Howdy folks, Generic Cowboy here, telling you that this episode of the Eclectic Gamers Podcast is brought to you by the Roanoke Pinball Museum in Roanoke, Virginia. Roanoke Pinball Museum, it's an interactive museum, it's sort of dedicated to the science and the history of pinball. Its mission is to cultivate curiosity in science, art, and history through pinball, but while preserving and honoring its role in American culture. The museum is open every day except Monday, and it houses over 65 machines with models ranging from 1932 to 2018. I sure hope to have a buckaroo. Roanoke Pinball Museum. Your world of entertainment awaits. Welcome to the Ecclesiastic Gamers Podcast. Okay, no. That seriously hurts. It was starting so well. Nope. I'm broken now. Oh, broken. I broke it. Well, that's staying in. That's staying in. That's fine. That was Tony's Dr. Claw. I was trying for it. I was trying for it, but now my throat's on. I broke my throat. We'll see. Episode 107 Sunday, January 20th They're going to have to play this at three hours. I know. I have to speed. That's terrible. Oh, gosh. It hurts. It sounds cool, but it hurts. So, you don't have to replay it. It's episode 107. Today is Sunday, January 26th. I am Dr. Claw. You were. I was. Now I'm just Tony. Now you're just, I'm just Dennis. Yeah. Welcome, everyone. Well, we've got a lot, especially in video games, but we've got a lot of drama to go through on pinball. Total Drama Island! Yes, you know, my favorite thing to be involved with, drama. And since it ties to something that I am affiliated with, it puts me in a very interesting position, I suppose, of speaking about it from a slightly different perspective than I'm used to. But we always would cover stuff like this, and we're not making an exception. Yeah. But what's gone on since the last episode? Because we still have intros. We do have intros. What has gone on? Yeah. It snowed some. A bit. But you don't run plows or anything. I don't run, I don't run, I don't drive them myself. I send people out. Yeah, you're right. I'm part of the deployment. Clear it. Clear my street. I'm like, blow my street. Yeah, stuff like that. No, I have, well, we just had a game night. Yeah, yesterday. We played some new games. We did. We played a lot of games. We played a ton of games. Because a couple of our friends who moved down to Texas a number of years ago have moved back to Kansas. A decade plus. A decade plus? Yeah. A decade plus. 15 years ago. Because it was, I mean, I was back in Kansas from graduate school, and it was only within, I think, a couple of years that they moved. Because one of them, she has family. She's from Texas. Right. And we grew up with her husband, Shane. And they're big gamers. So they finally moved back a few months ago, but things settled. And so this was the first game night they'd been to since before, other than maybe a couple times when I would coordinate with a team. Yeah, when they were in town. Which was very challenging. Because usually it was like three days to work with. But anyway, so that was really cool. And they knew a number of the same board games that Tony knew. So why don't we play? We played a couple of those Cyanide and Happiness. Yeah, we played the Cyanide and Happiness Joking Hazard game, which was a Kickstarter game. Cyanide and Happiness games are like all Kickstarter games. We played the Cyanide and Happiness Trial by Trolley game, which I picked up on Kickstarter. It just came out. I literally, it arrived in the mail last week. And we played Bang, which was a Western game that I played in the past. Because it's in Italian. Yes. Because it's Spaghetti Western. Yes. But due to my versatility in Italian, we were okay. Yeah. You definitely didn't have to use the subtitles under everything. Yeah. I don't recall. I don't know. I went out so early in it. I guess it didn't matter. That was fun. I liked all of them. Yeah. Well, yes, we have that. Only things I have to add are, well, I have a clarification. Clarification. Yeah. Yeah. We had another person. I'm going to say his name wrong, but I'll try anyway. Glenn Wacher. Actually, he's, I'm going to say Glenn W. He's actually given me a suggestion for an article that I'm trying to work on, but more on that when that's actually done, because I'm still in the process of coding relevant data on over 400 pinball machines because of it. There's always, you know, it's not the writing the articles that takes all the time. It's the research. Have you ever thought of just writing editorials? Yeah, but I don't, I mean, who cares what my opinion is on anything? is where I kind of arrive at. Yeah, I know that's what we're doing. Isn't that kind of what we're doing? Yeah, kind of. But again, who wants to read it? You want to listen to it because then you hear Dr. Claw. You don't want to, I mean, you don't hear that when I write. I don't know. I did have someone once write to me and say, or actually I think they maybe publicly posted it and said, I really like it when I see Dennis's articles because I read it in his voice that he podcasts with. It's like, well, but that's my normal voice. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I'm not getting a lot of offers to do books on tape or anything. Not Wil Wheaton, or as we say, Wil Wheaton. But, so anyway, Glenn wrote in and noted that Farrow, Pinball Machine. I've never played Farrow. And that's what I told him. I could not remember if I played it. It was at, I think it was at KC Game. Well, I guess it's not the right name anymore, but Kansas State Pinball Tournament. I think it was in the, not in the tournament bank, but over on the free play bank. In the free play bank. But someone was on it, so I know I didn't play it there. But anyway, it allows you to build up and hold the MagnaSafe. But I'm not surprised that it does, because I do recall hearing, I think it was back on a TopCast episode, that it's seen as the precursor to Grand Lizard, that very off-the-close. The greatest soundtrack in pinball. Well, it doesn't have that, but it apparently has the MagnaSafe feature, which we had already heard back, someone clarify, that Graham Lizard had that same feature. So, not surprised. I did have an article come out at the start of the week. Jeff Patterson with This Week in Pinball did not have his usual Monday piece. He mentioned he was going to take them, which he didn't. He actually has been putting stuff out. He just can't resist, I suppose. But I did write an article on market trends, which is something Jeff had asked for a few months ago. And so what I did is I took all of the pinball machines that were eligible for the 2018 Game of the Year Award, which was the award that was given out back in March. And that way, that meant I had over a year on all of them. Right. So you did the year. So I went through and I did them in the order of the votes. I started with Iron Maiden, which was game of the year, and I worked down to the least popular from the voting and, you know, included polynomial graphs where possible and where it looked like the trends were going on that. And part of the reason I did that is I also, and I have a link in the show notes to it, I did my last This Week in Pinball podcast episode with Zach Minney as the host. and one of the things I told Zach was if this week in Pinball Podcast were to win favorite podcast of the year for the 2019 Twippies that I would do another Market Trends that's not going to be I mean Jeff might let me on to do it but because that so I wrote one to cover all bases I don't want to lie you didn't want to be a liar no I did not so I did the article I really don't think it will win but just in case. Well, the podcast was, and we're going to get in a little bit. I actually thought this week in pinball, I knew Zach was leaving. I thought it was going to be after TPF, so I thought there would still be an opportunity to do the episode. Right. But that was not the case. I'm going to float you an idea for more research. Okay. For market trends, because I know you love it so much. I'm not opposed to the concept of market trends, but go on. I'd like to see decades worth of the Chicago gaming releases. So the way the releases, when the releases hit, have affected the original game prices. Oh, you want to see like a comparative two-line graph? Yeah. Okay. You notice I'm writing it down. Yeah, I know. I'm not writing it down. That's a lot of data segments. Actually, it wouldn't be too bad, because I don't know how bad the volumes of those games are going. But doing the article that Glenn suggested that I'm working on, which is related to the FCS state championship, and what games were in use there. Oh, interesting. Like, I'm not done going through it, and I'm doing them alphabetical, so bear in mind. But, like, Attack from Mars currently is easily the game that was in the most of those. That doesn't surprise me. And it's like, so I just dread to see the sale counts. I love Attack from Mars. I don't think it's a really good competitive machine. You have to adjust. I mean, I know one of the gripes with some people at 403 Club is they've always basically got it in tournament mode, where the mystery is always the 50 million points, and you don't get any of the fun stuff. Right. And I've heard some people say, you know, it's just because I think you need that if you want to get things like strobe multibowl. Yes. So people just feel like it's not as fun of a game. Whereas you do want it set that way in tournaments. Obviously. But when people are there just free playing, it makes them sad. Right. And I agree. It's no fun to go, oh, $50 million, $50 million. Right, right. But I get it from a balancing why in tournaments. Right. Or at least for something big like the SDS, you definitely want that turned on. Right. Oh, definitely. Oh, great, you got strobe multiball. I guess I lost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, that definitely has to be turned on for that. I just am going on the fact that it's, like, one of the longest playing games out there. Well, everyone knows it. It's a fan layout. It's relatively safe. And they got it fairly brutal at 403, I think. Yeah. So, anyway, so let's move into pinball. Moving into pinball. So, I guess the big news, actually, I originally had all these show departures and stuff. I'm just going to roll it all in under the Pinball Network, or I'm just going to keep saying TPN because I'm lazy. TPN. Because it's all now been, even if it wasn't initially tied to it, there's been a lot of sort of linkages to it. Now, the first thing, I guess, since we last recorded, there has been the, there was a teaser trailer that came out for the Pinball Network. And then this week on Wednesday, the quote-unquote launch trailer came out that named, I think, nine people, including myself, as being involved with it while going through and trying to get more people interested. Now that it was public, there's an email address for people to say, hey, I want to do something with this. So the first thing I want to do, though, is there was a lot of reaction regarding the trailer because what was noticed is all of the people in the announcement were all men, all white, mostly Midwesterners. All of the founders are Midwesterners. And that made people feel like the group was excluding people. So I apologize for the trailer conveying a message that we weren't inclusive because that was not the goal and that was not the intention. So clearly mistakes were made and the goal is to do better. I think since the trailer went out, people have seen evidence that we were trying to be inclusive, but the trailer did not convey that. So let's start with why it didn't convey that. Now, part of that is, obviously, now I did not make the trailer myself, but I did have the opportunity to look at it before it released. And I had someone message me. This was actually not on this topic. We were talking about something else. And this was like a day later after the trailer went out. But I think it was a good notation because what he said, and I'll just quote the one sentence, was, yeah, I thought you would be the voice of reason to call attention to that. So, and that, of course, has been what's made this last week particularly exhausting, that sort of sense that I dropped the ball and failed people, like those that thought, well, but if anyone would have caught it, it would have been Dennis, and that I wasn't good enough to catch it has been difficult to accept on myself. Well, because we've covered these topics a lot. We've talked about diversity in pinball quite a bit. And that's why when it came out and the way it came out was at first and where most, almost all the discussion was, was over on the Deadflip Facebook page where Jack Danger had made a satirical meme with a Bernstein Bears cover. I actually remember that book because we had the Bernstein Bears books growing up. So I remember that one. and he kind of mocked it up with the pinball network being referenced and just sort of asked about the lack of women in the launch trailer. Last I looked, that post had over 300 comments. A lot of those comments are discussing the video. There weren't accusations on the people involved, at least not that I recall. It was all focused on the video and while I don't think that a satirical meme-style post is how you launch an adult conversation about inclusivity, I'm fine with it being public. The video was public. I wasn't angry that the topic came up, but I was really sad to see so many people in the comments that weren't talking about the video just hating on each other because people just went into corners and just started talking past each other, and we've seen it so many times, and here it was again. We've seen so much, I mean, all over the world, but especially in pinball and especially in the last few years, it feels like it's getting worse. Yeah, and it's like, that's where the struggle has been. And where I look at myself in the hobby, sort of give my perspective of what it was like, that whole next day was just a lot of people reached out directly. They'd email through two Eclectic Gamers, which I usually check, I have that set up so my phone lets me know when we get those emails. Right. And a lot of people who didn't really know me would reach out, and they were very nice. They were they'd say how they felt. They usually would say, well, I'm glad you went on. And, you know, you said, yes, I see what the issue is. And I do. I do see it because, again, we've covered this quite a bit. So when it was pointed out, I was like, how did I miss this? It