Today's episode of the Electric Batcast is brought to you by Stern Pinball's Insider Connected. Head to sternpinball.com to sign up today. Marco's Specialties, everything pinball, pinball parts and more at marcopinball.com. And Game Room Goodies, check out gameroomgoodies.com for new and used pinball machines, arcade games, jukeboxes, pool tables and more. And now, the Sherlock and Watson of pinball, Rachel Bess and Cale Hernandez. Ladies and gentlemen, we are back. Man, it's been a long time. Yes. It's been a very long time. So much has happened, and we've just been so busy, but we're still here. Yes. We're still doing it. We're still loving doing it. We're still loving doing it, and we plan to do it more frequently. um i you know after expo we did expo and it wouldn't be an expo if somebody didn't get covid uh so and it was me it was you i got covid you were really sick i was really sick um for a long time but then i recovered and then i caught something else i think i think my immune system was so worn down from covid and i caught something else i missed uh i missed what like two weeks of tournaments yeah it was a real bummer but i still ended up getting 10 whopper points at the end anyway yeah because i did so well for the three times i did show up exceptional and and that was um exceptional on my part thank you absolutely um but uh we did expo and i don't want to talk a bunch about expo because uh plenty other podcasts have covered it uh go to check out triple drain did they did a great piece on on expo and vasectomies and so specifically joel's vasectomy i've been there too joel i know what it's all about i watched uh yeah it was great yeah the best part was the shaving i enjoyed that okay this is not vasectomy yeah but i've never had somebody do that yeah it was great uh so anyhow um the uh if you want to if you want to catch up with any of this stuff expo everybody else has covered it we're going to stick to what we do best and talk about uh machines routing machines repairs um what else do we talk about we just talk about all things the operator side of oh and you know what i forgot today we have something very special for the audience first time ever we have two earnings reports yeah because We're so late, and that wasn't a treat, but the treat part is you get two earnings reports. You get two now. It's like two desserts. You get to see back-to-back. So this will be September? September and October. And October. And then we'll have November for you in like two weeks. Fascinating stuff for the data freaks out there. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And we'll get right into that. But, man, the only part about Expo I want to talk about is I had no clue, even though I'm looking at the data. And I can see, you know, across like YouTube and, you know, in your podcast apps. We get a couple thousand listens or watch each episode. But so many people approached us and wanted to take photos with us and wanted to meet us who were like fans of the show. I didn't know that many people actually listened to us. It was really cool and also very overwhelming. It was exciting. Wasn't it great? Thank you to everybody that took the time to say hey and that they listened to us. It feels really good. It's great. We made so many new friends. Man, it's so cool. Thank you for listening. It really means a lot to us. If you ever see us on the streets or at a convention, stop us, talk to us. Let's take some photos. Let's do something crazy. That was a lot of fun. And everybody was like super respectful and very into it. Yeah. This was my favorite, this last expo. This is going to be a hard expo to beat because, I mean, they really went all out. They went all out and we had just so much fun. We had a great time hanging out with all the people. So back to the electric bat and what we do. What's coming up at the bat? We have some cool stuff coming up. Saturday, the 23rd X-Men launch party. Yep, that's this Saturday, a few days from now. That's a one-off come out. How are we doing this? How did you set this tournament up? This is going to be 12 rounds of max match play, and then followed by an amazing race format for the top 13, I believe. So yeah, amazing race finals, which is always really fun. Very cool. And I forgot to mention something, but if you're watching on YouTube, you've already noticed we're back in the original studio we're in the library yeah library this is great because this is this is where the magic began yes on your birthday on my birthday a year ago whatever uh also coming up in the bat sunday chewies you're gonna have to help me out with this so now it's chewies world famous all classics bounty knockout tournament and that that's a fan favorite Yes. It's a fantastic knockout tournament. It happens on Sunday. It starts at noon. And the Saturday X-Men launch party, I didn't mention when that starts. Noon. Noon. So it's easy to remember. We have a tournament this Saturday at noon. That's Saturday the 23rd. And then the Sunday, right after Saturday, we also have a tournament at noon. So we're going to be busy. We're going to be having a good time. Yeah. Also, in December, December 7th and 8th, this is a very important tournament because it lands on my birthday. Yes, this is Kale's birthday tournament put on by Roland. Roland set up the Double Danger December at the Bat. And if you want full details on that, head over to electricbatarcade.com and go to the tournament tab and then scroll down until you see the little graphic with the little pit bull. And that's Double Danger at the Bat. That's going to be a lot of fun. And we'll push that some more on social media. So we'll be sure everybody hears about it. If you're in Southern California, drive on out. It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah. That's good for all the people that are right on the cut line for state. You need a lot of whopper points. This is a good place to get them. You're always thinking. I am always thinking. I try. Okay. How do you want to do this? Do you want to do the earnings report back-to-back first, or do you want to get into some readers' questions? What are you feeling like? Let's start with the earnings report. Why not? Let's do it. I'm going to put my notes up. So this is September earnings report. Keep in mind, I have no idea what's going on here. I mean, pertaining to the earnings report. I know other stuff, but I don't know about the earnings report. So this is going to be a surprise to me and the viewers. You're going to see a live reaction from me. All right, we're going to start at number 10. Rick and Morty just got put back out on the floor. It was off the floor for a little while. So that took the number 10 spot. Back. That's always been a good earner. Yeah, people, casual players love it. The call outs are great. Yeah. And it runs fairly well. It runs hot. No, I mean it like stays working fairly well. Yeah, good. Big Buck. We have Retro Ralphs. A video game. Big Buck shooter, but it's got all the other... You can play zombies. You can play... You can play Walking Dead. You can play Terminator. You can just basically shoot any genre of things. There's generic monsters you can battle. That's what I like. And then there's hunting. There's one other thing I'm forgetting about. There's like ten of them. There's all kinds of stuff. It's good. Duck Dynasty something or other. There is Doug Dynasty, and that's number nine. That's number nine. For September. And it pushed out the Alien Shooter, which