings over the computers and stuff like that. so with the challenges of having um basically any licensing products or such as you know you're talking about uh streaming rick and morty um i we've talked about this before you have helped develop this direct capture things for streamers and how is that going to affect things if you're going to be well one we can talk about the card we want to know more about that and two we want to talk about how is that going to limit your ability to stream if they're going to slap a shut it down every time you do something that's licensed well that in there is the reason it is not ready um so it it does its capturing it like when i built my prototype of this thing years ago um it approached capturing different than what the cards are doing now that we've developed with turn. But what that card is doing is it's, it's pulling essentially copyrighted material off of the game for you to broadcast somewhere else, which is the same problem we're having with the audio or like Rick and Morty with DMCA cracking down on you. So like it's not in the license that, you know, Joe Schmo can take the video off of this game and broadcast it somewhere, you know? Um, same with the audio licenses and stuff. So, uh, all this DMCA stuff is causing a real big headache for everything. And it's, uh, like it's a law from like fricking mid nineties, you know, before internet was even really a big thing. Yeah. So we're, we're just, um, we're all sort of sitting on our hands waiting for new laws to come out or for this to be fixed somehow. Amazon's got to hopefully help Twitch figure this out. YouTube, Facebook, everyone's getting hit with it. Twitch is just getting hit with it the hardest right now. But that's the hurdle with the card right now. Putting that in the public's hands is essentially giving them a way to get themselves in trouble. How do they feel about 8-tracks? Are they still going to allow those?
    46:53
    Good old 8-tracks. Well, do you think that – I know DMCA has been really hard on you as of lately and a lot of people in general.
    47:03
    Do you think there could be some sort of like – because obviously Stern has – I know Stern has licensed from a different person, but it's a lot of their product. Do you think there could be like an official, hey, I'm an official Stern streamer or whatnot? Representative. Yeah. So I me personally, I have an out to fix any problems that I may have for the most part because I can lean on Stern to help me. But that doesn't help the community. That doesn't help everyone else. So I don't care to just do my thing and then put in the idea in people's heads that they can also do the same thing because I don't want people getting in trouble for that. So I'm trying to shout from the rafters, like, be careful. Here's ways to turn off the copyrighted music. Here's how, you know, blah, blah, blah, do all this stuff.
    47:57
    And the bots right now that are tracking the copyrighted music and the copyrighted video, they don't care if you have the rights to anything. You know, like musicians are playing their own music on Twitch and getting strikes. strikes so um the bots will go after anything and then you have to spend time appealing that and um it immediately shuts you down too it's not like there's a person it says no we're shutting you down you have to convince us to unshut you down absolutely um facebook will shut you down live like if you're streaming live and you're doing some copyrighted music nonsense your stream will end. They will shut you down. Twitch, at least for now, lets you just roll with the punches, but if you have that video being saved or some clips going on, then you're probably going to get in trouble.
    48:49
    YouTube, you can upload stuff, but you probably can't monetize the video or if it's, depending on what the copyright infringement is, you'll get a strike and or your video will just be blocked in all countries. Gotcha. Yeah. So it's, you know, we're, we're living in the wild west right now with all these like old laws trying to dictate what new stuff's going on. And in my mind, they have these smart bots that can recognize what you're playing, how long you're playing it, when you started playing it, who it's by, who the record label is. and instead of using those bots to like shut down the person that's playing the music use those bots to figure out how to get the artists paid you know like uh they're they're just using them right now to be jerks and something needs to be figured out the technology is there to uh make this a positive thing it's just not being used that way right now yeah it's the it's the easiest thing to shut it down as opposed to finding a way of utilizing the demand for it.
