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Episode 212 - Balleater

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 8m·analyzed·Feb 4, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Q1 pinball news roundup: Chicago Gaming shipping Pulp Fiction, American Pinball denies sale rumors and announces new board tech.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast Episode 212 covers personal anecdotes about winter weather incidents, then discusses pinball industry news including Chicago Gaming's Pulp Fiction production update, American Pinball rumored sale (later denied), their new in-house board set development, and hiring of tech support staff. The hosts emphasize that neither manufacturer announcement constitutes major news.

Key Claims

  • Chicago Gaming is shipping Pulp Fiction machines after being roughly 6 months behind their Q3 2024 production target

    high confidence · Dennis states 'we are about half a year behind schedule' on Pulp Fiction, originally targeting Q3 2024

  • American Pinball parent company Ametron was shopping the subsidiary for buyers according to rumors that festered for days without comment

    medium confidence · Dennis reports rumors started 'right after our last episode' on multiple platforms (Nap Arcade, Facebook, Pinside). This was later addressed but initially unconfirmed.

  • David Fix (American Pinball) says they were seeking additional investors for production expansion, not attempting to sell the company

    medium confidence · Dennis cites Pinball Profile interview with Jeff Teolis where Fix clarifies the company was looking for investors, distinguishing this from being 'for sale'

  • American Pinball has developed their own circuit board set that is backwards compatible with their existing games

    high confidence · Dennis states 'they've developed their own board set' and notes it will run existing games like Houdini, ending reliance on Multimorphic P-Rock boards

  • American Pinball hired two new tech support staff members: Maurice and Lloyd (LTG on Pinside, formerly with JJP)

    high confidence · Dennis announces the hires and identifies Lloyd as 'LTG on Pinside' and notes he previously provided tech support for JJP

  • Tony has been dealing with lingering rib/muscle pain from a fall on ice during the recent cold spell

    high confidence · Tony confirms he 'fell' during the negative 14-degree weather and only this past Wednesday could tighten his belt without pain

  • Dennis crashed a salt-spreader plow truck into a building, his first accident in 26 years of plowing

    high confidence · Dennis recounts driving a 'four by four spreader truck that I was driving with a plow would not stop until I hit a building' due to icy conditions

  • The third annual Pinball Degenerate Awards will be broadcast live on Pinball Degenerates Facebook group on February 18th at noon Eastern

Notable Quotes

  • “I have been plowing snow for 26 years now. It's the first time I've ever had an accident while plowing.”

    Dennis @ ~08:00 — Establishes the unusual nature of Dennis's recent plow truck accident as a rare safety incident in his long career

  • “I just want to note that because it started to go like... there was a ton of commentary... all of this stuff coming out.”

    Dennis @ ~45:00 — Describes the rapid spread of American Pinball sale rumors across multiple platforms before official comment

  • “They streamed the better, more popular game. Okay. But why? I don't even know if they're allowed to make any more of them.”

    Dennis (on American Pinball choosing Hot Wheels over Galactic Tank Force for their first livestream) @ ~48:00 — Critiques American Pinball's promotional strategy, questioning why they'd stream a game no longer in production over their current product

  • “Either they don't have the funding for it or they're not comfortable with...”

    Dennis @ ~65:00 — Dennis speculating on why Ametron (American Pinball's parent company) would seek external investors despite presumably having capital

  • “I just don't – again, I just don't ever get excited about – like I'm trying to – how often have I called tech support though?”

    Dennis @ ~54:00 — Downplays the significance of American Pinball's tech support hiring announcement, noting he's only called once in his collecting history

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonDavid FixpersonLloyd (LTG)personJoe ChervinopersonAmerican PinballcompanyAmetroncompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyBarrels of Fun

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball's parent company Ametron was rumored to be shopping the subsidiary for sale; company later clarified they were seeking investors for expansion rather than selling

    medium · Dennis reports rumors circulated on multiple platforms before David Fix clarified on Pinball Profile that they were 'looking for an additional investors so they could expand like what American pinball's production capabilities were'

  • ?

    event_signal: Third annual Pinball Degenerate Awards scheduled for live broadcast on February 18th, described as potentially 'the only award ceremony that's going to have a broadcast this entire year'

    high · Email from Joe Chervino confirms event details; Dennis notes 'I think this might be the only award ceremony that's going to have a broadcast this entire year'

  • ?

    community_signal: American Pinball announcing weekly livestreams as part of promotional and customer engagement strategy

    high · Dennis notes 'they did a live stream on twitch and they started promote that live stream it was i guess the first official live stream and they're planning to do a weekly live stream'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: American Pinball's decision to livestream Hot Wheels (older, unlicensed title) rather than Galactic Tank Force (newer, current production game) raises questions about product strategy and licensing status

    medium · Dennis critiques choice: 'why they stream Hot Wheels. Why not Galactic Tank Force? Isn't that the one you're trying to sell?... I just thought it was a weird decision'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: American Pinball hired two new tech support staff: Maurice and Lloyd (LTG), with Lloyd transitioning from Jersey Jack Pinball

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.205

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, February 4th. This is episode 212, and I am Tony. I am Dennis. We're back in person. Tony is healthy again. I have the health. And so we've got all of the health. We got a few. We got a diverse set of topics today. Nothing in particular is long. Nothing huge. Nothing super special. But our, you know, Q1 episodes tend to be shorter. I don't know. I've never actually ran the numbers on that, but I know we definitely have less news typically. So, you know what? We just let people have more time if we get through this stuff fairly quickly. But before we even attempt that, we like to talk about what we've been doing over the last couple of weeks. So I don't know what you've been doing over the last couple of weeks, Tony. I have been doing, well, it's been cold, and the weather has not been great. So I've been involved in a lot of work-related stuff because we had that cold spell. I think that was after our last episode, wasn't it? Yes. Where it hit like negative 14? Yes. I didn't talk about it on the pinball show, but I fell. I'm still not healed. How's this there? Are you still sore? Yeah. I'm amazed that that didn't bruise up. I saw the video clip. I'm amazed you were black and blue. Not at the skin level, but I clearly did damage inside deeper.
1:40
Deep in your soul. Yeah. I mean, it's nothing like a super sharp pain, so I don't think I cracked any ribs or anything. But, I mean, what am I going to do otherwise?
1:50
It's a rib. They pretty much said, nothing you can do. Yeah. But some of the muscles in between them, some of those. It's not too bad now. I was really exciting Wednesday. Yeah. This last Wednesday was the first day where I could tighten my belt and it didn't cause pain. Well, that's good. From when I, cause I was in hail when I do it, no matter what, even if I, it'd be like, maybe I should just not do, but however I'm adjusting my arm when I'm pulling the belt in, it would always cause pain in the upper, upper ribs, not where the belt was, but up high. Right. And I was just like, okay, this is, this is annoying. but finally got to the point where it's like you know what that's not it's still sore but it wasn't like it wasn't annoyingly so yeah there's a it's not too bad but anyway yeah so super cold you were busy working I was busy falling yeah you were falling that well this last week though wasn't too bad no this last week was really nice but yeah yeah you were busy falling I kind of fell um there was a Monday where it was super cold and it was just like I just a thin layer of ice everywhere. It was like that was my fall like the day you fell. Yeah, you fell. I kind of fell that day. If by fall, you mean the four by four spreader truck that I was driving with a plow would not stop until I hit a building that counts kind of like a fall. Yes, because you sent the photo to me and showed the picture, and you said, I'm not having a great day. And so were you plowing? I mean, what was – I was spreading salt. Oh, okay. Because that truck has a salt spreader, and I was spreading salt so that when the employees came in, they wouldn't fall down and hurt themselves or slam their personal vehicles into the buildings. So instead, I slammed my vehicle into the building.