has always been in the top ten. But now the Alien Shooter is down at 20th. So shooters are really, it's important if you have an arcade and you have the space to make room for a shooter, I think is the short version of what I'm getting at there. Then we've got Elvira House of Horrors. That one is coming in at number eight. Good deal. It's a good game. I play that one a lot for fun. You know, we just got the topper for that thing. It looks badass. It looks cool, right? Yeah. That's super cool. Deadpool is above that. This is about the time that they were pushing all of those Insider Connected new quests for Deadpool. And that really made their earnings go up. And Stern is aware of that. We had a – at Expo, we had an operators meeting with Stern. It was us and a bunch of, like, the top operators in the business. We all got together. And they actually – I don't know if they've ever done this before. They showed us some back-end data. Yeah, we got to see. And they saw the boost. The graphs and the spikes. Right. And it was interesting because I remember, because I keep a lot of this data in my head, and so I was able to compare. Like, this is exactly what we're showing. It seems to be pretty universal. So if you're listening to this, this is not just Rachel and Cale's experience at one arcade in Tempe, Arizona. I mean, to some extent it is. But the data universally reflects what we show as well. So it's nice because it gave a lot of validation to what I like to talk about. Boom, there you go. Data. All right, next one up, Stranger Things. Also another one I like to play. So other people do too. Yep. Batman 66. And Batman 66 is in the fifth spot. Okay. That is a steady earner. John Wick above that. Again, this is September, so there was a lot of contracts coming out, and that really helps out a lot. So John Wick in the fourth position. In third place, we have Pulp Fiction. Interesting. Third place. Because this is interesting. I think this is the first time it wasn't number one, besides when it had to be taken off the floor for some repairs. So something has dethroned Pulp Fiction. I'm not positive that that's true. I can look in a second, but I feel like there was another month where maybe Jaws was up there. It was kind of flip-flopping with that. But yes, it's always been in the top three, probably the top two. In second place is Jaws. Jaws, let's go. Good game. They added all those extra modes. I think that keeps people engaged, keeps me engaged. I like being able to approach a game and play a new game. Yes. Right. Something that... And for a while, that's all people were playing. Yeah. Were the new modes. And I don't remember if it was September or the following month when we installed the topper, because then you had another mode that was available with the topper. It was either the end of September or the beginning of October. So the September numbers wouldn't really reflect that too much. And so there was a fairly – there was like a 10% jump between Pulp Fiction and Jaws. And then the number one spot, which I think you can guess because you haven't heard it yet, is Godzilla. This is insane. Godzilla Premium. So that is in the number one spot. And it is – it's fairly close to Jaws, to the number two spot. It's about 5% higher. So it's, I would say, within the margin of like one rabid fan. That is just, that is crazy. That's how we should measure things. Godzilla is still up there. Fan units. You know, our friend John Schopper was doing some repairs on Godzilla, and he took apart that metal piece. The guides from the upkicker to the top of the building? Right. Yeah. So he pulled the thing out, and he's like, Cale, look at this thing. so it it has an indention at the the top of you know that that arc that that bend uh-huh from where how many times the ball is shot up that thing and hit the top and it is a perfect almost like somebody it was it's almost like it was meant to be there it's just this perfect little hump coming out of the top uh that game i think has 60 000 plays on it that sounds about right yeah yeah um it's still working yeah still works but that tells me that i need to buy another one of those parts for backup because i'll be terrified of having that game go down and not being able to that's right way to go godzilla way to go stern Keith Elwin all the the godzilla crew the godzilla crew thank you all right so now you want to move on to october yeah i love this back to back yeah i'm very excited um i'm excited about november because october was the month that we've got both x-men and avatar but avatar i believe we i was just looking at our um at our instagram to try and figure out when everything came in avatar i believe we got on october 4th so it's essentially an entire month's worth of earnings x-men we got with a week left so you've got one week of X-Men earnings compared to four weeks, three and a half weeks of Avatar. So in the 10th spot, we have Deadpool. Okay. So still holding on, you know, for a game that's been out for a long time. Yeah. The 10th spot, that's a good earner. Right. House of Horrors, right above that. Big Buck, right above that. So again, the importance of having a shooter. Did Big Buck go up or it stayed? Was it eight last time? I think it went up one. I think it was ninth last time. Oh, cool. Okay. And looking at the earnings, the earnings went up by 10% between September and October. The good thing about Big Buck is its footprint. Yes, it takes up the same arcade footprint as like a Street Fighter. It doesn't take up the alien shooter that we have. It's gigantic. It takes up two pinball machines' worth of space. Its earnings reflect two pinball machines' worth of space, but only if they're mid-earners, not two new games. So that footprint is key. Yeah, I would recommend that big buck over any of those other large shooters because you also have all those additional options that you can make a more interesting game. Okay. Okay. In seventh place, we have Uncanny X-Men. So one week of earnings, got it seventh place, and only by like a couple of dollars did it miss sixth place, which Stranger Things got. So, again, we're seeing a lot of the same. We're seeing the same top 10 games between October and September. A couple of little swaps here and there. So fifth place, John Wick. Fourth place, Pulp Fiction. And third place is Jaws. And again, Pulp Fiction and Jaws are within a couple of dollars of each other. Nothing notable. Second place, Godzilla Premium. Wow. First place, Avatar. Boom. And that's to be expected with a brand new game. We knew that would happen. It's going to shoot up and then level off somewhere. Level off somewhere. And so I'm doing a prediction now because I looked at past data of Jersey Jack games from when we got them new and what that trajectory looked like. Okay. And across games, not just Jersey Jack, But if you're looking at Sterns, specifically Sterns, I guess I'll talk about, and Pulp Fiction, I guess you could lump in with that. They have every game, of course, gets a huge spike when it's new, drops up a little bit the second month. And then some of them stay relatively steady for a long time which enables you to pay off a game ideally in a six period which is what you would like to do Jersey Jack games come out of the gate very strong right They beautiful. They're very attractive. We tend to have some of the only ones on location in the area. So if you want to play it, you're probably going to have to play it at the bat. You're probably going to get