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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 6: Tom Gets A New Roommate

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 1m·analyzed·Sep 2, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Stern's Insider Connected launch sparks debate; Ritchie moves to JJP; Lyman Sheets exits amid industry shifts.

Summary

Triple Drain Podcast discusses Steve Ritchie move from Stern to Jersey Jack Pinball, the departure of coder Lyman Sheets (rumored to Chicago Gaming), and Stern's new Insider Connected achievement-based system that gives home owners only half XP compared to location operators. Hosts debate design philosophy, competitive hiring implications, and concerns about the XP verification system disadvantaging home collectors.

Key Claims

  • Steve Ritchie moved from Stern to Jersey Jack Pinball

    high confidence · Hosts open episode acknowledging they missed this major news in previous episode; discussed as confirmed fact

  • Stern coder Lyman Sheets has left the company

    high confidence · Hosts discuss his departure, initially unsure of timing but confirm he's gone; attributed to Sheets working on Elvira previously

  • Lyman Sheets is rumored to be at Chicago Gaming Company

    medium confidence · Tom states: 'That's the rumor that he's at Chicago Gaming. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's the rumor on the street.'

  • A Steve Ritchie game at Jersey Jack won't arrive for at least 2 years

    high confidence · Joel estimates minimum 1.5 years development plus potential hiring delays; hosts agree 'at least two years out'

  • Steve Ritchie's typical Stern game takes 15 months to develop

    high confidence · Joel cites Ritchie's own admission in a podcast; now facing 1.5-2 year minimum at JJP

  • Stern's Insider Connected gives home owners only 50% XP compared to location operators

    high confidence · Travis: 'if you are a home operator...you can't be verified with your score. So now all of a sudden you're only getting half the XP'

  • Lyman Sheets' last Stern game as coder was Walking Dead in 2014

    medium confidence · Tom: 'I think his last Cornerstone game was, what, Walking Dead, I think, in 2014.' Joel agrees but notes Sheets later did Batman 66 and Elvira

  • Keith Elwin is expected to be Stern's next designer-led game

    medium confidence · Tom: 'Keith Elwin is supposed to be the next game. And then after that, John Borg, right? Allegedly.'

Notable Quotes

  • “He maybe thought that his games were underperforming and maybe stuff was taken out of him and feels like he needed a change and feels like Jersey Jack's the answer”

    Tom Graff @ early episode — Analysis of Ritchie's motivation for leaving Stern; suggests creative frustration

  • “I only got a few more years of making pit bull machines, and I want to go out big”

    Tom Graff @ mid-episode — Tom's speculation on Ritchie's career motivation and urgency

  • “The handcuffs are off. You know, I can do whatever I want.”

    Referenced Steve Ritchie quote @ discussed mid-episode — Ritchie's statement about creative freedom at Jersey Jack vs Stern constraints

  • “I'm paying for this, yet I can't even maximize the one thing that I'm drawn to the most about it. Like I don't get all the benefit out of that.”

    Travis Murray @ late episode on Insider Connected — Home collector critique of achievement system penalizing non-location players

  • “This product is just geared to getting people to go to a location. That's by far what's going on here.”

    Joel @ discussion of Insider Connected strategy — Core analysis of Stern's business intent with verification system

  • “If you're going to say verified and location-only achievements, I think that would have worked out a lot better than just saying, oh, you only get half of the XP for doing it at home.”

    Travis Murray @ Insider Connected critique — Specific alternative design proposal from home collector perspective

  • “Stern has so many different games in their stable that pretty much I think as long as they get pinball minds in there and everybody's bouncing ideas off each other, I think it'll be okay.”

    Joel @ Lyman Sheets departure discussion — Assessment of Stern's organizational resilience despite key departures

  • “I haven't drank enough beer, Joel. Perfect. You haven't drank enough of Tom's beer?”

Entities

Steve RitchiepersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyLyman SheetspersonChicago Gaming CompanycompanyJoelpersonTom GraffpersonTravis Murrayperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Industry-wide lack of young pinball designers threatens long-term manufacturer sustainability

    high · Joel: 'there's really nobody young that designs pinball...only two people I can think of besides Eric and Scott Denise...three under 40 years old...the whole entire industry'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Home collectors frustrated with Insider Connected's verification system penalizing unverified home scores

    high · Travis expresses OCD concerns about half-XP penalty; proposes location-only achievement bonuses as alternative

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Stern's Insider Connected explicitly designed to incentivize location play over home ownership

    high · Travis: 'This product is just geared to getting people to go to a location.' Half XP for home, full for location.

  • ?

    community_signal: Christopher Franchi (implied context from KB) not directly mentioned but design team disruption suggests broader Stern restructuring

    low · Indirect evidence from Dwight/Borg pairing changes and designer pipeline uncertainty

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Lyman Sheets departs Stern Pinball

    high · Tom: 'Lyman has been gone.' Hosts confirm departure though initially unclear on timing

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Steve Ritchie (legendary Stern designer) transitions to Jersey Jack Pinball

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.366

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. All right, Travis, you ready? Yep. Tom, you ready? Oh, yeah. All right, here we go.
0:21
We, we, we're three guys who like to talk pinball. So we came up with a class by name. We're Joey's and Sam's Club. And we call on ourselves. Triple drink.
0:45
It's the intro song, guys. How are you already breaking up? We're looking at the notes. Or at least I am, and I misread it. It says Deep Root. Oh, yeah. I thought it said dipshit, Joel. Yeah. Tom put together the notes, so I know what Tom was trying to write.
1:06
Yeah. To all the listeners, you probably think this is all just topsy-turvy. You know, this is very structured, very planned out. We've got, I don't know, 20 words that are counting as our entire structure for this. Yeah, we did so great. Yeah. So good. Well, we did so great last time, Joel and Tom, that we literally forgot that Steve Ritchie moved from Stern to Jody Jack. Yeah, what was it, an hour and a half, two-hour podcast, and somehow we missed essentially the biggest news item? We didn't feel like it was newsworthy. But we talked about that before we even went live. When we got done, we were like, wait, did we even talk about that? It was a long episode. Yeah, yeah, it was, but that's all right. Well, yeah, this was unplanned. Tonight was not. We weren't actually planned to record tonight because Travis and Tom are together. They're actually together. They played in a tournament this weekend that we'll get into. But, Travis, you were supposed to fly home tonight. That's why it wasn't going to happen. So you're supposed to be on an airplane right now, and clearly you are not. You're sitting next to the one, the only Tom Graff. You guys are in the same room. Yes, we are, which is great for Tom because now on his little voice thing, It's going to go up and down a lot now. Perfect.

Tom Graff / Joel @ early episode — Running joke about Tom hosting; establishes casual tone and in-person dynamic

Keith Elwin
person
John Borgperson
Pat Lawlorperson
George Gomezperson
Tanyaperson
Dwightperson
Ericperson
Tim Sextonperson
Raymond Davidsonperson
Insider Connectedproduct
Toy Storygame
Guns N' Rosesgame
Walking Deadgame
Batman 66game
Elviragame
Mandaloriangame
Score Bitproduct

high · Hosts confirm as major news they missed; discussed in detail as confirmed transition

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Designer-coder pairing disruptions due to Ritchie and Sheets departures

    high · Joel discusses Tim Sexton/Raymond Davidson needing new coding partners; Dwight's reassignment affects future game pairings

  • ?

    announcement: Stern officially announces Insider Connected achievement and XP system for pinball games

    high · George Gomez video presentation; teaser and detailed announcement occurred this week

  • ?

    product_strategy: Steve Ritchie game at Jersey Jack delayed minimum 1.5-2 years due to development time and potential hiring

    high · Joel: 'minimum year and a half' plus JJP production backlog; 'at least two years out'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: John Borg expected to follow Keith Elwin in Stern design rotation

    medium · Tom: 'Keith Elwin is supposed to be the next game. And then after that, John Borg, right? Allegedly.' Marked as speculation.

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Lyman Sheets rumored to have joined Chicago Gaming Company

    medium · Tom: 'That's the rumor that he's at Chicago Gaming. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's the rumor on the street.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern positioning Insider Connected to drive location operator adoption and revenue

    high · Discussion of operator advantages (full XP, verification), location-only rewards, potential future fee structure