high confidence · Email from Joe Chervino confirming the event details

  • Barrels of Fun is shipping toppers for the Labyrinth pinball machine

    high confidence · Dennis reports 'Barrels of Fun, makers of the hit game Labyrinth, they're finally shipping those toppers out'

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage topper price increased by approximately $1,000 when re-released

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'they added almost like $1,000 to it when we ran it again' but acknowledges using hyperbole frequently on the show

    • company
    Multimorphiccompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Pulp Fictiongame
    Labyrinthgame
    Hot Wheelsgame
    Galactic Tank Forcegame
    Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
    Houdinigame
    Oktoberfestgame
    Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
    Pinball Profilemedia
    Nap Arcademedia
    Jeff Teolisperson
    Pinball Degeneratesorganization
    Golemgame

    high · Dennis announces 'they hired a couple of new techs. One's name is Maurice and one's name is Lloyd' and identifies Lloyd as 'LTG on Pinside. He used to be, I believe, tech support with JJP'

  • $

    market_signal: Black Knight Sword of Rage topper experienced significant price increase when re-released, with estimate of ~$1,000 added to original cost

    medium · Dennis states 'I think they added almost like $1,000 to it when we ran it again' but acknowledges using hyperbole in discussion

  • ?

    product_strategy: Chicago Gaming Company's Pulp Fiction now shipping after approximately 6-month delay from original Q3 2024 target

    high · Dennis states 'we are about half a year behind schedule. We're just not surprised because Chicago Gaming is never on schedule'

  • ?

    technology_signal: American Pinball transitioning from Multimorphic P-Rock boards to in-house custom circuit board set, backwards compatible with existing titles

    high · Dennis states 'they've developed their own board set' and notes 'they did stress that their new board set is for their other games backwards compatible. So they won't have to keep stock on P-Rocks'