    49:54
    And that's typically how most lawyers work is they just shut things down if they don't immediately know how to monetize it. And the bottom line is lawyers, their job is not in PR. It's actually in litigation. And so that's the hammer they reach for as opposed to a promoter who will say, let's figure out a way of increasing the exposure. um yeah it's it is an interesting uh conundrum where it will lead you to only stream games up to a certain time like there will be a time where you're just completely shut off that you can't do anything modern because they'll just shut you down so i mean stars is great but i'm not sure i want to watch a three-hour stream on it yeah i mean and there's the the biggest laughable thing right now is like these streamers that have been on Twitch for like 10 years and they're huge and they get tens of thousands of people watching them. They're also like tweeting, like I'm, I'm choked up a little bit that I have to delete 10 years of content because DMCA is going to come take my channel away, you know? And it's, it's rough, man. Like I had someone tweet at me today. They're like, Hey dude, like I see you haven't been live in sometime. Are you coming back? And I'm like, no, I've been live every day. It's just I don't have VODs for you to go back and watch. So it's rough out here right now. It's really rough too because there's a lot of I mean, I go back and watch those occasionally. Like when I bought Jurassic Park Pro,
    51:24
    I was looking for tips on how to play the game and blow it up. And it's hard because that stuff doesn't exist anymore.
    51:32
    So right now I need to start recording all of my broadcasts local and thumbing through them and then upload them to YouTube. It's a whole extra job that I don't want to have to deal with just because, you know, I don't know. It's frustrating. What I don't understand is it is in the best interest of the video game manufacturers, the pinball manufacturers, like any of these people who are having all these streamers stream their content. I have three young kids, and they come to me all the time. Hey, Dad, download this game. What? What is it about? And this is how I found out about Among Us because my kids, they saw someone playing that, and they all immediately downloaded it on their content. So this is a way for the content manufacturers to – it's free advertising. And I don't understand why they are not invested in finding a way of actually distributing this. Hey, who cares if there's a spokesman that's getting something back for it as long as they can figure out how to sell more product? I mean, isn't that what a model is? You're paying a person to display a product because you're going to sell more of that product. The streamers, it's exactly the same thing. Like you may not be directly paying the person, but if you figure out a way to monetize it, then you're still going to get more revenue because they're going to buy more of your product or or get more exposure.
    53:10
    Yeah, no, I agree there. There's so many influential streamers and big names out there that are having an issue with this, that these platforms are going to have no choice but to figure this out. So I know it's going to get solved. It's just not happening soon enough. Well, and I know a couple of artists and whatnot, and the whole music war happened back in the 90s, they felt like.
    53:33
    They've had to recreate how to make money, and it's not just about their music anymore. That's why we're investing so much money – well, not this year, but money was being invested in these concerts and these big shows. And it's because they figured out that's where the money is at now.
    53:49
    Oh, yeah. It almost feels like they're shutting everything down for something that hasn't been an issue since, what, 2000s? Early 2000s? Yeah, exactly. Well, no, that's not necessarily true. These artists, they have basically reverted to giving their music away for free for exposure because Napster basically killed the ability to monetize selling your music. and I've actually been able to I have a few CDs I'm really waiting for the 8-track option from when I bought a concert ticket and they said, hey, this comes with a free CD and so you can download it, like they'll send it to you and I kind of laughed a little bit because you know what, you could just go on Amazon my music subscription service and I can get the album now but they're just, you know, hey here's the album, we're going to make money on our shows But we've kind of given up on trying to monetize and make it. So I do understand this, the Metallica argument. If you remember Metallica in the 90s where they went after Napster because Napster was not punishing these people for sharing their content. Right. But so I understand where the artists are coming from. But they have learned to work with it because the more their music is out there, the more they can actually get people to come to their shows. and they're charging way more than they ever used to for a concert ticket because there is a demand out there. Not in this Lifetime tour, when it came through town, I saw the ticket price, and even for an average to below average seat, it was like $250. Yeah, baby. Yeah, so there's a reason why it's a very lucrative concert. Now, I also understand that you can command that if you're Slash and Axl, but if you're um joe butts down the street who's just an indie artist it's kind of hard he goes by flippers but no it's a good point i mean that's why we're even starting to see vinyl come back right you can get a vinyl subscription and based off your playlists off of spotify or pandora they'll send you three you know three records or whatever it is each month for a price oh oh man this is Columbia House coming back. Oh, no. I'm pretty sure I owe Columbia House like $9 million in interest. No, actually, I paid for everything, but there were about like 20 people that lived in my apartment whose name was like some variation of Scott Larson. Oh. Because that's how you do it, right? You would sign up your friend and you would get four extra CDs, and then you get seven CDs, but you had to buy two of them. So I still actually sit next to my CD collection. It's in the corner. But, yeah, that was how it was in the 90s. I think I bought, like, it was like four CDs for a penny each or something, and then you had to, like, do something after that, and then I just vanished. Like, I'm like, I don't want any part of what's going on here. They're going to come after you. Yeah, come find Jack Danger.