doesn't really make you want to be a content creator when you're feeling like I do right now. And that was always my fear when we started years ago. I mean, if people go back and listen to episode one and we're so formal and don't go. Don't listen to episode two. No, no, I don't really recommend it. Also, don't listen to episode two. Well, episode two is worse because that is where we had the bad audio at the end because of my laggy computer. But I thought the content on those episodes was okay, but that was my big concern when we had come up with the idea of, hey, let's try podcasting. It's like, well, you're putting yourself out there, and what happens if you say something that doesn't go over well, and then you have public criticism, and I'm not used to public criticism. It feels about like what you would think, I would say. Even when it's focused on the trailer, not you as an individual, it's like, no, it feels pretty bad. So it's still something you're involved with. It's still something that has your name on it. It has my name on it. And I did see that. I watched it once. So here's the, like, why did I not put more care into my review of it? And we had picked the launch date already before the trailer was done. And so there was a lot of pressure amongst us to launch when we had chosen. So when the trailer was ready, I was working. And I wedged it between a conference call and a multi-hour meeting I had at the end of the day. And it was just like I watched it. I clipped back to a few scenes to make sure that the spellings and the names were over the right people. I didn't even know the names of all the shows until I saw the trailer that were showing up. Right. And I'm just like, fine, it's fine. And that was all I did. So I clearly did not review it very well. And I just forgot about it after that. So I got home and then I saw, oh, dear. Oh, dear. This caused more of an issue because I am not interested in marketing. And so I've been really hands off with the group. In fact, even after the – you'd think I'd learned my lesson. But even after this, when they wanted to talk about logos, I'm like, I don't care. Just decide what you want. for a logo. And I didn't say leave me out of it, but I just like, I want to be left out of it because I just don't care. Getting back to the relevant parts, the parts people want to hear about. So, all right. So why were we so committed to the deadline? And that was because of the existing pressure that was felt already. So obviously on retrospect, making sure that the trailer conveyed the inclusiveness that we were going for was paramount. But at the time, we knew that there were a lot of people that were expressing, I was going to say outrage, but that's a bit extreme. They were upset because there was a segment of the podcast listening population that felt like they were being emotionally manipulated by all of these shows quitting, pretending to quit, but actually going to do this. Well, to be fair, they quit. Yeah, well, but not everyone knew that. And I'll get into more of that later. It looked more coordinated than it was, which initially, for those of us, the five people that are, quote, unquote, I said core group. Founders are probably better because then there have also been discussions. But why is the core group all Midwesterners and stuff? And it's like the founders were who Zach went to that he had either worked with before or is friends with is my understanding. So I was the fourth out of five to be approached. The difference between that and the other content creators was when they tried to bring me on board, they told me, you will have creative say. That was one of the lulus, one of the sweeteners to doing it was, you will have creative say in terms of what sort of programming we put on. But I'll get more into that in a bit because when I came on board, I thought this was a single podcast. So it's evolved from when they tapped me on the shoulder. It was not called the Pinball Network when I was tapped on the shoulder. So anyway, there was the pressure, though, of, OK, well, there are these people. We already, you know, the teaser's out there. They know the name of the show. People are already starting to troll it, which I expected. But, you know, that bothered some people. And we'll touch on that as well a little bit later when we get past the trailer part. But given all of that, it just, at that time, it was like we kind of hard-locked on needing to launch on Wednesday, even though, like, February 10th is the first episode of anything. Right. Which is kind of like, well, we need to, it's, all right, we did the hype thing with, you know, the shutdowns and everything and the tease. And now it's like, now we got to tell them, okay, calm down. It's not the end of the world. Not all of these, you know, not all of your favorite podcasters are going away. It's going to be all right. And so that just became tunnel vision. We tunnel vision. You guys got locked in. That's my interpretation. Well, that's what it sounds like. I mean, I was, again, I was fairly flippant about it in terms of I didn't really care when we launched. I thought the sooner the better, though, because I knew there were, I mean, I read Pinside. I knew there were pressures of people that were like, this is not right. You guys are toying with us. You know, we feel betrayed. It's a minority view, but it was a view. and there was a desire to not drag it out and look like there was this huge vacuum of all these podcasts going away and that there wasn't really anything else planned. That was extra complicated by how Twit Podcast ended. It was those things that kind of caused that. And clearly, when you think about it and you take a step back and you take the 100-foot view, It's like, how could we be so stupid? Because it was less than 24 hours later that we had Crystal locked in. And we had, and that was the other thing I think where the tunnel vision happened. Internally, we had been talking about so many different people to reach out to about being involved. And women were included. It was diverse. It was a diverse group. And so I did not handle any of the outreach to any of the content creators at the start before the trailer. That was because that's the other pressure. There was concern because of hype control reasons of leaks. So you couldn't shotgun. That was thought. You couldn't shotgun the offers out to everyone initially. And the idea is, well, once the launch trailer is out, we will be inviting people to tell us if they're interested in being involved. We didn't want to force, you know, they're not trying to peer pressure people or anything. It's like, here, consider this. Oh, it's open to everyone. And that has worked. We have an email account, which has got, I think, over a half dozen from the first day of people saying, I want to be involved. Right. But in the initial invites, I know of two women for sure that were approached, and Crystal was one of them. The problem was she works for Marco, and that's in the pinball industry for those that don't know. So she needed to get permission from her employer to be able to do the show, and we didn't hold the launch trailer for that, so we just didn't name her. As Rick Perry would say, oops. Oops. And that was an oops. Well, because that would have really, I think, sent a very strong message that, yes, we are inclusive. He was heavily pushed by Jason Fowler, in fact. He really, really thought she would add a tremendous amount because of her knowledge in pinball. Right. And once that name was announced and Crystal came out and said, oh, I was approached before all of this drama. I was approached before the trailer in case people thought this was just a reactionary token maneuver. Right. And so with Crystal confirmed now and public, it seems like a lot of people that were concerned and go, oh, okay. Yes, you are trying to be inclusive. You've proven it now. So really after that first day, it died down quite a bit. But still, there's a lesson to be learned there, especially in pinball, because it's been, as we've often spoke about, it's a hobby that didn't have a great history of including women. And we want that to change. and that was a desire of the TPN idea was a platform for people to be able to content create without having to worry as much about how to set it up, how to promote it, how to get it in front of eyeballs. So let me transition now into that and explain what TPN is and how I got involved in all of that. So I was approached a few weeks ago, maybe it might be closer to two months ago at this point, by Zach, Zach Minney, and he said that he was leaving the TWIP podcast at the end of January. And as I noted, I've known that Zach was leaving in 2020. This was going to happen no matter what. Right. He had decided that that arrangement, he and Jeff, my understanding is, mutually decided that he would quit being the host at some point in 2020. So I thought it was going to be after TPF. I think that was the original intent from prior discussions, I just thought. Because then the thinking was that would be really clean because it's after the Twippies, which he and Greg Bone, his host from Straight Down the Middle, they host that show and all of that. So he calls me and he says, I want to know if you'll be interested in continuing to do a podcast with me. But it wouldn't just be with me. So the idea was initially, and I don't think in practicality it's not going to be exactly the same, but the idea was he and Ken Cromwell from Special When Lit, who's one of the hosts over there, were going to do a weekly podcast, probably releasing on Mondays. And they wanted to know if I would come and do every other week like I did with This Week in Pinball, opposite of my EGP weeks, just like I did with This Week in Pinball. and I said yeah I'd be willing to do that assuming Twift Podcast is stopping because my understanding is I think the understanding of everyone is I am only on this week in pinball podcast to serve as a counterweight to Zach I don't know if I really have a place otherwise that was why I was brought at least that was my understanding I was brought in to bring balance to the force I'm little Annie but a better actor well maybe not, probably a terrible actor but hey, don't judge me, you're Doctor you can't even do Doctor Claw for 10 minutes you're right, I can't do Doctor Claw for 10 minutes I'm just saying, glass houses so and it's part of that, they're like if you come in you'll be considered as a founder on this idea and it's like okay the way I took it was, I'll have an equal say in all the podcast decisions which, again, that's what we do on EGP. I had no creative control over with Twit. I mean, Zach might ask me for my opinion, but there was no, at least I had no expectation that I had a say in anything on that show. It was to be there as a… You were a hired gun. Well, yeah, except I wasn't paid. But, no, I didn't get a cent for doing anything with podcasts. You were a recruited gun. Yeah, I mean, I did it for fun. And if it wasn't going to be fun anymore, I would walk away. I had one condition to doing the podcast, and they met it. And then other than that, it was a scheduling in. I don't want to imply that. I felt like I couldn't ever suggest anything. But the way I treated it was they have their segments. Jeff and Zach work out whatever creative thing they want out of the show. They tell me what they want, and I try and deliver. That was my approach with it. Okay. So this was going to be a little bit different where it would be like if I wanted to have the ability to stop a segment, I'd have a stronger hand. Or if I wanted to have a segment in there, I'd have a stronger hand. I'd have an equal say. I wouldn't just get my way. But it was going to involve four people because they were going to have another person host on the off weeks, my off weeks. So it was going to be a three-person podcast with four hosts. Make sense? Okay. And it was not called the Pinball Network. Right. We had a working title. It didn't have network in it at all. That was what I went. That's what I walked into. I was innocent. I tell you. I was innocent. I was innocent. Now you're welcome to TPN. Well, then the final thing was the idea about bringing in Jason Fowler, but not to do that same episode. So the thought was, hey, well, what if the podcast was actually putting out two episodes a week? Same name. Maybe a slight subtitle change or something. Right. And, like, kind of like what he's been doing with Slap Safe Pinball Podcast, have him do, like, interviews or something midweek, and then we'd have the Monday show and something like that. So that was the – that's the founder group. That's why it's the way it is. And Zach is a Midwesterner. He knew other Midwestern podcasters or, in the case of Greg Bone, you know, his best friend and a YouTube person. So that's how that all formed. That was it. At least in my mind, it wasn't any more ambitious than just another podcast with a bunch of people who talk way too much about pinball. But I was still having fun, so I thought, okay, that sounds good. After that gets all formed up and you have a messenger group where everyone's talking, it evolved rapidly into this really ambitious idea of kind of where it is now. What is TPN? Again, there was these talks of, okay, well, what about getting other people, new people, and saying, hey, you have a good idea. Or we think you really, you know, we heard you guest host one time. We think you have an ability to carry a show. We could put it on this. That way anyone who's following the Pinball Network will have access to your content. You don't have to build your brand from scratch. And it's like it was seen as a win-win. And the more shows that want to be involved get attention. Tony's shaking his head side to side about the win-win part. The way it was seen as win-win in the discussions were pinball network benefits because they get more programming, which enhances the brand, essentially. Makes it more popular. I understand. Yeah. And then the way it was seen as a win for the other person being involved is like if it's like monetizing and stuff like that is to benefit them. So, like, one of the things is in YouTube, from what I've heard, because I don't have a – I'm not involved in a monetized YouTube channel, is you can find out and see how much money is earned by video. So even if we have all the videos on TPN, we can figure out everyone's share. Right. of like, okay, well this guy, like Lee from Pinball Supernova, if his video earned $3.12, then you're able to