    • 3:38
    Yes, it was a notable dent. Yeah, I definitely. And here's the thing. I have been plowing snow for 26 years now. It's the first time I've ever had an accident while plowing. Well, that's technically true. However, I'm not sure if the listeners know about this. They probably don't, but I'm going to bring it up anyway. There was a time there was that kid shoveling snow. That wasn't an accident. Nothing happened. And he was he has done. He had done so much. Dear listener, this is Tony is so nice on this show. You all are like, you know what, Dennis? We used to think you were the nice one. And then you start talking a lot. And so Tony's actually the nice one. No, no. And Tony tells you, no, I'm not. And you don't understand. There's this innocent child who is shoveling his driveway. We're talking a teenager. Innocent child. There is no such thing as an innocent teenager. He was just like he had never heard a bad word, had spent his whole life in hard child labor. And he shoveled out this whole driveway. And Tony, master plow operator, at that time never having been in a plow accident, Tony goes along.
    5:02
    I'll let you finish it. Okay. One thing to note is that it was one of those snowstorms where we got a lot of snow, And then the next day it was just above freezing. So we were still cleaning snow, but it was much more slushy. So it kind of rolled off the edge of the plow like a slushy. It was very, very mix of water and snow and stuff. And I was plowing the road down to be clear, just like I was supposed to. Okay. Yep. Doing your job. Doing a great job. It's just this kid had been shoveling his driveway, I'm sure, to help his mom out or being just, you know, really good kid yep he was maybe the best there and as i drove past the wave of slush off of the truck just washed up into the driveway and completely obliterated everything he'd already undid his entire work it was just all the whole driveway that's the sound i imagine it happened and this is the sound of his heart breaking I probably have an archenemy I mean in all honesty It's probably Probably making an inator to come after me It's just one of those So yeah Guys just be careful out there I felt bad Did you? I did feel bad I don't know I'm sure he had a great time I mean it was a lot easier to move It's just slush It's much easier to move than pack snow. All I wanted to do was do it again, but easier. It's everyone's dream. Yeah, isn't it? Isn't it? It's good. It's a good workout. I did feel bad, but yeah. That's true. That's why you went back and said, sorry. No, I didn't do that. You didn't feel that bad.
    6:58
    That's not how that works. You just keep going. Did you see him in your mirror when you were going by? No. Okay. I don't want to look. I had places to be, roads to plow. Little Timmy learned about the use of one of his fingers that day, the dreaded plow driver, and that innocence was forever shattered. If it wasn't for the fact that he was a teenager, there's no innocence there. I don't know. Maybe he was just tall. He was a tall eight-year-old. Yeah, I don't think so. He was a tall eight-year-old. He ruined this poor child his whole life to this day. He dreads every January and February. You tell this story to make me seem worse. Now people are picturing the kid from A Christmas Story in his big suit out there. He was shoveling for his mom, and then he gets the – I'm making it so that the listeners enjoy it because it didn't have to do with video games or pinball. So I'm just trying to keep it lively. I felt bad. I wasn't even – the thing is it's not like I was driving too fast. I was doing everything exactly like you're supposed to. It was just so slushy that it was just rolling off. And the way their driveway was angled that once it hit, it just kept going. Yeah, I mean, it was a mix of extenuating circumstances. I'm sure the child understood all of that in the moment that it happened. I'm sure. I'm sure there was no heartbreak, no sadness.
    8:20
    None whatsoever. um so the in terms of i guess me well first let me thank jeff c he has joined our patreon welcome intermediate level yes we welcome you thank you very much reminder folks you can support us for as little as a dollar a month at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers in terms of what i've been doing i won't i won't uh bore people with work stories because i didn't have anything as interesting as a plow. The video game-wise, I did finish Robocop. Congratulations. And right after I finished it, or maybe it was right before I finished it, they pushed out an update for a new game plus mode. But I have other stuff to work on. So I have started... Golem. Which, where is it?
    9:12
    Is your emo hair? Oh my God. All right. I don't want to talk too much about Golem because I haven't finished it yet. However, there is a setting because I went in because one of the first things I do is I invert Y axis because you understand. Yes. And so when I went in, there was an option to like turn on his dynamic hair.
    9:31
    Maybe because of performance issues. I've had some lag moments. So I turned it on. It's like this is an Xbox Series X. His hair is going to be flowing. It's like Fabio in a gullible body.
    9:45
    I don't know if it's made things better or not. I can't tell. But you may see, because we're recording in my living room, which is where I play my console games, I have my AverMedia capture device on top, glowing red here, because it's not ready to capture right now. I went, got it configured, set it up, put up the firmware updates, changed the settings so that it would actually work, tested it. I'm recording my entire playthrough. Every time I play, I push the button and I record, and then I dump it onto the computer. I have at this point over 15 gig of me trying to finish Golem. Now, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do yet, but I will do something for the listeners, probably on our YouTube channel. I'll put something together, probably kind of like a video review, and there will be spoilers because obviously I'm capturing a lot. At one point, I thought maybe I should try and clip all of the deaths and montage them, but there are a lot, and that's a lot of rewatching. But the game, what they're doing for the game, the game's long. I thought I'd be done by now. I didn't think I'd be done with the video, but I was hoping. I really tried yesterday to finish Golem so that I could talk about it on the episode. I'm hoping I'll be ready next episode. I looked at my achievement list. There are at least two more chapters that I have to do. Wow. And I just now got through Chapter 7. When I got Chapter 7, I was trying to check here on my phone. I didn't see the exact same, but I got my there's always a there's like an achievement Xbox achievement for each chapter, which is typical. But with Xbox, one of the things they changed the last generation is they have rare achievements. Chapter seven was a rare achievement, meaning most not many people are getting this far.
    11:28
    So I'm getting concerned now because the rest of the the achievements for the chapters were common achievements. but it made the special diamond achievement sound like, oh, no. People are giving up. People are not getting through. They're not experiencing the precious in the same way. And I understand why for so many reasons why that is true. Well, we thank you for your suffering. But it's interesting. Oh, I have laughed a lot while playing Golem, so it's definitely worth a dollar if you can find it for the dollar. Obviously, this was a Christmas present, so it probably cost more than a dollar. But it didn't cost me more than a dollar. And that's the secret. So anyway, I'll plan to weigh in, hopefully, next episode a lot more. Okay. We can have an in-depth discussion about Golem. But for the time being, let's go ahead and walk away from Golem and Lord of the Rings, even though there is a Lord of the Rings pinball machine. We're not going to talk about it today. We're going to talk about some other stuff. So starting the pinball segment, though, I want to note we did get an email. And as a reminder, folks, you can write in to us at CollectingGamersPodcast.gmail.com. So emailing is actually the best way to have us have a discussion on something. I do get notifications when there's Facebook messages, but email just works better for us for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is it's very easy to cut and paste it into our one note. So anyway, Rhombus wrote in and regarding Little Shop of Horrors, and he writes, great theme, but only if Seymour eats the ball. Winky face. So thank you, Rhombus, for writing. And, Tony, what are your thoughts about Seymour having to eat the ball? I think that would be very interesting, and that would be a weird model. It would make more sense for Audrey, too, to eat the ball. I think someone thought Seymour was the plant.
    13:17
    At this point, I kind of want to make a home-brew pinball machine that's just called Ball Eater. And it's just got like five or six different things across it that eats the balls. That's just, just, just, mm-mm. There could be the mountain oyster section where it's just like, we're going for the mountain oyster eating record here. Most people just don't like to eat that many balls.
    13:44
    You work up there. I think you may need to workshop that one a bit. But I'm sure those things are fascinating. I would have to find the right group of people to do the call outs. But I can tell you right now that when you hit the start button to start the game, we need, you know, just the right voice. I'm talking Ving Rhames. I'm talking a nice, deep, gravelly voice just going, ball eater.
    14:19