    57:05
    Well, okay, that's actually, that is a completely relevant question because I think people were wondering, hey, you have the video capture card, what's the issue? And the issue is not the card at all. The issue is the licensing that allows you to broadcast what the card is doing. And so the card works. It's just figuring out ways of saying, hey, this is what's going on. Because that's a challenge. If you get the Avengers may have original stuff and you may be able to stream the Avengers, but what about the Guns N' Roses Not In This Lifetime game? Like, are you going to be able to stream any of that? And I guarantee Slash wants that out there streamed. But the Guns N' Roses lawyers are notoriously aggressive about shutting people down on YouTube for playing their content.
    57:55
    It's just like that story with Eric. You know, Eric was having a rough time getting Live or Let Die into the GNR pinball machine because it's a Paul McCartney song. and you know he fought it and fought it and slash is like oh i'll just get that taken care of and 15 minutes later they've got paul mccartney on the phone and he's like yeah it's yours you know and what took them weeks to get the licensing and we're still getting shut down it took slash 15 minutes so i'm surprised eric just didn't text paul i mean i had his number and we of course yeah we've all got paulie's number dude just give him a ring he and ringo and i just hang out all the time yeah streaming games like beatles now is um that's gonna that's that's a hard yikes for me right now possible there's no way yeah yeah which again is just so crazy that the i i guess i understand it to a point but it really is a manipulation of what the original intent of the law is i mean there's so many you could look at it so many different ways too like the license, I'm sure, for a pinball machine is so you can have it in the game. But obviously, you couldn't put that music into a loudspeaker and share it out to an entire bar because you need a license to broadcast music like that. But if the game's loud enough and someone at the bar can hear you, then you kind of are broadcasting in a way.
    59:22
    I don't know. It's wild times we live in right now. pretty goofy. Okay. So let's, let's talk about that. Uh, that's another thing we want to talk about in the short time you've been in the hobby. How has it changed from then until now?
    59:38
    Oh, the hobby. I'd say there's, there's, because there's more content creators, like building up all around us in pinball. I think it's helping get it out more to the public. When I first got in, pinball still felt very like in internal, like we were still sort of like a club. But pinball now I feel is humongous.
    60:01
    Humongous is a relative term, obviously, but it's a lot bigger than it was. The shows are way larger than they used to be. I remember going to MGC like six or seven years ago and you're in this hotel shirtless drunk with a bunch of other dudes in a hallway.
    60:23
    So, yeah, I think the hobby has gotten larger and there's more voices now. Some good, some bad, but all of it's getting the content out there so that we can try to attract more people. And I only see this thing growing and growing. But again, yeah, it felt very small and still pretty niche back when I first got into this. Do you think that some of the themes and stuff have helped that too? Or do you think it's just kind of a collection and everything at this point?
    60:53
    So I think themes definitely help new people get into the hobby. But I think it's more, gosh, when I look at when a lot of people got into pinball, Like if you ask a lot of people that are like sort of faces in this hobby, they'll say they got into pinball like six or seven years ago. Like a lot of people will say that they're like, yeah, I played like virtual pinball. And then, oh, I found real pinball machines. Oh, you could buy pinball machines. There was just something that clicked at the right time back then that got all these people in there. And I don't think theme mattered so much to these folks that were like discovering real pinball. It was just the fact that there was real pinball machines you could play. based on like this video game you were playing.
    61:40
    But now that we have things like Avengers or Star Wars, we get to take these things to Comic-Con where these fans are and they get to go, man, I really love Deadpool. Oh, what's this giant box of lights that I can go, you know, look at that has Deadpool all over it. And you get to interact with your favorite IP or whatever.