    • 2:22
    Nobody could say I didn't talk in this episode. Yeah, and let's say, you know, listen. But, Travis, what happened? You were supposed to fly home. Oh, boy. Tom, that soundboarded me.
    2:37
    You were supposed to fly home, and you're not. Everybody loves airplane stories. I know they do. Well, basically, I just got notice about an hour or an hour and a half before we were going to go to the airport that, hey, your flight has been delayed due to weather. An hour. So that went over my connecting flight. The issue is there wasn't a thunderstorm cloud in the sky, so I have no clue what they were talking about. But apparently it was just so congested at the airport that flights coming in were delayed, but yet flights going out weren't delayed. So the paradox was my ass was going to have to run across Chicago O'Hare at the speed of Usain Bolt.
    3:19
    I had seven minutes to get across the airport. So I told him this wasn't going to work. So I had to find a new flight with United. And lo and behold, they wanted me to pay extra money to switch my flight at first. And their first offer was literally the exact same flights I was scheduled to be on.
    3:40
    And they wanted to charge me an extra $350 to make that change. That's pretty classy. To change it to the flight you were already scheduled on. Yes. Brilliant. Yeah, that's what I said. I just stopped the operator for a moment, and I was like, look, I'm already on this flight, and you're telling me right now because I made this phone call you're going to switch me to my own flight and charge me $350 for it. You're welcome. Yeah, it was like putting down a deposit for a Raza. Oh, boy.
    4:13
    Yeah. Well, I'm glad, to be honest, I'm glad you aren't traveling. I mean, I'm glad we get to record tonight. Did you, I mean, I'm assuming you're flying out tomorrow. Did you get a new flight? Did you have a date for it? No, I did not. Nope. I let them know. Yeah, thank you. I let them know right quick. It was not my fault. It's their fault. Yeah. And, you know, I'm sure they've never had a passenger ever stand up to them before. Never. Yeah, it was something new. So they're like, oh, okay. This guy means business. And Hotel Graf hadn't already, you know, cleaned up your room and changed seats and everything. He actually did.
    4:48
    I put Travis's bag, I packed his bags. Yeah. I had him ready to go. I'm like, come on, Travis, let's go to the airport. And then all of a sudden he's like, oh, can't leave. Yep. Can't miss you until you're gone, right? Shit. Yeah. So now I'm just, I'm here surrounded by a bunch of pinball machines again. Yeah. And I saw you post you're trying to GC all of his games. Have you successfully done any yet?
    5:12
    No. No? Okay. Well, we had technically Game of Thrones. Technically Game of Thrones, yeah. But that was because we did a factory restart. Yeah. It was only like $1.8 billion or something like that on a premium. Yeah. Tom will beat that within a week. Oh, yeah. But if Joel tried it, it would probably be like a couple of months.
    5:30
    Yeah, I was about to say that's fair. That's fair. I was about to say that's fair. But I've been called out on Pinside. There's one of the guys that a drinking game should be every time I say that's fair and then like double shots if I say friends and family. So apparently those are my go-to phrases. So I've got to be aware of that. Why do you think we've got beers in our hands right now? Oh, yeah. You ready to drink? We're doing the Joel drinking game. Sounds like a good old time.
    5:59
    So why don't we just start off then with the news that we missed. I know this is essentially old news at this point, but maybe it's worth just sharing our quick thoughts. Steve Ritchie going from Stern to JJP. Tom, I want that hot take. What do you got for me? I think obviously Steve wasn't happy at Stern. He maybe thought that his games were underperforming and maybe stuff was taken out of him and feels like he needed a change and feels like Jersey Jack's the answer as far as getting what he wants in the games. But what do you think? That's a summary of what Steve Ritchie thinks. What does Tom Cratt think? I don't care. Okay. I'll probably end up buying it anyways. Well, realistically, the win, I mean, right? If the rumors are true, Toy Story is next, and that is supposed to be any time, right? But the reality is they're so backed up with Guns N' Roses.
    7:05
    It depends on Jersey Jack's production, and they've been known to be kind of slow on that. So I can't see Steve Ritchie pinned for at least a couple years. I'm sure, obviously, Pat Lawler's game would be next. I'm sure Eric has something, unless Steve has been working on anything. Well, he did say in a podcast, and I'm sorry, I'm purposely not crediting the podcast. I listen to it. This has been covered by a lot of different people. Right. But he said he had two Whitewoods. He had two Whitewoods that he obviously designed on Stern's time. So Stern has those. Right. Now, whether or not they use them or anything comes out with those in the future, I don't know. But he had mentioned that. So I don't think – I would assume he's starting over. I think he's starting over from scratch. I mean, he said, like, the handcuffs are off. You know, I can do whatever I want. But he's also admitted a normal Stern game for him, I think, is 15 months. So even if AJP's like, give us a game as soon as possible, minimum year and a half, you know, but that's, you know, that's not, I mean, we're looking at least two years out. At least. And who knows, you know, from the sounds of it, he probably doesn't have a team together. Yeah. So, you know, if Jersey Jack needs to hire people or whatnot, you know, that's something that's going to delay him getting a game out faster. Yeah, and it'll be interesting because he said he doesn't like, like he likes aggressive games. And I don't know if Stern was pitching at him, you know, kind of like kiddie type themes, kind of really, I don't know, wimpy themes. I forget exactly the word he used, but in one of the podcasts he said he's already looked at a list of licenses from JJP, and I don't know, maybe he's looking through that. That's got to be a cool feeling. Like, what do you want? Look through here, and hopefully you see something he likes, and clean start.
    9:01
    I don't know. I mean, I'm rooting for the guy. I hope he does well. I think whatever he does is going to be good, I mean, to be honest. What consists of an aggressive theme? Well, like look at – Like violence? Yeah, he wants a game. He wants a game that fights back, like Black Knight.
    9:19
    Now, Led Zeppelin, that's not aggressive, but, like, it's hard rock, like ACDC. I don't know. He wants harder. Maybe in his mind, Star Trek, the fact that the ship is kind of rocketing the ball back. I don't know. But he wants you to fight the pin, you know? Maybe he saw the last two Jersey Jack games coming out, which would be Wonka and Guns and Roses, and thought, this is the direction I want to go with my pins. So Wonka is an aggressive pin?
    9:50
    I think shot layout, I think it is. So that's what I don't understand. Is he talking about theme? I thought he was talking about theme being aggressive. I thought it was theme, too, because he likes those high-speed, he likes the chase themes, he likes the battle games, he likes that kind of stuff. What's the wimpy themes that Stern has come out with recently? Let's see. Mandalorian, Avengers, Led Zeppelin. All right. None of that's wimpy because Mandalorian. They've heard you. The Avengers. Turtles, maybe?
    10:21
    Is Turtles considered wimpy? Maybe a little bit. I mean, it's geared towards kids. Well, that cartoon is, but it originated with a dark comic book that was hard. Yeah, but the actual game is not like that. All right, so what's the wimpiest theme that Stern has done? My little pony. That Stern has done? I don't know. All I can think of is in Steve's head, he's thinking, I only got a few more years of making pit bull machines, and I want to go out big. And if in his mind, J.J.P. is going to give him all the tools, and he can just do what he wants, or that's the thought, you know, more power to him. I hope he goes there and designs an amazing pit. I do. The bigger question here is what is JJP getting out of it, and then what is Stern losing? And I don't know that. Like, I know why Steve did it, but is Stern going to hurt from this, and then what is JJP gaining from this? I would say what Jersey Jack is getting out of this is they're getting a longtime Stern designer that's apparently going to be able to design the director's cut of whatever game he's designing. That's what it sounds like to me. If he's saying the handcuffs are off, that indicates that nothing is going to be taken out of the game. At least he's not anticipating it. Because surely during all the meetings leading up to it, that's probably things that they discussed back and forth. That he wants everything he wants in the game, he wants it to be in the game. That's the way I would interpret it. Yeah, he wants free reign.
    11:57
    But does J.J.P. – I don't know if they're like, hey, Eric is going to be designing games for a long time, So we already have him mentoring under Pat. So why not also mentor under Steve? And then I think, obviously, Steve Ritchie games still, regardless of what they are, because it's a Steve Ritchie game. So, I mean, I think it makes sense for JJP. I think they made a smart move here. Yeah, I mean, it's a good move for the short term. I mean, even though we're talking about two years from now. Easy, Joel. Yeah, I just punched my mic. Easy. I know you got the Ninja Turtles in the background. Yeah.
    12:33
    But I totally lost my train of thought. This is freaking Kung Fu Chops' mind out there, isn't it? Whoops. We were talking about what? Steve Ritchie? Still? Yeah, still on topic number one. Steve Ritchie. Shit, I lost my train of thought. We haven't got down to the bottom with deep shit Joel yet, so we'll get there.
    12:55
    No, we were talking. Yeah, Steve Ritchie was JJP. I said mentoring. You said short-term, good, long-term, and then I punched the mic. Yeah, so short term, obviously, to me, the next two years, that's short term. Because whatever he's going to start, project-wise, he's going to start it pretty quick. And it's going to come to fruition in two years. But long term, what is Jersey Jack going to do to find another designer? Because facing facts, Pat Lawler and Steve Ritchie, what are the odds that in ten years from now, they're designing? Or what are the odds that they're designing five years from now? Right. Because at some point you need to get new blood in there. And if you have those two in your stable already, it's better to get people in there and get them mentorship and get them up to speed and help them out. I mean, that's the way I would look at it, but the way pinball design is, there's really nobody young that designs pinball. I think everybody is. There's only two people I can think of besides Eric and Scott Denise. Well, technically Bug. Well, that's true. Yeah, yeah. That is true. So that leaves three under 40 years old. I don't know how old Scott is. Yeah. I would say at least, no, probably under 40, I would imagine. So that's three. Yeah. The whole entire industry.
    14:17
    Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. The smart move here is, yeah, try to get somebody new in there to absorb Pat and Steve as much as they can. But there is another person that left Stern, and I think some people have mentioned that this is almost a bigger impact, right, which is Lyman.
    14:38
    Lyman has been gone. Which I had no idea. I didn't. I'm having like a Mandela effect because I could have swore I heard something. Yeah, I was like, I thought he had been long gone. And then all of a sudden there was a bunch of updates like, hey, he left. And I'm like, I thought he left back in December. Yeah, I just assumed he was working on Elvira and probably some other upcoming game, probably a Kapow game, you know.
    15:09
    Yeah, but if he's gone, I mean, so he really, what, there's two main options. He's either in the industry or not, right? So I hope he's still doing pinball. For the sake of pinball, I hope he's still doing pinball. But if he's in Chicago, technically it's where to go. Did he go to J.J.P.? Did he go to American Pinball? I mean, I don't know. Chicago Gaming? That's the rumor that he's at Chicago Gaming. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's the rumor on the street. We will see. I mean, everybody, at the end of the day, Stern, everybody's like they have the best pinball designer, Keith Owen. They have the best pinball artist, which is Zombie Eddie, and they have the best coder in pinball, which a lot of people say is Lyman, and Lyman's gone.
    16:00
    So, I don't know. Is this a big hit to them or not so much? Well, I think, obviously, losing Lyman is not a good thing. But at the same time, I think the people that Stern has with Tim Sexton, with Raymond Davidson, with Keith Elwin, I mean, they're getting pinball minds in there. that are around the tournament scene that eat, sleep, drink pinball. Tanya. Yeah, Tanya. I mean, and these people, they know pinball. And so, you know, Elwin's a prime example that shows that you don't have to be the coder to produce a great rule set. You could just come up with the rules, and as long as you have somebody to code in the rule set, that's really what matters at the end of the day. And I think, you know, the reality is with Wyman Sheets, I think his last Cornerstone game was, what, Walking Dead, I think, in 2014. Yeah, I think you're right. And so, yeah, he did Batman 66 and he did Elvira, and, yeah, great codes and everything. But it wasn't like we were getting a Lyman Sheets game every year. True. It wasn't the reality of it. So Stern has so many different games in their stable that pretty much I think as long as they get pinball minds in there and everybody's bouncing ideas off each other, I think it'll be okay. You know, I don't think it's the end of the world for them at all from a, you know, a real set standpoint. Stern definitely has the deepest bench. They have the most, I don't know, skill. They're the largest amount of skill, and it makes sense. They're also the largest producer. So, yeah, I don't know. It's like the Yankees lost their four-hole hitter, but yet they still have the leadoff second, third. and they're going to have a major free agent or something like that. You know what I mean? I think it'll be fine. For sure. No, definitely a wait-and-see situation. I mean, I don't know when technically. So Keith Elwin is supposed to be the next game. And then after that, John Borg, right? Allegedly. There were rumors. Allegedly it'll be John Borg. Allegedly, okay. But if we're doing the rotation, so that's where, I mean, And Borg's last game was with Dwight, but Dwight just went on Mando. So that's the question of who's going to code Borg's game. Joel's following the cookie crumbs here. The four cookie crumbs that are on the ground. I'm pretty good at finding them. No, it's – so that – yeah, I think we all know what's coming next. But the step after that is kind of a big question mark.
    18:37
    So I don't know. But I'm excited. It'll be cool. I don't doubt that. But there's something coming, and I got a feeling somebody will probably actually leak it at some point. There's something coming. I've got a pretty good idea what it is, but I'm not going to reveal it here because I haven't drank enough beer, Joel. Perfect. You haven't drank enough of Tom's beer? Yeah.
    19:02