to play it at the bat. So we see very strong Jersey Jack earnings first month, then it seems to drop off by about 30% every month. Okay. Beyond that. And I was surprised at how steady that drop off was because it doesn't seem- Across titles. Across titles. Now, did it see, it felt like it, but you'll tell me what the data reflects. It felt like Elton John had longer legs. Elton John started off higher. Okay. So it's 30% off of the previous month, not 30% off the original month. So it's not like that steep crash. It's a fairly steady slope. And we don't have a lot of data because really I'm just looking at Elton John and Godfather for Jersey Jacks. Right. Toy Story, kind of. Toy Story. But we didn't get it when it first launched. Right. So Toy Story and dialed in. Toy Story 4. So you don't confuse it with the other. people they're looking for a toy store again doesn't exist yeah so it yeah so this is without a lot of data i'm making a prediction that next month i expect avatar to come in around third to fourth somewhere in that range and it kind of depends on i mean it depends on a lot of factors That's my prediction. We'll see if the math bears out. Right. Right now, we do have one kid who comes in every day. And when I say kid, he's a kid. His dad brings him. He's like eight or nine, right? Yeah. I mean, he could be 15 or four. I have a hard time telling the difference. He loves Avatar. But this kid might single-handedly skew the data because he loves that game. Isn't it interesting how we've talked about this in the past? but we have guys people who just play one machine we have a dude who only plays batman 66 and sometimes bond which he owns so it's weird that he plays that we have a we have a guy who only plays uh medieval madness and he plays that one passionately he's hilarious you'll know when he's in there on it. He's almost like Eric Stone. He has outbursts and stuff. There's some outbursts. And then we have a few other ones I'm not thinking of, but people just come in. Oh, there's that one guy who just parks on Jaws. And when he walks in and somebody's on Jaws, he goes back to the bar. I don't know if you've noticed that. And then we have one guy who only plays Stranger Things. Yeah. It's really interesting stuff. It is all men that I've noticed that only play one game because we have a lot of women that are in there every single day. Women like the variety. They like to mix it up. I can't think of a single woman that plays one game. Oh, no, there was. There was the one girl that really only wanted to play Monster Bash, but then I took it off the floor to get fixed. But also, you see some girls only playing like Pac-Man or Puzzle Bobble. Yeah. Yeah, you do see that. On the video game side. Yeah, on the video game. People are really loving hearing about this one girl, this one dude. So that is your earnings report. And there's one more piece of data that I want to talk about. Did we finish? Yeah, Avatar, number one. Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. Avatar is number one. Congratulations, Avatar. We were gifted, let's see, from Jim Hood. Jim Hood gave us a really cool James Bond alternate Translight. Okay. And it was a Sean Connery, Roger Moore Translight. And we swapped it out because we wanted to see, would this affect earnings? He wanted to know. He wanted to know. He actually said this is going to... Yeah, he said that some people had reported that it paid for itself. And I'm sorry, I don't know how much it costs. Right. He was nice enough to give us one. It did not affect earnings. Earnings were steady. Interesting. But it's hard to say because in the month that it didn't affect the earnings, we also got two new games. So I don't know what it maybe would have – it's not perfect testing. But – so maybe staying steady is in effect an increase given the competition that came the following month. Also, close to the same time, we installed that really cool 007 topper on there. So I don't know if that had anything to do with, you know, maybe earning a little bit more. Imperfect data, but that is the data that I have available to me. Very cool. And thank you so much for that. You're very welcome. This was the first time we've had back-to-back data. And, man, the wait was worth it. It was worth it for me. I think that the most interesting thing about the data was that it was reflected. Because Stern showed us earnings per game as well, which games are doing well on location. And their data was similar to our data. Right. So believe me is what I'm getting at. That's it. There you have it. And basically what we're saying is the electric bat arcade is a zeitgeist for the nation, a microcosm of arcades all across the world. That's right. So check it out. Pass it on. We're trying to help you guys earn some money with these bad boys. Let's get on to the mailbag. All right. What do you think? Yeah, I love the mailbag. Thank you so much for compiling that data. You're very welcome. I enjoy doing it. we have new questions here. All right, I'm ready, I'm ready. From fans of the show. I'm not ready, actually. I haven't read them. Well, I'd like to get your first impression. Okay. This is from Pig Corn. Excuse me? Pig Corn. He's on Discord. That's not his real name. On Discord, you know, some people use their own name and some people use a special name, but this is Pig Corn. What's up, Pig Corn? From Pig Corn. Hey there, new to the Discord after seeing the Retro Ralph interview. Nice job. I went on the Retro Ralph show. He came and talked to me after I played X-Men. And then at Expo, we both went on his show with Jamie from Wormhole. And that was a lot of fun. Yes. Pigcorn listened to the podcast today and thought it was cool to hear about operator topics as I want to open a pinball arcade one day. Good deal. You're in the right spot. We give out this information for free so you can take it and run with it and you found the right place. Here's a few questions maybe for the next podcast or Discord. We're going to answer them here. Okay. He's got a lot of questions. This is going to be good. Number one, you mentioned premiums don't get more play than pros, but do you find on modern stern pins that premiums need more service due to extra mechs? yeah i mean generally that's just what would happen right if you have five max versus 10 max you're going to have twice as many things to break so that's just how it goes but i've also when i was thinking about this because i read this question before the podcast uh to prepare i've been preparing have you noticed i love it i love the new you and i'm printing stuff out so i can actually read it yeah i can't see stuff on the phone very well uh so i thought about our um godzilla pro and godzilla premium now of course our premium gets a hell of a lot more play than the pro they're in different locations um the premium being in tempe the flagship electric bat arcade and then the other one being up north and uh and flagstaff but if you really think about We haven't worked on one more than the other. We've had issues. Do you mean relative to the number of plays? Because we've definitely worked on the premium more because the building had to go up and down. We had to adjust those screws. But it has 60,000 plays on it. And the issue with the building not going up and down, there were tiny little screws on the face of that building. And if they're out just by a smidgen, a skosh, it'll stop the – it's sort of a safety there. It won't burn up the motor, but it'll stop the