Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 175 - Welcome to Survivor

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 40m·analyzed·Sep 4, 2022
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

Spooky's TNA price increase sparks industry discussion; hosts rank pinball manufacturer survival odds.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss their recent purchases (motorcycle and pinball machine restoration), then pivot to analyzing the pinball industry. The main topic is Spooky Pinball new 250-unit run of Total Nuclear Annihilation at $9,000 (up from original $6,000), which generated significant Pinside forum discussion about pricing, production quality, and business sustainability. They then begin ranking pinball manufacturers by survival likelihood, agreeing on Stern as #1 and Chicago Gaming as #2.

Key Claims

  • Spooky Pinball's new TNA run crossed 100 sales on day one according to someone in the Pinside thread

    medium confidence · According to Spooky, they have – on the first day, they had noted – I have not confirmed this. I saw someone mentioned it in the thread I was watching that they have crossed 100 sales

  • TNA original retail was $6,000 in 2019, new version is $9,000 (50% increase)

    high confidence · I bought mine in 2019. It was still six thousand. So you don't get to go back to the start... The price was going to have to go up from what it originally was... they're going to build the 250

  • 550 original TNA 1.0 units exist in the wild

    high confidence · There are 550 TNA 1.0s out there. The game's gotten a lot of love.

  • Used TNAs on secondary market recently selling for $6,500-$7,500

    medium confidence · my understanding. I did not confirm this, but people were reporting that TNAs on the used market lately have been... going for like 7 to 7,500 or 6,500 to 7,500, that sort of range

  • Spooky Fang Club has auto-renewal feature that many members view negatively

    medium confidence · the reassertion of non-refundable deposits to get the TNA... the spooky fang club... it auto-renews also

  • Spooky halted distributor sales channel for new TNA run; direct from Spooky only

    high confidence · This version of TNA isn't available through distributors. You must buy direct through Spooky.

  • People have calculated it's cheaper to forfeit non-refundable Spooky deposits than take delivery on Halloween/Ultraman at current market losses

    medium confidence · Reports of people that have gone ahead, I guess, run the numbers and said, you know what? It's smarter for me to cancel my pre-order and lose my non-refundable deposit to Spooky than it would be to take full ownership of the game

  • Chicago Gaming Company has significant non-pinball business that insulates them from industry downturns

    medium confidence · they're an established manufacturer. Their pinball side is not particularly impressive... But they aren't. They do like a whole arcade thing... worst comes to worst, they would just stop making pinball and probably still go on existing

Notable Quotes

  • “I took my pinball fund. Years in the making, I might remind people. And I went and purchased. Attack from Mars. A 1983 Honda Goldwing.”

    Dennis @ ~0:02:00 — Sets up the humorous framing of motorcycle vs. pinball spending priorities

  • “it's just this weird little sweet spot that lets it be extra weird”

    Tony @ ~1:35:00 — Summarizes pinball hobby's unique market position: expensive but not too expensive, niche but not too niche

  • “I would say so my number one survival company has to be Stern... they are the most professionally established manufacturer. They've run multiple lines for years. They've existed in one form or another since the 1980s.”

    Dennis @ ~1:58:00 — Establishes clear consensus on manufacturer ranking criteria and reasoning

  • “If they don't sell them day one, they'll still sell them through... they're able to order the parts for 250 games. When they first did TNA, they ordered them in batches of 50. Right. So they have a bigger economy of scale now.”

    Dennis @ ~1:18:00 — Articulates how improved production capacity affects pricing strategy

  • “Pinball is this weird combination of expensive and niche, but it's not so niche that it can just live on its little laurels and being perfect.”

    Tony @ ~1:32:00 — Core observation about pinball market dynamics and sustainability challenges

  • “they have this item that you basically have to buy if you want to get any of the new releases or you feel you have to. Otherwise, you could be shut out. And it's been very polarizing.”

    Dennis @ ~1:27:00 — Describes Spooky Fang Club as a divisive business practice affecting customer perception

  • “I'm buying this because it's going to be a good investment. They're only going to go up in value.”

    Dennis (reporting forum sentiment) @ ~0:59:00 — Indicates secondary market speculation driving some TNA pre-orders

  • “All this stuff feels like, you know, 50% price increase. Feels like, all right, they, do you think they're hurting? Is this just a line filler... or is it just we just need to fill the line for a few months and we think people will pay this amount”

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyTotal Nuclear Annihilation (TNA)gameStern PinballcompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyDennispersonTonypersonKeith ElwinpersonJoel Engelberthperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky TNA non-transferability clause and no-distributor policy represent shift toward direct revenue capture and customer lock-in; perceived as departure from prior business model

    high · Dennis: 'you cannot transfer the sale, which is something they've allowed before... This version of TNA isn't available through distributors. You must buy direct through Spooky. Another thing that seems to prioritize'

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky's 250-unit TNA order batching strategy (vs. original 50-unit batches) indicates improved manufacturing scale and economies achieved since 2017-2019

    high · Dennis: 'they're able to order the parts for 250 games. When they first did TNA, they ordered them in batches of 50. Right. So they have a bigger economy of scale now than they did back in that 2017 period'