    Not enough Spottie. He sleeps in my house, drinks my beer, eats my food. Yep. I'm using the process of elimination. That's what I'm doing. Because just like Joel was doing, you know, when you look at who's been matched up with who, right? So right now, if Steve Ritchie's gone, so that means who's Tim Sexton and Raymond Davidson, who are they going to code with next? Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? If Lyman's gone. So people, it's like the stable's going to mix up a little bit. Because Tim has always been with Steve. Right. Exactly. So I didn't even think about that, but that makes total sense. So it's just putting pieces to the puzzle together, you know, and trying to make an educated guess. And I guess that's fun in itself because there's like 80 of us out there that like educated guesses. I'm not sure what the pinball machine is going to be, so there you go. Yeah, nobody spends any time speculating on what's coming up next in pinball. Not at all. Nobody does. Well, here, I'm going to just completely skip ahead in our notes. Let's just stick with Stern for a second. So Stern, huge announcement. Huge announcement this week.
    20:10
    And the reason I thought of this was Tanya. I know on my podcast, just on the Pinball Podcast, Tanya and George had said, Tanya, something's coming out. Wow, they're mocking me on camera. Who would have guessed? Something big was coming out in August, and then after that, Tanya was going to be freed to do his next game. So that's why, I mean, Tanya will be back in the mix with Coders. But the main thing that Tanya has been doing, Tanya and George, they just announced this week, was the, what is it, the online, what is it, Insider Connected? Is that right? Yep, you got it right. The Insider Connected program, which, yeah, whoever wants to go first, I mean, yeah. Travis, what were your thoughts when you saw that video drop? Excited. Hey, yeah. Which video? I don't know. The teaser or when George Gomez talked about it? Well, fine. Let's ride that roller coaster because apparently your view changed. Let's talk about the teaser first. Okay, the teaser. All right, the teaser, I was super excited. Like, I was fired up because this is something that we have even talked about since Joel is shilling his podcast. Let me shill. I'll shill our podcast. When we talked about this on Triple Drain. You know, that's fine. But we speculated on this, like what could it be? And one of the big things that we talked about and that I know that I, like Joel, I personally said, was that I really wanted to see achievements built into this. That's something to me that would be really cool. And that's something that I've been talking about for a while on my podcast. Hey, what's your podcast, Travis? It's a pinball podcast. Thank you, Joel. Thank you for that. Great. Yeah. Appreciate it. Everybody go out and let's do a you love it script.
    22:05
    But that's something I've been saying for a while that I really want to have. It's achievement. Stop laughing, Tom. You'll screw me up. Sorry. Yeah, so the teaser was, I mean, just super quick. You know, oh, look, they laid their phone on the machine. Oh, look, her name's now up on the screen. And then it kind of flashed, like, achievements, rewards, point tracking. So it was very bland, like basic. It was a teaser. And then just what? The very next day, there was a very good video that George Gomez was basically talking his way through what this actually is. And apparently, Travis, your view changed after that video. Just slightly. Yeah, we had a conversation about this earlier. And I don't think it's nothing that's super negative. It's just one of those things. So what dropped was is that in this, and I'm looking at this from the individual that owns it standpoint. I'm not looking at this from the operator's standpoint at all because obviously there's multiple facets to this. And if nobody out there knows what we're talking about yet, pause this, go to YouTube, look at Stern's thing, and then come back to us. And then this will all make sense. So they have a – oh, Joel didn't like that. Sorry. I looked away. Yeah, he looked away. I changed my mind. Do not click away from the podcast. Don't click away. Stay on our podcast. Listen to this. And then after the podcast, go watch the video. Okay. Sorry about that. I looked away. I just lost like six of our listeners. Damn it.
    23:38
    Okay. They're back. All right. Yeah. So welcome back if you went to go check out the YouTube video. But so they have achievements built into it, which I think that is so awesome. Like, I am really fired up about that because I grew up with achievements and games. I have Steam. I play PC games. I game as much as I can with my kids, by myself, with my wife. That's just what I grew up on for years at a time. And so seeing that progression in a game, that's what makes me come back to keep playing it. And one of the things about it is it's like Pavlov's dog. When I see an achievement pop up, I want to check the score. I want to see what I did. And I like seeing completion. I like seeing 100% on certain things that I do. I like seeing 1,000 gamer score, like on Xbox. And I like seeing that go up. And so one of the things that's making me kind of take a step back from this is the fact that if you are a home operator, or you're not a home operator, but you own it for your house and you're an individual, you can't be verified with your score. So now all of a sudden you're only getting half the XP, right? So, again, this is total first world problems. I get it. Total first world problems. But for me, my hangup is it's like, okay, I'm paying for this, yet I can't even maximize the one thing that I'm drawn to the most about it. Like I don't get all the benefit out of that. Now I'm just carrying around a score. If you're telling me, you're advertising it to me that I can show my score off to buddies and there's leaderboards and there's this and there's that. But yet now I'm going to be the, you know, the schmuck in the corner that's not verified because everybody thinks I'm taking my glass off and switches, you know. And if I'm going to beat a wizard boat, damn it, I want all my XP. That's what I want, you know. I get it. And so for me, I'm just like, I get it. It's a first world problem in that if you're on location, you get the full XP is what it is and you get verified. So that's what happens, right? Yeah. What I personally would have liked to have seen was just go ahead and let people get the full XP. It's okay if they're not verified. That's whatever. But if you're on location, go ahead and say it's verified and add on a couple of more achievements to encourage being on location. So location-only achievements. Right. I think that would have been the perfect thing. If you're going to say verified and location-only achievements, I think that would have worked out a lot better than just saying, oh, you only get half of the XP for doing it at home. I think that would have been a much better way to go. That's a good point. Yeah. I think it's just funny, though, because it's XP, but it's like it's not – the XP is not worth anything, right? I mean, like, it's just the XP isn't just the concept, right? I know they did talk about locations could set up where, hey, if you do this many games or if you get this many achievements on location, you could win a free drink or you could win a free gift card. Or Stern has talked about, yeah, if you do X, Y, and Z, maybe you'll win a free shirt or you'll win this. So it's like if there's something tangible that's coming back to you, I get what you're saying. But this is clear to me. I don't have the same mentality, Travis, as you do. I've never been a completionist in that regard. So in my mind, I already feel like if I've achieved a wizard mode in my basement, that's good enough for me to feel good about myself, but I get it. That's just the way that I – like I know I did it, and that's enough for me. But you're saying, no, I did it. Give me all of it. You know, give me all that I deserve. I think this product is just geared to getting people to go to a location. That's by far what's going on here. Yeah, and I think the best way to go about this is obviously the XP has something to do with something, because otherwise they wouldn't give you full XP for being on location. Maybe there's a ranking per game. Yeah, there's got to be something with it. Otherwise, it would have made more sense to give somebody a badge or whatever, and then you just have an outline on it to say, hey, this was on location compared to being at your house. Yeah, interesting. I mean, so different. Well, yeah, I just it really comes down to what's the point of the XP, unless that's just another thing of bragging rights. Like, I don't really I get I get kind of why it's there. But to me, it's more of a I want to see somebody's game. And I know, like, Travis, you're going to get the next new game. And I bet you will have every single one of those achievements within like a week, probably, if that. Well, other people, it may be years. It may be quite a while before I get all the achievements. So here's the interesting thing about it. When initially I had – I don't know if I told you guys this or I told somebody else this. I was like, this is a brilliant idea because now I have justification for getting a pro in here each time, play through it. I have different options to go through. And it's perfect for that to where it makes you attack the game in different ways besides just playing a tournament strategy or a blow-up strategy or a wizard mode strategy. It makes you explore different parts of the game. And I was excited about that part. But then when I find out, okay, I have to pay the same amount of money as an operator to get the same thing, yet I don't get all the benefit out of it that they do. You know? So to me, it's like, what's the difference? If an operator can just play their own pen and get the XP, then I have, you know what I mean? So that's just kind of a weird hang-up to me. And, again, it's a first-world problem. I'll acknowledge that. It's a weird hang-up, but I'm also a completionist. And my OCD is going to drive me crazy when I play through a pin and I'm like, oh, I don't have that. So naturally, because of this, I'm less inclined now to worry about this product on my pin at home. I'm way less inclined to worry about it. Well, now it's more, I mean, you, Travis, you operate a few games. So what's odd is the fact that you could buy a pro, you could bring it in your house, You could put this kid in. You could do everything in the game at home, but technically it doesn't count. But you could then take that exact pin, put it on location, and I don't know, do something in the settings, and all of a sudden you now could do everything again. Yeah. So how are they going to verify a home versus a location? I don't think they've said that yet. And I think it probably has something to do with the Stern Army thing. I'm willing to bet. I'm willing to bet they're going to tie that in to it somewhere. Or there may be a totally different type of license. or I don't, I mean, that's another thing they really haven't talked about that there will be a cost associated to buying this retrofit kit or, you know, they've talked about the new games are going to be uh they going to cost more There will be an increase in price So you going to pay for the kit one way or the other but they haven said anything about whether or not this will be there will be a cost associated to having your game connected to the internet.
    30:37
    Like I have a score bit. Score bit is a, I don't know if the right term would be a competitive technology, but score bit is a similar, there's a board that's in my TNA that's connected to the internet. And because of that, I can track my games on an app. I can see what my friends are doing. It's pretty cool. I really enjoy it. There's a bunch of other integration that it has, but there's a fee. There's a yearly fee for me to have my game connected to their system. And I'm curious if Stern is going to implement something similar for their games. Maybe there isn't a fee for operators. Like, that's the advantage for an operator. And there is a fee for the homeowner. Maybe it's vice versa. I don't know. We'll have to see on that. For half the experience points, you get charged more. Yeah, yeah. It's like, well, there's no telling how this is going to be. But at the end of the day, it's still, again, that's like such a minor first world complaint. It's still a really cool technology. And I'm glad that something like this is available because I think it's really cool. We were speculating offline, what do we think this is going to cost? Because they were saying that it was going to be reasonable. Yeah. But what's reasonable? What would you imagine to pay for something like this for your game? This is also – Either being an operator or a home buyer, I'm thinking $99.
    32:03
    In my opinion – $150, $200. Yeah. I don't know if I'd pay more than $200. If I hear reasonable, I'm hearing less than $100 in my head. I would hope so. But we are talking about – I would hope so too. We are talking about a technology that's going on a product that's already going to be – Expensive. $6,000, $8,000, $10,000. So what about this? So when Stranger Things came out, the UV light kit, right? The UV light kit on a premium, you had to buy – which one was it? It was one of them. The kit came with the – there was like a board. There was the LED bars, and it came with new plastics and a new apron. And I forget what that kit cost. It was like $150, $200. $250.
    32:50
    $250? I thought it was more than that. It was $350, wasn't it? $350? I bought a used one, and it came with the game, so I have no idea. I'm just guessing here. I thought it was about $400. $400? Okay. I thought it was like $250 max because it was one of those things where it was. I wish we had this thing called the internet. Yeah. Let's look for you guys on Google. But I think it was like $250. The reason being it was low enough that people were like, why isn't this included? You know, it's not like a topper that's $1,000. It was low enough that people were like, why was this not included? But yet it's high enough that it's kind of insulting that we had to pay for it. Yeah. I wasn't a big fan. I love how the UV kit looks. I was not a fan of that not being with the game. At the very least, I feel like that should have been with the movie. It's $279. Okay. That's close. So I know on a pro, apparently you're going to have to buy a new – it'll be a new apron. It'll be this QR code reader, this little camera, and I think there's another board. So I don't know. I mean, it's just one of those things where if it's less than $100, I think there will be a bunch of people that will buy one for every game they own. But once you get over $200, $250, all of a sudden people are like, no, I'm not. I have four games. I'm not dropping a grand just to connect them all to the Internet. I agree. I'm just glad that George Gomez got to use his QR codes now. Yeah. That's just what you need. So, yeah, I was talking about that.
    34:16
    Transformers was slated to have QR codes in the game where the games would have, basically you'd have some kind of power-up feature, and, you know, that never came to fruition. Sure. Damn it, I could have used that for Tom Talks. Oh, yeah, tell us all about it. It's okay. You'll come up with something. We'll get there. Yeah, we'll get there. Um, but what, at the end, at the end of the day, my, the more I've thought about this, what I'm excited about is I think one of the examples they said was one of the achievements on Deadpool was like, can you beat Sabretooth in less than a minute? And in my mind, when I stream, I'm stepping up to a game and, and most of the time when you step up to a game now, it's like, what do I want to do? Do I want to beat the high score or do I want to go for wizard mode? Like you're kind of picking two paths. It's one or the other. now it's going to be a lot more let's focus in on something and i i just love that the idea that i'm going to be able to step up to a game and if there's 20 achievements that means i have 20 different ways that i can step up to a game and focus in and i hope when they have something like that how fast can you beat saber tooth it would be amazing if it actually recorded not only hey travis did beat saber tooth in less than a minute but it would be amazing if it was travis beat Sabretooth in 45 seconds. Because now I can see that and be like, suck it, Travis, I beat it in 44 seconds. So even though we're both, you know, verified, that could be really, really cool depending on how they do it. We would both be unverified because we're doing that at home. Well, we all know Travis. You have to go to your locations. That's true.