building from going up and down. You just tighten it and put a little thread lock on there. Same thing happened with the bridge that breaks apart. When we first got it, the screws all fall out, and you put them back in, put the little lock tight. But I don't think there was like – when you think about how many plays that has compared to the Pro, I don't think there was a whole lot more work done on the premium. What do you think? I've had to replace the magnet in Mechagodzilla, do some adjusting there. The magnet up top, that kind of kept coming out, and we replaced that. I had to have some stuff welded. The one that catches the ball? Mm-hmm. Oh, you did have to have some stuff welded inside the building. Completely forgot about that. But I would say, again, relative to the number of plays, it seems like a completely reasonable amount of maintenance. Yeah, for sure. Hope we answered your question. Who is this? Pigcorn? Pigcorn. Yeah, we're talking about Pigcorn. Number two. If I went all modern sterns, would my repair needs be less than having the older classics? Well, it really depends. Because if you get, when older classics, let's just say he's talking about like an original Monster Bash. If it's been taken care of, you shouldn't run into too many issues. I think you're going to run, I mean, these are pinball machines. I'm going to refer back to your, it's a metal ball bearing bouncing around stuff. You are going to have to fix things. That's just the nature of the physics of what we're dealing with here. And I think even if you're bulletproofing anything from a classic, a classic classic, something from the 70s or something from the 90s. Like I was working on Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone has a lot of stuff to break on. That may not be a fair. It's a packed machine. But I guess if you're asking me how often do I work on John Wick versus Fishtails, kind of about the same. Well, now that I think about this, this guy's like thinking about opening a pinball arcade. So I think really what he's asking is if I get a bunch of brand new Stearns, am I not going to have to? You will absolutely have to work on things. As long as people are playing them, you're going to have to work on. And that's what goes into his third question. If you had 20 pins, how many texts do you need? I don't need to know how many pins you have. I need to know how many players you have. There you go. That's like, you could have a hundred pits. One tech, one good tech should be able to handle all that and more. Depending. If you have 500 people there a day, that one tech's going to burn out the soles of his shoes or her shoes. Yeah. Good. You got to keep them working. But I think if you have one very good tech that can handle all of those repairs, and that's really the point. Because a lot of the tech work isn't about doing the repairs. It's about figuring out what's wrong and then fixing it. And do you have the parts on hand or do you have to wait to order them? Right. That's where a lot of the timing comes in. But I would say, yes, one really good tech and then also another. Like, are you the good tech, Pig Corn? If not, please at least learn how to do some basic. Basic stuff. Get very good at Rebuild type things. Right, right. Not just like a half-ass. Well, they flip again. You want to make those nice. For sure. Number four. Yep. Does someone always need to be on call at all times with pinball repair knowledge to address stuck balls and customers saying the machine is not working? Someone needs to be on site somewhere to refund money if that's a thing that needs to happen, if you're not a free play arcade. stuck balls we don't worry about that if we don't happen to be there you know what go play one of the 60 something other pins well right and if he plans on having 20 same same deal 20 is enough they can they can play something i would say even 10 is enough you know you got a stuck ball in one machine yeah if you if it's not if it's absolutely stuck but then i'm still thinking about is one tech enough. And I'm thinking about what if, let's say that you and I were not as good at teching, and we only had John Schaapel. Well, let's say John Schaapel has to leave town for two weeks. And if you don't have somebody else, I mean, I just feel like anytime you can have redundancy, you should. So maybe one fantastic tech on payroll, but make sure that you're also a very competent tech for sure and if you if you are planning on opening a pinball arcade uh pertaining to this question i would one thing we do is we have a clipboard on the wall at the arcade where people it is like a little pin with you know it's like a bank right you got your pen with your little rope attached to it and people can write down any issues they have that's one thing and also we started a discord and we have a lot of local players in there and they let us i really like that because you know i'll get a notification oh this game is screwed up so we know to prepare ourselves for the morning trip and make sure we have everything we need to repair other arcades use qr codes which is very helpful but yeah you need to have some way to have customers notify you that something is not working right and the qr code is printed on a card on the apron so somebody could scan it and then it takes you to like a google doc and you write like medieval madness left roll doesn't come up or something like that. And as far as like the refunding money, let's say there's a coin jam or something like that. At our particular establishment, we are lucky enough to not have to be there because the bartenders have tokens where they can refund people. Yes. So you don't have to always be there. Right. Number five, Bitcoin. Do you need arcades? He's talking about video games to draw more people in or are the pins the main draw? If so, would you replace arcade floor space with more pins? I do believe that you should have some arcade games because I think that's the bridge from people who don't play pinball yet to people that will play pinball eventually. I think as we were talking about earlier, a shooter is really important and that's going to keep people in and people that aren't comfortable with pinball and it will earn well. So I do think you should have a shooter, and I think you should have a handful of classics or fighters, depending on how much room you have. If you don't have that much room, focus less on those. I can tell you that the amount of money that you'll spend on a Donkey Kong and things, it's not going to earn what you think it's going to earn. Right. Like a 720. Yeah, definitely. A 720 is never going to make its money back. I say never. Someone's going to write it and tell me how much their 720 makes. But we've talked to people, and the classic games and the expensive arcade games don't really earn proportionate to their cost. Ms. Pac-Man does earn fairly well. Yeah. So get that. And fighters sometimes. Shooters, even stuff like Area 51 works. But keep in mind, that's a CRT, the monitor. and if you don't have experience on working on those, I would leave that alone and get the more modern stuff with LCD monitors. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. That was all of the great questions from Pigcorn. Thank you, Pigcorn, for sending those in. Mm-hmm. Now we have something from our friend Pinball Hans Oh I love Hans We hung out with Hans He has a great question here We hung out with Hans At Expo At Expo in Chicago We went all over the place with Hans Hans is great. I really like him. Hans is a great guy. And he was in the operators meeting. Yes. At Stern. We were hanging out the whole time. Yes. The only place we didn't see him was in our hotel room. Everywhere else, we hung out with Hans. Thank you for the question, Hans. This is a really good one. You'll like this. Okay. Excuse me. What do you have against early Williams solid states? I see on pinball map that the bat is devoid of this era and have heard you speak only of Bally and Stern early solid states. I get that these two have interchangeable board sets, but with the Williams games, you can buy a rotten dog board that replaces the original driver and MPU in one fell swoop. with so many great titles flash firepower black knight gorgar to name a few thanks and i love love love the bat cast pinball hans great question it is a great question um we do have a firepower it's not on the floor currently because i need to buy one of those rotten dog boards because it's it's got some it's got some issues that have frustrated me and our firepower actually has um the the ladies from outpost codelia's who we got it from and they and they made it they modified it so that we have drop targets not stand up targets so i think chris actually did that they bought it from chris oh bliznick yes yeah um okay well but they maintained it still kudos to them yeah also we uh we have a firepower with drop targets and i like it a lot i love firepower is a great game and i love gorgar too i've owned a gorgar twice i don't currently own a gorgar I wish that I hadn't sold the last one that I had. And we had a Laserball or Laserwar. The big wide one. The super wide. Laserball. Laserball, yeah. I also had a LaserQ whenever we first started. We had a lot of laser games. So we've had some Williams games. I'm not a super big fan of that Black Knight. Black Knight Sword of Rage is my favorite of all of the Black Knights. That might be, some people might get angry about that, but that's my opinion. So, but why did you kind of stick with the... The Ballysterns? Yeah. I, and the Gottlieb also, the system ones. Right. Well, with those classic Ballys, those all-tech boards are great. Right. And I like being able to just swap those out. So, I just have, I have boards for them and they... Sure. They're reliable and they work well. The Williams games, I also like. And I don't have anything against them, but I just. But what about Rotten Dog boards? They're sometimes questionable. I know when I used to work at Marco and we would test them, they would have issues with voltage wildly fluctuating. And I don't know, what has been your experience with Rotten Dog boards? I haven't had a whole lot of experience. I think there's a Rotten Dog board in a couple of games. But we have had some just kind of like, well, I'm not, I know that those Altec boards are bulletproof. Yes, those are unbelievable. So I know when I put in an Altec board, if I'm having a problem, still it has nothing to do with the board. With a Rotten Dog board, if I'm having a problem that could be voltage-related, I still sometimes, you know, I'm like, I'm 95% sure that it's not the board. But there's always that little question in my mind. And I would like to know other people's experience who use more Rotten Dog boards. Like Han sounds like he's maybe been around the block a few times with them. And he's very knowledgeable. And I would love to know your experience because I would like to be more confident because we also may have been working with very early iterations of those sports. I don't know if they were revised. And sometimes, you know, the first taste is the taste you remember. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. That's what my grandfather always say. You ever heard that one? Yeah. Yeah. It's gotten out. It's kind of popular now. People, that's, yeah. When I was in third grade, they made me learn how to shake hands. You're kidding me. Am I doing it wrong? No. No, no. We do it like this. We do it like that. But I remember at the time thinking, like, this is so stupid. Why am I, like, and we all made fun of it. Yes. You're like, this is dumb. I'm sure I said something because I was little Rachel. Can we raise up the conversation a little bit to my level? I didn't have a lot of filter. not like today um anyway so i remember thinking like this is so dumb why am i learning to shake hands and now i still think back to this is like 40 years ago but now and people still comment like you have a firm handshake well because they told me that then they even said like don't shake hands like a little fish um right specifically to the females yeah and dissing all of the little fish out there but anywho first impression hans let me know anybody sorry for uh going down the rabbit hole but we want to know about your rotten dog experiences and i do love like william system six i like blackout i like i like those games a lot i just don't happen to have many of them right now what is that new board that uh marco specialties is selling that you were looking at I don't know who makes it, so I can't tell you more about it, but it is. It was for Williams. It was WPC, right? Oh, yeah. It's the Power Driver Board. Okay. The WPC Power Driver Board. Well, we'll have to get some of those and test them. Absolutely. Check those out at Marco's Specialties, valued sponsor of the podcast. Hey, if people are ordering one of those, that costs more than $150. They could use our code for free shipping. If you're ordering more than $150 worth of product at Marcos Specialties, use EBA150 in the checkout, and you'll get free shipping. You nailed it. Good job. Bingo. Okay. Back to some questions. Oh, and I wanted to clarify, if people are kind of new, there's some new folks listening, new to pinball, and they might like, they're like, did we say Alltech or Ultimate? I don't know. The Ultimate Board is a replacement board for Classic Bally and Classic Stern machines. And they're great. They're sold by a company called Altec. Yes. And it's the Ultimate Board, and you can get all that stuff at Marco's Specialties. And then on the Gottlieb side, you have Pascal. Oh, also, Pascal, what's the other one? Niewamp? Niewamp. Niewamp. We have some of each. Yeah. And you can get those at Marco's Specialties also. And then the Rotten Doggers, the Williams. Right. And we're not super familiar with that. Yeah, we have a few, but I have a lot more of the Alltech Ultimate Boards. Cool. Thank you so much, Pinball Hans, for the question. Give us some more questions so we can have something to talk about on the next episode. This is from NM Retro Gamer. Is that from New Mexico, Retro Gamer? I'm going to say that. We met him at Expo. Oh. Super nice guy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. From what I remember about our conversations, he was like a video game guy. And he's like discovered pinball and he wants to start operating him. Let's go. Yeah. He has three questions for the Batcast. And this is NM Retro Gaming. He's got a lot of questions. This is good. This could be just like his episode. Okay. Number one, how do you guys deal with taxes on coin op machines? Do you just total all your earnings for games, food, drink, et cetera, or do you itemize them as different things? I don't know. We have an accountant that deals with all that, right? I send the accountant separate earnings. I send them earnings for merch. I send them earnings both in-state and out-of-state because that makes a difference. I