say, well, you get $3.12, or you get 85% of $3.12 if we're taking 15% to pay for... I mean, you have to deal with the taxes and everything. See, that's just one of the things that floats out to me as, and this is going to completely derail, but it's something I've thought about since we... This is our only Pinball topic, folks. We have a ton of video games, so if you don't like this topic, just keep clicking fast forward a whole bunch and eventually you'll get to the really confusing world of video games this episode My question is just you got the network and you have all these people who the network is a platform for their shows But if somebody whose show is on your platform, and they decide they no longer want to be part of the platform, are they allowed to take their show as name and everything with it to walk away? Because there's a lot of networks set up like the network you're setting up where stuff like that's not allowed. or especially, now this is something I've seen from the YouTube area, where you'll get large overarching production companies where if the creator whose show has their name on it and their show is 100% them, but because they're working with a production company, if they decide they want to leave said production company and separate the show, they have the choice of either abandoning their show and starting a brand new show with a different name and different assets so it's not too closely related to their old show, or else they'll run into issues, or buying out their old show so they're allowed to leave. Right. I see. I mean, stuff like that is because of where I've researched and things that have happened with groups that I follow online, that's some of the stuff that comes to mind is the type of situation and how the rules are situated for stuff like that. I mean, I'll be 100% honest. I'm not part of it. I'm not in it. And so I don't have the background. I just have what you've said here and all of that. So questions like that is the stuff that comes up to me talking about it. Right. No, it's a fair point. And that was something early on that was discussed because not everyone agreed on the best way to handle that. And I don't believe there's a draft contract per se. So, again, some of this may still be more fluid than it is in my mind. This is where the consensus arrived at regarding those sort of things. The desire is that whatever appears, if it's appearing on the Pinball Network, like RSS or YouTube or whatever, be unique to the Pinball Network. So, for example, if I were to create a show, a podcast on the Pinball Network and do an episode, that I not re-release the same episode on EGP. Because I would be double dipping it, like in network and out of network. but if you're too worried that Zach's going to wear your skin as a suit and you decide to exit the network, do you get to take that show with you, or do you have to start a new show? My understanding is they can take the show, name and everything, with them. What I have recommended, and I don't know, I don't remember a vote locking this in, is if there were episodes that were already done on the network, those get to set, you don't, like, no obligation for us to delete them. Right. But you can still continue your show on elsewhere. And my recommendation is, and this is from the publishing side, where there are a lot of people that haven't gone to, like, publish short stories. I used to. I used to write fiction, actually. So, surprise. But, and got paid for it, too. This was a long time ago. But one of the most common ways of how do you handle rights? Like, what's the right of the creator versus the right of the publisher? And the most common one, at least that I experienced, was the right of you give – I would sell the publisher rights of first publication. So they are allowed to go first with it if they want to – and in those cases, if they want to reprint it, that's a new deal. If I want to have it printed somewhere else, I can do that as long as I have respected the first printable timeframe sort of provisions. So my recommendation to the group was I was even fine with people getting to take the actual episodes away off of the network after a year. Yeah, they went away a year. And I've seen that before with groups where it's been like they've had it in their contract deals. Like, we're separating. We're on our own thing. You can maintain the old episodes for two years exclusively. and then when that exclusivity ends, we will republish our old episodes on our new network. Right. So, that is my position of where I would be fine with that. But, I don't know if that's totally locked in. Again, this is just a group of people not really knowing what they're doing, trying to come up with it. But I thought it was very important to also say that you don't have to... The idea is, the network wants... What content's on it, we want it to be exclusive to that so you're not just listing them in multiple places. That makes sense. Other than that, though, if people want to run other shows at the same, again, like I am, Jason Fowler is with Slap Save. It's like, that came up, too, and it was like, do, it's, I mean, I told them, I will not be involved if you're telling me that I have to get rid of my other show. That's, I'm not doing it. Yeah. And I'm not moving it over here. And I thank you for that. So, I, well, it wasn't, it wasn't. We're not kicking me to the curb and abandoning me for the new hot. Right. Well, yeah, it's going so great. Yeah, no. No, and that wasn't, it wasn't a debate. That was, they were like, absolutely. And that's where some of the things were, well, what do you do if someone didn't already have a channel? And I believe the majority of us were, they want to form another channel as well. And do like, I want to do one thing on TPN and I want to do a similar but different name thing here. No problem. them. The idea was to, and Zach's actually the one who's really big on this idea. He's like, he loves the idea of, especially people who haven't content created before, like growing them like little flowers. That's not exactly his description. I know you rolled your eyes, but the idea of finding someone and then helping them get established, and in his stance, if they want to go off and do something afterwards and quit doing it, it's like, that's a win, because you've still got a content creator out of it, who's now out there making stuff for people to enjoy. And that's what excites him about it. I'm sure you're really shocked to learn that he was one that has really been passionate about wanting this to be a big network idea. And actually, it'd be about teamwork and trying to, everyone trying to help everyone make content and get it out there, not about, oh, I've got to undercut you because you're yet another podcast and you're my competition. Right. By and large, and this is my naivety, that's not how I've approached the hobby. That's not how I've approached the hobby. I mean, yeah, I guess we're all competing for listeners in a way, but it's, I listen to other podcasts. I don't want them to go away. It would be weird because then I wouldn't have what I listen to to listen to. Right. So I've never viewed it like, oh, that head-to-head, I got to beat them. Not that I could even if I wanted to, but. Right. Well, I don't think either of us have approached it that way. But I like, even as jaded as I am, I used to be an idealist. And so I thought, I don't know if this works, but I like the idea that it could. Yeah. That it would just be, I'm curious. The experiment to me is interesting. Are there people that would be like, they didn't have to worry about the – because part of the idea is that TPN would be able to help with the marketing and pushing of the episodes. Does that make some people are like, I just don't want to deal with all of that. I don't want to have to set up a Facebook, and I don't want to have to manage the – sending the links out everywhere. Am I spamming? Am I coming across like a tool? A podcast production company targeted purely at the pinball side of things. mostly, I mean, they even mentioned if EGP was interested they would like an EGP style show. Maybe. I don't know if the rest of them were on board. But I said, no, because we already got what we, and that's where on the initial outreach back on who did we approach on the trailer in addition to the leaks, there were people that were just ruled out because it was like, they've already got this stuff down. We're not sure they would want to do it unless they had an idea of something that they would like this to be in and didn't fit with what the current brand was. Be like, well, like a Jack Danger, for example. He's so, what would he need any, why would he be interested in something like that? I mean, if I were him, I wouldn't think about it because Deadflip is the Deadflip. It's huge. It would be like, if Head to Head had wanted to continue as a podcast, it's huge already. I just, I'm not saying that it wouldn't be interested, but our assumption would be that they would not. Right. Sort of thing. That's what happened with Lauren and Backbox. Her podcast was going so well. we actually talked about inviting her specifically early on because her show's so good, but she's so established. It's like, I don't know if we really offer her anything that helps. You know, the idea is to, as it was to make it be a, to be a tool that's useful to people. That's, that's all it, all of that. Right. Anyway, so that's how it evolved from just a podcast. And I, you know, full disclosure, there was at one point they were saying all this stuff. I'm so, I, you know, with my simple little brain and so overwhelmed, I actually said do we really need to do all of this could we not maybe just start with the podcast and then see what happens it does feel like classic overreach or it's like to me it was like scope creep again even though I get listed as one of the founding individuals I came in after other people were in on this and I think some of this while it was new to me was already being discussed with some of the others So what was sort of like, I'm not ambitious is, I think, part of the issue, not in pinball. So to me, it's like, it's a bigger vision than I would have had in the hobby. But I don't, what I do in the hobby is really, it's very quite selfish. It's just really oriented around things that I enjoy doing. Oh, terrible. You're doing things you enjoy in your hobby that is your relaxation and enjoyment. Well, relaxation died a long time ago. But, yeah, well, it's just, I mean, that's part of the thing that people need to remember as a, you know, I think helpful to remember as a perspective. It's like when we did EGP, and we look at the analytics and stuff, obviously, because Tony and I would talk about gaming all the time. That's where the idea, because I always blame Tony for us starting this, because he was the one who mentioned the idea, hey, you know, we talk about this stuff, but every couple weeks, we could just record it and it would be a podcast. And I was like, what's a podcast? Because I'd never heard one. And so when we launched it, it was, I remember looking at the analytics. Because with all the editing and time and the scheduling and stuff, you want there to be enough people that appreciate it. That you don't feel like you're just wasting your time doing the edits. Because otherwise we could just talk and not have to go to, I mean, you don't have to swallow the microphone anymore. Right. And I don't have to make sure that the levels are okay and the voice meter software. And buy an extra computer. Right. Yeah, and so I remember, I don't know what, early on I was trying to figure out, because it grew slow for us, and I was like, I don't know what the threshold should be. I reached the threshold of satisfaction at 100, 100 listeners an episode. And I was like, okay, if 100 other people actually want to hear the conversation Tony and I have, I think that's probably worth, you know, an effort every other week. Well, for me, to be fair, if they want to hear a clean, sanitized version of our normal conversations. Yes, yes. Our ratings would probably be higher if we were filthy. But again, we didn't want to. Well, to be fair, we are filthy. We are. We're just nice on the air. We are. Yeah, I don't deny it. I always try and be honest. That was on the evolution of the show. Now, since its launch, as I noted, we've had a lot of interest. We've had a lot of trolling. That was part of the, and I wasn't too surprised at the trolling, but someone bought a domain that sounds like what we would have taken as a domain name. We hadn't really planned, I don't think, a website. thing at all, honestly. We secured a lot of the stuff we knew we needed, like social media, email, things like that. It's just been... I don't know. It seems like one of those things should have been just a secure and then just leave it blank and dead. Again, on retrospect, yeah, we should have. I think, and this is one of the frustrating things. Let me whine as an aside, just real quick. I just don't... And it happens in other hobbies. I know it's not just pinball. But it really feeds into the stereotype of pinball that people just maliciously troll each other so bad or think they're being good natured trolls and it's still just malicious. They just pretend it's funny. I just, I don't understand it. I do. It's because through the anonymity that the internet gives them, it lets people be complete and utter assholes with no concern of retribution. I see why it's executable, but why do you think they enjoy it? I ain't no saint. Don't get me wrong. I have deliberately taken pleasure out of destroying opposition before. But it was always warranted. Always. I was the righteous one. You were the righteous one. You had the fire. You had the light coming down from the skies. You stood there. You stood on the field of battle and watched your enemies crush you before you. I won't share the full story. because I was probably like, all right, I'm going to turn down the religious overtones a little bit on that. But that's work. That was work. That was my job. Yeah. This is my hobby. So I never understood going around and trolling people in a thing that I thought we were all doing to have fun. Right. But see, that's the thing. That little thrill you get from seeing your enemies driven before you. Yeah. That's the fun part of the hobby to some people. Okay. Well, that makes sense, actually. It does. Because otherwise... I understand. Yeah, I mean, because otherwise, why would people cheat in video