    35:55
    And one other comment with the locations, though, you two are both somewhat spoiled. And what I mean by that is, I mean, Tom, you got Distric 82. to you got like every pin ever made and travis goes to everything like but there are plenty that's the only thing to defend there are plenty of people that love this hobby that don't have a location within you know an hour and a half two hours three hours of their house so i'm glad that it's not an location only situation but at the same time i get it um there there i bet there's plenty more people that have your mentality travis of feeling chipped out of experience it's it's a minor thing I have about it. It's a first-row problem, yeah. It's like, if I see a theme that I really like, or a design that I really like, I'm still going to be intrigued by it. And by very nature, because playing tournaments and all that, you kind of need to know the next pin. So I'm going to run into these pins either way, and I'm going to put in my little QR code either way, and I'm going to get my XP either way, Joel. That's fair. We know you're going to... I mean, it's very fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're going to operate your own game. You're going to take the bill.
    37:07
    That's cute, guys. That's really neat how you did that right there. That's fair. No, it doesn't work if you say it yourself. Wow. Okay. Neat.
    37:18
    Well, talking trash, here's your, yeah, talking trash. Let's bring up, so we have this guy that just keeps kind of coming up in our conversation, and it's never positive. People may know his name. His name is David Dennis. And if you didn't know, David Dennis is also part of TPN. And for some odd reason, David has been put in charge of social media for TPN. Why? Nobody voted on that. I don't know how. I don't know. I don't know why he's in charge. But he posted under TPN, he posted the link to Final Round Pinballs, Final Round Pinballs' latest episode. and he titled this episode, or to bring light to this episode, he said, a trio even better than Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. Listen now. So what the heck? I mean, come on. Like, if it was on his personal page, that's one thing, but to go under TPN? And I don't know. I just, I think it just really shows his character. That's all I really got to say. I was insulted. Who's the trio? Well, okay, yeah, it's a special guest. It's Marty, which is – it's Jeff, Marty, and Ryan. Ryan was the guest. Ah, that's the – That's the head pinball and pinball profile. Yeah, that's the tournament pinball podcast that doesn't talk about tournaments. Yeah. Do they play in tournaments anymore? I don't know. I feel like Joel has talked about tournaments more. He's the oldest in Marty combined lately. You know, it's starting to feel like it. It's, we're going to get to tournament talk here. And boy, oh boy, tournament talk is the only time that I feel like the legit third wheel of this relationship. And that's fine. You know, I'm learning a lot. But yeah, I just, you know, David, here's your moment of, I don't know, you're a piece of crap. Thank you for what you posted.
    39:10
    And yeah. They are entertaining, to be fair. Like, Ryan's very entertaining, and Marty's very entertaining, and Jeff is Canadian.
    39:23
    But Jeff's a nice Canadian. David Dennis is not a nice Canadian. I know. He's not nice. He's not a nice guy. Is he from Quebec? Where does he live? Yeah, it's like a different part of Canada. Jeff's from the nice part.
    39:37
    David's just the worst part of it. I feel like David and I get along, at least I thought. Then he stabs me in the back with his Facebook post. Yeah, it's just out of association. It's me. I'm dragging you down, Travis, and I apologize for that. So, you know. Yeah. He really is the worst, isn't he? Yeah. So I'm in an abusive relationship with that guy. Yeah, you know.
    40:01
    He picks on Joel quite a bit. He's kind of like the kid who holds the kid down at the playground. Yeah, yeah. And he calls over Travis like, yeah, throw some dirt in his face. He does financial advice, right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I should totally be involved with Deep Root, you think? Maybe. I feel like I should just schedule some time with him and fucking know. He only does Canadian people. He doesn't know how to convert American dollars in loonies and all that crap. What's a loonie? Isn't that their thing? Their dollar? Who's their thing? Canada. Yeah. Blame Canada You know what a great thing that came out of Canada Is geese Oh that's Oh god Canada goose Yeah I've given He's had enough of our attention on this podcast So next David's terrible I hope all your Canadian geese fly away from you David He proves it himself Every time Anyways So tournament talk I feel like, to be honest, this – god, you guys are adorable.
    41:11
    I feel like this – I need to reach out to our jingle dude because I think tournament talk needs to be – have its own jingle. I mean, it's a reoccurring thing every week. It's what it seems like. Just play the final round freaking theme before – Player versus player. Or player versus machine. Yeah. Welcome to the final round. Yeah. That's awesome. That's really good. Triple Drain. Yeah. There you go. Problem solved. There you go, guys. Yeah, just have Joel's voice over it. Triple Drain.
    41:45
    I'll work on that. All right. Well, the two of you guys are in the same room right now because of there was, what, it was multiple tournaments this weekend? I mean, I'm just going to sit back and let you guys share this. Because I see my notes here. You guys obviously played. I think I saw some trophies earlier. And we have, like, streaming tech issues. So strap in, everybody. We got a lot coming.
    42:09
    Should this be the Tom Talk segment? Because we might actually set a record. Oh, just let them talk a lot. Here, let's do this. Okay. No, no. Let's actually just talk about the tournament. And then, Tom, we'll have the Tom Talk segment be the frustrations of streaming that you ran into. That way you can get all riled up. Does that sound good? That sounds great. There you go. Perfect. All right. So let's talk about the actual tournament. You both participated. Tom, I'm assuming you played better than Travis.
    42:36
    In the first tournament, I did. But in the second tournament, actually, Travis knocked me out of the tournament. Wow. Be smart. You're putting a roof over his head. I know. The first tournament, I did tell him that if he beat me, because we were playing together, that he was sleeping outside. Nice. So he did not. I got to sleep inside. I can't get to sleep. Was this classic, modern? What were these tournaments? So the first tournament was a match play tournament. So the odd rounds were moderns, and then the even rounds were classics. And that just makes the tournament just go by a lot faster. And do you consider TNA a modern or a classic? I consider it a modern.
    43:25
    Yeah, I mean, Travis, last week said TNA was a classic. I just put in the classic round just because it goes fast. That's why. And then she put Iron Maiden in there because that's a classic, too, I guess, apparently. Maybe Iron Man. Yeah. Maybe Raza as well.
    43:44
    Wow. So that Max Play tournament, that was Friday night or this was Saturday? Saturday. So Saturday morning. And then right after that was the knockout. So where did you end up placement-wise? So, Tom, you played better the first one. Yeah. I took second place. Nice. The winner was David DeLuga. He's a stud here in Wisconsin. He's won a – Good for him, yeah. The DeLuga Whale. Yes. Travis, where were you? My wife says I say whale incorrectly. Whale? Whale, right? You're saying – are you saying like W-E-L or are you talking about an animal? No, an animal. W-H-A-L. Whale. This is a thing every week. I think between Indiana, Oklahoma, and where you're at. Wisconsin. Apparently the three of us can't say one word the same way. It sounds like whale to me. Whale. You're saying well.
    44:51
    Whale. I'm saying well. God. All right. H. The H is silent. Just say big fish. Here for tour. Tour. Tur. Turmos. Tur. I've learned how to say that correctly I'm proud of you So where did you, Travis, where did you end up that tournament? I think 8th I was in a tiebreaker How many people participated? 8? 57 I just got that I'm not Drew from the poor man's Okay Anybody else were there Was Ray Day there or Keith or anybody cool?
    45:33
    Anybody cool. Well, great. Now, Joel, if we don't name somebody off. Not to put you in a weird spot. Ryan Spindler is really cool. Chris Matt. Eric Strange. I mean, let's just go down the full list and just name everybody in the tournament. That's where everybody taps their phone and skips out. Tim Sexton is very cool. Yeah, Tim was there. He's got some long hair now, doesn't he? No, he doesn't. Oh, he cut it off? Oh, okay. I actually didn't recognize him for the first part of the day since he cut off his hair. Plus, he was exercising caution. He had a mask. And then I realized, wait, that's Tim, and I need to say hello and not be an a-hole. All right. So I took eighth, and I actually, to be honest with you, I earned that eighth place. Like, I played terrible at the very beginning, just straight-up garbage. I was getting made fun of during our lunch break by Tom and his son. I made fun of him on the stream, too. Yeah. Yeah, I was playing so bad. I mean, I was, Joel, I was playing so bad that I'm convinced that you might have even beat me. I knew it was coming. I knew I was going to get compared in there somehow. It was so bad. I mean, I scored $4 million on Simpsons. I scored. Oh, boy. Yeah, I really crushed that. I had $8 million on Austin Powers. Really full-on banger right there. Did Austin there. scored 90,000 on Meteor. That's really awesome. Usually you can get 150 by hitting the start button. So that was inspiring. But, no, so, you know, luckily we went to lunch break. Everybody was getting Taco Bell. And I was like, you know what? I'm here to compete. I'm not here to get a gut bomb. I'm not going to ruin myself the rest of the day. So I walked in that gas station like a freaking champ, and I got me a protein cookie and a water and some electrolytes, And I sat there and I ate it inside Taco Bell. Meanwhile, Neil and I were like, where's Travis? Because you didn't say anything. Oh, that's true. I just walked to the gas station. Sorry, I forgot to ask permission.
    47:38
    Like, where the hell did he disappear to? Well, the Taco Bell and, you know, as Joel would say, this is fair, because the Taco Bell was connected. Oh, sorry.
    47:49
    Tom went to the middle of drinking water and almost spit it out so he could get this beer in his face faster. The Taco Bell was connected to the gas station, and I had a decision to make, and I realized all morning long I've been making terrible decisions during my gameplay, and right then and there, Joel, that's when I could rise up and be a champion that day. And then I went from, like, 31st place to 8th place. There you go. So, yeah. That protein cookie, huh? Yes. He was taking the low-score charrette. Yes. Very good. It was a comedy of errors. That low score strat is typically my go-to. It works. So that was the morning tournament, and then what? So things switched. There was an evening tournament then? Yeah, so then we had a knockout tournament, which was a four-strike tournament. And you play mainly in groups of four, but there's a few groups of three.
    48:47
    And only fourth gets the strike or third and fourth gets the strike? So if you're in a four-player group, the bottom two, so third place, fourth place, gets a strike. And then if you're in a three-player group, only the lowest score gets a strike. Gotcha. Okay.
    49:04
    Neat. And you played how many strikes did you get? Well, I had four, and my last game was versus Travis and Nick Warner.
    49:16
    Yes, I think. Yes. His name was Nick. I know that. Wagner or Warner? Since I know you say it. Yeah. So, yeah, so they both knocked me out on stars.
    49:31
    Oh. So I literally had two balls. I went up the right side of the spinner halfway, and then it came right right back in the middle. Did you dirty. Joel, do you know what stars is? Yeah, so, George, don't panic flip, actually. He doesn't ever stream old games, and he just bought a really nice Stars. Had it shipped to him from New Jersey, so he streamed that this week. Yeah, so you're like an expert on the game now. No, I don't. No. Don't panic. Flip does an amazing job streaming. If you've never checked him out, do it. Yep, absolutely.
    50:11
    So, Travis, you knocked out Tom, and Tom still let you spend the night, which is really nice. But how far did you make it, Travis? I promptly went out after that. I think I won one game and then – or no, I survived for two more games. I played Whitewater. Won that with like $312 or $310 million, somewhere right around there, but played a horrible 5X in multi-ball. It was like I suddenly turned into Ray Charles playing my ball three. I don't know what happened there, but, you know, such is life. Still got the W. But then we played Mystic, and I think I pulled it out on there and gave the top guy an extra strike, Ryan. And so we all went to Lost World, and then at that point we all had three strikes. So it's basically one of those things, if you took last place from here on out, you're gone. Yeah. And so I managed to do just that. I achieved my goal and got last place. I say my goal. So, yeah, it was well earned. I did not play that very well. I had some key shots I could have executed on, and I just simply didn't do it. Just flubbed up a drop. No, not – was it a life or a drop? I can't remember. Anyways, I had a flipper fumble right down the middle. Yeah, on stream. Highly embarrassing. But what do you do? I hope somebody clipped it. Fox said he's pinball. They probably did. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was easy all day, and it just went right off the flipper. I was like, okay, well, there you go. Then I had a shot at a stand-up target that would have given me, I think it was, what, 3X with my bonus? Not that it would have mattered.
    51:49
    By that time, I was so tired, everything was blurry. Oh, yeah. Where did you end up then? Well, I took third, but this is a good segue to Tom Talks about what went wrong, because there was a major thing that went wrong before that Lost World game. And you know what? Now that I think about it, the reason why I lost that was due to this delay. Of course. I was sabotaged. I realize this now. Of course. Joel, thank you so much for bringing this up because you and me being able to talk this out, now I know what happened that last game. It wasn't my fault after all. I feel so much better about this. We need to get into this.
    52:33
    So, if you guys remember, last week, glenn submitted a you know congratulations to our episode five and he was talking trash to jason liebel um and uh he said he was gonna go bigger he was gonna go better so we are gonna get into tom talks here but we have a new tom talks intro you two haven't heard it so let's give this a go and uh and yeah we'll come to your thoughts as soon as it all right you ready here we go I'm scared.
    53:05
    Ooh, kind of rocking. Coming over tonight Nowhere left to sacrifice many words This taste of gold and concise But don't say it's a little reason for We've seen it before It happens every time. So let's try. Let's relax. Let's have a big good time. It takes a big breath. We hope he doesn't fuck. So we'll do it all the time. We'll do it all the time.
    53:47
    Glenn, well done, my man. I mean, props on the foreigner cover there. Yeah. So, you know. Can you play the normal intro? You want the normal one? Here we go. You want to compare both of them?
    54:15