    I'm just imagining it kind of like the centaur voice. Right. Oh, another email came into us, Joe. I hope I I've heard repeatedly how to say Joe's last name correctly. I think it's Chervino. So I'm going to say it that way. And I do apologize if that is incorrect. But he did email us about the third annual Pinball Degenerate Awards. We've we've talked about that before. These prior years we have. I don't think we've talked about this third annual edition, but we will now. Those are going to be broadcast live on the Pinball Degenerates Facebook group. That's going to be on Sunday, February 18th, 12 p.m. That's noon Eastern time. So you want to check those out. It's a fun. They do a fun type of categories of awards. So anyway. So thank you, Joe, for letting us know about that. And those of you interested, because I think this might be the only award ceremony that's going to have a broadcast this entire year. I mean, you know, there may be there may be other words I'm not aware of. But FYI, you want to check something out like that to celebrate pinball? You can do so.
    15:31
    A couple other items before I get to our main pinball topic, which isn't much of a main one. One is Pulp Fiction, Chicago Gaming Company. They've indicated those are finally being built. It sounds like they're really focusing on the model line that was designed mostly for operators. They had some coin door different stuff, if you recall. So anyway, those are on the line and purportedly shipping. I don't know how many have gone out. Well, it's not quite a year from announcement. I mean, we're a month shy. Yeah. I mean, it's Chicago gaming, so I don't think anyone's really surprised. Not overly. That said, when Pulp Fiction was revealed and shown at TPF, a lot of discussion was – I guess it was revealed a little bit before TPF. But a lot of the discussion was they were shooting for production in Q3 of last year. So obviously we are about half a year behind schedule. We're just not surprised because Chicago Gaming is never on schedule. It's a stereotype, for better or for worse. Barrels of Fun, makers of the hit game Labyrinth, they're finally shipping those toppers out for those of you who care. So there you go. Some people are very topper-centric.
    16:43
    What do you wonder? Is there somebody out there with a topper collection who doesn't own the machines? I, wow, that I'd never really thought about. They just have shelving that's just covered in pinball. You might recall when we did the went out to the pinball awards when Zach hosted last year he had at least one topper on a shelf in his pin barn He might have had more than one
    17:12
    So maybe. So I think this is probably true. I definitely know there are people who have bought toppers without having owned the game, thinking that they may eventually get the game, and they worry that they wouldn't be able to get the topper later or want to pay the price of the topper's cost later. So this was in particular common with Black Knight's topper. I think I've heard more people say they had the Black Knight topper without having ever owned Black Knight Sword of Rage. It's just a preemptive grab because it's such a topper. Well, I mean, yeah, it was a very impressive topper. They're making it again or have made it again since. However, the price the first time around was far more approachable. I think they added almost like $1,000 to it when we ran it again. The thing is, like, no one bought that game.
    17:57
    It's amazing. Yes, I know, folks. By the way. We've sold 30 more toppers than we did machines. FYI. Tony and I use hyperbole a lot, so maybe don't take everything literal. Not that anyone's recently written in saying, no, people bought black. Yeah. No, duh. Wow. Is that what the 80s? Is that a proper 80s term? Duh.
    18:16
    We know. We've played it. So someone had to own it because we didn't go to the Stern factory and play it. Because Stern doesn't invite us to stuff like that because we're losers. And we don't do the factory tours Because we're too good for them I can go around sweeping your factory floor for you With your little booties Or whatever you make me wear To keep your electronics safe F-150s needed those chips stirred And you're swooping in with your toys It reminds me of that one Lonely Island song That's not my dad That's a cell phone My dad's not a phone And then he goes Duh They see it's all connected. Through the ground. Yeah, through the ground.
    19:03
    No, I think my favorite thing to the ground was probably the cake. Yeah, the cake was the best. I want to end with American Pinball for the pinball segment. There's been a lot that's been happening over these last couple weeks, Tony. We haven't really had a chance to debrief on it, so we're going to kind of go over it now. So basically, I'd say maybe right after our last episode, as is often timely, as things always work out. Not a game announcement this time, but rather rumor mills started to swirl big time that Ametron, the parent company that owns American Pinball, were shopping the American Pinball subsidiary around for buyers to take it off of their hands. well that narrative is now i i will add uh an opine of finally being pushed back from american pinball after they let this rumor fester for days with no comment i want to note that because it started to go like i saw it on nap arcade actually i saw it on facebook and then i saw the piece on nap arcade and there was a ton of commentary there are two american pinball threads that I have been monitoring on Pinside. One is about American Pinball and one is about Galactic Tank Force. They both got triple digit posts driven by this sort of topic. Just all of this stuff coming out. We talked about it on the Pinball Show. Some, because at this point the rumors were, they were everywhere. They were very well established.
    20:36
    David Fix, who runs American Pinball, has gone out on, I mean, he's been on at least, I think he's been on pinball profile i have not heard it uh they did a live stream on twitch and they started promote that live stream it was i guess the first official live stream and they're planning to do a weekly live stream which i think is a good promotional good idea so and again i have not seen the live stream uh we actually had a patreon member when i did my baby's first release for february who wrote and said i thought you'd do a baby's first about i did one based off of jaws big shock uh but i had someone right in thinking i would do one based off of the american pinball live stream I was like, well, I almost never watch live streams at all, but I didn't even remember that there was going to be a live stream. So I definitely wasn't going to get to be a baby's first. Plus, I didn't know if there was anything interesting that was baby's first. You have to be baby's first worthy to get a baby's first baby's first sell off rumor. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. So it wouldn't have been hard to do this. But but that was already that was before the stream. So but they were talking about how that was like they were going to address the rumors and had a big they had talked about a big announcement. So we're going to get to let's go and jump into the big announcement. So, all right. On the live stream, which was January 31st, is when they did the live stream, which just as an aside, because I look when I looked it up, why they stream Hot Wheels. Why not Galactic Tank Force? Isn't that the one you're trying to sell? Do you really have to ask that question? I do. They streamed the better, more popular game. Okay. But why? I don't even know if they're allowed to make any more of them. I don't know. They can still make Houdini's and Oktoberfest. There's no license. And they have continued to produce those. I don't know the last time they built Hot Wheels. Now, of all the American Pinball games I've played, Hot Wheels is my favorite. Right. But I would have thought that... I just sort of thought, why not play the game that you are still actively producing, I assume, the most of? I just thought it was a weird decision. It could be that it being the first one they thought they would start with something from the back catalog. Sure. I don't think it's a big deal. I just thought it was an odd choice, a little odd. It would be like if Stern finally announced they were doing weekly streams and they went ahead and decided to stream Walking Dead. like well but you don't even make it anymore so that's how i interpret it maybe that's a little unfair uh i don't know walking dead's a great game though it is but if you're not making it anymore why not stream something that you still produce like i would have and again maybe i'm wrong maybe they can still maybe they are still producing hot wheels but i would have thought it would have made more sense to stream houdini right and hot wheels but gtf i would have definitely i mean And people are – it feels weird to say people are usually most excited for the newest game. But again, much like Pulp Fiction, we are talking about a game that is almost a year old at this point. So I suppose it doesn't really – maybe I'm bringing up something that no one else cares about, which is fine. I just was noting it. As an aside, it was odd. Here are their big announcements. Now, in my opinion, neither of these announcements are big, but that's all a matter of perspective. So one is they hired a couple of new techs. One's name is Maurice and one's name is Lloyd. If I wrote things down correctly again, I read this. I didn't I didn't watch the stream. Now, maybe they're both well-known techs. Lloyd definitely is. I believe he's LTG on Pinside. He used to be, I believe, tech support with JJP. He does a lot of tech support stuff on Pinside. Very popular. So so a great tech. I'm going to assume both are great techs. I'm just not sure it's big news given how few American pinball games are out there. True. I wonder if that's not more in the lines of them trying to lay down that, hey, look, the sales rumors aren't true. We're hiring staff type. Maybe. Because how would it feel, though, to be a newly hired staff member, especially if you're somebody who's been, you know, adjacent to the hobby? and you're getting to do like actually have what was your hobby become your job. And the first thing you hear is the company's being sold. That's got to be scary. Right. Yeah, I could see that. That being said, I do want to I don't have enough detail. I don't know if these are 1099 contractors part time or if they're actually brought in like W2 employees. Right. I don't think they're being relocated the way Lloyd Lloyd did some posts on Pennside in one of the AP threads. And the way it sounded is wherever he is is where he is. You know, he'll plan to get some American pinball games so he can more directly understand how they work and troubleshoot from from having physical models. Right. Which is how he's approached it with other companies before. So that being said, I will note this is probably a bigger for those that have the games. I guess, again, this is from the threads on Pennside. And a lot of the discussion has been about that trying to contact AP for tech support has been an area of frustration.