games? Because what's the fun of winning if you know how to use a bot? That's the odd. No, it's because they like watching people cry over it. Okay, yeah, I get it. That does make sense. Well, I don't appreciate it, but I guess when you're the one getting trolled... Well, that's the thing. Yeah, right. And not everybody's like that. But enough people are like that when they pile on, especially when they see an easy target to pile on. That's true. It is just a feeding frenzy. There's a mass of them. And while they might not be anywhere near the majority, just like in everything else in life, everything else online, and just in daily lives, the really loud stuff, the really out there is typically the vocal minority because the majority is having fun and they're not getting involved one way or another. Case in point, I'm on this podcast. You handle almost all of the Facebook interactions. I don't like social media. I don't use it very much. I use it some. but I don't get involved in that. My preference of talking to people, like I'm talking to you right now, is face-to-face. It's part of the same issue. Why we record face-to-face like this is because, well, yeah, my house is really loud, and it's full of kids and dogs and all sorts of stuff going on, which makes recording hard. It makes it sound bad. But at the same time, I'm always more comfortable talking to somebody face-to-face than I am talking to them otherwise because it's too impersonal for me. That's one of my little hiccups. That's one of my little hiccups. It's the same way at work. I send hundreds of emails now all the time. And you know what? I hate emails. I would rather pick up that phone and call somebody. Every single time I'd rather pick up the phone and call somebody. But emails are the way things need to be done. So I send emails. And that's just how things go. I mean, big group of people, the big mass of people, that's the thing to remember, especially in a situation like this, is while there were a lot of local people, the vast majority of people didn't care. Right. Yeah. Yeah, it is. That's how it goes. Touching on a few other things relating to the evolution before we talk about the various departures and how that all tied in. Obviously, I can't share everything because a lot of this stuff is private and it's not meant for public consumption. But one of the things that's come up is the notion of shills. Let's talk about Win Schilling. Mm-hmm. That's right. always a major concern. Accusations I know Zach is very familiar with. And people have thought or speculated, and again, this is probably just poor communication on our part in the lead up, but like, oh, well, this is going to be a group of people that are, they're just going to shill for flipping out or we're going to be in the pocket of the manufacturers. I wondered, I never asked. I wondered if part of the reason I was asked to be involved with the podcast initially was because I think, I guess I don't know, I thought I had a reputation for not Win Schilling. I hope, personally, that you and I and EGP as a whole have that reputation because we kind of haven't pulled punches on anyone. And there are several podcasts. Of all the things that I ever see crop up on Pennside about when they talk about podcasters in general, is there's an assumption that other than this one podcast, that all the other ones are liars. And it just pisses me off. Yeah. Because there are so many honest podcasters that are being quite frank, and it's really clear no one's listening, because otherwise they'd know that. Right. Because it's super obvious. I mean, this is one of those things that the, I mean, we were talking about the quality control problems that some manufacturers had before it became the big thing. Sure. We talked about that. Sure. When somebody has something, and I think we're very clear that all of our thoughts are our opinions. When somebody releases something and we think it looks like crap, we got no problem seeing it looks like crap. When we were contacted by Deep Root to be involved at TPF this year and hear from them, what was your number one concern? I didn't want to sign anything or be required to say anything I didn't think was true. That's one thing. and I have not, in my position as a podcaster, signed an NDA. I don't ever want to sign an NDA because I don't want to be restricted in that way. Right. And that was where, I mean, the way I've always described it for me is this is why I've never gone out of my way to make friends with people in the industry. It's not that I won't be friendly with people, but I don't, that was like kind of the price, in my view, That was the price to be paid for choosing to plug in the microphone was I need to have a degree of distance because otherwise I'm going to just put myself in that really awkward position where what if I don't like my friend's game? Right. And it's a small hobby, so you're going to end up making friends that work in industry and stuff. You are. But I just – some people, I think, sometimes get into content creation because they love the hobby and they want to get to know and be friends with the people that make the things they love. and I'm not interested in that. I don't have the motivation to do that. I can love the game without knowing the person. It's fine. That's perfectly fine. I have no problems with that at all. That's how we're saying it. It's one thing, especially with friends who are friends, who are friends who you talk to sometimes, but they're who you consider someone important, how people can, I can see why they would bend to keep from upsetting that person. Yeah. I'm not really that person because I'm very much a who I am type thing. And if I say something that pisses you off, well, it's happened all the time. And I think part of the thing that I've heard Zach mention, especially on TWiF episodes where I wasn't on, was that whole, yeah, it's like even he's acknowledged and it is true. Even in private, if I ask Dennis about something and he doesn't like it, he just says that he hates it. that, well, if I hate it. Right. I don't say hate, but it's like, yeah, he's always like, it's almost almost mean. It's like, well, no, I don't mean it. I am very blunt, but I always mean it in a respectful way. And yeah, that's just like my style. It makes no sense to lie. No, you're not doing anyone any favors. Don't you want to know? I mean, that's where, as I noted publicly, and actually I communicated with Jack Danger after the launch trailer, while I didn't like that he used a satirical comic to initiate the discussion, I told him and I said it publicly. I didn't mind the video being criticized publicly. It was a public video. It's your right to criticize it. I have criticized other public things and I will not sit here and be a hypocrite about it. That's just because that's how we learn. What if you didn't get to have any criticism? You wouldn't learn anything. In the vein of all of that related to TPN, no manufacturer can sponsor it. I believe we've already had that vote I was very firm about that. I don't want this to be owned by a manufacturer because I think it just looks like if you're doing anything, I don't know if there would be any, if we wanted any reviews, for example, though, if you were sponsored by HomePin, who would trust you on those games? And who would trust you on any games because then there would be the worry that you were undermining the other ones to make HomePin look better. This is all an example. HomePin did not approach anyone to my knowledge about doing something like that. So none of those. Yes. there will probably be some sort of sponsor-esque arrangement with flipping out pinball because Zach is a content creator and he's going to, but regardless it was always my stance, anyone who was on would be able to plug anything that they wanted so like if Kristen wants to plug Marco, she can plug Marco if Jeff Teolis wants to plug pinball profile, that's not a sponsorship that's just, hey, you're doing stuff for here, you can promote your other stuff, it's only fair, we're not trying to take away on the other stuff. It's not supposed to be that way. You'll still talk about EGP. I mean, the only other thing, right, the only other things I can note is I have emphasized that I do not want podcasts to have seven minutes worth of commercials about all the sponsors and all that. I hate that crap. That's terrible. Again, some of the stuff and how it will play out, to my knowledge, there aren't any sponsors right now, so it's not a big concern. With a big group, it's going to happen. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, a lot of these other people have sponsorship. Pretty much everyone else comes from a scenario where they had sponsors. And I just said, here are the things I hate. And no one objected to the idea of keeping the main, like saying, okay, we're not letting the actual builders of the game sponsor. Right. I don't think it's a big deal if you get like a mod maker sponsoring, for example. Because no one's going to have a show around building, or I guess you could have a show around reviewing mods. But to my knowledge, there isn't one in the works. But otherwise, I'm also like, just don't make those commercials oppressive. that, you know, so I'm trying with, those are my stances. I don't know how everything will ultimately look because it will depend on whatever the, someone else was working on a proposal on how to come up with how that would be handled. And it's not done yet to my knowledge. So, but, again, another thing on me was I told them, I won't be involved if you make me change how I talk. Because it wouldn't be fun. They want you to talk like this! No, no, no. And they knew what I meant. I said, I like it. because of all the people involved, we've all had different ways about how we talk about manufacturing. Right. And this is like, I'm not changing. I'm not Win Schilling. I'm not going to pretend I like things I don't like. These are the rules. And I say, if you don't like these rules, just tell me now and I can walk away. I'm not going to be mad. And they're like, no, we would never ask you to change how you approach. We came to you because we like your approach. I said, okay. I just wanted it to be clear up front that if you get some weird arrangement or something, or, you know, Zach needs to sell Wizard of Oz Yellow Brick Road Edition, I'm not going to start saying that it missing the monkey mech is a good idea, because it's not. And they were good with it. And I think most human beings understand that sort of stuff. But again, you see in the Pinside echo chamber, a lot of people don't seem to get it, or they think that that's what it will be. and I can't talk about how other people will speak. I can only control how I will speak. But it will be as people are used to. And it's one of those things. I mean, people are also always going to see things. No matter what you want or how you want it to be covered, people are always going to see things differently. Just case in point, people are probably always going to take anything Zach says about a game with a grain of salt because he's a distributor. Yeah, and that's fair. I know it's always frustrated him because he was always overly positive even before he was a distributor. I understand that, but I think it's something that should be expected because... Yeah, I mean, I would. I mean, that's literally his job. Yeah. Is to sell machines. Sure. And that's where I can see why one might identify value in having someone like me whose job is in no way related to pinball. I don't profit or lose regardless of how a game does because that's not my life. My livelihood is not dependent upon it. So let's talk about the departures because that's the last thing, and then we're done with pinball. Okay. So part of the thing, part of the narrative, and I'm not at all surprised about this because it's just – I mentioned it ways back in this episode about all the coincidences, and then, of course, people thought it was all linked. And again, that is part of what created the pressure, in my mind at least, about getting the launch trailer out because things were cascading more than we had expected. So in terms of there have been several departures that have happened since our last episode. There was the last Zach hosted This Week in Pinball Podcast. I stress that because Jeff is leaving open the idea of continuing to have This Week in Pinball Podcast under some other structure. that is was known planned the launch was built around the time chosen so that is integrated into TPN's launch yes it was okay we know that what the 20th of January was going to be the last TWIP podcast episode and the launch date was kind of factored from there that it was going to happen shortly after Zach was off of TWIP and no longer affiliated with it which makes sense so that that integrated Next one, Special and Lit. They've not stopped their podcast. They've announced that it's stopping in early February. They are still streaming under Special and Lit. Ken Cromwell is involved with this new TPN project, and he would be the best to ask for all the specifics. But my understanding is, well, the timing is integrated. He is, as he noted, I believe on, I don't remember which episode number, but on Special When Lit, it's the time issue of he's still doing the Flip N Out Pinball stream, he's still doing Special When Lit streaming, and if he's going to be hosting another weekly podcast, something needed to give. And so Special When Lit, his decision to not continue doing Special When Lit is driven by the existence of TPN as well. The next is just head-to-head. They announced they were ending their podcast, link in the show notes. Totally unrelated. It was not related. Now, people may note that, well, but in your launch trailer, Martin was shown as being involved with TPN. That is because, as I remember, I didn't do any of the direct outreach myself, but one of the ideas was on programming for the network and diversifying the programming lineup, which is another thing that's been a big focus, was something about competitive pinball. Jeff Teolis was approached to host something on competitive pinball, And I believe he thought Martin would be a good co-host and talk to Martin about it. And that's how Martin got brought in. Martin's decision to end head-to-head was already done. They were already – that was already happening. And he wasn't going to – he did not know about TPN at all. So their announcement had nothing to – and the timing of it happening, just the TWIP