    I mean, I love it. I love that we have two people that are producing such amazing intros. Glenn, I got to give it to you. I mean, I think that's an incredible cover. What are we, Joel? Well, freaking Tom has two separate intros for himself. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. And there's only going to be more because I guarantee Jason's going to respond here. Just don't talk during the episode.
    54:40
    Eventually we'll just get to 60 minutes of just Tom talk to intros. Everybody says this is Tom's podcast, which is fine. It's true. But all right, Tom. So do you need more intros? This is your moment. No, no, I'm good. So this is you. What are you talking about? You run Fox City Spinball. You take it upon yourself to stream all these events. Oh, yes. And as anybody that streams knows, it's a lot of work. And it sounds like a few things went wrong. So feel free to share how that went. Well, it was a very hot day at District 82 Pinball.
    55:16
    Travis is about to bust out laughing. It was about 90 degrees humid. And Eric Thorne, the owner of District 82 Pinball, was running an industrial-sized dehumidifier,
    55:32
    and it happened to be hooked up to the same circuit as the Internet. Well, two or three times during the stream, the Internet went down.
    55:45
    And I was just like, what the hell is going on? We keep losing the Internet. We've had that problem before. and um anyways the uh the shop travis the so the breaker was tripping knocking the internet off so i have to reload the stream and all that and then uh you know during the second tournament uh Twice, my, twice, twice, one of the batteries and my wireless transmitter fell off the rig onto the floor. So I had to get everything set back up.
    56:34
    And that's what did Travis in. It wasn't his poor play. It was actually me delaying him, the inevitable.
    56:44
    But, yeah, so there you have it. So this is when you apologize? That's what I'm waiting for? Yes. Sorry, Travis. Sorry for ruining your tournament.
    56:55
    So you're saying the battery, did it fall, like, did it hit the glass? Did it just fly aside? No, I was literally, so I'm taking the rig across the concourse of the District 82, and it just goes flying. I was right behind him. There we go. I was right behind him because, of course, I was going to our final game. No, you were there to support him, clearly. Yeah, clearly, clearly. So when I was walking behind him, all of a sudden there's just this big crash. And you just hear Tom go, son of a bitch.
    57:35
    And he's just holding the rig, looking down. And there's, like, all this stuff on the ground. Everybody just looking at him like, oh, no. It's like $1,000 of equipment just went tumbling. I think the first time I was like right in front of Elwynn, too. Oh, God. Oh, so Pete was there? Yeah, for a little while.
    57:56
    Yeah, he made like a – he just – he left. Like in the middle of the tournament. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if he had some emergency or he had to go, but he just basically told someone he was out of there. He said it's too hot in here. He could have. And he couldn't have fallen off the rig. It was hot in there. It was hot, but yeah. So Tom saved the day. He got his rig back together. Oh, and I ran out of battery power. Oh, yeah. Then he put it back together and then discovered he's out of battery power. And I inspired him, though, because I was like, Carl D'Angelo would not let this happen. Get it together, Tom. That's true. You know? That's true. it's tough love but Tom needed it and it got him through it and then who would imagine after 15 hours of streaming the batteries would run out I know it's a shocker I'm floored by that that's why Carl buys 16 hour batteries I should have thought ahead well do you want to wrap us up there Tom this is your segment yeah well if you want to check it out go to Fox Cities Pinball it's not a plug Tom Wrap up your segment, Tom. Come on.
    59:10
    I don't have anything more to say. Oh, thanks. Thanks. I'm glad I can make everybody laugh. You're really letting this get to your head. You're starting to plug your own stuff. You understand everything. Oh, geez. Tom is talking way too damn much now. I know. Since Travis is here. Well, thank you, Tom. Feel more comfortable. Oh, yeah. You really loosened him up there, Travis.
    59:45
    Giggity. Glenn and Jason, like always, thank you for those submissions. Those are awesome. I hope people are enjoying those as much as we do. So I'm curious to see what Jason comes out with next.
    59:56
    But, yeah, what else do we got here on this list? I think we're to the good stuff. Yeah. Deep Root. What do we want to say? What do we want to say about what? Deeper is in deep shit.
    60:08
    Did you guys see the pictures that are floating around out there of the facility, at least the outside of it? No. It looks like nothing is there at all. Like nobody's in there for a while. Like they cut the bushes out or what? No, there's like debris outside. There's, yeah, it's crazy. Well, everybody was furloughed, right? And then this came out. Yeah, it's such an unfortunate situation going there. Like, honestly, as much as I personally joke about it, I feel terrible for the people that are there. Well, let's tell the listeners what's actually happened because some people may not know. So at which part? Like the main course? The main reason why this is all going down Joel you want to take point on this Sure There you go Let go Joel You got this Basically what it comes down to is the head of Deep Root Robert Mueller has basically been what charged by the SEC SEC. He basically was spending all of Deep Root's money on personal stuff. And he was doing some weird stuff in the background and moving money between different things. and long story short, the investors were not getting money back. And, yeah. Did the investors even know that they were investing in pinball, though? Wasn't it they thought they were investing in a life insurance thing or something like that? There was a lot, yeah. And this is where I just – I hate saying that. He's a financial guy, correct? Yeah, but what I was going to say is – I thought he was a lawyer. David Dennis on the pinball show. David Dennis. Actually, they're really good at explaining this. Yeah. So feel free to listen to that. I don't like saying that. Don't go over there now, though. Yeah. Wait until you have nothing else going on, like you're on the toilet. Yeah, literally just. Or your wife has told you, hey, we need the lawn done. You're like, okay, you know, how can I do something that's even worse than mowing the lawn? And then you just want to hear. Yeah, that's it. Get really intoxicated. It's the only way to really get through it. But he did it. That's fair. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. There you go. Cheers on that. Yeah, but it's just, yeah, long story short, there is a bunch of crap that went down. Tom, get me one of your beers. Thank you. Do you want me to go? Yeah. I'm going to go get it. I'm going to go because I don't talk. What? Okay. Oh, boy. All right. So, yeah, what the listeners don't know is Tom is not sitting there, so you may or may not notice the difference. But really what it comes down to is it sucks because it's pretty much guaranteeing that if the SEC gets money through this investigation, through this lawsuit, one, there's a good chance Robert Mueller is going to jail or prison. Two, if they get any money back from this by selling assets or selling whatever, all that money is going to the investors. It's not going to go to getting a game made. Yeah, or go to the people that put down a deposit. Yeah, yeah. So it's unfortunately building a game where the people that put deposits, like they're last on the list of other people that need to get paid first. So it's not, this is all allegedly, this is all allegedly, but if everything does go through, it's just, it's not, things weren't looking good for Deep Root customers, if you want to call them that. But it's now they're looking like really bad. And there's a lot of really good people that are caught up in this. And, you know, Steve Bowden would be one of them. He's probably, what, number one liked guy, like nicest guy in pinball. Oh, yeah. You know. He's a great dude, for sure. And even, you know, final round, we were talking about it earlier. But, like, Jeff Teolas, he had a, like, his voice was in Raza. And I can only imagine the amount of work he's put in to, you know, in his mind, I'm going to be in a game. You know, and it's just, so there's a lot of good people that have their name associated with this game. or this company, and it sucks that they're kind of getting dragged through the mud or looked at in a negative light. Yeah. When it really seems like, what, El Capitan, Robert Mueller is really the guy that just drove this into the ground. Yeah, and that's what, for me, that's what really sucks, because you've got people that are associated with Deep Root that obviously were working for them, and they're good people. And, you know, we don't know exactly what was going on behind closed doors, But I have to believe that people that felt like that they were working on a game, that they were giving, you know, their time and effort, blood, sweat and tears into that. And that's got to be just on a personal level. That's got to be a horrible thing that you put in so much time to something. And then it never comes to fruition. And you're expecting it to. Also, you're hitting all these dead ends and then you're finally making breakthroughs, you know, whether it's with code or some type of design or something. and you feel like you're getting somewhere, and then never to see it actually getting produced, right? That probably had to be frustrating. And then to hear not only is it not going to get produced, but here's why, what was going on behind your backs without you realizing it. I mean, that's got to be a kick in the gut. I mean, as much as people want to point fingers at people inside of there, the bottom line is I have to believe that a lot of those people weren't in Robert's personal life, in his personal finances and joining him on a vacation to Hawaii or having any say in what he does with his money with his ex-wife or his current wife or anything. So for me, I think that that's just terrible. I can't imagine doing something like that because we all do certain projects in our personal time. And then imagine going two or three years and you find out, okay, it's a total dead end. Everything I've done up until this point, yeah, I've gained the experience, but I'm not getting everything out of it. I'm not going to see this project to completion. And that's got to, I mean, that's got to be killer. That sucks. It really, I don't, yeah, that's what, I'm not, no bit of this news makes me happy. You know, we joke about certain parts of it, but it's just, the reality is it's bad for pinball. I mean, there are pinball fans that put forth money to try to get a game that they're now out of money. So, you know, there's probably a lot of people that are bitter or sour from that. There are people that thought this is my chance. I'm in. You know, I'm finally working for a pinball company. I'm coding for them or I'm doing rules or I'm doing this, I'm doing that. All of a sudden, all that work for nothing.
    66:37
    Yeah, it's just – it's a shame. Now, with that said, it's not like we didn't see it coming. I mean, there's been red flags for a long time.
    66:47
    But, I don't – I mean, we even mentioned it, whatever, a few weeks ago that this is not good. And, I don't know, it's just bad overall, and I feel bad that it's, I don't know, it's part of the hobby or it's something that happened. Hopefully the lesson that comes out of this is that, you know, you can't put hardly any blame or any blame at all on the people that work there. Because if you have a startup pinball company, they need people to come in and help. So I don't blame anybody for jumping on that. I don't blame anybody for staying on. because if you're still getting paid and you're employed, you know, it's awfully hard. It's easy on the outside looking in and saying, well, why did you stick with that so long? Well, I'm getting paid. I have my own life. I've got to pay bills too. I mean, that's part of it. But at the same time, it's like I hope that the people that put down money on this game, I hope that the industry overall finally learns the lesson of not putting down money or pre-order deposit unless this certain company is verified, just like, you know, a location stern pinball thing. You know what I mean? You get double XP, yeah. Yeah, if that manufacturer gets double XP. Don't buy a game until it's in the box. Yeah. And you can pick it up from a distributor or the company that makes it. It's too much of a chance. We've got to quit being Kickstarters for pinball companies because it hardly ever works. I mean, is there one company? I guess maybe Jersey Jack. I don't remember. Did they take pre-orders before they produced the balls? So one. So one company. What about Haggis? Did Haggis take pre-orders for kilts? I don't know. So maybe two. I don't know. I know some people from Haggis listen. So, yeah, maybe two. Maybe it is Haggis and Jersey Jack. But, again, even if we say those two, so we're talking about two. I know. You know what I mean? There's a lot of other ones that have failed. Yeah. It's just two. And that's the thing. It's like pinball is hard, and it's even more difficult when you don't have capital, but it's even more difficult when all of a sudden you're using other people's money that expects something immediately or expects something within a reasonable time. And, I mean, it's just, I don't know. Well, and look at the ones that failed. Zidware, Skit B.
    69:04
    Deep Root now. What's Dutch? Highway pinball. No, it's not Dutch pinball. Did Dutch fail? It's Highwood Pimble. Well, Dutch was weird. Yeah, Dutch did fail, but it's resurrected kind of back to. Yeah, it's kind of working. It's kind of like that ex-girlfriend that comes around and you're like, I don't know if I should look your direction or not. Wow. Yeah. It works. It definitely works. Every man listening to this podcast can feel me right now. So I get it. It's a tough gamble, but it is hard. I mean, the truth is there are people in this hobby that a $600 deposit is no big deal. It's like, whatever. That sucks. But I do know there are people that got whatever the highest version, and they were paid in full. Paid in full, yeah. Paid in full. I mean, you're talking, what is it, like $10,000 plus? I don't even know. Oh, God. That sucks. And that's got to suck for, I don't know. I mean, if you're that rich, that $10,000 is not a big deal. I mean, good for you. Yeah, that's like the type of people that just go outside and just light their cash on fire. How does that? Really rich people. Well, I'll take some of that. Well, they're in the Bitcoin now.
    70:20
    But it's tough, though, because, like, look at Haggis. I'm so excited and, like, I have no stake in the game, but I'm, like, proud of Haggis. I'm proud that they're, you know, I understand that for somebody to start up pinball, somebody's got to take a chance in some capacity. So I don't know. What makes Haggis great, though, they give consistent updates. Their communication is incredible. They communicate. So now everybody knows. At least Jersey Jack communicates. Stern communicates. You know, if a pinball manufacturer or anybody associated with pinball communicates, you know, Spooky communicates, too. They do it great. He's doing it well. Yeah, they're showing all the Halloweens. I mean, you could say that Deeper was communicating because Robert Mueller was. Not visually. Well, they did have a game. I mean, they did have an actual physical game. You played it. Okay, yeah. But they went months and months and months without any visual. You know, they're saying, hey, we're building games. They're saying we're building games, and they didn't show one thing being manufactured, even a harness. You know, there was nothing. I 100% agree with that. I mean, if you can't see games being made, it's not a good sign. No, that's important. I mean, the least thing any manufacturer can do is show a picture of something being manufactured to prove that something's working. And more than one. Yep. At least two. That'll convince me. If I see two pictures.