    25:44
    So I do think this is trying to solve something that the community has complained about. So there's that. I just – I don't – again, I just don't ever get excited about – like I'm trying to – how often have I called tech support though? I did it once when I could not get a code update to Walking Dead, and it turned out a pin was bent on the chip. And the tech support guy at Stern was actually like, pull the chip. I bet you there's a leg bent on it. And he was right. I was like, holy crap. That was pretty awesome.
    26:14
    And that's it. That's the only time I ever called tech support. um the another thing though this is probably what i assume david fix meant or whoever did their announcement put their announcement together regarding what the big announcement was they've developed their own board set that is what i think they think is the big announcement i can see where that would be a big announcement and the thing the thing that always confused me was your parent company is Ametron, which makes circuit boards. Why did you ever use a third-party board? That is very true. And they've been talking about, like David, I remember hearing on a podcast years ago, David Fix talking about how they did plan to move away from using the multi, they've been using Multimorphics P-Rock, and they have been, much like many manufacturers, actually, I don't know any manufacturers who are still using P-Rock once they shift. Haggis did it for Kelts, And then they shifted to Fast for Fathom. And they're using Fast for the rest of the remakes. I think they have to under the agreement with Planetary Pinball. And then Spooky, you recall, they switched to P-Rock with TNA. And they used that for a few games. But then they made another board set for Halloween. And then they did different boards. They've changed boards like four times. Right. And like they've all been in-house except for the P-Rock one, which they did for a few games. So I don't know. Outside of where with Multimorphic, it's not third party. It's first party. So outside of the P3, I don't know any notable manufacturer at this point with this transition. But what I thought was interesting is they did stress that their new board set is for their other games backwards compatible. So they'll be able to use their new board. So they won't have to keep stock on P-Rocks. They can write their new set supposed to run Houdini. So that's good for them. Not so good for multimorphic.
    28:15
    Yeah. I mean, I just don't know how much of a how many games is any selling, though, is the thing. Is it really? But then and also, I mean, how many how many multimorphic board sets get sold to do it yourself?
    28:30
    I mean, they were at one point and this was all perception because I'm not a homebrew. I haven't made a ball game or anything. there was a time where to me it felt like multimorphic was the go-to for homebrew like it was the board set that most of the projects were using that might still be true i just i don't really follow the homebrew scene i never did right back when i heard people talk about projects when i would notice they would usually say they were using multimorphic boards on occasion i'd see people saying they were using fast but it seemed very lopsided in favor of the multimorphic board set i don't i have no context if it's any different or not here's here's one of the here's one of the things though like if people were doing like kits like the 2.0 kits and stuff it started to because there was one there was a i don't want to call it a controversy because i honestly most people i don't think care but there was someone who developed like a kit thing and was using the p-rock sets or p3 rock or whichever iterate probably p3 rock um and then they ended up later converting it to fast but that one went commercial and i think the deal is if you're doing a like a 2.0 kid you're doing anything with a bally williams license you got to get the license from planetary and my understanding is planetary says you will use fast because they have a deal with fast right is my assumption so i guess anyone who's doing a project that's using one of the old uh pinball licenses from that era you know bally williams licenses specifically if they're thinking they might sell it they won't use multimorphic set at this point simply because the licensing agreement they know i gotta go in with fast so that might be pushing some people that are doing those style but that was more like kits and stuff right not i mean i don't know anyone who's like homebrewed a funhouse 3.0 like just made a whole new thought I want to use that theme so bad, and then I don't know anyone who's done that. So anyway, an interesting aside. But incidentally, we do have a link in the show notes to the NAP Arcade article that summarizes the key points from the stream. So that's there. I want to throw on some additional stuff I read this morning.
    30:47
    So regarding that, I believe this is the interview, and I've noted I have not heard it. This is from Pennside.
    30:54
    The discussion David Fix went on Pinball Profile with Jeff Teellis. And I guess they're sort of discussed the a little bit more because the live stream didn't really talk much as my understanding about the rumor of them being for sale other than dismissing it. Basically, it's my understanding. Well, from what I read, the pinball profile interview, Dave Fix says, well, like sometime last year, they were looking for an additional investors so they could expand like what American pinball's production capabilities were. So that's what he noted, not that they were trying to sell it off.
    31:33
    Okay, so that is a difference. However, if that's the case, for Amtron to not have 100% of the ownership, either they don't have – here's where I'm at with it. Either they don't have the funding for it or they're not comfortable with any expansion and them footing the entire bill under the existing – You're still bringing in outside buyers to buy a portion of your company in order to execute on this expansion. And if they didn't do it, I guess they can't expand and that they didn't expand because it didn't – my understanding is they didn't bring in the additional investment. Right. So it's still – and maybe this is a little loaded. I think sometimes some people will hear when we say things, criticisms or concerns or negatives about companies like we don't like the companies. I am indifferent to American Pinball. American Pinball employs people I really like in pinball, like Steve Bowden. So I don't want American Pinball to fail, but I'm relatively neutral to it as a company in terms of what happens with it is what happens with it. I neither root for its success nor its failure. I just observe it. That's how it is. Because I believe that the market will always ensure – if there's demand for pinball, the market will ensure there will be pinball for us to buy. So that's why I don't get worked up over particular companies making it or not. It will get sorted out. I think there are some very talented people at American Pinball. Another one we've talked about goes by the handle Ferret on Pinside. He is a coder with them. He was, I thought, the shining example of what Highway had with Alien Pinball. The rule set of Alien Pinball. I don't like Alien Pinball's layout. I still don't. But I thought the rules were very clever. And they brought him in at American Pinball. And, of course, Dennis Nordman at American Pinball. And I think he's got a lot of fun things that he tends to like to do.
    33:36
    So, anyway, I just wanted to note that. Again, I haven't seen us get any specific criticism. But sometimes I feel like when we mostly are bringing up negatives about something, people might think, oh, yeah, you hate them or something. No, that's not. I don't. It's a machine. The company is like a machine to me. I neither hate it any more than I could hate a washing machine. It just is. Does that make sense? I mean, it can. You're like, it doesn't wash my clothes. So no, Dennis, it doesn't make any sense. It's stupid. That washing machine killed my family. I mean if it gets all like Stephen King yeah we might have to shift all this All right So all that as a caveat The need for investors because are they it sounds like a position of weakness to me nonetheless Unless they're like, oh, well, we really want to grow. But even then, but you're not willing to put your own resources anymore into the growth. You're like, let's just find some outside money to take the risk. Well, and it might not even be that they don't want to put their resources in. It might just be that they want to hedge their bet and only put some resources in and to get some outside funding to assist. I mean, it's not like the expansion. They could have not been looking to fund 100% of the expansion with outside funding. They could have been looking to just get some outside funding for a quarter or a third just to give a little bit of backstop and a little bit of protections. Sure. Yeah, there are some other instances on it. I just think, to me, unless Ametron is facing issues with, say, its total amount of cash, that it just cannot do what it used to do, if they had the money, if Ametron had the money, and I'm just assuming, and I could be wrong, obviously, that they have the money. if they're not willing to take all of the risks themselves, to me it feels like at this point, and I would not blame them for this, that they do not have confidence that American Pinball is worth the additional investment. So let another investor take the risk if they think they see the potential.