podcast final episode of Zach was already set when we saw the head-to-head announcement because it had come out like less than 48 hours before. So, yes, weird coincidence, but totally unrelated. Head-to-head pinball was not toying with people. The Illuminati. They weren't part of the hype machine. That wasn't part of the plan. That was just a happy little accident, as Bob Ross would tell us. Happy little accident. Similar, Pinball Supernova. I have a link to their termination announcement in the show notes as well. Pinball Supernova is a blog site. they were one of the first sites, first site I know of that linked us, linked our podcast. He also, Lee is the man who runs that. He has put out videos and stuff. I've cited him on EGP several times, even within this last 12 months on things that I first saw there when we do in our show notes and we give credit and people can go and read the real thing rather than hearing our version of it. So he had announced that he was ending his involvement in producing content in pinball. It was a fairly negative post. He was upset. His numbers weren't very good. So again, like with EGP, it's like, when do you not have enough people to make it worth all the effort, sort of thing. And he was at that point where it wasn't worth the effort. Other things were sapping the oxygen away, and his stuff was too small to seem like it was making much of a difference. So we saw that announcement, uncoordinated with TPN. He didn't know about TPN. And again, in all those discussions, it was, hey, well, I don't think it would leak anything if we contact him. Let's see. Maybe he would like to do this. And if we put it under the Pinball Network banner, it will drive that traffic that he wants. And some of the YouTube people were like, yeah, we can track the analytics. So in terms of if there's income, if it's a monetized channel, that he can get his share. Because the content is by the content creators. And that's where, when you were asking about that, like, ownership sort of stuff, it's like, we want the content creators to get their stuff. The network benefits from it being branded as the network. Right. That's what builds it up. Right. And that's why they ask those questions. Yeah. They're all good questions. They're all good questions. So Lee and Lee was like yeah actually that my big it like he doesn really you know he talking about getting out of a hobby in his post and stuff It not that he really hates pinball It just he It got him so down that he felt like he was doing all this work and no one was appreciating it And we like well do you want to try it like this and see if that gets you the views and the involvement that is worth your time And he was good with it. So of those four things that I'm in, there may be other announcements. I don't know. Of those four things, only two of them were, quote-unquote, coordinated with when we were going to announce formally that TPN existed. Other two, completely random, and just as part of the handful of people we reached out to. I mean, Martin, as far as I know, from head to head, was a total happy accident add-on. Lee was specifically reached out to, but he had already decided to end his thing publicly when we did it. And that's why he was seen as one that we could go to, and it probably wouldn't leak anything. Right. If he was done, he would just say he was done. So that's how all those departures, I mean, I don't, I hope, hopefully that clears it up for people that maybe thought it was this massive coordinated thing, but it wasn't. It just kind of worked out that way. Right. And as I've noted, though, some people have been confused as well. We said it earlier in the episode, Eclectic Gamers Podcast is not on TPN, and it's not going away. It's continuing. Jason Fowler with Slap Safe Pinball Podcast is keeping Slap Safe Pinball Podcast. It's not on TPN. It's not going away. Those are continuing. There was no mandate for anyone to end their shows. It was Zach was leaving TWIP anyway, no matter, even if this wasn't going to happen, he was leaving. And Ken, as I understand it, needed to free up the time to be able to do it. And so he just, the thing he chose was the podcast because they have more fun doing the streams, I think. Or it would be too stressful. You know what, I mean, that was the thing. When they asked me if I would do the show initially, when it was just a show, I asked, do you want me to try and do it weekly? Because I'm still going to do EGP, but if you want, like, if you think it's critical for me to try and do it weekly, we can try it. And Zach told me, absolutely not. I don't. I think I would blame myself if you burned out from trying that just to make it work. Yeah. Well, I was like, oh, yeah. I mean, that was always my concern with Twitter because Jeff asked me multiple times if I would do the show weekly, be the permanent other host. And I was just like, I just – I think it would break me. That's a lot of time. Instead, I've just broken myself on the wheel of all of this. Oh, you'll heal. Yeah. I should be all right. You'll heal. I mean, it is time-consuming. I mean, between your research time, the record times, the setup times, and everything else, and editing, it is time-consuming. And doing a whole bunch of different shows a week, I mean, it could eat up every bit of non-work time you have very easily. And that's the only, currently, in terms of TPN, the only plan. I call it the anchor podcast, the idea that I was brought in on. that's my that's the show that's the only show I am slated to do I am not aware of doing anything because I mean otherwise I'm pretty much I mean I could like do something monthly I suppose I think the way on the live streams and this has still been evolving because yesterday my understanding was the thought was we were talking about scheduling and bringing in live streamers to do various like blocks of time because there have been actually a lot of people have written in want to stream pinball. That's what they want to do. They don't want to do a show. They want to stream. Which is good. So the thought was giving them, you can give each individual Twitch account a key to stream on a set channel. I guess looking at the logistics, it was like, well, that's a good way to try and drive it up to affiliate status. But then on Twitch, the tracking of when the donations came in and the bits came in, because we're trying to figure out how to give it back to the people who were doing the streams, it became nightmarish. So I think the current plan is actually to ask people to just have their own channels and we'll just arrange the hosting thing. And then if you just go to the Pinball Network, it will just jump to that person's channel. It'll auto-host. They can handle the bits and they get it all. They get the tax burden and they get their money. That makes the most sense. And so in that case, I would be willing to do, if I'm doing a weekly stream of Pinball, I'd be more than happy to say, I'll throw a TPN logo up instead of the Casey Loves Pinball logo and let them host us and do it like that because otherwise it seemed like more work than it was worth it to me. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Because it might drive some traffic to it. And it's like, yeah, that's sort of, again, the win-win. They get their – gets brand exposure and then you get more of your murder bits. My murder bits. Do you know how many murder bits you have? I don't think you've ever emptied it. No. I don't. Because I actually – Twitch has two-factor authentication once you go affiliate. So I can't actually get in and see that. I've not checked it. I have to make sure I log in through Chrome every couple weeks at least so that I can easily change the headings. I mean, I can do it through OBS, but – Yeah. So I can actually see the analytics. Yeah. It's fun times. Because I – and I haven't – well, obviously, I haven't streamed in a long time. A long time. I need to – Because we both just stream under the – we actually use the same OBS login because we're logging in through the Twitch account. Right. Which I'm sure there's a way you can copy all those scenes over into a separate thing. But because of that, we actually built the stream under the same main primary key. Because I remember the time you went to test. And I just kept seeing all these donations. But they weren't real. And I was like, what's going on? Because I was working and setting my stuff up. I thought my computer was going berserk. I was like, no, what is it? Because it kept saying that Eclectic Gamers was doing it. But I didn't. I didn't do it. I'm just trying to play. I'm just trying to play Silver Slugger. Oh, hard life. So that's it for pinball. I hope everyone's caught up. I mean, that was the only quote-unquote news. I mean, yeah. No, it's going to be interesting going forward. Now, speaking of going forward, video game stuff. There's been a lot. So, video games. There's absolutely no drama in video games. Never has been, never will be. So, we're going to start out with our drama-free video game segment. we're going to open with Sony. Yeah, Sony. Sony. Sony's great. Sony 5's coming out. Everybody's looking forward to it. I mean, we're not going to be able to see it at E3 because Sony announced they're not going to be at E3. Yeah. For the second year in a row. I think for all the year in a row. Yeah, I think they're done. Yeah, if you're not going to be there to launch a new generation, E3 dead to you. Hashtag dead to me. Well, here's the thing. With Sony not there, I think E3's dead. It might take a couple of years to finish out, but E3 is the big thing that it has been. Unless they do a major change, I think it's on its way out. I think it's on its way out. I agree. That's my quick statement. I think E3 has been on its way out for a while now because I don't think that they have, And maybe it's not possible, but I don't think that they pivoted to deal with the new reality well at all. No. And here's my – I know we've talked from time to time about E3. Here's where I think the issue is, and we'll see if you think this is the issue or where my – because let me give my solution. It's not about problem solving. Let's solve the problem. And since I know nothing about playing a thing of that size and magnitude, let me just be an expert about it. Because I know how to play a little of this. Right. So here's where I think the issue is. The problem for E3 is twofold. One, given the rise of social media, influencers, and this fragmentation of how people consume video game news, publishers and developers have found that it's a lot easier to get their message known than it was, especially pre-expansive Internet Everywhere days, where you needed a big media event. So that's part of the problem is that it's now real easy to get your message at least out there to the public. So you don't need an E3 event to do it. The other thing is I think that the ESA is charging way too much for the spaces. And they could do that when they were the gatekeeper. But now that they're not the gatekeeper, they haven't lowered their pricing. and their solution has appeared to be to try and get more and more of the general public to what used to be a media event to try and turn it into PAX, except it's not as fun. Right. So my solution here is they seem to be trying to lean into that PAX strategy. I don't think it's going to work. I think they need to lean the other way and just say, okay, we need to get people back to this as an event because E3 still has, as a name, the cachet of being the big media event. Make it the media event again. Significantly lower the pricing that you charge for things to attend it. And just accept that you're not going to make the same hand over fist ridiculous profit you got away with. And I would return to media only. I would as well. Return to media only. Cut the attendance prices and put together a more reasonable cut down plan for the overall setup. Because trying to grow and bringing in non-media people isn't helping them. There is a PAX for every section of the country and overseas. You can go to a local PAX. There's PAX Australia, PAX West, PAX East, PAX... They are everywhere. And they're fun. They're well put together. Yeah. And that's the thing. You're not going to beat PAX because PAX knew what it wanted to do and is going to do it better than you. Right. Well, I shouldn't say that it's not possible for them to become the next Pax, but they clearly aren't. They've been trying this for years now, and it's just not working the same way. They're pissing off all the media there because they're running into all the plebes. The queues are ridiculous, so the plebes are upset. And the pricing is so high, there's plenty of people that go, this isn't – I mean, that's what Sony's doing. This isn't worth it for me to be there. Here's the thing. EA was able to leave, rent a whole other theater a block away, cheaper, and do a thing the same weekend, do the thing the day before E3 starts at their whole other thing in a whole other theater that they rented, then it would have cost them to have actually been at E3. Right. And then you've got, I think I've heard as well, like Microsoft owns something now where they've been hosting some of their stuff as well. So for them, while they've stayed involved with E3, They have, again, nearby a place that they already own. So it's like they are able to lean. I was going to say lean into. Lean. I was waiting for it. I was waiting for it. The first one of the episode, I hear the alcohol going back. We're trying to be good, folks. I'm really trying to be good. And use that sort of thing so it's easier for them than it is for, say, Sony. And when I say lower the pricing for the vendors, I'm talking like 50%. It'd have to be. because you just have to, I think, if your pricing is so high that they can rent a whole other venue in an area with high prices, cheaper than joining yours, that's a problem. Yes, and this is a struggle that, and I can speak from smaller events that I used to be involved with. While I was not the main planner, I worked on the vegetarian side of these things, and that was often a big tension with vendor groups and such, for example, was how much can we ask for? We want to fill the space. So you want the price as high as you can get to fill the space, but not so high that you're now actually leaving money on the table because people are like, this is not worth it for what I get out of it. Right. And those numbers changed over time. And that's the same thing. Or sponsorships were the same way. How