send them earnings for food and drink, and then I send them separate earnings for arcade earnings, pinball and, yeah, coin drop earnings. So I'm not exactly sure what the tax rates are for each of those different things or how much it matters, but that's how I divvy it up when I send it to the accountant. Fantastic, and that sounds good to me. Mm-hmm. Number two, do you get to use your purchase of a pinball or arcade machine as a write-off on taxes? And if so, how much does that help? Yes. Electric Bat is a business. This is an asset. And it is treated as such on taxes. So, yes, we do. I should say she depreciates things and does all of that. She being the accountant? Yeah. Cool. Number three, did you deal with any issues with the city about starting the arcade? Some towns have entertainment laws that make you yearly pay around 15 to 30 dollars per machine. Some places have more than that. Some places are three times. Is that something you deal with? Yeah, we pretty much all deal with that. Some of us are lucky and are in some counties that don't require. anything and that's really nice but uh per machine we pay what's like 20 bucks it's yeah it's by the city i believe that one's city-based and it is 20 bucks per year per machine right and i coming from south carolina i'm very happy paying that because the the fees that the tags you have to get in south carolina are just astronomical because they're they're kind of they're these old laws that just still kind of treat pinball as a gambling machine. I think South Carolina is the only state that still has a law on the books where you cannot be under 18 and play a pinball machine. It's not enforced. We used to play pinball machines all the time, no matter what our age was. But that's just, they have some antiquated laws when it comes to... But you were also buying dollar beers when you were not yet 21. So it's not a matter of... We had a great place to play pinball when I was in high school. They didn't card you. And the games. I guess we were playing like 50 cents for Twilight Zone, Adam's Family, Judge Dredd, Indiana Jones, and Neo Geo and Darkstalkers. Those were my jams. So in South Carolina, if you haven't heard us say it before, the tags are $200 for two years. I think it might be more than that. I think it was almost like $250 or something. But anyway, it was. But the thing that I thought was especially messed up about that law is, yeah, it's good for two years, but you have to pay for that now. Yes. So you have to be short. There's no, well, let me just try it for a couple of months and see if I like it. You're in for $200 straight off the rip before you've even made quarter one. You've got to pay the man. And in South Carolina, I think that's a state thing. Yes. These types of laws and fees vary. Sometimes they're city and state. Sometimes it's county. Sometimes, you know, there's all kinds of different stuff, so you do need to know for your area. And sometimes searching those codes online can be – Right, it's not easy. It's not straightforward. So the best thing to do is if you find – Just set up everything and wait for the cops. Don't do that. That's not maybe what I would do. I would suggest finding somebody that does it, that's going to be friendly, that you can just say like, hey, I want to do this over here. how much do your tags cost or like what should i be doing right and that's actually that's what i did when we were setting up the place in flagstaff i reached out to a bowling alley i looked on uh pin side not pin side with the pinball maps and uh there was a guy who was operating some machines in a in a bowling alley and reached out to him he was very he was super nice and And I think you'll find a lot of the operators don't really think, or at least we don't. We don't think of everybody's competition. There's so few pinball machines out there. Like, just the more they're on the street, it's better for everybody because each location is so unique. That was a funny thing about one of our meetings at Stern. It was how, like, Gary Stern just was aghast. He could not believe that there would be multiple operators operating. Oh, in one location. In one location and working together. That's like stabbing material back in his day. So it was kind of funny to watch him, his reaction to all of us talking about how this industry is now. Yeah, it's different and we love it. We all get along and we have a great time. We're still with NM Retro Gamer. Another question on Discord. I have been a lifelong gamer but it has mostly been home consoles except for when my dad would take me to the arcade growing up that has drastically influenced how much I love arcades and pinball today I'm now married, I have twin boys my kids like playing pinball my wife does it from time to time but I literally want to do it every single day It is a thing that drastically helps me with fighting off depression and has given me a whole new community of people that I care about and they care about me. My question is, do you have any advice about helping other people understand how important pinball is to you? I think there's still a stigma around it if it's something you really enjoy. i i don't i don't think we see this in this area because this is such a big pinball area but i can see like the stigma with i used to see that with like console gaming like people are like i can't believe you played call of duty for four hours four well like why not 10 why you want to call me out like that why not just you but ever since i was a child i remember when i got when I first got my Nintendo entertainment system, like I remember my friends going out trick or treating and I'm like, screw that I'm playing, uh, you know, Contra. Uh, and I really always loved the, the co-op games. Cause you got to play with your friend. Like let's, let's beat this game together. You know, I, I've always liked playing games with other people, but I think that's the kind of stigma he's talking about. Like, Oh, you're an adult. Why are you playing a game? I see. I was going to say, Number one, you're not alone because we see there are people that come to the arcade seven days a week. Right. It's a lifestyle. And we've talked about it. I think our area is different. We have a big pinball area. I'm not sure that it is. I mean, maybe by scale, but still, I think, and we've talked to a lot of people that have just talked about how important it has been for mental health. I mean, that sounds kind of goofy, but it really isn't. There are so many people that even – pinball helped them get through a breakup. Pinball helped them get through a divorce. Pinball helped them get through somebody dying. Pinball helped them get through big events. And it's somewhere to channel your attention and energy and accomplish goals and not – it takes your mind off things and it's good. And we even saw, who was it that posted some sort of study about how there was, someone did a study about men and mental health and how it like verifiably is good. So I think that if you were trying to get some support from friends, family member, whatever, like, hey, I really like this. I'm not crazy. I mean, it could be anything. Some people are really into ham radio. Some people are really into crocheting. some people are like whatever you're into people that like you should you know as long as you're not causing any harm anything why not i don't think that they're right it's what you're into right and as the most important and we talk about this all the time