    35:44
    It would have been a stronger vote of confidence for Ametron to say, we believe in you. Here's the additional money. Expand. You can do it. You just, you can do it. You can do it. Yes, but I just, so. eat that ball anyway don't know but but that's what purportedly is where people were thinking oh they're trying to sell it no it was actually this old news about an attempt to get some outside investors which is different it is notably that is um another thing that apparently sounds like was discussed on pinball profile was david fix went into a long and it's not the first time i believe he's done this i've heard this on some other podcasts that i have listened to was going into sort of the laundry list of why all the issues that they face is trying to secure licenses.
    36:29
    Let me drop my pen here. Hopefully the mic will pick it up. Okay. American Pinball. This is Dennis here. I do this on a pinball show sometimes. Sometimes I have to talk to the companies directly. I don't expect anyone with them to listen, but I have to pretend. This is Dennis here. The decision to not get licenses is wrong. It is wrong. And allow me to further elaborate. When you do not get licenses, when you go out publicly and you make excuses for not getting licenses, it is very different. I should say, excuse me, difficult is very difficult for those of us who are not manufacturing experts, who do not work in the industry, who are mere hobbyists like Tony and myself, mere hobbyists who sit and look and see behemoths like Stern Pinball. sizable players like jersey jack pinball up and coming who started small and gotten much bigger companies like spooky pinball and even companies that largely face a lot of ridicule for all of their decisions like home pin who all somehow are able to get licenses yet you mule about how hard it is. It doesn't make any sense to those of us on the outside. If it was so hard, why is every other company doing it? I don't understand. I do understand that it is more challenging to work with a licensor than it is to not have to deal with one. We have heard that repeatedly. Stern people will tell you this from those who were in the industry a long time, and they're like, oh, yeah, well, with original themes, we could do whatever we wanted, and now we have to get things squared away with licensors some licensors are really flexible with us like uh i believe deadpool went pretty flexible with a comic they were given a lot of of leeway we know with jersey jack pinball there was a lot because slash was so supportive guns and roses a lot of flexibility and then there are others where i think you just look at like what happened with james bond and you're like no the licensors put their boot on your throat on this didn't they because everything about it feels like you had to compromise from anything that would actually be good for pinball to make it kind of the stereotype of James Bond, starting with the art. So, but again, here's American Pinball with one licensed theme, which predates David Fix, I might add. Hot Wheels predates him.
    39:06
    So, I'm not even clear if he's ever worked with a licensor. Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't. Maybe they tried. And again, I haven't heard the interviews. I mean, obviously, maybe they had issues with Hot Wheels, but you would think that one, Oh, no, you've ruined the world of Hot Wheels. No, no, it's Hot Wheels. Come on, guys. Let's be realistic. I just, I'd like your thoughts, Tony, but I just, to me, I cannot square it. Spooky Pinball has been doing licenses since their second game when they were, I mean, real small, where they were like planning to build 300 units. Right. No, I think you're exactly right. We have seen time and time again that while there is a very vocal minority in this hobby, which, as always, you have to remember, I mean, it's a small hobby. So a vocal minority in a small hobby is a very small number indeed who demand original themes and they want more original themes. But when companies put out original themes, you know what they don't do? Sell machines. that's just what happens yeah every time you see an original machine it's the lowest selling machine they've got I think you're right I mean obviously we don't see the published numbers but that's always the reports you go on you have proxies for this stuff we can look at how many people have added a game to their collection on pin side and you'll see dialed in is underneath the other JJP games you'll see and I think the big thing is licenses are appealing in multiple directions in multiple ways to people it doesn't just have to be a good game because you know what if it's a licensed game and it's okay but not great and you have a good art and the machine looks good people want it in their game room because when that game is in what is, in all honesty, its normal state turned off, it still looks good sitting in there. That's something that people will recognize when they walk in the room. Right. They'll be like, oh, cool, you're a Venom fan? Right.
    41:19
    Who goes in and says, oh, cool, you're a Galactic Tank Force fan? Right. I mean, and that's just how it is. I mean, it makes sense to me. And I think that even if they don't want to go all in on licenses, they probably need to do a license every now and then just to make money. I I'm not you know what?
    41:48
    It's just in my hobbyist view, it is not the right decision. I don't and they should be going all in on licenses every time, every time we see people not like. What's the biggest success you ever hear about in the modern era with original themes? It's total nuclear annihilation. 550 units. Is that – I mean, maybe for American Pinball, that's a hit. Yeah. It was for Spooky at the time. Like, they were proud of the 550. And then they did another run later. That game, though, had a different trajectory than everything else. Setting aside that it was very good, which is a key thing that you would need, that started as a whitewood that toured shows. So there were hardcore hobbyists that had played it like us and liked it. And then when it ended up getting built, you had this audience that had consumed it. That almost never happens with pinball anymore. And you can hope for it. You can say, all right, well, we'll get Galactic Tank Force out and we'll take it to Texas. But remember what happened at Texas. We were trying to play it like the sound balance fell off. Some of the sound effects were grating and annoying. They had the target bank issue, so a lot of people walked away going, all this does is airball the ball back at me over my flippers. And just a few other things that the show environment wasn't the best setting for. And that's true for any machine, but Scooby-Doo had Scooby-Doo on it. So even if Scooby-Doo was my least favorite game at Texas, not Galactic Tank Force, but Scooby-Doo, like if I was just going off of wanting something in my room for the art, Scooby-Doo had my favorite art of last year. It was a really good-looking game. And Galactic Tank Force is a good-looking game too, really good art package, but it means nothing to me. Like the 50s-ish sci-fi people on it, like people would look at it and just be like, what's that? And I don't buy games too – I'm just saying that there's no – unless I love the game, all the rest of it is just not enough. I'd just buy a Translight if I wanted franchise art. That's what I'd do. I wouldn't buy the whole game. I mean if the game is not – Especially with game prices anymore. Yeah, and that's where, I mean, we could get into a whole discussion about where things are doing, like how's even Looney Tunes selling versus Scooby-Doo now that things are different. But we're not going to do that because I don't have enough context for it. We're going to go to video games instead. We will transition.
    44:14
    All right, so I've now jumped over in my OneNote to the video games. We had a couple of emails. I'll start with one here before we get into some of your news, and that is from Michael M., who emailed us. Thank you, Michael. Michael wrote to us about our discussion about awesome games done quick, specifically the dog that played that Rob the Robot game. What game did the dog play?
    44:35
    It was a gyro something or another. I don't know. It was terrible. All right. Well, you probably recall, Tony, that we weren't particularly keen on the dog. I think I actually kind of kicked the dog figuratively. I did not literally kick the dog. He was not a good boy is what I said. I remember that. And so Michael wrote to us and he wrote, you are so right. The dog was horrendous. And the worst part is everyone acting like it was so great. I had low expectations to begin with, but I was expecting the dog to actually interact with the game in some way. All it did was follow commands poorly.
    45:19
    Right. And I will say. Thank you, Michael. Yes. Thank you very much. I will say I have been reading some more stuff, and it's really bad when people are saying, well, I thought it was really good because it was a Shiba, and they don't train well.
    45:40