  • ?

    community_signal: Spooky Pinball's goodwill erosion evident in Pinside forum discussion; Halloween and Ultraman secondary market failures with users forfeiting non-refundable deposits rather than taking delivery; perceived as quality/desirability crisis

    high · Dennis: 'they have this item that you basically have to buy if you want to get any of the new releases... It's been very polarizing... Spooky has burned a lot of goodwill... one of them on there was the poor reception to halloween and ultraman'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Skepticism about whether boutique manufacturers can sustainably operate at current scale without consolidation or significant business model changes

    medium · Dennis: 'I saw a pinball pin side thread... asked a question that we've touched on in this podcast several times... whether the hobby can really support this many companies'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.302

0:00
Welcome to the Collected Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, September 4th. It is episode 175. My name is Tony. And I am Dennis. And we're back like we said we would be. and we've got not a ton of stuff. I actually have, I think, a pretty interesting discussion based off of something I saw on Pennside, which of course means it's risky, but no risk, no reward. But before we do do it, intros. You had an exciting new purchase. Yes.
0:48
New to me. Let's go with new to me. Well, yes. I refer to it when I buy a new watch, half the time they're used because I like to save money. Correct. Well, I took my pinball fund.
1:02
Years in the making, I might remind people. And I went and purchased. Attack from Mars. A 1983 Honda Goldwing.
1:11
Goldwings. So my pinball fund is once again zero. To be fair, it costs less than any pinball machine does at this point. Well, yeah, that could very well be. so yes so i think you've talked about on on air before but who knows we've had 175 episodes right so you are a huge goldwing fan yes and when we were in it might have been after college but you uh it was was it before i yeah you owned one for a while i did i learned to ride right after high school on my father's goldwing and then when he got a new goldwing he he had a 75 and when he got his new gold wing which was an 84 i took the 75 and rode it uh full time and then when my oldest daughter was born i stopped riding i just stopped riding entirely and and and the bikes were sold and dad sold his his his 84 because he was getting to the point where he couldn't ride anymore and everything was gone. And now that the kids are much, much older, I picked up another one. And I'll start riding again. Yeah. I need to put tags on it. Okay. But the nice thing about it is it's old enough that in the state of Kansas, I can put antique plates on it. Oh, that's true. So it will cost me like a one-time fee to put the plate on it, and then it's just personal property tax. on an 83. That's not going to be bad at all. No. Well, cool. I know you've been looking forward to getting one and been shopping around for one for a while now and re-upped your license, obviously. You talked about that on a prior episode. So I'm glad you found it. It looked like from the photo you sent, that is in really nice shape. It is in amazingly good shape.

Tony @ ~1:46:00 — Frames question about Spooky's financial motivation behind pricing strategy

Todd (Big Daddy Enterprises)
person
American Pinballcompany
Dutch Pinballcompany
Haggis Pinballcompany
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Multimorphiccompany
Pinball Brotherscompany
Home Pincompany
Charlie (Spooky owner)person
Scott Campbellperson
Mattperson
Godzilla Premiumgame
Spooky Fang Clubproduct
Pinside Forumorganization
Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization

design_philosophy: Original TNA priced below profit margins to build market adoption; new TNA run appears to extract maximum value from established 550-unit collector base, suggesting shift from market-building to revenue maximization

medium · Dennis: 'Charlie, the owner of Spooky had said was they were pricing the game under what their profit margin would have been... because the game was so good that he wanted people to buy it... Now that they don't have to worry about that because there are 550 TNA 1.0s out there'

  • $

    market_signal: TNA day-one sales reaching 100+ units suggests market appetite exists despite pricing concerns; however, non-sellout indicates volume constraint (vs. previous Spooky FOMO dynamic)

    medium · Dennis: 'they have crossed 100 sales... And this morning... I am still able to add it to the cart. So my impression is they have not sold out, but they have sold 100 plus'

  • $

    market_signal: Boutique pinball market showing stratification; manufacturer survival increasingly dependent on diversification (Chicago Gaming) or critical IP leverage rather than game design alone

    medium · Dennis on Chicago Gaming: 'they build more than pinball... So because of that, yeah, I think they just they're so diversified that they'll be fine. Like worst comes to worst, they would just stop making pinball and probably still go on existing'

  • $

    market_signal: Spooky's Fang Club auto-renewal and direct-only TNA sales channel interpreted as cash extraction tactics amid potential financial distress

    medium · Tony: 'All this stuff feels like, you know, 50% price increase... they, do you think they're hurting?... or is it just we just need to fill the line for a few months and we think people will pay this amount'

  • $

    market_signal: Industry consensus that pinball machine pricing ceiling is being tested; $9,000 TNA comparable to $9,000 Godzilla Premium creates buyer choice tension potentially suppressing demand

    high · Tony: 'I like TNA quite a lot, but I'm not going to take TNA over Godzilla. And that's all there is to it... $9,000 is the MSRP for Godzilla Premium'