much for a sponsorship? And now where I'm at now, I added sponsorships to our big event, and my sponsorships are less than the entity I used to work for because it's less valuable to be at my new places event because I don't have the same money decision makers that the other entity does. So I priced accordingly. ESA is pricing like this is still the 90s. It's like, no, they're not. All this crap is leaking before E3 even hits. Oh, yeah. You're getting used to this. It's like E3 week is kind of like when people like to do a lot of their media dump stuff now, but they don't have to be there for that. So at least make it cheap enough so that being there makes sense to get in front of a lot of journalists. That's the strength. Right. Because even though there are a lot of influencers now, and maybe you want to involve the influence. I can still see an angle for that. Maybe make it so that I'm not like anyone. We could probably get an influencer tag with our YouTube channel, which, well, no. It would be better for this. My understanding is the price is really low. Yeah, no, I'm sure we could get one. I have no doubt at all. Do you know who we are? We could get one. We could get one. It wouldn't be a big deal. Here's the thing is, even if I had the time and inclination, in all honesty, I'd rather spend the time and money to go to a PAX where I'd have more fun than to go to an E3. And I've heard that from journalists who work in game media. But PAX is more fun. PAX is fun. I go to E3 because it's paid for and I have to do it for my job. Yeah. And it's just like, I mean, and we've talked about it on the pinball side. Expo, it's the same drive as Texas. Yeah, it's the same drive for us, yeah. But we go to Texas because of how much fun we have in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. Now, to be fair, we haven't tried Expo to see if we can get more time. We haven't tried Expo, but also a lot more of our local friends and our local pinball people that we know go to Texas than go to Expo. And part of that is probably, my guess was, Expo's past reputation, which sounds like it's gotten better. I think I'd like us to try for an Expo at some point. It's a weekend trip. But we might be able to, with my new position and my lack of on-call, it's something that's discussable. Okay. I have to look at the schedule because my problem is that Expo falls around when, just like with my past job and my current job, around when typically what we call the annual meeting is. Right. And those dates are set. Yeah. So that's the one thing. But otherwise, yeah, we'll see about it. Yeah. Go to theflexicangriestpodcast.gmail.com and convince us why we should dine you with our presence at Expo. Then I would suggest we were going to consume people like they were tortillas. But, yeah, no, that's – the E3 has to make some major changes. I just don't see how without Sony there, you're just missing a huge – Well, and what's interesting is, I'm going to go ahead and read a quote from questioning with the Sony people. He said, after a thorough evaluation, Sony Interactive Entertainment has decided not to participate in E3 2020. We have great respect for the ESA as an organization, but we do not feel the vision of E3 2020 is the right venue for what we are focused on this year. They're releasing the PlayStation 5. Nothing else matters. and they think E3 is not the right venue for what they're focused on. Because of its vision. Because of its vision. E3's best advantage is the chance to go back to a small media-driven event. That's what it is. Okay. So we're in alignment on this. Yeah. That's the problem. I think that and every major important thing for an E3 in the last five years has been leaked two weeks before E3. And that's where I really talk about the pricing for the vendors, the manufacturers, the developers, the publishers, to actually get their space. I think it's just too high for something that can be done without E3 now. And that's where E3 has – because where I think E3's struggled is they've been making less money as more and more entities have pulled the EA move and pulled out. And so they're trying to make the capital up on the common plebe attendees. It's like, you're not designed for that either. And so you're not PAX. We're not even going to call you PAX Light. Oh, not even close. And so you're still not convincing any of the existing publishers that you're worth sticking around for by doing it like this. And everyone who's going there that used to matter, the media, feels like they're just at some weird cattle call now. And they're questioning why they have to do this instead of just watching some live streams and staying at home. I mean, how many of the journalists are going because the bosses who aren't directly involved are like, oh, E3 is the big media event. Click, click. There's your vouchers. Go. There's your vouchers. Go. There's your vouchers. Go. So, you know, they set up their little tables and they're live streaming their version of E3. and that's how we consume E3s from those stream events. And it's like, okay. I mean, I've never, not in modern times, had any compulsion to want to go to E3 because it just sounds awful. It sounds terrible. Where everything I hear about like, here's the list of conventions I would like to attend. Gen Con, PAX. Those are the big ones. Yeah. I mean, we already attended pinball convention. I would like to go to ReplayFX, but that's more for Penberg than anything else. But that's like my lip. That's my lip. Punch the microphone. I punched the microphone. I punched it to the ground. Happy birthday. To the ground. My dad's not a phone. I'm throwing all that. Okay, sorry. If we do any more of that, we're going to have to pay royalties. Yeah, we don't want that. So, yeah, no. I think E3 is going to have to do some soul searching. If they lose another major, I mean, when your tent poles are Microsoft and Bethesda. It's just not enough for as long as it is. Especially considering Bethesda is walking around with a bear trap closed on each leg and an arm at this point. That they've done to themselves because they're like, I'm going to set this bear trap. Oh, I stepped in it. Damn. The last 12 months have been awkward for a lot of entities. Activision Blizzard as well. Anyway, so yeah, that was the big video game news I knew we'd definitely be covering, but there's been more. Oh, there's been so much more. With what could be taken as a point that Bethesda and a couple other game developers should probably take a hint from. CD Projekt Red announced that instead of releasing Cyberpunk 2077 on April 16th, they're pushing it to September 17th because they don't have the polish on it yet that they want. I was aware of this. You just floated out there. This is a great idea. If the game's not ready, delay it. Well, now, I agree. I do agree with you, but let me say, there is a reputation or at least a perception that if you have given a release date and you delay, unless you are Rockstar, you are trashed here for doing it and that you will be raked over the coals because people were expecting their big spring game and now you've betrayed them, you lied, you're a failure. Rockstar gets a pass because it's Rockstar, and apparently CG Project Red probably gets a pass because it's CG Project Red. But if EA were to do it, they would be criticized, and that's why they stick with the games. But the thing is, I think that's a perception that's not real. I agree. Because people, just like everybody says, oh, don't, this game was crud. We shouldn't have pre-ordered. People still pre-order stuff constantly. Yes. Yeah. That's all talk. I mean, it's all talk. It doesn't matter. It's just like pinball with video. It really is. They're not going to. Y'all are going to buy. Y'all are going to buy. Yeah. They're not going to lose sales because of this. where things lose sales is where you force the date when the game's not ready and the game is crap and you get that initial word of mouth. No matter how many changes have been made, no matter how much good word of mouth is out there about the fixes, if you mention No Man's Sky to anybody, it's a burning tire fire. Yes. And that game is a lot better than it was. Yes, and I've heard that from people who have gone back and played it. I mean, I was playing it just a couple weeks ago, That game is a lot better than it was, but it's always going to be a burning tire fire. Yeah. So. Now, the interesting thing about this, while I completely concur that this is smart, I believe there's another, I don't remember the name of it. I heard there's another fairly large spring release that also got pushed back. So now what looked like a crowded period looks kind of dead because so many people were avoiding the date because they knew they did not want to go. They did not want to go up against Cyberpunk. Right. And that's always that. That's not unusual, but we see movies do that from time to time, trying to avoid major, like, you don't want to go up against Star Wars. Even if it's going to be a bad Star Wars. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to go up against Star Wars. Right. So, it's kind of like, I heard some discussion about, okay, so this, things right around April are kind of looking a little light. I think someone said, it sounds like I'm going to be playing a lot of Animal Crossing, and that's about it. Yeah, because that's the big spring release. That I know of. Now, yeah. Yeah. We're going to segue off of that onto another bit of completely drama-free news. We've not talked about Star Citizen in a while. Yeah. I think we only ever had one episode where we put more than five minutes on it. Right. It's just kind of a mention to make sure people know that it's still alive. Can you, as for those, because a lot of our listeners probably don't know about Star Citizen, can you kind of provide a nice little synopsis? Synopsis? Star Citizen is a game created by Chris Roberts and his group, Cloud Imperium Games. And people may, if you're a longtime video game fan, you may recall Chris Roberts' name because he was associated with the Wing Commander. Yes. And Star Citizen is basically supposed to be the modern version of Wing Commander. It is the same. It's a space flight sim, but it is so... It's so much more. It's so much more. Because it has a first-person section where you are, I mean, with combat and driving cars and this and that. And then you fly your ship and you can get up and walk around your ship. And it is going to be a giant, always-on, immersive world where you and other people play and run together. It's going to be an MMO. Yes. And I would say the reason why, besides the sheer ambitiousness of it, that people know about Star Citizen is it made a lot of Kickstarter money. I don't know if it's got the record. No. The record has been taken. It had the record at one time. But part of the thing is, yes, it made a lot of Kickstarter money. But even after the Kickstarter, it is making tons and tons of money from people donating money directly on their website, even now. Let me see. Let me see if they've got the – While Tony's looking that up, I would note the – I've got a modern, current number. The other aspect I think is pretty unique to it, and obviously a lot of this is my opinion, is that it's also, in a lot of ways, almost a poster child example of scope creep. Oh, yeah. As they got more and more money, they kept adding more and more to what was already a very ambitious project. So that's part of the reason I feel why it seems almost like this multi-headed hydra of what started as this really impressive big dream of a space sim into all these other genres of video game aspects integrated into that same core concept. So, and it's been going, because of all of this, it has been under development for a number of years. For years and years. I, let me see. Let me log into my account, because I am an original backer of Star Citizen. Let me log into my account. I think it has the date that I had initially done my background. 13. I backed in 13th. So that's when this has all been going from. And they're up to alpha 3.8 is what they're up to. And I haven't found it. I don't remember where to look to see how much money they have. But they are literally selling. You can go right this second and go purchase shit packs and stuff for $500. I mean, some of the cheap ones are $45 or $65, or you can get the more expensive ones that are, you know, like $10,000, and people are buying them. Yep. And that's been the case for years. So, with that background now established, what is this non-drama? This completely non-drama is Crytek Industries, the creators of the CryEngine. Yes. has for the last several years had a lawsuit out against Cloud Imperium Games Makers and Star Citizen. I did not know that. Yeah. Well, and the reason, the thing is that they've had the lawsuit out with several different things on it, of which seven of them have been dismissed by the court or withdrawn because they were invalid. And the one that is left is that they are suing Cloud Imperium for developing two games using CryEngine while having only paid for a development license for one. For a game license. Because, in addition to Star Citizen, there is a smaller single-player game called Squadron 42. Yeah, I've heard of that. that is being developed that will work with the Star Citizen engine. It's from the Star Citizen launcher and everything to play it. But because the game's not out, Crytek has decided to, they have petitioned to have the lawsuit dismissed without prejudice or conditions so they can refile upon the release of Squadron 42. Okay. Because since the game's not out, they're in a, their legal case isn't in a great position until it's actually published. Right, because there's no two, there's not two, there's not even one game. Because nothing's been formally released yet other than alpha builds of the game. For playtesting reasons. So I'm guessing that Cloud Imperium would prefer that it, I'm sure they'd love it to be dismissed, but actually with prejudice. And that's what Cloud Imperium did file. They filed to have it dismissed with prejudice. and the reason they filed for that and what they're arguing in their document that they filed which Crytek has until I believe the 7th February to respond to they're arguing that both games since both games would be launched from the same launcher, they're the same thing they're arguing that in their initial game licensing agreement, the game licensing agreement is that it was expressly mentioned in it that it defines the game as