    When that's the level of praise you're dropping down to, it's like, I know it wasn't great, but understand that dog doesn't train very well. It's not a great dog for training. I mean. Let's be honest. A chihuahua doing that would have been hilarious in its own way. I guess in that regard, what's the – and I know this is so me. I always – what do they call it? What's the dumbest dog? And when you look at the definition, they do it by trainability. It's like the Afghan hound. Right. So they should have had an Afghan hound then. People like Shibas because they're cute. You know, the right answer would have been a corgi so that it could have its fat little butt waddling all over as it walked back. And probably have been more trainable. Here's the thing. If you wanted the Shiba, you need to get the guy that does all the Instagram and YouTubes with Kylo the Doge.
    46:35
    You've seen Kylo the Doge? No, I've not. He shows up on my – because I watch him because Kylo's a cute little dog. All right. You'll know it if you've ever seen it before. This is the one where the guy looks at the dog and he goes, oh, it looks like you're hungry for a knuckle sandwich. And then when he swings his fist at the dog, the dog goes.
    46:52
    So here's what you do. Yes, that's what he does. And he's had to put out videos going. He doesn't actually punch the dog. The dog just whines on command when the fist comes at him.
    47:02
    Here's what you do. You take him with Kylo. Kylo's sitting there on the couch where they do all the prizes. And they're like, here's our goal. We need to raise $100,000. And until I do, I'm punching this dog. and he's going to whine and whine and whine and try and stop me with his, put his paw up and try and stop me. And I'll be like, no, now you get two knuckle sandwiches until we raise enough money there. And that's how you raise money. Don't have him play a video game. And then the, the, the. His video game is survival. Dog, you don't have to put up with this dog. And the dog is all like, but I love him.
    47:41
    That one's weird. I mean, he has that dog. I want to ask some training, like the dog, like if it's, If he puts him on the leash in certain ways, he won't go downstairs. Like the dog wants to be told to go down the stairs. Otherwise, he pulls back and refuses to go downstairs. If you try and walk him down the stairs. Yeah. I saw a video the other day, completely off topic, but I saw a video the other day with someone who had trained their dog so that all of the commands it responded to were spells from Harry Potter.
    48:07
    Yeah. Anyway. So, yes, the dog was terrible. He was a bad boy. I'm standing by that. And they should never have him back on again. worst part was when i saw him on the stream where the guy said i've been training him for a year my response was clearly not very hard you hold a treat over a button my dog will stand on it too two buttons i have other things where i see huskies like doing five or six cussing you out yeah and then they whine the whole time because they have to sing the song of their people all right so what's going on in news uh No big surprise here Nintendo had announced it was coming But they're shutting down the online play services For the 3DS and the Wii U On the 8th of April So no more online play The only There is an exception What?
    49:03
    You're not going to be surprised when I tell you the exception They are continuing the services For the Pokemon Bank And the Poke Transporter So Pokemon related It's still okay. I guess it's still popular. For now. But they might believe it later. Until PAL World comes for them. Until it does. Oh, man. I've got a thing in here. PAL World has gone huge. It is 19 million players now, now that it's on Xbox as well as PC. And it's on Xbox. It's on Game Pass. Yeah. I read someone say one of the smartest things Microsoft has done so far has been to get Power World on Game Pass. Yeah, it's like one of the highest level Game Pass releases ever. I think there's only one game higher than it.
    49:58
    So, yeah, no, Power World has been very popular and somehow not sued by Pokemon yet. I think maybe they've danced the line because Pokemon has reached out on Power World specifically to hit modders because there's modders who've put out art changes to be straight-up Pokemon. They've sent out cease and desist and stuff on those guys, but not on Power World itself. so maybe they've danced that line pretty fine but it's it's pretty close there's uh reports that some of their development staff are starting to get death threats from pokemon fans because they're too close to pokemon and that's people's answer to everything yep there's a lot of rage it seems that i think there's just a lot of anger this is me my with my non-psychology background I think there's just a lot of anger that Pokemon never did this. And people are like, we've done the same dang game type forever instead of giving us what we really want, open world Pokemon, where they fight with guns. This is exactly the kind of thing people have been asking for for Pokemon for a decade. And this company just finally went and it like well if they not going to do it we do it ourselves with guns and slavery Yes Yes Since it's in POW World, you can apparently capture humans inside your POW balls. Yep. And turn them into slaves. Yep. So.
    51:36
    Yeah, there's a dark side to it, but. I have not played it. Yeah, I have not. I did watch some people play it. I'm like, okay, it's a survival. It does look like a Pokemon. It reminds me of like Pokemon meets Rust. Yeah, that is kind of the feel I get for it. We'll see. We'll see how it keeps going and if it manages to dodge the lawsuit happy Nintendo.
    52:01
    Overwatch has announced their new competitive play plans with the death of the Overwatch League. they have a partnership with ESL Faceit Group which is an eSports company owned by Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group which is part of their public investment fund we've talked about that several times so they are tripling down on reaching out in the game sphere it's going to be known as the Overwatch Champion Series and it's going to be an international competitive tournament with broken up regions of like North America, Europe, Middle East, North Africa, and Asia.
    52:41
    And so it sounds like there'll be a series of regional tournaments that'll build down to an eventual international championship show.
    52:50
    I included a link in the show notes for people who are interested in going deeper into that. Yeah, I'd only heard a little. I haven't really read up on it too much. I mostly at this point for making room with other games and stuff, I pretty much play Overwatch once a week to do Mystery Heroes. It's kind of what I've been doing lately because they've been – they're still pushing out their updates and stuff, but they haven't had a new character in a while and all that. Though I did read that Blizzard eliminated almost all the esports staff at this point. Mr. X, you might remember him, casting with Uber. He was eliminated. Zoe was eliminated. I think they kept eight people, and I don't know what eight they were. If any of them were on-screen talent. They're probably admin people. They're all behind the scenes to keep this thing going. That would make sense.
    53:36
    Speaking of how you have reduced your amount of Overwatch play, I had actually meant to mention this in my intro and got sidetracked talking about the cold.
    53:49
    I've talked multiple times about just how much Battletech I played last year. Yes, you did. And you made excuses about how some of that's you walking away and it's still running, so don't judge me. No, but it's still 1,600 hours of battle text. To be fair, that wasn't last year. That's just total in the entire lifetime of this game. Yeah, it is lifetime, so that makes it totally sane and normal. But it was the absolute highest amount of gameplay of any game I played last year. I'm just about complete with my current modded playthrough, and I have set a plan for myself. Once I complete this modded playthrough that I'm playing right now, I am going to delete the game and I'm not going to allow myself to reinstall it until at least the middle of summer just to force myself to play other games because I'm just in the third act of Baldur's Gate and I've not touched it because I've been playing Battletech I have a problem so I'm deleting it I want to finish the playthrough I'm on and then I'm going to delete it and I'll reinstall it later but for now I'm going to take a break so So Twitch, who we talk about often, has decided to expand their Partner Plus program, which we mentioned last year, which was a very restrictive program that gave increased the shares with their streamers to 70% that fell within certain very tight rules. And I think when you mentioned that it was the rules were so tight that basically the belief was almost everyone was in that grouping would have had a custom agreement anyway. Most of them, yeah. But now they are expanding that, making it easier to be part of. And they're allowing people who do have agreements to partake of it as well. so it will be a trial by them uh he's the ceo dan clancy specifically said twitch's long-term success depends upon our ability to help these creators sustain their careers over time at the same time since our creators depend upon twitch we need to ensure that our revenue share structure is designed so that we can sustain the business and twitch will be here 50 years from now this is like the fifth time in the last month or two that he's mentioned twitch still being here 50 years yeah i don't know if i should be i i worry about their long-term financial viability but i i do like that they're actually being i guess relatively transparent about their struggles so many places hide it and i just i don't understand why in fact we could maybe bring that up with talking about the pinball section earlier um whereas i think with this it i guess Maybe some people worry that it shows weakness, but I think it's realistic, and especially when you're relying on so many partners, for them not to understand what you're facing. And they might not still understand, well, why are you not making money? But at least if they understand that, well, look, this is the reality that we face. Right, because they just laid 500 people off. They just left Korea.