    71:55
    No, just two pins on the line. Oh, that's it. It'll be one in a mirror. There'll be one pin in a big mirror and see if you notice. Maybe a row of 12.
    72:08
    Well, Spooky does it perfect because they show the whole thing all the way down. Spooky's doing it right. Spooky's doing it right, yeah. Well, I know we gave them a hard time last week, but the reality is when it comes to building, they are doing their job. They're doing a good job. Hey, the bottom line is it's great that a pin comes out that we can dissect and either agree or disagree with it. That's something, because for us, disagreeing or agreeing on something, somebody else out there, that's going to be their favorite pin. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters, how you like your pin. Yeah. Exactly. Well, anything else? I hope maybe this is probably the it.
    72:50
    Maybe the last time we talked about Deep Root. So, you know, I doubt we're going to hear anything good here moving forward. But I just hope, yeah, I hope people like Steve Bowden, you know, find a, you know, you force them out, you know, for the homie, right? Well, I don't want to run Tom's LEs. He's got a Mando right here. Okay. Yeah, but I don't know. I hope, yeah, I hope everybody that got wrapped up in that, you know, comes out ahead somehow or I don't know. I wish them luck, but we'll see.
    73:24
    What else we got? We have a few more releases. So let's start with the big one. We saw a big old PowerPoint. Nobody saw this coming. Cactus Canyon. Oh, boy. Who knew?
    73:37
    Just the screenshots. Wow. The presentation. Wow. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah, I'm surprised, Travis, you don't have a YouTube video out on this yet. You could have filmed for a good, what, two minutes talking about what we saw? Yeah. I'm just going to take a drink. That's fair. There you go. Enjoy that drink. Hey! Yeah, enjoy that drink. That one slipped out. Whoops.
    74:04
    My, I don't know, my real short, I think, I think CGC is killing it with Medieval Madness. Everybody loves that game. Attack from Mars, an amazing game. And then Monster Bash, incredible. And now they're starting to dip into games that people enjoy, but they're just, they're not up to those three. and Cactus Canyon. I think there's no surprise here. This has been talked about forever.
    74:30
    I mean, there are people we know. There's Jordan with Fliptronic. He's all in. Like, he wants the LE of this game. I mean, there are people that are stoked and pumped waiting for this game. But I feel like the majority of the community is just kind of, eh, whatever.
    74:47
    I don't know. Tom doesn't look too excited. Because it's a, eh, whatever pinball machine. You know, like I said, I think I told you guys this before. Five years ago, I would have been super excited to get one. But with all the new pins coming out and the depth in code,
    75:08
    I'm just not real excited about a Bailey Williams title coming out from, what, 20, 30 years ago? They said they finished the code. Okay, so that's a good point right there, Joel. That's a good point, they finished the code. But here's the thing, though. Here's the thing. Let's go ahead and just say that whoever's on the code, of course, you know, everybody says maybe Lyman Sheets, whoever. I think they announced. They said who was doing the code, though, right? I don't know. In their PowerPoint present. Nobody watched it? I didn't watch PowerPoint. Nobody looked at it? Nobody saw the screenshots? I know there's somebody that coded it. Anyways, so what I'm getting at is here. Let's just pretend that the code has been redone. It's been refined. It's complete. It's going to be one of those things that some people on PennSide are speculating will be game of the year if it has the correct code, which I think is batshit crazy, but, yeah, so it's been said. But let's go ahead and compare that then. I think the fair thing to do is to take this pen, and now let's compare it against Stern's best, and let's just act like that we're looking at this pen, and we're looking at it as if this design was a design that's coming out this year. This is a brand-new pen. I truly believe that this theme would get ripped to shreds, and I think the overall design would just be met with, huh? And I think a lot of the things on the play field, people would absolutely hate. I mean, Joel, you pointed out, what's the main thing on the apron that people would probably just talk about? Yeah. I said, so they got two big guns on the apron, but unless they move or shoot, then what's the point, right? I mean, everybody freaked out about Baby Yoda not moving or doing anything. But it's a good – so if you're saying that, if Cactus Canyon had never come out before, and this is a brand-new game, this is – what if we look at it this way? This is 2021, and let's say Jersey Jack's coming out with us. Well, let's say it's – but, yeah, this is CGC's first original game. Well, it's unlicensed, right? It's an unlicensed theme. It's a Western theme. Yeah. So, I mean, is that really big in 2021?
    77:17
    Has that been big at any point in the last decade? I like Fast Draw. Oh, wait, that's from, like, the 70s. Oh, boy. It's like, who's going to be into this, you know? And I know that there's going to be certain people that want to get it. Well, Cactus Canyon was sought after for a long time because it's a rare title. They only made, like, 300 or 400 of them. But why was it a rare title? Because they didn't make a lot of them. Because why? Because it wasn't that great. Because nobody wanted it. It's like this is like Pirates all over again. You know, like nobody wanted this game. And so the thing is, is that when I have the opportunity to play it, because it's on location where I'm at in Oklahoma City, Cactus Jacks, there's your plug, it's there. But I hardly ever see people playing it. And we do play it in league and tournament sometimes. And it's an okay game. But it's not a game that I'm like, oh, I can't wait to play one more. You know, I don't get excited over seeing a little train just kind of just trickle its way across the play field as I have to ramp out. I don't get excited over the sounds or anything like that. And the theme does nothing for me at all. and so with the play field that just kind of shoots average with obviously the code is not that great on it right now but with all the assets and everything i mean yeah it's a western theme whatever you want to call it gun wild west theme but it just i for me it's just it's not something i really care that much about and that's why i think honestly you're going to get a lot of people day one to want this. The question is, will it have legs? Will people want it after day one? Will they want it the next month? And I think those sales will fall off a cliff. You know, I think you'll have a lot of people that want it straight up, but afterwards. Yeah. I would want to see where the code has progressed. I mean, you know, shout out to Eric Pripke, he did Cactus Canyon Continued, which was a great mod for that game, basically updating the code. But that is not what you're getting with this. Right. You know, you're getting some other version.
    79:38
    So who knows how it's going to be? Is it some other version, though? Is this a Fathom 2.0? Is this like we started from scratch or is this we just finished it? I don't know. My understanding from what it sounded like was they were going to have the older code, and then they were going to have some kind of newer code was my understanding from what I saw, but I could be wrong. I mean, let's face facts. The only thing you can basically do if they do some type of new code to it is just have a mode start somewhere, either at the bounty area or at the scoop, the mine scoop or whatever it's called. I mean, that's about all there is left in it. I don't know. I mean, they said they've already made, what, like 800-something play fields. I do think it is interesting. They've already announced that they are planning on making more Medieval Madness in 2023. So does that mean, A, they've either added a line, or, B, do they think they're only going to need to make Cactus Canyon for a year? And then let's go back to the honey hole of Medieval Madness. I think they're well aware of what will move units. I don't, because there's no way you cannot, nobody can convince me that Cactus Canyon will move the same amount of units as a Monster Bash, an Attack from Mars, or a Medieval Madness. I could be totally wrong, but I just, I don't see it. Because those three that I just listed off, those are banger of pins. Those are, I mean, everybody loves those pins. And Cactus Canyon, I'm just telling you, the thing about Cactus Canyon, not too many people have time on it. Everybody has time. I've never played it. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's just the unknown thing, and I think when a lot of people play it, they're going to find out that it's not in the same tier. I guarantee that the people that have played it, they're telling the truth when they say it's just kind of an average pin.
    81:33
    Hmm. I'll be interested, like, if we ask Zach, we have Zach Minney flipping out, bye-bye-bye. If we asked him what, like, in eight months, would you rather have 20 Cactus Canyons dropped off for you to sell or 20 Medieval Madness? I'm curious. At the end of the day, it would probably be easier to sell the 20 Medieval Madness, I guess. I don't know. Well, I think because it's something new, you know, but Cactus Canyon might do well initially. There will be plenty to buy, yeah. I mean, if you're looking at, say, the Pinside Top 100, now that that's the, you know. The Bible. But Cactus Canyon's ranked 48th on that Top 100. So, you know, compared to the games they've already produced, Medieval Madness number one, Attack from Mars number four, Monster Bash number five, you know. Yeah. I question whether it's going to be this home run title. Yeah. And didn't Travis, you said, right, didn't you say in regards to, like, on location play, nobody touches the Valley Williams stuff? No. No, it's the Sterns. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, is the Sterns, they just, they're monster earners. I mean, I think pretty much everybody can attest to that. I mean, well, I'm sure there's someplace out there that they might have that one valley that just crushes but you know it's location dependent as always but more people you put an avengers next to cactus canyon which it pretty much is it's yeah there's a stark difference between those two yeah and i know um i was actually talking to the owner of tappers shout out to them here in indianapolis indiana and jeff basically said we i asked about mando because they just got a mando premium and he goes well i really don't like playing the games unless like I, he prefers to play games during store hours just because he's like, as an owner, I don't want to be that guy that's playing his game all night and setting high scores and being a dick. So he, he goes, I have not been able to, like, I have not been able to play Mando. Like there's always somebody playing Mando. And, uh, so he's loving it, obviously. Like it's, he had a pro and then he, when the premium came out, he's replaced it. And, uh, it made a few grand, the pro in the, in like a month. I mean, it's stupid. Like it is, it has been killing, on location, and I can almost guarantee there's no way Cactus Canyon is going to have that type of pull as a Mando does. No, like, put Cactus Canyon up against Stranger Things, Rick and Morty, Mandalorian, Avengers. I mean,
    84:18
    that's... We'll put it up against an attack from... Some of these places will buy it. Put it up against an attack from Mars, Medieval Madness.
    84:27
    You know what I mean? It's just not in the same ballpark. I don't know. I mean, I'm excited to see what they do. I'm excited to see what they changed on it. They said they tweaked the art. I'm assuming the light show is great. They probably redid all the animations. You know, if they improved it, great. I hope it's an improvement. An interactive topper. Something like that. I mean, it's still cool. I mean, there's more pinball, but honestly, I mean, just facing facts, If you have the choice between producing more Medieval Madness or more Cactus Canyon, you're going to say Medieval Madness. Yes. Sure. All right. Well, I don't have a witty transition here. I don't. I got nothing. Oh, Joel. Yeah.
    85:13
    P3. So there's your transition. P3. Let's – Tuesday. Tuesday was a really – and I'm curious what your thoughts are. But I personally am very intrigued about the P3 system, and I think it was really neat. On Tuesday, they announced that they, being multi-morphic, P3 multi-morphic, they made a new game for one of their pre-existing games. So they have one of their modules is the, what is it, CCR? So it's something. Cosmic? Cosmic Kart Racing. it's a it's kind of a cool i don't know racing type mario kart type game way to go guys you're so smart travis but they that company made a whole new game for that physical game and so they're just like hey here you go sorcerer's apprentice boom done here's a new game go home 500 download it you can play it right now and i this is the first time because i i actually part of the P3 Discord, just because I'm very intrigued by the program. And to see people on their lunch break... We have an insider here, Tom. I'm not an insider.
    86:31
    To see people on their lunch break, they just get to walk over to their game and play a brand new game. That's pretty cool. And there was a lot of really funny things like driving home with my new game, and it's a USB stick in their backseat. I thought that was pretty witty. I gotta applaud I think that is a very cool thing because every, like, let's say Keith Elwin's brand new game is dropped tomorrow. Well, how long do all three of us have to wait before we see gameplay, before we have a chance to touch it ourselves, before you're going to have it in your house? Like, a long time. And this is like, boom, new game, go play it. That's pretty sick. That's pretty cool. That's fair. That is fair.
    87:13
    That's a secret. I hope the clings, the chink, I hope people are. I don't know, what are your thoughts? What are your thoughts on that?
    87:23
    Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first? I'd go first if you want me to I haven't watched it Alright, your turn Tom I haven't watched it either For real? You guys know You have no interest No interest in this game at all Well it's not that we don't have any interest We just had other things to do since Tuesday We've been playing internally We've been busy Like, I've had to fly. I've had to watch the Stern stuff. I've had to play pinball. Yeah. But the Stern stuff takes instant. You will drop whatever you're doing, and you're going to watch a Stern video if it's released. Well, yeah. I'm a Stern fanboy, as the emails tell me. So, yeah, I guess apparently so. I mean, me personally, I'm not super interested in the P3 platform. Okay.
    88:12
    And why is that, Tom Graff? It seems like Joel. I actually get to play the top person right now. This is exciting. Okay. Because Joel is usually our overlord here. Okay. Overlord sounds very controlling. Okay. I don't know if that's right. Hey, you do you. Never mind. You sure? Okay. So Joel is usually the overlord. Yes. And so he obviously likes the P3. I mean, he's in their Discord. He's watching all their memes or whatever. People going with USB sticks. He's even comparing P3 to Elwin now using analogies. So we're at that point.
    88:53