the arcade and the events at an arcade being people third place Third space Third space. You have home, you have work, and then you need that third space. And this is just straight science. People who interact face-to-face with human beings on a daily basis, they live longer, they're happier. now I'm sure I think a lot of religious people would say that like church is that for them but I think a lot of the good that people say that church does is actually just the community aspect of it so you can skip all that and just go play pinball with your friends every Tuesday night at 6.30 and that's a good point It's more about, and we've said this before, our tournaments are more about people than they are about pinball. It's like these people getting together and having a fun time competing. And, you know, it doesn't get all heated and weird. It's just a great, like, fun get-together. And you can rely on it. Every Tuesday at 6.30, you can rely on a good time at Electric Bat Arcade. But, yeah, it's face-to-face. It's person-to-person. It's not keyboard warriors. This is very important to the way human beings are wired to do these types of activities. Pinball just happens to be really fun. And so I think it's a very good thing that everybody should be doing. Yeah, for sure. And his question is, do you have any advice for helping other people understand how important pinball is to you? Bring them to an arcade and show them how much fun it is. But play some classic games, you know, to get people into it so they're not waiting so long while you're blowing up Godzilla. Like make it more of like a communal thing. You're hanging out, you know. Yeah, get some drinks, get some food. A mocktail or a cold beer. Yeah, but pinball is great. Last part of this question. My family is very supportive and have even bought me a patch with my IFPA number. How cool is that to put on my jacket? But I know there has to be some people out there that don't get why some people are into pinball and want to do it all the time. We get it. You're preaching to the choir, brother. We're there. I'm going to get a patch with my IFPA number. Do you know your IFPA number? I don't. Do you know yours? 20123. Wow. You've been in there for a while. Do you know who has number one? Keith Elwin. How about that? Look at the big brain on you. I like numbers a lot. Thank you so much, NM, Retro Gamer on Discord. Ask us some more questions. I'm excited about you operating. I think when we talked to him, he said he's going to start operating two pinball machines. He has, like, video games, but he wants to. Cool. And we want to hear about how it's going. And two is a great number to start with if you're just putting your toe in the water. You're not going to get overwhelmed. Yeah. um boom there you have it thank you so much nm retro gamer now we're going on to brett bmf on discord he has a question for the next batcast thank you so much brett i have people in my life who i want to introduce to pinball however some of the more modern games that i like seem to turn them off because there are so many rules. Yeah. While I believe this is appealing to the pinheads of the world, the normies, I feel, just want to walk up to a game and have fun rather than having to figure out a whole book of rules. I'm looking for games that will introduce people to pinball and get them to enjoy it in hopes that once they do, they will seek out and enjoy the harder games. what are some top games that you would recommend for newcomers that offer a fun experience that aren't too complicated? Attack from Mars. You want to see all the little aliens bouncing around and it's easy. It's straightforward. Attack from Mars. Medieval Madness for the same reason. And because both of those are themes that are approachable for a wide variety of people, those would be the two that i would pick okay i am gonna rewind reeling in the years my suggestion would be some classic i know people fans of the podcast are tired of me regurgitating this uh classic got leaves or bally games and here's the reason for example something like joker poker uh you know people can have incredibly long ball times on attack for mars i've seen even unskilled players like have a long ball time you're not going to have a long ball time on something like joker poker so it it makes it more of like a hangout type thing you got four people you want to introduce them to this game and plus the rules i mean you you love this rule set you have five balls first ball you knock down your 10 drop target you know second you you do your jacks yeah third queens it teaches you the very basics of what like a mode might be but part of the reason that i chose attack from mars specifically was because sometimes on the earlier classics number one i think that the theme of attack from mars is more interesting would like hold attention better than a card game although everyone understands card playing cards so that's also nicely approachable um but i think it would give someone without the confidence yet of playing pinball like it's there's a chance that they're going to have a ball that's reasonable length and i think that makes it kind of more exciting okay so and then on my side i think my side is more exciting because you get five balls here's why mine's better and um there are a lot of joker pokers out there and you can get them for much cheaper than any attack from mars yes i didn't know that this was some like you have to buy the game oh no i'm just adding that oh i'm sprinkling a little uh extra knowledge okay yep you know how to do yeah well and i you know joker poker is one of my favorite games we talk about it a lot so i don't disagree um i think that's a great game maybe maybe why not both like maybe show this is what this you know how about you you put both in your house and you tell people you have to you have to master the uh the joker poker before you can move to this other game maybe that will inspire people maybe they just want to see a little alien shit around. That's cool, too. The ship. The castle. All those things. Cool. I hope we answered your question. That's Brett, BMF. Hey, I'm a bit of a BMF this week. Let's talk about me. What did you do? I did what's called the Phoenix Summit Challenge. Oh, you know what? I forgot that these folks don't know. If they don't follow your social media, and what is your social media? At RachelBestArt. RachelBestArt on Instagram. For those of you who don't know, Rachel is a painter and so you can see some of her work. And we're going to talk about that in one second. But for right now, would you call it hiking or trail running? Trail running. I know people don't really want to hear about my personal accomplishments for too long, but this was really hard so you're going to have to sit with me, Will McKinney, for a couple of seconds. It was 25 miles up seven separate mountains in a day. So 25 miles over a mile of elevation gain. One day my legs are sore. All right, moving back on pinball. You know what I really liked in your stories on Instagram? It was like you took a photo at every summit, and they had a huge flag up there like you were an explorer, and you discovered these summits. You had your flag there, and you were so happy, and that was a great feeling. also i want to toot your own horn some more okay because this morning you prepared for a showing at the phoenix art museum this morning i gave a lecture to the docents at the phoenix art museum so i gave a lecture to about uh i don't know 150 