Star Citizen and its related space fighter game. Which means in the actual agreement they have with Crytek that it specifically says two games. Star Citizen and a related space fighter game, which would be Squadron 42. Which would seem like a pretty kind of case already putting Crytek in a really bad spot. But it gets even farther because CIG has also switched from CryEngine to Amazon Lumberyard, which is based off of CryEngine, but Amazon basically bought CryEngine from Crytek and have rights. and CIG put together a license with Amazon. Well, Crytek gave Amazon the rights to use CryEngine and also the rights to use older versions of CryEngine in addition to their Lumberyard development. And in CIG's development, they have a license with Amazon. It grants them the use of older versions of it through their license, which is also the license that Crytek has agreed that Amazon's allowed to do. So they are arguing that this should be dismissed because, A, they're not using CryEngine anymore. B, even if they were using CryEngine, it's in the game licensing agreement that it is okay for them to do this because they set that up originally to begin with. Okay, so given everything you've just summarized, it sounds like Crytek is not in a strong legal position. As a non-lawyer, this is my interpretation of it. So what, I mean, to me it's like, is Crytek really planning to refile after... Crytek needs the money. Okay. So they're trying to get out of this. Crytek needs the money. And when this was initially filed the court required Crytek to put up a bond to pay Cloud Imperiums legal fees and help pay for their attorney fees if this turned out to be a bogus thing For wasting time. For wasting time. Okay. So, the general sentiment seems to be that the Crytek's trying to get the release without prejudice and conditions so they can reap the bond back in without having to pay. Right. Without an actual intention of relitigating later. Right. Because they know they have no case. Because they have no case. and I recommend we've got a link in the show notes to the actual court document and we also have a link in the show notes to one of the many stories about this. But the actual court document is very interesting. I do not know enough about law to know how, if this is a normally written document or what it is or exactly how it goes. but it's pretty harsh and it lays things out real harsh. It's basically like Crytek needs money. Crytek's just been doing this to try and get us to settle out of court and pay them a bunch of money is how it sounds as you go throughout. Because Crytek basically doesn't have with the deal they signed to get money from Amazon Crytek basically doesn't have a reason to exist anymore. Yeah, I was like, essentially What's so interesting is they basically sold their engine off to Amazon. Right. Why they're even around. Exactly. I mean. Unless they've got another product, which I don't really know. I don't know. Huh. Well, that's interesting just because most of the time when I hear new stuff, it's usually CIG that's the one looking bad. Right. And that's why this stood out as a surprise. I'm just going to quickly go through some of these ones of these cases that were dropped. Crytac had initially accused CIG's co-founder and general counsel of engaging in a conflict of negotiation when negotiating. That was withdrawn because it was due to court rules because of a waiver. They alleged that CIG violated the game licensing agreement by switching to a different game engine. The court dismissed that because it was unsupported by the language of the GLA and anathema to the concept of a license. They sought punitive damages on its claims of breach of contract and copyright infringement. The court dismissed that because it was unsupported by the simplest black letter law. It amended the complaint at a new claim alleging that they violated the GLA by engaging in a competing game engine business. That was dismissed because they stated no facts to support the claim. They claimed that they violated the GLA's nondisclosure provisions by sharing CryEngine's source code with a third-party company. It was dropped because they didn't share, and CryEngine had no evidence that they'd share to support its claim. They're just like, we think they did this. But there was no evidence at all that it ever happened. And both sides declared that it didn't happen. They claimed that CIG had violated the GLA by failing to deliver bug fixes and engine optimizations. They had to drop that claim because CIG was able to prove that they not only delivered it, they tendered the code and delivered it, and they had proof of it. So that claim had to be dropped. and they claimed that they violated the GLA by posting snippets of CryEngine in the video series Bug Smashers and it was dropped by court order after they pointed out that Crytek had already published all of its code and thus could not possibly be damaged by the alleged snippets because Crytek had published everything. Wow, it sounds, yeah it sounds really like a settlement lawsuit designed just to a nuisance suit. There we go. It's a nuisance suit. That's the term I'm looking for. It sounds like a blatant nuisance suit. Well And it sounds like CIG is like, no, we'll break you. That's how it comes through. And it's interesting because, like you said, typically anything to do with Star Citizen has been stuff like that. If you had the money, just thinking about it, would you rather – I mean, if you had the funds, if it was like – money wasn't an issue. And someone were to hit you with a nuisance lawsuit, wouldn't you just want to break them and be like, you're not getting a settlement. We're going to humiliate you, and we're going to make you lose. You're going to lose bad, and everyone will know that you're a loser. I would want to hire the right lawyer to completely break them, and I want his closing arguments to end with, Kneel before Zod. I'm just saying. Zod Esquire. Kneel before Zod. Zod Esquire. Chung Chung. Oh, yeah. That's a lot of people's fear, yeah, is to get hit with a nuisance lawsuit and just be like, well, you've got to settle because it's going to cost so much to go through court and fight it. Right. Or CIG has got to. It's like, are you kidding me? We sell $500 ship packs. There's nothing. Yeah. Well, and that's why. We use in-house counsel on this Mickey Mouse complaint. And that's why a lot of states and countries have laws. Well, and hence the bond. Right. And the bond. Exactly. Which, if it's closed with prejudice, that bond, they're going to have to hand that bond over to CIG. I wonder whose bright idea it was to attempt a nuisance suit to get money. I mean, I guess if they were so desperate, they maybe thought it was their only reasonable option and figured. Well, that's why they sold to Amazon with giving Amazon the rights they did is because they were going under. Yeah, but I'm curious. It's like they must – I'm just kind of curious. Like they must have another product or something. Otherwise, just shut the business down, you know, spin it down and be like, okay, well, we don't have a purpose anymore. I mean, we sold our intellectual property. So sell and let the owners take, you know, after you pay your debts, whatever's left or go to the – I don't know if they're a share-held, publicly-owned company or not. They are still – let me see. I just find it weird. They're publicly traded. We probably know – well, you can do a lot of legal discussion. behind the veil, you know, executive session sort of stuff. They are still developing games. Okay. They had one game come out in 19, Hunt Showdown. I don't know it. Yeah, I don't know it. They had two games in 16, a game in 14. They're not developing a lot. Three games in Crisis 3. Yeah, that's like the last game I know of that I played. I mean, I had fun with it. Yeah, that was the last. So they're still doing. Okay, so they're still in game development. They're still in game development. Sounds like it ain't going well. Yeah, in 16, they shut down their studios in Hungary, Bulgaria, South Korea, and China. They also sold some of their companies, some of them to other companies. Okay. Well, sucks to be them. But no drama there. No drama at all. No. So we're going to go on We'll move on to our last run of video game talk Because it's something that we talk about a lot Here on AGP because it's video game related That we really enjoy And that is Overwatch So Yes It's been nothing but happy so far Getting to this point No drama getting to this point So we're going into Overwatch There's a little bit of drama in Overwatch Unfortunately, yeah As there always is Yeah There was an announcement made that they are finally going to have a developer update coming by the end of the month. Finally. It's been six-plus months, I think. Yeah. I mean, I don't think everyone's too surprised or sort of disappointed. Yeah. Everyone knows that they're dumping all their time into Overwatch 2, but it's kind of pissing off the player base because the multiplayer is going to be merged. So it feels like you're neglecting the game, because you are, because you're waiting for your big new game launch, which is going to ostensibly help the current game, too. But we're not, we didn't have a release date on that, so. And the fact that we're kind of locked in a meta that makes you look back fondly to GOAT? Well, I suppose it depends whether or not you play DPS, but. And how patient of a person you are. Yeah. So, continue. But with the announcement of a developer update coming out, there have been leaks. Major leaks that have been taken as the gospel truth, because at least one of the leakers is well known for having a very, very good track record. From Spy Network, yeah. Yeah. And the leaks are that one of the announcements will be hero bans. Okay. You want to explain what a hero ban is? A hero ban, it's very common in MOBAs like League of Legends and Dota and this and that. It's where in the startup before the game starts, each team is allowed to ban heroes from play. Yeah, for both sides. For both sides. So you can basically force meta shifts to fit your play style better. Just as I, well, I've not really played, personally played MOBAs, played games with hero bans. My own personal assessment has been that this idea was probably the easiest way to break the situations that they have where they're constantly rebalancing to change the meta. So I've actually been in favor of at least trying it. I think it'd be worth a try. I don't know how well it would actually work, but I think it could be. I don't think it would. Right. Because it introduces a lot of complications in a way because, for example, there are a number of people. Well, it's not the majority, but there are a number of players that are playing Overwatch, and they only want to play one character. We call them one-tricks. Right. Short for one-trick pony. And one-tricks, if you go in and someone says, well, we're not allowing Torbjorn because Torbjorn is a terrible character, and we're tired of dealing with people that think he's okay to play on offense, and you've just taken that one trick. Now, when they go into a match, they don't know whether or not they'll get to play the character they want to play. And they might just quit. And they might just quit. And you quit playing the game. Right. And you lose your install bases in playing. Right. And then you're also running up against the fact that, especially with the role queues, wait times for players, most especially DPS players, are already long enough. And even if you expedite the voting as quick as possible, you're still looking at adding another 45 seconds or a minute before a match actually starts. on top of you're already choosing heroes and doing everything else because now you've got to choose bands. Yeah. And you obviously can't choose heroes before the bands go active. So you're looking at stretching your time even longer. My solution on Try It actually is just do it for the Overwatch League. Meta actually has very little role in what we call ladder, which is actual ranked play. Right. And I believe former Overwatch pro Jake, who is now an analyst for the Overwatch League, has noted, even at the Grandmaster level, when you go online and just play a ranked game in Overwatch, the coordination and communication is terrible. It's almost like, well it is, it's playing casual. It's still playing casual. It's just top tier casual. And they break the meta all the time in ranked. But in the Overwatch League, where it's all about teamwork, you formed a professional sports team to play, that's where it can make a difference and be okay. Because the queues and all that then aren't an issue. Right. You could do bans in just League. And then, because one of the struggles that we of all, as players, lower level players, have to experience is Blizzard keeps shifting stuff because they're balancing around the meta in the League. And then you end up with scenarios where people are like, in Gold tier, Reaper is oppressive because he's so OP, OP being overpowered. but he's just fine at the league level that's why he didn't shift in addition to that I think it has been said before that Blizzard's argument is they want what people see in league to be the same as what they experience I totally understand it I don't think it's as important as they think it is and that's the thing I think that But it's the priority. You see, again, going back to the TPN and the launch trailer thing, it's like they have one priority they're trying to address, but it might not actually be the priority that the general public is most concerned with. Even at the level of play you see on Grandmaster, as you said, it's so much different than actual league play. I mean, we're talking NFL versus really good high schools. That's what it is. It's not even NFL versus college level play. You're talking NFL versus top tier high school play. That's the difference. You could take the top players for every position from the best high schools in the country, and the worst NFL team is going to vaporize them. It's going to be humiliating. And that's the issue. It's always going to be like that. So trying to balance the two is going to be something that's always going to be hurting Blizzard. So, the bans, are they happening? Do we know? They're not happening. Oh, I don't remember that. The rumors, the people, everything going insane. It blew up so much that Jeff Kaplan. The Jeff Kaplan. The Jeff Kaplan. People call him Papa Jeff. Yeah. Papa Jeff had to come out and have one of his little