    Okay. But you don't like it, apparently. I didn't say I didn't like it. I'm just not interested in it. Okay, excuse me. It's not enough for you to be able to confirm if you don't like it or like it. You just don't want to watch it at all. I wouldn't say I don't want to watch it. So I feel like maybe we should watch it right now. There's nothing to – okay, I'll save you right now. What is it? There's a theater – What's the theme? Sorcerer's Apprentice. It's a – Oh, so that's their licensed theme then. It's not a licensed – yeah, it's no Nick Cage movie. What? No, it's not. This is not the licensed theme. It is basically – Hold up. You said – they said they were coming out with a licensed theme. And it's not yet. There's another game coming. But the Sorcerer's Apprentice is a Nick Cage movie. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is. This game is just called Sorcerer's Apprentice. I dropped the the. This is horseshit. I thought Nick Cage was going to be a pinball machine. No, no. Well, damn. Okay, well, Tom, tell me why you don't like this pin. I didn't say it. Okay, I keep messing this up. Okay, sorry. Why are you not interested in the non-Nick Cage pin?
    90:08
    I'm just not interested in the platform. I, you know, the LCD screen is most of the play field, and then, you know, you got a quarter of the play field that changes. To me, I'm just not interested in it. Maybe if I played one more, I, you know, I've tried it a couple of times. I tried it once at Replay FX. I tried it once at Expo. I played Lexi Lightspeed. I thought it was really, it was fun to play.
    90:43
    The mechanics seemed a little off to me a little bit because of that, the slingshots and the flippers. Yeah, the floating slings and the floating slingshots. Yeah, it seemed a little off to me, but I don't know. It just doesn't feel like pinball to me. So there's an interesting question to ask out of this. Okay. So you're saying it doesn't feel like pinball to you. Is that what – because obviously you have an immaculate game room. You get a lot of pins. Is that – as a buyer, is that what is preventing you from adopting that platform? Because it doesn't feel like pinball in your eyes. Because you have played every era Yeah You do have a lot of you have a lot of knowledge You have a lot of experience across thousands of games played Is that the number one reason Yeah, I think so. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah, clanky clank.
    91:43
    What's really sad... Joel, I'm the overlord here, Joel. I just think that... I just think... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I got to moderate this. Tom's getting out of control, Joel. Hang on. We got to let Joel talk. Okay. Okay, no. I want to hear you one time, and then we'll go to Joel. I just think there's too much of that LCD taking real estate on the play field. That's my main problem. Okay. And so then what do you think, Joel? Convince us, what are we missing out of this? Because you seem like you're into it, which is perfectly fine. This is what sucks. This goes back to agreeing and disagreeing. So what are we missing out of this? It's a great question. You're doing a great job. Travis, we're going to steer the ship here. Thank you.
    92:28
    No, I actually haven't played one. That's the problem. Oh, what the heck? Oh, my God. But here's the deal. So we both played it. Why don't you even let me as well? Oh, my gosh. All right. But I have watched the videos, right? No, what I will say is I am actually intrigued by the platform. And the reason being is I am limited with space. and so I am almost at capacity for my pinball collection and what I find super intriguing is the versatility of the system and that's something that I I know I mean Tom you've got a lot more space and a lot more money than I do let me ask you this if Stern if Stern said to you I got the perfect solution for you Joe we're going to send you a play field that you could stick in your Turtles and it'll be a brand new game. So you just get a new play field every six months. Sure. Would that be an option for you? I think that, I mean, that's obviously what all the, like, Ray Day, he's programming from his house and they ship them play fields and they just drop them in and out. I mean, that would be amazing. That would be amazing if, I mean, it would suck to store them, but I think we could figure that out. That would be my problem with it. You know, yeah, maybe I could stick it under a game somewhere, but, you know, where am I going to put these play fields? And then you kind of lose some of the magic. You lose the back glass. You lose the art. You know. That's what I know Dennis has actually said that one of his complaints with the P3 is when the system's off, it doesn't look, you know, like all my pinball machines are off right now, and I'm still looking at them, and they look cool. They look great. but like a p3 off two-thirds of the system is a black screen so i get i get it there are drawbacks there but what i'm intrigued by and and it's it's interesting because one of my main arguments was the versatility of it of i can i can fire up this game and there's games that play with multiple modules i can swap modules like one machine is actually going to be able to do a whole bunch of stuff and to be honest with stern releasing their achievements now all of a sudden my stern games are going to have a whole bunch more versatility or things that I can focus on and do. So my view of the P3 is I'm intrigued. I'm looking forward to playing it because I'll tell you right now, if I go to play it and it doesn't feel like you're saying, if it doesn't feel like pinball, if the flippers feel weird, if it mechanically just is not enjoyable, like I've played a virtual pinball machine, virtual pinball machines, it doesn't matter. Every one that I've played just does not feel real or fun. And so even though it's pinball, even though I'm playing, you know, a virtual monster bash, it doesn't feel good. And if the P3 is like that, then I'm out. Well, P3, it feels real because it is real, obviously, but it's almost like steampunk. Have you ever seen, like, steampunk coffee tables? You know, Joel knows what I'm talking about. So basically, like, all the gears and everything, that's almost the way that it feels every single time. And my big hang-up with it is it feels like something that I would probably see at Dave & Buster's. So I would feel good about swiping a card and playing it, but it's not necessarily something I'd want to do over and over and over again.
    95:53
    And the thing that I have a hang-up with, too, is that even though it's modular, it's only modular up top. So the play field is always going to be just in the top third of the whole area. Like all the action. Or like a quarter. Yeah. And so that, for me, is the biggest hang-up. If it could be modular further down the play field, if they could develop a system, now we're talking. I think that's something that would get my attention as a potential user or potential platform adopter if it was a full play field and not just the upper part of the play field. One thing I've seen, I've seen it streamed on Buffalo Pinball and Gamma Goat. uh either has one or had one yeah um they were doing a cosmic cart race on on twitch and uh basically you could interact with them on twitch as a chatter yep and like put up a block from their game and that was a cool feature yeah i mean that's cool they're integrating that into like some kind of streaming thing. They have cool features on it, like you're saying. The thing is they need the glue to stick it all together and to get people to want to adopt it. And the problem that they're having is they're treating the pinball machine as if it's like a console. Right. And these play fields are like the separate games. Yeah, I just think, you know, it's like you almost have a 32-inch screen as a play field, you know, kind of thing. Right. And it's cool. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's cool. But my thinking is, you know, if you could make that smaller, like a size of an iPad or an iPhone, and incorporate that into a pinball machine, and still have all the mechanical aspects, I think it would be much cooler. Yep. Nope, I agree. So basically, yeah, okay. So what I'm hearing is you feel like the new technology being the screen is the play field. Now, remember, there's IR technology in there, so it is tracking the ball. There are targets that you can hit. You're interacting with that screen in ways not physically hitting something, but it is you're hitting certain things. And then I know, obviously, with Heist, they did the crane, so the crane is coming down over the screen. Apparently, they have – Jerry has shown that he can do a pop bumper, he can do a scoop. It's like a reverse scoop. So there are other mechanical things that he could bring down over the screen, which could be pretty neat.
    98:32
    So I don't know. There is versatility there, but it sounds like to you guys, you're saying the space that they've allocated for the modern technology of the screen is too much. You want more mechanic. You would, if it was closer to half and half or even more. And I see what you're saying. If CERN was sending me a whole new play field, that would be pretty sick. But there are people that have made carts so you can fit two of the P3 play fields under one machine and just wheel it out. So people have gotten creative with storage solutions. They've done – But think about what you just said, though. Yeah. You have to literally wheel it out and then pick it up and then put it in the machine. Yeah. So that's the barrier right there. I mean, facing facts, if I get on my PlayStation or my Xbox, I just simply turn it on. and I could pick anything. So that's always going to be the barrier because it's a huge physical aspect of it. So even the solution that we were talking about that would get us more intrigued, it would probably be even more difficult to load that bad boy up. Because I don't know about you, Joel or Tom, but I've taken a Playfield album machine. They're heavy. Yeah, it's very heavy. They have definitely designed that with that in mind, and at least the different people that I've talked to, swapping Playfields, play fields it's not something effortless but it's not it's not it's definitely something one person can do like they've designed specifically for this um but what it does look like is you want to have your p3 kind of at the end of your line because you want to be able to stand beside it um but i get it i mean that was something another thing that that david had mentioned i'm not david uh dennis creasel had mentioned yeah dennis creasel had mentioned which was that you know if you have people over to play games like right now i have four games so four people can stand up and play if you have one p3 you can only play one game at a time even if you own five modules right and it's an interesting thought there that it's like okay is everybody done with heist yeah all right let's swap it out let's put this in do you know yeah you're not gonna you're probably not gonna swap games while people are over i know this will probably not be possible But what I think would be pretty dope is if somehow P3 could figure out if they did their own remake of classic play fields to where you could – that could be modular into the same cabinet somehow. Why is it better – so you're saying if you could buy a Medieval Madness and all it is is the castle in the back, you know, or something like that, you could put that in. you would be on board with that before you'd be on board with their themes? Well, because it's a design thing. Just the same thing we talked about. Most of the stuff going on with P3 games are all in the upper part of it. I mean, the whole thing is a screen. So that's why if they could somehow bring stuff down into the screen area, whether it is a pop bumper, whether it is a scoop, anything that could be integrated with the actual video, I think that would go a longer ways because you can only do so many designs with restrictions in mind. You can only do so much.
    101:42
    Joel's looking around. What's he looking at? Well, I'm looking at my games because one of the things that they actually did. I thought David Dennis was walking through the doors. He picked it up really fast. No, thankfully they haven't opened up Canada yet, right?
    101:57
    No, it's – somebody basically took. they basically took a P3 and I think they took like a brown bag and they just laid out a piece of brown paper and they cut out what the open area of a P3 is. And then they actually took that template and they set it on a bunch of other games. And you would be surprised, like I'm looking at TNA, I'm looking at Hot Wheels right here, I'm looking at Turtles, I'm looking at Deadpool.
    102:20
    There's a lot, I mean, they're like, it's actually a more similar amount open than you think in your head. And that's something that they've used as an argument. I mean, yes, there are some games, like Turtles, that right ramp is kind of further up, or Deadpool has little Deadpool a little further up. I like how he gives examples, then he immediately busts his own mouth. But it's like an inch, that's what I'm saying. I will say that. That inch is the difference, Joel. Inches are... Yeah, I see. Go ahead and finish that thought, Tom. I'm ready.
    102:55
    I mean, look, you could get away. Okay, so here's thing inches matter yeah so okay so let's say this even if we're not covering up that part maybe it's the way that you have a ramp return yeah that goes across the play field or just something different i mean sure that in itself would kind of get you out of that rut of everything of just feeling like the same over and over and over again yeah and i can't defend it until i play with the heck out of one or if I can borrow one or buy one, I don't know. I understand. I'm just on the outside looking in. But what I can tell you is from the outside looking in, I've pretty much filled up my collection. I think I have room for one more. So if the idea of, if I had a machine that right now, if you have a Cosmic Heart Racing play field, when you turn on that game, you can play Rocks, you can play Barnyards, or you can play Cosmic Heart Racing, or you can play Sorcerer's Apprentice. You can play four different games on the same machine. What do you want to do? I think that's pretty neat. I like, obviously, all Turtles. If I step up to Turtles, I can play a normal game. I can play a co-op game. I can play Half-Shell Challenge. I can play Final Battle. I can choose the same game, but I'm playing something different. But I don't know. If I'm playing, say, Avengers, and now all of a sudden I'm playing My Little Pony, you know or or like guns and roses on it you know ultra man or ultra man yeah i mean it's the same layout uh yeah yeah i i don't know this is i once again i feel like i'm just i'm defending a side that i actually have no experience on i'm just you're good we're just having conversation back of what we think of the platform we're just thinking like to me okay so if you see it in person, it's actually really cool to see the ball tracking. That part is cool. There's certain aspects to it that are cool. It's just, okay, how do you go from you're playing it and you're enjoying it while you're playing it, but how do you go from just that to wanting to adopt the platform for your house and pay, I don't know how much it is, what, $8,000, $9,000, $10,000? It's like $10,000.
    105:12
    It's like $10,000 with the module and then it's like $12,000 with two modules. Can any of us go to our wives right now and say, we've got $10,000. We can either get the next L1 pen, or we can get a P3. My wife wouldn't give a shit.
    105:28
    My wife would look at me and just say no. Mine would divorce me if I said, hey, we're not getting the next L1 pen. She would be like, I'm done. Yeah, but your wife has like a crush on T-Tel, and mine has no idea who he is.
    105:43