people which was kind of more than i thought it was kind of nice um who are the people at the museums that will like guide tours so that way they can be better educated to talk about my work to people visiting the museum. And when is your show? It opens December 18th at the Phoenix Art Museum. It's up for several months. So if you're local, we'll probably do like a Bats Night Out. Maybe we'll grab just a bunch of people and go down there, and it'll be fun. So it's called Dutch Art Expanded. So it's my paintings along with a bunch of 17th century Dutch. Dutch masters. Yeah. So it's a huge honor. It's really cool stuff. Oftentimes, people in the field, they compare your stuff to the works of the Dutch masters. Now they can do it side by side. I'll be damned. Congratulations. Thank you. And you really did it up. Thank you. Okay, back to pinball. Okay. That was like a little side thing. Yeah. That's great, you know. It's part of the reason that we've been off. You know, you've been sick. I've been busy doing like a couple of other things. So now we're back to the podcasting. And you are putting together a streaming rig right now. Oh, you want to talk about that? Just briefly that we're doing it. Yeah. So we, this year in Arizona, the Electric Bat is hosting the state tournament. The state championships. It alternates every year between us and Starfighters Arcade. And I was like, you know what? I have to stream this. And so I'm getting all, I've ordered all the pieces and parts. I've gotten the help from Matt Rowbottom, Matt and Amy of Aimless Pinball. Mark Patnod. I've reached out to so many streamers to get tips on what gear to get and how to do this. And it should actually all be here this week. So I'm going to run some tests and have a great commentator, Serge. Oh, he's fantastic. Yeah, he's going to come and do some commentating. The best part about listening to him, not only does he just know the rules of all these games, he knows about the exact copies and the little quirks. You know, every pinball machine is different. Every copy is a little bit different, especially some of the older ones, the way the ball rolls and what have you. But he knows all the quirks. So he'll know, like on Meteor, does ours allow you to do a Kirk pass? Right. Where you go down one in lane, bounce off, set a post. It's so much fun listening to him. So be on the lookout for that. We'll be testing some stuff on Twitch here soon. Yes. Within the next couple of weeks. As long as I ordered everything. I'm going to have to plug everything together and then probably make another Amazon purchase. But that's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be a whole adventure. Yes, I think it's going to be great. And you'll see more of us. Yeah, even more. All right, back to the mailbag. And MN Retro Gamer is back. All righty. Wasn't he? Did I misread that? Where is he? Okay, so right here he's NM Retro Gamer. And, you know, I may have typed that. So it might be Montana. It might be New Mexico. That would be Minnesota. Oh, Minnesota, whatever. Well, here's another question. Okay. From MN Retro Gamer. I just watched a video talking about 10 things to do when putting pinball machines on route. One of the things he says is getting mirror blades for your pinball machine. My question, does getting mirror blades actually lead to more people playing that particular game? Would love to see if you have any insight on this. Thank you. Mirror blades. I have never heard anyone suggest, if you're putting a game on location, throw some Mirror Blades on it. But I'm assuming that the reason is because lighting... It makes a difference. It makes a difference with lighting. And some of those older games especially can be kind of dark. So it probably, if people can see the game better, then they will probably play it a little bit more. We have two games with Mirror Blades. No Fear and Terminator 2. we didn't install they came with them uh we have a set of mirror blades sitting in the back that we've been waiting for a game to put yeah um i would like to i'd like to you know i've seen some on pulp fiction and it looks really cool i've seen i've seen photos of of somebody that did that and it looks really cool um i don't it if you're thinking you're gonna put uh install some mirror blades and the game's going to make more money. I don't believe that's true. What do you think? I don't think so, but I do think in a dark bar it will look better. Right. Or, because maybe it's like, you know, like a fish and lure. It's just something shiny. You know, like, yeah, for real. A disco ball on the top. Like a spoon that's going through the fishing lure. Shouldn't the Deadpool topper have been like a disco ball spinning around? Then you'd really get... That's all you need. With a little LED light shining on it. Oh, that would get people's attention. That's gold. Some modder out there, I'm sure they've thought of that. It's got a little disco ball inside on the premium. I know, but I want a big one on top. You want a big one. Like a fishing lure to get people's attention to come play this Deadpool. Cool. You know, I don't, I wouldn't get one expecting, get one if you think it looks cool. Don't get it expecting it to earn more money. I don't think. I think it will make your game a little nicer, but I don't know that that translates to earnings. Right. And there you have it. That's all I have for you today. All right. Man, it feels good to be doing the podcast again. I've been a little rusty. Yeah. I had came from the museum talking to docents about corpses and art and came here. And now you're talking some more. You did an absolutely fantastic job, and it's good to be back on the program with you. I love this program. It's a good program. And the good thing is we're going to have a new earnings report soon. Two weeks, yeah. Two weeks will pop up. so send in your questions to Discord and if you want to join our Discord just go to electricbatarcade.com click the podcast tab and there's a link where you can join the Discord there's also links for where you can listen to or watch the podcast please comment with your experience with Rotten Dog Boards especially if you have Rotten Dog Boards on games on location yes, that's a big difference those things are on all the time thank you, shout out to our sponsors Stern, Insider Connected, Marco's Specialties, and Game Room Goodies. Thanks, guys. That's all I have. All right, let's do it. Let's go work on some pinball machines. Is that what we're about to do? I think so. It's a day that ends in Y. Let's go work on some pinball machines. Oh, that's a joke, right? All right, y'all. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you in a couple of weeks with a brand new earnings report. And if you have any questions, you could send it in on the Discord. Or you can even drop us a line at electricbatarcade at gmail. Is that correct? That's correct. And Rachel will... And if you want to have any holiday parties or just any kind of parties, we do them for, like, basically free. I mean, for free. You got to pay for token and stuff. Yeah. So come have your parties with us. Yeah. We want to celebrate with you. Come party with us. We'll be there. Yeah. Okay. Well, now the bats are out and we will see you guys in a couple of weeks. Thank you for doing this with me. Thank you for doing this. This has been an absolute blast. I hope I've made a good first impression. All right. We'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye. Peace.