    62:02
    Yeah. I think it's a whole calculation of a bunch of different things that are going on right now, but all of it seems to be working. Awesome.
    62:11
    You know, I actually did find, I was going to bring this back up when you talked about hitting the left ramp. So we were talking with a group of people about Avengers and some people were talking about their rejection on the Captain Marvel shot And I have seen some of that on my game but not nearly the amount that some people were talking about it But I also feel that these people are better pinball players than me. I guess I'll put it that way. And I think that they have the game jacked up too much. I think they have it too steep. The pitch too high in the back, yeah. So I actually feel like my game plays better at closer to what the recommended settings are. And with Turtles, I actually just lowered the pitch on my Turtles a little bit because the reason why I was asking about the left ramp versus that center ramp from the upper flipper, that center ramp was impossible for me to hit. I lowered it just a little bit, and I can hit it now.
    63:12
    Oh, dang. And so I think that it really, you need to pay a lot more attention on the pitch of the game to see what is the recommended thing. I actually emailed Dwight about it. I said, hey, what do you do to dial in the game?
    63:27
    And Dwight said, you know, actually, I don't do much to dial it in because I just make sure it's set up, make sure it's level, make sure it's six and a half. And it clicked in the back of my mind that, oh, maybe my game's too steep. maybe that's the reason why some of these shots are nearly impossible because the velocity of the ball is different than how they designed it. Yeah. I think that was a big problem with people with Deadpool. Also, it was like they were shooting that shot and it wasn't going up the ramp. They're like, what the heck's going on? Well, you got to pay attention to where your pitch is. Pitch was something I never even bothered to think about and kind of still don't. I like my back legs all the way up and I like my front legs all the way down and I'll play a game. and if something's not feeling right, I'll slowly come down in the back. But I've never in the history of pinball pulled out something that could tell me that my pitch is at 6.5. I just play by feel and just make it go from there. I even have a hard time trying to find something that will tell me pitch from left to right. I got up the Jurassic Park, and I had a level out and was testing all that stuff. And I'm like, my left side needs to come up, and so I did. And all of a sudden, my ball is just floating to the right. I'm like, this makes no sense, you know? Okay, so there is an app on your phone. I'll just shout it out to the audience. Oh, the Pee Guy. The Pee Guy, yeah. So you take off the glass, you lay it on your play field, and you can even turn on the sound, and it will say, hey, raise right back. And so it actually helps you level it side to side and up and down. And then after you do that, you put the glass on, and you say, learn glass. and after that because you know if you're banging the machine around it'll change a little bit and so you can actually just throw your phone on there and say this is the machine and it'll tell you how it's supposed to be and and how to fix it so totally make sure your phone is not in its case yes no well my also if you're one of those i have like a pop socket on the back of my phone so i gotta like that's why i don't use it i'm like i don't want to go through this to pull my damn phone out because I move a pinball machine every single day into place under, under my rig, just so I have the same background. So every day at like four 30, I'm getting a cart. I'm lifting up a pinball machine. I'm moving it over, dropping it down, pushing it in there, make sure it's left to right. Good. Um, and I, I'm, I'm adjusting that thing on the fly as I'm streaming. I'm like, well, it looks like it's leaning left. So I'll just get under the game and adjust it. But I don't, I don't mess with taking my phone out of that case I got. Yeah. But it is an option, though, so you don't have to pull it because otherwise you would have to have at least two people to pull out the old Bob the Builder level.
    66:16
    True. Yeah. PinGuy app, fully endorsed. It's amazing. It really is super good. PinGuy app. All right. I'll write that down.
    66:26
    I don't know if I've even seen that. Is that even on the Google Store or anything like that? I don't know. I have Apple. I apparently I'm that guy who just doesn't know how to figure out Android. All the Android fanboys, they're like, you still use Apple. I cannot believe how stupid you are. Yeah, I'm I'm an iPhone kid, too. Yeah, I just I just don't have the time to figure out how to do all the other stuff, nor do I really care. That's the bottom line. I don't really care. I mean, I I still do animation from time to time and my whole setup at home and at work is mostly Apple products. So having that interconnectivity between my phone and everything else, like if I get a text on my phone and I had left it at home, I can still do everything I need to here on my computer with it. I can text. I can do all that crap. You left your phone somewhere. Can you do that nowadays?