    Sub your ass in there. At least she'd be with somebody that's good at pinball, apparently. So, Joel, okay, so you think if you showed a picture of a Keith Elwin pin and a P3, your wife would – and you say, hey, I've got $10,000. Which one should we spend on? She would be like, eh, I don't care. Well, that's funny, though, because to be honest, I think she might actually lean towards a P3 because it's new. It's something – like, my wife does not care about pinball at all. She does not care about pinball at all. Obviously. So, yeah, I understand if you want to say she has no taste, because I get it. Keith Owen's layouts are incredible, but it is. Here's her. My friends and family, my friends and family who don't know pinball. This is something that is totally different. It's a screen. I feel like it is more interactive the way that they look at a screen and be like, this looks cooler than zombie Yeti artwork.
    106:42
    OK. All right. So apparently I'm – Blank screen? No. You've got to turn the game on, you idiot. Okay, fine. That's what I don't get about that argument. Like, well, it doesn't – I mean, I'm not even going there. My wife just texted me because apparently she could probably clear. She said, oh, I know who that is. I freaking love pinball. That's obviously a bunch of bull, but I appreciate her support on this. So which one? I don't know. Hey, Nicole, if you're listening, come on down and tell me. Yeah. Hey, yo, do you have your phone with you right now? Yeah. Okay. She doesn't know. Ask her right now, P3 or Elwynn. We need an answer right now. All right. She's going to say what? That's what she's going to say. Hold that phone up here. I don't want you. Or Elwynn. Yeah, you need to push this.
    107:30
    P3 or Elwynn. Which one is it? Okay. I have a lot of work to do. All right. Send it. Okay. She's not coming. P3. She said P3. Oh, wow.
    107:38
    Wow. This is some bullshit. We were screwed up. She has no idea. She doesn't know what that is. She's like, just leave me alone. She answered that way too fast, Joel. She's in the conversation. I'm so concerned right now. Why did she just do that without thinking? Sorcerer's Apprentice and the new L1 pen. We're telling our viewers now that Joel's wife says you're all in on Sorcerer's Apprentice. Tell her that Nick Cage isn't on that pen, Joel. Yeah, I still take your money. Well, okay. I totally understand what you're saying, and I understand. Like, you guys are two very skilled players. You guys have also had amazing collections. You have amazing collections. You've played a ton of P. But you still got to be skilled to play Lexi Lightspeed. I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with owning a P3. You still have to be skilled to play Lexi Lightspeed. I've played it in a tournament before. It's a tough game. I'm sure I could certainly go to somebody's house and enjoy playing it. I just don't know if I'd want to own the platform. Mark, make somebody else spend the $10,000, like Joel and his wife. That's what my friends do. They're like, when are you getting the next one? See, we'll still play it, Joel. When you buy a P3, we'll still come play it. We can stream it. We can let everybody make all the pop bumpers come up against us and everything. It'll be a great time.
    108:58
    That's great. I totally get it. I just, I don't know, maybe in my mind I'm just, I really enjoy how different it is, and I understand the differences that you're seeing. Is it a world under glass? It's a world under glass that's on a screen. It's like a Best Buy under glass. Or is it a glass over a world? Oh, shit. A glass over a world.
    109:22
    Tom's getting deep over here. Damn, I thought we were just drinking beer, Tom. Holy crap. What I will say is the P3, there is a license theme coming up, and I think it's crazy. I mean, Stern, obviously, Stern, the moment they announce a theme, well, like Halloween, they announced Halloween without even showing anything, and it sold out in hours. So I think if P3 has a stupid theme, like if it's a really amazing theme, you know, I hope they sell hundreds of them.
    109:53
    I hope they have a killer license. The reality is. Go ahead. No, no, no, no, no. You go ahead. I'll see to the overlords. What I was going to say. Wow. God. What I was going to say is if somebody, that's the thing, if somebody's going to buy this, though, there's a good chance, not only are they going to buy the newest game, they're going to probably buy a few other modules with it. So that's what I think is pretty cool with P3 is as soon as they get a customer, they didn't sell one game. They probably sold one game and their entire collection of games because there is bulk pricing. Like if you buy one module, you can then get the other modules at discount. So, Tom, you're telling me if the new game is whatever, Rush. I know it's not. But if it's a theme that you can't live without. Why would you do that to me? Exactly. But if it's a game that you can't live without, you're telling me if you're going to drop money with P3, you're not going to go ahead and grab one or two of them. You're not going to go ahead and buy one or two other modules. This is so damn low, Joel. Like, bring it out, Rush. Yeah. Damn it. Okay, fine. Pick a theme that's not, like, you'd kill somebody for Rush. I get it. Okay, what's like a mid-tier theme that you like? Yeah, a mid-tier theme. A mid-tier. Yeah. Don't overthink it. Like, Max is a future or matrix? No, no, because... Matrix, why not? That's too high. P3 is not going to get matrix. Like, okay, let's think of a... What theme could P3 get that you might buy? We're really drilling down to this. Joel's asked the question. Well, if it was Russia, I'd buy it. Oh, great. The question isn't... Okay, we know Tom's... Whatever the theme is, Tom is committed to buying the platform. He's going to invest in the platform for that theme. The question is, would you pay the extra two grand to get another module? Would you not buy the other modules with it? Yeah, I mean, I probably would. I don't know if I'd buy them all. Yeah, I don't. But if something interested me, yes, I would buy it. Then I will say this. If P3 came out with a theme that's like one of my dream themes, Right. Okay. Yeah. And they adopt it like the P3 2.0 or whatever it is, like a new platform under their cabinet or in their cabinet. You know what I mean? Like they're going to. Redesigned it. Right. Because obviously if they're coming out with something licensed, it has to be, I would think it's going to be a little bit more than what it is now. Sure. If they do that, they would have my attention. I can't say I would not buy it. So sure. Joel, you're saying. Joel's like checkmated us here. Yeah. What in the world? No, I'm not. I'm just saying what I think is smart that P3 has is I think when they add a customer, they didn't just sell one game. They've sold one game, and there's a good chance that they sold one or two modules along with it. And if they didn't sell the module now, buy the game now, and then what's neat is in a year, when a new module comes out, it's $2,000 or $2,500 instead of $6,000-plus for a new game. That's the thing. Once you're in, that's what their whole thing. Like, think of how Multimorphic released a brand-new game. I guarantee every single person that bought the Cosmic Cart racing module spent $500 on Tuesday to download the new game. Sure. I mean, it's like, why would you – $500 is crazy cheap in pinball terms, right, for a brand-new game? Shit. It's a topper five years ago. That means the Stern, like, little achievement thingy is going to be 500, isn't it? Joel's saying this is reasonable. I didn't say reasonable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know.
    113:31
    You guys, obviously, you haven't watched the videos. You're not. This is a system that I am very intrigued by, and I think it's unique. I did see some pictures of it. You did? Yeah, of the Sorcerer of the Prim. No Nick Cage. There's some pretty unique stuff And I'm not going to dive into it Because we're almost at two hours But there's some pretty cool stuff with this new game Well wait, take the two minutes and explain the cool stuff So okay, one of the things that they're doing in this game Is as a sorcerer you're learning spells And so these spells actually give you Like attacks So the P3 has multiple buttons on the side So there's this whole discussion of There's a shield spell So there's times where you can be playing And then you hit a button and you engage a shield And it's not an action button Like it's right there by your fingers And then there's other – there's buttons so you can flip through your spells. Yeah, so you have – there's three buttons on the side of the game. So there's, like, a button to flip through your spells, so you've got to have a spell selected and then activate it at a certain time. So there's, like, attack spells, fire and ice, and I think lightning. And then there's a defensive spell. So they're really bringing in – I don't – I mean, I don't – it sounds cool. I haven't played it. So does it interact with the ball when you have to – I mean, it's not lighting a candle on your game, But it does, yes, digitally, there are, you are, like, that's what they're saying is you can do different spells, and when you engage spells, if you hit certain ramps, it's actually, it attacks harder, versus if you hit the wrong ramp, it actually attacks you. That's another thing, your health, when you tilt, or it doesn't give you a tilt warning, it actually just takes away a little bit of your health. In the ball, the flippers die when your health is at zero. So, like, when you're attacking certain guys, you have a health bar at the bottom. And if you shake your game too hard, it hurts you. So it's just, to me, it's very unique. Like, it's a unique experience. Well, shit, now I want to play it.
    115:25
    All right, Joel, you sold us. You got to buy a P3. Yeah. And then invite me over. Jerry, if you're listening, please sell Joel a P3 so we can all go play it. All right, so if you're out there and you own a P3, now I want to try it. Yeah, do yourself a favor and watch the video or join the Discord. They're very nice. I think after this podcast, we might be banned from the Discord.
    115:46
    we'll be they're gonna do it yeah no i don't know i just to be honest though it's like cactus canyon number 40 whatever like if somebody told me right now what do you want do you want a p3 or do you want a cactus canyon give me the p like i want something new i want something that's exciting like i don't know i just the announcements that came out this week number one announcement my mind's turn because that affects me right now i have two stern games and i'm ready to put that and I'm ready to get my achievements, even if I only get half credit, right? I'm excited for that. But the announcement number two, in my mind, was the P3. And Cactus Canyon, third, fourth, whatever. I just don't care. Where does my tournament rank? Obviously, Waco. Tom, you're number one. Never mind. You're number one in my heart. You know that. Where were you? I thought you were supposed to play in the tournament this weekend. Yeah. I was. You're going to play out there. You're going to play at Expo? No, I was playing in my own tournament and lost again.
    116:45
    They played against themselves. Yeah. I don't know. I would say we could probably wrap it up there. We're almost at two hours. The last thing on the list was Hot Wheels. I'll give a brief 30 seconds. I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying it so far. American Pinball makes a good game. This is physically a well-built game. I'm very impressed with that. The bells and whistles that they've added in here make it feel premium. Like it's a tank. So I'm impressed. I would say my very initial impression just unboxing the game, I don't really care about Hot Wheels at all. It's a theme I don't care about. But seeing how well built this game is, I'm excited for their next game. Just because, like, American Pinball as a company, they get my thumbs up. The more I play the game, though, the more I'm enjoying this game. We can get deeper into that on another time. Because I know, Travis, you've had one. Oh, it's a fun pin. Like, my whole family is very disappointed I sold it. I am kind of now, too, watching Joel play. I mean, it's a fun game. Joel even makes it look easy, which I'm like, hey, this must be a fun game. Wow. Yeah. Well, you're welcome for that. And I've played it on location. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. I mean, I fully expect to see that pin in tournaments coming up. And, I mean, yeah, theme aside, it's a fun player, and the rule set's fun. And, you know, I mean, it is a well-built machine, too. When I had Hot Wheels, I had one minor issue, and they helped me with it immediately. I mean, on the phone, I mean, and this will on a weekend too. So I can't say good enough things about them.
    118:17
    Yeah. No, not, not at all. Well, well, we'll talk more about it next time. Cause I, I've really only put about a week's worth of time on it. So we can dive into that a little more next time, but, um, can't wait. Yeah. Oh, I know. Keep, keep people on the edge. I know people were waiting for a triple combo, but this, like I said, this, this podcast was kind of put together all last minute. Um, and there was plenty of news to go over. So, yeah, unless there's anything else, guys, we can probably – I know, Tom, you've been waiting to plug your freaking channel this whole time. No, I was actually going to say we need to plug our triple-drain Facebook and Instagram. Oh, yeah. Because we never do that. We have an Instagram? Yeah. We do. It's pretty much just Tom. It's great.
    119:03
    That's all I need, right? No, triple-drain Facebook, triple-drain Instagram. Check us out, Silver Ball Swag. We're selling them shirts. It's great. That's right. Yep. I love seeing that. I got mine in. It's super, super soft. So I'm really enjoying that.
    119:18
    But, yeah, plugs. Plug it up, Tom. All right. You can find me at Fox Cities Pinball on Twitch and YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. There we go. Very well done. Thank you, Travis. All right. Shout out to Jared Nichols for sending us an email. Greatly appreciate it. We did read it. So pretty cool. Yeah.
    119:44
    Well, I'm not going to shout out anybody else. I'm just going to shout out his because his was my favorite. So, yeah. Everybody else, step up your game. That's all I got to say about that. And you can find me at YouTube at Marv Loco. You can find me on Facebook, but I'm not going to tell you where to go to.
    120:01
    That's a solid plug. Yeah. That's all I got, right? Check me out here. I'm not going to tell you where, though. Well, if you know my name, you can find me on the Book of Faith. There you go. Nice. And I'm Joel Engelberth. You can search my name. Just Another Pinball Podcast, Just Another Pinball Stream. And, yeah, that's it. Well done, guys, putting it together. What, in like an hour? We talked for two. Perfect. Two hours. All right. I think that's episode six. I do realize we have no good way of, like, ending the podcast. Like, we don't have a saying. We don't have any, I don't know. I don't, I'm just, I'm literally dropping this on you right now as we're trying to, we don't have anything. And I was trying to think of like a, what would be a good way to end the game? And I, I remember there was a post a long time ago that said, what is something that as a pinball fan, what is something that I can do to bring more people in the hobby? And somebody wrote leave a credit on the machine. And I thought that was really cool. So I'm dropping, like I said, I'm dropping this on you right now. So my thought is next time you triple drain, leave a credit on the machine. That's my thought. Like, if you triple drain, you owe that machine money. So maybe we can get clever with that. But we have no good way to wrap it up. So we're probably just going to. I don't know how we get any better than that. I don't know. I think Tom did a weird, like, bye or something.
    121:28
    We could just say, and as always, David Dennis is the worst. he's god we talked about him so much so uh i don't i don't know that's true he's like the ball all of a sudden oh god that's a rusty ball i will gladly remove from my machine uh tom just give you a little goodbye uh good night everybody