talks. And his little talk was that there's no hero ban coming. It got so hyped up. And he came out and he announced that hero bands are not going to be a major topic of the upcoming update and that the developers are reluctant to add them to the game. They're not saying no, that they won't be added to the game at some point. But none of them are in favor of the idea. So it seems pretty unlikely. So it's very unlikely. Okay. Well, nice of him to clarify it. So what's coming in the big update? Who knows? Yeah. But it's not Hero Bands, which has a... Honestly, from the looks of it, it's pretty evenly split between the people who wanted Hero Bands and the people who thought the idea was terrible. Yeah. So the fan base, the vocal fan base, seems pretty evenly split. So we'll see how it goes from here. All right. So, now surely that's the only thing that we have to worry about involving Overwatch. Of course it is. That's the only thing. A couple other things. Yeah. So, Overwatch League, for the first two seasons, was on Twitch. Yes. Exclusive deal. Exclusive deal for Twitch. That Twitch deal was a two-year deal. It has ended. and there are reports that there was a pretty serious bidding war going on for Season 3, and Twitch was not the winner. It was announced on Friday that Activision, Blizzard, and Google have announced a multi-year partnership. That partnership includes the Call of Duty League, which just started Friday. Okay. It includes the Overwatch League. It includes Hearthstone Esports. and outside of China, they will be streamed exclusively on YouTube Gaming. But the deal is even bigger than that because in addition to all of that, Blizzard is going to be moving all of their server infrastructure for Activision Blizzard's online games to Google Cloud from Amazon Web Service. Oh, that's a big shift. I'm sure the developers love that. Yeah, I'm sure they're not just working quadruple overtime trying to make that happen. So, this was a major deal. I have not seen an announcement of the actual price numbers on this deal. I'm sure those will come public eventually. Eventually, but they're not out there yet. We do know that the original deal with Twitch was a $90 million per year deal. I mean, that alone guaranteed that no matter how well or bad the Overwatch League did, it was paid for for its two years. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was a guarantee. I don't think there are big concerns about YouTube Gaming's ability to handle Overwatch League. Yeah, public reaction has been a bit mixed. I would characterize what little I've read about it as. Some people are a little sad about not having the Twitch emotes, and that's about it. Otherwise, a lot of people have said that YouTube gaming has less lag. It also, well, and YouTube gaming has a built-in system to act like your DVR. So if you have to go to the bathroom, you hit the pause button. You go to the bathroom, you come back and you hit play, and it picks up and keeps going. Yeah, you know, Twitch is, because it was the first, it was the big dog, and it maintains the big dog. It seems like basically because it was the big dog, I hear things like that YouTube gaming and Mixer are actually technologically better platforms. I've heard the same thing. But I've watched a fair number of people who stream on YouTube gaming. I really like YouTube gaming. I think Papa TV on the pinball site does a lot through the YouTube, or at least they were doing some live streams through it at some point, if I remember correctly. And there are some services out there that allow some smaller content creators. You can't do it, obviously, at the higher-end affiliate, high-end affiliate partner levels. But some smaller creators that I watch actually use services that let them simultaneously stream on both. And I found that with the ones that I watch that do that, I'm pretty much watching them on YouTube now. Yeah. Because I think overall it's better. Yeah, I think, in fact, the Streamlabs OBS will allow that. Yes. But, again, like with EGP, once we hit affiliate status, we're not allowed to have affiliate status and simultaneously stream on a new service. It's a price you have to pay. Right. To get what it is. To get bids and donations. through Twitch, but if you're not making money there, then they don't care about you, but otherwise, yeah. Right. So, we'll see how that's going forward. It sounds like the opening weekend of the Call of Duty League went all right. Okay. I didn't watch it. Yeah, I'm not a Call of Duty guy. Yeah, I'm not a big Call of Duty guy. I played it a lot when I was younger, but I haven't in years. But we'll have to see how that goes forward. From what everything I've seen It's built pretty similar to How Overwatch League has been built Which makes sense It's Activision Blizzard, the same esports groups Yeah, that was clearly a model They were trying to attempt to Move forward with on esports as a concept League structure And we'll see how it Works out for them Because this year Season 3 of Overwatch League Is the begin of the all homestand matches. Yes. Where everybody's traveling. They're not all just living in L.A. and playing at the exact same venue in L.A. Which means, you know, there's going to be some deals. There's going to be some issues. There's going to be jet lag issues. And apparently, there's going to be some other major issues because if you haven't been watching the news lately or if you're listening to this, you know, years in the future just catching up because you're, you know, trying to do that. Currently, there has been an outbreak of coronavirus in China, and they're doing some shutdowns, and they're doing some closing of large public venues to help prevent the spread. Yeah, they actually, it's very interesting. For those that don't know, I actually, I work in public health now. That's where I used – that was actually where I first started was doing public health work when I got out of school. Not by training. My training was to basically be a bureaucrat. But that was my first field, and I'm back in it again. And, of course, this is all the big talk because China has been instituting massive quarantine. Yeah. These sort of quarantine procedures have never been done on the scale before. Right. In a way, it's fascinating to see if it will work. It is. And it's also, I know, caused some concerns online because the quarantine levels seem out of tune with the number of confirmed cases. Right. But as the information started to come out, we're talking about something that has... It's the incubation period that's making this so difficult. And it's now, from what I read this morning, people are infectious while still in the incubation period. Right. So they're asymptomatic, but they have the disease and they're spreading the disease. And most diseases aren't like that. Usually, if you've got strep, once you present the symptoms is when you start shedding your bacteria. And a lot of viruses work that way, too. Right. And in this case, you've got it. It's multiplying. But you're totally, you look fine. until like 10 plus days in. Yeah, it's 10 to 14 days. And then you present. So that's where, and we've got cases now in the U.S. as well confirmed. Four now. Yes. And so the concern is, though, that they're four confirmed because they're sick. So how many people got infected by them before then? How virulent is the disease? Like what's the percentage? It sounds like it's pretty contagious. Yeah. It seems to be droplet, last I read, which means it's not like, it's not, what is it, it's not like particulate, where if I walked into a room and just, I was in the room and exhaled, there would be a concern for people in the room. But if I sneezed, there could be. It's like, do you count, in a way it's, I'm trying to remember, in terms of how you classify it as airborne, yes, you can, you'll catch it from the air, but essentially by inhaling the moisture. of someone who's spreading the disease. So it spreads pretty bad, but not to the degree of like, if you're in another room, you're not worried about the central air system spreading it around. But it's bad. It's bad. Like Dennis said, they're doing very major quarantines. Disneyland Shanghai has been shut down indefinitely. This morning they announced Disneyland Hong Kong is shut down indefinitely. They've closed, like, all 10,700 movie theaters in the country. And they're shutting down major events, public gatherings. Everything's being shut down. Yes. Now, for those that don't know, and tying this back into video games, Overwatch, there are, what, three Chinese teams? There are three Chinese teams. Shanghai, which was from the first season, and then last season they added Guangzhou. Guangzhou. And who was the other? Hangzhou. Hangzhou, yeah. And with the homestands where everyone's playing on their home turf, starting on week two, and in weeks two, week three, and week four are the first three Chinese homestands. So are those happening? We don't know. Okay. this morning, actually very late last night, Riot Games, the producers of League of Legends, announced that they are indefinitely putting on hold the League of Legends Pro League and the League of Legends Development League. So basically, their version of the Overwatch League and Contenders until further notice. They are just, they're done. They were set to resume on the 3rd of February. So two weeks-ish before the first homestand. The first Chinese homestand is February 15th. The first actual week of Overwatch League play is the week before. Right. The 8th. Yeah, the 8th. But those are all going to be in the U.S., the first week's play. Okay. But in addition to those shutdowns, it's also been shown that there has been an announcement, like the Chinese Motorsports Association has delayed their event scheduled between February 12th and 14th, which puts it right in the timeline with the first homestand. And on their website when they did the shutdown, it mentioned that the Chinese General Administration of Sport has advised a pause on all events before April. So, with so many homestands in China for the Overwatch League, they're going to have to come to a decision on something. Yeah. And there are reports coming out specifically sourced to Fusions, to hype people from Fusion that Overwatch League is working on something, but just hasn't announced it, which I would assume. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, given that, given how long the situation and the edicts on avoiding large gatherings, my guess will be that they might go with the angle of trying to find a location that is near China but not in China or possibly using a city that is not under quarantine, if they can figure out one. Because they went from 10 to 16 in a day. There are currently 50 million people under quarantine in China. So, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. It's hard. I don't know if you do something like you say, well, maybe they go and approach Singapore, which has a large Chinese population. But I don't know if they're going to be interested in going and watching Overwatch League matches. Right. I think if they want to stay close, the most obvious thing would be to try and set up and shift those home games to Seoul. Because Seoul's involved in two of the three weekends already. Okay. Okay, yeah, that would make a lot of sense. Well, they need to make the decisions because if they're going to come out, if the Chinese players are going to come out of China to play, they're going to have to probably go through a two-week quarantine before they're allowed. Yes. So then you get the ball rolling. Right. Otherwise, they're not going to have a team to heal. Right. And the other option is to shut down or just delay those based games and put them towards the end of the season. Since this season's not doing stages like the previous seasons have, but there are some weeks with no games scheduled. Yeah, that's a good point. They can push it to later dates or even add extra scheduled games towards the end of the series. because, let's see, week 27 is the last week, and it is currently scheduled for August. So they could find spots in between to put together and in some of the break weeks that are built in to move them to. I'm sure they're all things that are being – Oh, Bradlee Ching Du. We forgot Bradlee Ching Du. Bradlee Ching Du's in the show. Oh, yeah. We're just going to have to see. And this is obviously going to be a developing case, but if we're looking at no Chinese homestands allowable until April. Now, I think the vast majority of the Chinese teams, at least the vast majority of Shanghai, are Korean players. So if they're not in China yet, Shanghai might be okay. Because I think they're primarily Korean at this point. I think they've only got one Chinese player left on Shanghai Week Week 5 Is already preset in Seoul Week 6 Is in Florida And another Chinese homestand See that's the thing China is front loaded The league has done very well As my understanding in popularity in China That's why there's so many Chinese teams when the first season only had one. Yeah. Yeah, there was demand for it. That's why they're there. And that's also why with the deal with Google that doesn't include China, Overwatch League's actually streamed on, I think, four or five different groups inside China have streaming rights. Okay. So, but yeah, no, we will. This is one of those developing things that we'll probably be following for a while. Developing story. Developing story. But this has the, it's going to have a large effect on this season overall. So. Yep. We'll just have to see. It's going to be interesting. Yes. You're going to see a lot of disruption because of this. Yeah. And not just for a lot of things. For lots and lots of things. So. Video game wise. That's all I've really got. It seemed like there was no drama in video games. No drama. No drama in video games. You're right again. Tiny little bit of drama, maybe in Overwatch League. Just a tad. Just a tad. It's just hero bands. Yeah. Well, I guess that's it for the show. Now, all that said, you can always reach out to us at CollectedGamersPodcast at gmail.com. We're also available at Facebook.com slash CollectedGamersPodcast. We're on Twitch, Instagram, and Twitter at Eclectic underscore Gamers, of which Instagram gets stuff like when we're at TPF. Yeah, pretty much. But, hey, it's there. It's there for TPF. You can always like the old photos from last TPF. Yeah. Anyway, that's it. We'll be back in about two weeks. I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See you.