    67:14
    I mean, it is what it is. I got two small kids. They like to take that thing and shove it wherever I can't reach. All they want to do is seriously. I'm not kidding. At seven o'clock, I can count on it. My kids come in and it's like, hey, Dad, can you unlock your phone?
    67:32
    That's it. No. It's not, hey, Dad, I love you. It's like, hey, can you unlock this? Because I want to know. No, you actually have to get your school clothes on first. And they come in like 7.02. Okay, I'm ready. Can you unlock your phone? You're lucky it's an older phone because my kid just holds it up to my face and then walks away. Okay, that's probably where it's going. Yeah, exactly. That's crazy. Dad, look at this. Yeah. Oh, man. yeah no but it's yeah i i just uh i i haven't figured out how to well okay our problem too when you buy a windows product and i know windows is a good operating system all that but it comes with so many craplets on there that are pre-installed that all this junk i don't need and then it just feels like after two years you can barely use the machine because it's so bogged down and i i basically got tired of that that was why that was when i gave up on using uh Windows products was having those type of problems.
    68:30
    I feel you. Dude, McAfee, it's a virus itself. Yes. Totally not kidding. I was at work today, and I was trying to leave. I had been up all night.
    68:41
    So it's a Windows-based system there, and I couldn't open the program to chart on a patient. And I had a call in, and when I hit open, it said – I'm not kidding. is that McAfee has detected that this program may not be approved. I'm like, it's your program. Oh, my gosh. I've had two hours of sleep. Let me go home.
    69:04
    It's the DMCA of Windows products. It's the word. You know, you talked about turning this into a job, but you kind of grazed over a little bit. Why don't you tell us a little more about that? So turning a hobby into a job is, people say, if you do what you love as work, you'll never work a day in your life. And I agree to that sentiment a lot. But there are days where I come in and I'm surrounded by pinball machines. And the last thing I want to do is play pinball. Because I know that I'm going to be playing for three to four hours that night. And I've been playing three to four hours of pinball Monday through Friday for the past six years. And I love it to death. But there's just some days where you come in, you're like, I just don't know. I'm just going to sit at my computer and watch cat videos until it's time to stream. And then then we'll have a good time.
    70:03
    And that's pretty much what Keith said when we talked about him joining Stern is he said, you know, when I'm done with work, I kind of want to do something else. And it's not affecting his love of the machine, of the games, but it's still more of how do I spend my valuable non-work time? Absolutely. Burnout is an actual real thing. It super is. And you just got to monitor that closely and go play World of Warcraft mindlessly for a few hours to come back to pinball with some fresh eyes. I know you said that you like Pokemon and whatnot. Do you play Pokemon Go or are you more of like the I've got to play the main series kind of person?
    70:47
    I play. So I think everyone played Pokemon Go at some point when when that first dropped. That was like a worldwide phenomenon. I remember being out in the middle of this field not too far from my house.
    71:02
    There were there's no reason for me to be there ever, period. I probably looked like a lunatic if it wasn't for Pokemon Go because everyone was playing it. But I'm in this field. And this like very young lady, she must have been like 12, is like, I'm in the middle of a field. And here comes this kid. And it must have been like 11, 12 o'clock at night or like 11 at night. And I'm holding my phone and I see this kid coming to me. I'm like, what the frick's going on? And this girl's like, are you looking for the freaking Pidgey that's over here? I'm like, yeah. She's like, it's over there by that tree. And I'm like, are you a ghost? am I going to die? What is happening? I'm like, you shouldn't be out this late. I walked over there. There was the Pokemon I was looking for.
    71:48
    Something like that will never happen again. I think the world had this weird come together moment because of Pokemon Go. I don't play it too much anymore just because I don't have a whole lot of free time anymore.