    56:59
    Now, they did have a rough hit recently as well. Pokey Ming, which is one of the highest profile female streamers. Soon to be renamed to Pally Mane. I'm sorry. I was just like, you know, take advantage of this opportunity.
    57:15
    But her contract is over, and she did not re-up her contract, and she's actively leaving Twitch. Okay. She said she might still do a stream now and then, but she's already started streaming on YouTube Gaming. and she has moved into other TikTok, Instagram, other social venues as an expanse. And she said part of it is that she feels Twitch has regressed with a major rise of bigotry and anti-women rhetoric. I actually adjusted it. She said it much harsher than that. but we don't like to drop those kind of language on our show.
    58:03
    And Kotaku. Wow, we have not talked about Kotaku in a long time. No, well, and here's what I'm talking about. The interesting thing here with Kotaku is the layoffs have gotten so bad that they actually have a living ticker that continuously tracks the layoffs of the video game industry. And for the first 31 days of 2024, the video game layoffs have been in excess of 6,100 positions, 1,900 of which came from Microsoft. Yep. Redundancy eliminations. Redundancy on Activision. Yep. And that's what it was. What I found interesting in their redundancy eliminations is that a large part of it, or the reports are coming out, is that they cut several of the departments dedicated to bringing Xbox games to physical media.
    59:01
    So that just is another – I'm guessing it's because digital sales are what the majority is. Yeah, I'm guessing they're not selling a lot of physical anymore. And so it's probably cheaper for them to third-party the physical stuff than to do it in-house at this point, which would make sense to me. They also lost Mike Ybarra and Alan Adam from Blizzard. Mike Ybarra was Blizzard's president and the chief design officer was Alan.
    59:31
    And they canceled the previously announced Odyssey survival game from Blizzard. That game has been in development for six years. I didn't remember the announcement, though. When I mentioned that, I was like, I can't remember that game. Yeah, it's one of those things that they've just been doing background work on. I don't think they're going to see the same fallout that when Scalebound got canceled. Right. Oh, they still hear about Scalebound. This game, I think they kept under wraps enough. There wasn't enough of a scene that I don't think it's going to hurt them very bad.
    60:01
    And I have a whole giant list of people who did layoffs, but it's not worth talking about. There's just so many of them. It's just crazy. but not wholly unexpected. They did announce that Ybarra's position has been replaced by Jonah Ferris, who has been the general manager for the Call of Duty franchise for Blizzard, or for Activision. So Diablo 4 might get a zombie mode. Diablo 4 zombie mode. It's coming up. It's coming soon. It's coming next season. Maybe then you'll let me have the game.
    60:34
    I'm not stopping you from having the game. I need a friend. He basically stopped me. I took it off of my wish list because he stopped me from getting it. No one got it for me. He's like, I'm not letting you have this. I am. I think there was even someone in our Discord who said, good job for stopping him. Don't let him have it.
    60:55
    This is like I'm trying to stop you from drunk dialing your ex. Trust me, it's better in the long run.
    61:04
    One interesting thing of note. Spec Ops The Line. Oh, okay. I played that. It's an older game. Very good game. It's been being delisted from everywhere because 2K Games, the licenses are expiring for some of the stuff in that game. So they're delisting it everywhere. So you can't buy it anymore.
    61:27
    So if you haven't played that game, I'm sorry because that game was actually really good. And the last big thing we had Sony PlayStation State of Play. Yes. Had a lot of very interesting things in it. I'm not going to touch all of them because there's way too many. But Helldivers 2 is out in like four days. And they released some more video of that. That game looks like Helldivers. So it looks fun. Stellar Blade is an interesting little action adventure game they put out that looks very much like it really badly wants to be a horizon zero dawn that the feel i got is it wants to be horizon zero dawn with guns it's like a mix of um near automata and and horizon zero john that's the feel i got from it okay i don't know i mean to be fair the near franchise and horizon franchise are both great games so we'll see how that goes there's a sonic x yeah it was coming that's that's That's the first thing I heard about. Yes. Because Sonic people are going insane.
    62:38
    I'm not a Sonic person. Silent Hill 2 is getting a remake. Makes sense. It's maybe the most popular one. That's the one I would remake if I was going to remake them. They also released a short little Silent Hill secret message or something like that. Some short little thing that was released when they made the announcement. It was out for you to download and play. Kevin Levine, the creator of Bioshock is creating, has a new game coming out and it's called Bioshock it's not it might as well be it's called Judas, but it's Bioshock every single thing, the art looks like Bioshock everything about that game looks like it's just Bioshock with spiritual success yes, very much so Rise of the Ronin It is literally From what I've seen The love child Of Sekiro and Assassin's Creed Because that's exactly What that trailer looked like So And what most people are probably excited about Kojima's death Stranding 2 It's weird It's too weird It's weird Tired of him being weird but it's oh but they announced the title this time it's on the beach Death Stranding 2 Ball but there was no announcement about Final Fantasy 7 remake because that's coming on the 6th and it sounds like it'll be including a demo that's enormous amount of disk space required so So for those people who have been waiting for more Final Fantasy VII remake stuff, I'm sorry, rebirth stuff, it'll be here probably by the time you listen to this. Because they said the 6th, and this is the 4th.
    64:38
    But, I mean, that's all of the big news. I skipped a couple things in there. Yeah, just some of the layoff stuff and all that. But we did have another email, which we can end on, from Derek K. Thank you, Derek, preemptively, for writing him. He actually wrote in about the new Suicide Squad game and kind of how it was doing a thing similar to Kong Skull Island did, which I have not played. So here's what Derek wrote.
    65:04
    So I'm watching all the cut scenes in the new Suicide Squad game because I'm not paying for it. And then he included a link, which I assume the cut scenes on YouTube. And he continues, I noticed near the start of the game, they have this storyboard sequence like in Kong Skull Island. Are video game developers under so much crunch that they don't have time to create animated sequences? It's becoming a trend for these storyboard sequence cutscenes in games. Also, they didn't even refund the collector pre-order folks $20, but rather gave them $20 in game currency. Yeah. You know, I don't know if it's a trend per se, but I think I've seen it definitely before where you can kind of tell if they're on a constrained budget. Maybe it's time, but I often suspect constrained budget when I see that. I want to think it was maybe Soul Calibur V where they just did these sketch endings of stuff. They didn't even do in-game cut scenes, much less an animated thing. It's sort of like, wow, this is really low rent. It could be a time thing, but a lot of times I've wondered if it's more of the overall budget's constrained. And they're like, okay, well, something else ran over or what? With the Suicide Squad game, everything ran over. I really feel like that game was forced out because they were getting to the point. I mean, they were getting to the point of Black Flag at this point.
    66:30
    Or Skull and Bones. On my Xbox dashboard, it says you can pre-order Skull and Bones now. Yeah, where it's just becoming a joke that that game is delayed again.
    66:41
    That would be my guess is that they were. I mean, it could be that we're getting a trend where people are doing it because, oh, that game was popular and it did it. But, I mean, that's just like we went through that trend for a while with all of the pixel games.
    66:57
    And, yeah, I remember. You were not a fan of the pixel art era. I was not a fan of the pixel art era. But, oh, we've got this giant game that requires, here's the requirements from it, but the art's pixel art. Why? so it's possible that it could be an ongoing trend but I think like Dennis I think it's literally just that they're like we have to get this out there's stuff not done also yes they once again people who've pre-ordered something got screwed yeah that's I think that's a trend that is a definite trend I really don't see the point in pre-ordering no I've done it in the past I've kick-started stuff I mean, I've not been quiet about it, and I've regretted chunks of it.
    67:45
    Anyway, well, that's it. So thank you for all those emails. That was nice to be able to go through. We scattered them out like salt out of a spreader across the episode. And if you want to reach out to us, again, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. You can also communicate with us at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. If you want to financially support the show, you can at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We're at Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks with all the latest hit news and exciting layoffs that you can handle. But until then, my name is Dennis. Ball eater.
    68:25
    Bye.