    72:02
    If I'm playing any games right now, it's something that I can just hop in, play really quick, don't care about consequences and jump out. I've been playing like modern warfare. Nice. I suck at video games, but it'll spend like five minutes loading in the game. Then the second I'm in the game, someone shoots me and then I get frustrated and close it. So that's my video game experience in a nutshell. I tend to play the Pac-Man on the Apple Arcade. That's what I do. Oh, there you go. So I do find it also very entertaining to play the there's no Internet connection. dinosaur jumping game in Chrome when your internet's down. Okay. Really? Have you played that? No.
    72:44
    So if your internet's ever down, open up a Chrome window and it'll be a dinosaur there. It'd be like, hey, you don't have an internet connection. If you hit the space bar, it turns into a side-scrolling game where you're jumping over stuff as that dinosaur. Oh my gosh. And you're like ducking birds and stuff. It's pretty wild. I'm going to disconnect my internet right now. Do it.
    73:02
    That sounds like the video mode on Medieval Madness with like the pitchfork guys. Like stabbing the vultures, stealing the babies? 100% what it is. 100%. Or I think there's a Doctor Who video mode that's just like that. Wow.
    73:17
    Circus Voltaire, I think, is like that as well. Side-scrolling. That's all you can do with those long freaking DMDs. When Circus Voltaire is not connected to the internet.
    73:29
    Oh. Sad. I'm sure all pinball machines will be on the internet here soon enough. You know, I still need to update my Wizard of Oz. I'm not kidding. I think it still has the same code on it from four years ago. Oh, whoa. Yeah. Dang. Okay.
    73:46
    Yeah, man, I need to get my hands on a Woz. I haven't played one in ages. I keep trying to get Keith Johnson to put an Easter egg in that game for me. I'm like, dog, look at the stuff that I did on this game. I want something.
    73:59
    I mean, Dwight Sullivan gave me Easter eggs in all the games that he's produced in, like, the last however many years. Yeah, he gave us an Easter egg in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Oh, heck yeah.
    74:10
    The old flipper code, heck yes. Yeah, bud. LKP, if you want to check it out. Really? Huh. You get to play as Shredder, and you're supposed to be attacking the turtles.
    74:24
    Wait. It's a wizard mode. Oh, I wish. I remember asking, before Dwight was putting Easter eggs in, I was bugging him and bugging him and he put it in Ghostbusters for me first and then later went back and put it in GOT, if I'm not mistaken. But I I really wanted an Easter egg or a flipper code that gave me a free credit. And he's like, if that ever got out. Yeah, no, no, no, no.
    74:51
    Like, yeah, you're right. I just want to have to play the villain in the games like an X-Men. I want to play as Magneto in The Walking Dead. I want to play as the zombie. I want to play as Shredder I want to play as the dinosaur in Jurassic Park and I want to play as Thanos that's pretty much what I want to do alright Stern you heard it, get on it we need alternate code versions yeah just kind of work that in, just in your spare time and when you're making your 5000 games so on backorder yep, man that right there is a testament to the popularity of pinball right now, is how backordered Stern is right now it is crazy backordered like yeah yeah what we're like in february march somewhere around there and it didn't wasn't it was it on the uh virtual tour i can't remember what was said but they said that like 5 000 units behind or something like that it's crazy yeah that is it's a pretty astronomical number because 5 000 pinball machines is a lot of heck in pinball machines how much can they make a day that you know what i've i've even given tours and stuff i don't retain that information more than five i had less than a thousand sure a day i i don't i have no idea yeah 50 100 i i really don't know yeah well it makes sense if let's just let's just throw out a number let's say 50 games and so that would be you know take 20 days to do a thousand and so that would basically be about 100 days, which sounds about like putting us to August or to March. So that sounds probably about right. Man, that's wild. Heck yeah. All the pinballs. Meanwhile, they keep coming out with new games, so they have to work that back order in around all the new titles that come out. Yeah. Can I get a hallelujah for all the great pinball machines that are coming out? Think about the 2000s, and it was basically a turd factory for most of the decade. except for like four games. And now we have four games a year that are solid and amazing. And you basically have to start looking around your collection saying, okay, what am I going to sell to get the new game? That's true. It's wild that Stern has their four cornerstones, but then they're also like, yeah, we'll do contract games with people. We'll do studio games, you know, we'll sneak an Elvira or a Batman in there somewhere on top of all the other games we're already making. Yeah. No, it's crazy. Yeah. very much. Well, we're coming up on the hour and a half. I sadly, I've got to start getting, I got to wrap this up so I can get my butt back to work. But, uh,
    77:29
    you got to wrap this up cause you're going to be streaming for three hours. Woo. Oh, Josh is quitting his job. So he's good. Quit your job, become a full-time streamer and, uh, you know, then go get your job back. That sounds like a good, what? Two year plan. Yeah. But that was, I mean, my wife let me try that, but thankfully I had a very successful animation business that built up a little Easter egg or not Easter egg nest egg. I could lean on a little bit to try to make it work.
    78:05
    It, it also helped that we sort of like, we're one of the first ones to do this. So yeah, pinball internet, stream it, do it. We need, we need that category on Twitch to be just booming at all times. Well, if you want to stream, too, and you don't know where to start, go to Dead Flip's web page, and he's got a whole section there to tell you what you want, you know, from beginning people to expert people and what equipment you need and whatnot. It's pretty straightforward, so it's pretty awesome.
    78:37
    Yeah, I created that because I was sort of getting tired of answering that question on stream all the time.
    78:43
    I was like, what cameras do you use? What microphones? What do you do? Blah, blah, blah. And I even gave like at the bottom, you could see different ways that you set it up. And financially, like if you don't have a lot of cash, here's how you can do it with literally one camera.
    78:56
    And yeah, so yeah, go check it out. All right, Jack, if they want to get a hold of you, how can they get a hold of you?
    79:03
    Just type in deadflip into the Googles. I'm literally deadflip on all social medias. So you'll find me somewhere. Please say hi. All right. And if they want to watch your stream, how can they get it? Don't do it. Okay. Don't go to twitch.tv forward slash dead flip. Hit that follow button and I'll try to make out with you later. Wow. Interesting. OK, well, we're certainly going to send you a hat and some swag for your time. And so maybe we'll see one of our hats show up on the dead flip stream in the future. You know what? I have I have your hat here somewhere. I've worn it plenty of times but I think it's now buried under a bunch of pinball parts around here somewhere I'll have to see where that is It's been a while Do you have a beanie? We'll get you a beanie this time Sounds good We'll get you taken care of Rock and roll You remember when I tried to send you the hat and the hassle that was because of the PO box and all that crap too Nothing's ever easy You have to roll it up into some PEZ dispenser tube or something. You just can't. Unless you're using the post office, you can't send stuff to a PO box. Really?
    80:22
    I think Amazon's an exception. But if you're like, I'm going to use UPS to send this cool thing to Jackson. Oh, yeah. UPS thing. Heck no. Oh, that's great. All right. Well, if you want to find us, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We are at Gmail. It's literally just LoserKidPinballPodcast at gmail.com. If you want to find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, we're at LoserKidPinball. We kind of truncated it to make it a little easier for everyone.
    80:48
    Honestly, the easiest way to get a hold of us is through Facebook. Scott and I are both on there. So if you want to hit us up, don't be afraid to send us a message or just to leave a comment. Guys, thanks so much for having me. For sure. And you know what? Best wishes on that next Twippy. We know that you need some more gear for your homebrews you're going to be doing. So listen, we got a lot of really, really cool stuff planned coming out. So just frickin wait. Awesome. Come on. You can't just leave it like that. Yeah. Give us a little something. A little something.
    81:20
    OK. So one of the things we're working on with George Gomez is essentially him and I are going to walk you through how to build a pinball machine the way George Gomez would build a pinball machine from idea to essentially completion. Love it. That's cool. so you're going to see how he likes to approach a layout uh how he likes to approach ramps how he likes to approach whatever and just going to be little piecemeal things here and there and then you could take that information and run with it awesome just in his spare time when he's not directing stern i'll tell you what we yeah yeah it's it's definitely a dance trying to make anything happen that's not the main focus of like building the pinballs um but we're we're going to make it happen. Awesome. Love it. I think that's a great note to end it on. So, uh, thanks again, Jack. We appreciate you coming on. My pleasure. My pleasure.
    82:34
    and sit down. Bye.