  • $

    market_signal: Spooky TNA price increase from $6,000 to $9,000 (50%) perceived as aggressive; comparison to Godzilla Premium MSRP ($9,000) undermines TNA value proposition; secondary market pricing ($6,500-$7,500 used) suggests peak fair value around $7,500

    high · Tony: 'would I drop $9,000 on a TNA? No. I mean, as a comparison... $9,000 is the MSRP for Godzilla Premium. That's why I said no.' Dennis: 'I would have expected their price increase to have been to maybe 7,500. Yeah, and that number is in the realm.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Keith Elwin's simple (business card) fix for ball lock gap issue on Godzilla suggests either design oversight or manufacturing tolerance issue; indicates potential quality control gaps even at Stern

    medium · Tony: 'he's like, oh, yeah, there's a gap between the subway and the VUC. And the ball's rolling back and resting on the seam. Just put like a business card in there and it'll close the gap. And then it can't sit there anymore. And it's worked 100 percent.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Spooky's production quality issues cited as ongoing concern alongside Halloween/Ultraman design reception problems; specific concern about continued pattern of market failures

    medium · Dennis: 'the continued production quality issues that the company is known for... there's the poor reception to halloween and ultraman the sheer percentage of loss that people... trying to get out of those games'

    • 3:07
    It has been well taken care of. It's actually the guy bought it from him, his brother, his son and his brother's son all have Goldwings and they ride but he bought a newer 90's Goldwing so he sold his older one are Goldwings still made? yes and the new ones are amazing and they cost $29,000 that's a brand under Honda right? yes it's Honda's big touring bike the newest ones I'd love one they've even got one with a DCT which is their fancy name for it's a dual clutch transmission so it's clutchless oh and it it's an automatic basically it's an automatic motorcycle so you you you manually shift the gears but you don't have to you don't even manually shift the gears on auto it is an automatic wow you have the ability to manually shift the gears you can tell the computer that you want it to shift but if it thinks you're stupid it won't i'm sorry dave i can't let you do i hope it says it like that a A lot of people hate the very concept of surrendering the gear control on a motorcycle to automatic, but not a lot because not as many as you would think, I should say, because Honda offers that DCT on several of its higher-end lines, and in every single one of those cases for the 21 and 22 model years, better than half of their bikes sold were DCT. So lots of people have been picking them up. Yeah, I think I'm not too surprised at the initial reaction, but it's sort of like there's always whenever there's a transition or a change. I think we saw it with pinball, with the concerns the manufacturers had with moving to solid state and how they put in the fake real clickers and stuff into the into the early solid state games and digital times. And then, you know, moving to a different to automobile one. And I remember my uncle, who used to be a mechanic, I remember at one point he was skeptical about anti-lock brakes because he's like, you know, I don't get it. Conceptually, I don't understand how if it's stopping and starting, whether it's better than just applying the brake. If I'm about to be in a wreck, I want to leave 80 yards of rubber on that road. It was like what he said to me. I was like, okay, because you're thinking I don't like the technology. It seems so different. How can it be better? But it is. But yeah, no. So I had cars without ABS, and with ABS, like, holy crap, I would have hit that retaining wall with my old car. Yes.
    5:46
    So, all right, well, very exciting. I don't have nearly as exciting of news. I did finally get my ball locks working on my Godzilla Premium. Awesome. I talk a bit more about this on last week's The Pinball Show. but I basically what happened is I was on a live stream for pinball on YouTube and Twitch and stuff that Joel Engelberth who's one of the pinball network streamers and podcasters hosts and he had me on with a couple other people and Keith Elwin who designed Godzilla was watching the stream and he had heard me complain about my frustrations with how I wasn't willing to go for a billion points because the I just cheated out of so many ball locks I just I lose my temper and I'm like, I just don't want to play. So he asked me for a photo of our video of the issue. And then he's like, oh, yeah, there's a gap between the subway and the VUC. And the ball's rolling back and resting on the seam. Just put like a business card in there and it'll close the gap. And then it can't sit there anymore. And it's worked 100 percent. Yeah, it's that simple of a fix. So I did that. And then other thing also pinball related is I have finally finished my project Sinbad.
    6:59
    So it's done. Yeah, that game I got from Todd of Big Daddy Enterprises about two months ago. And it was already a working game. It's just, you know, there were some things like some of the drop targets were mismatched colors. They weren't the original design, which isn't a big deal. But, you know, old flipper bats, they had different size springs on them and stuff. So, you know, I partially rebuilt the flippers as in I changed out the bats. I gave it new coil sleeves. The mechanics were pretty good on all of them. Only one had a bad coil stop. Changed that out. Put in all new drop targets. Put in LEDs as I am wont to do because a lot of the bulbs were burned out anyway. And, you know, re-rubbered the game. Had a missing piece of plastic my dad traced out and was able to cut from some Lexan he has. So put in one of those. and Todd gave me new displays for it. So it has new low voltage displays in it. And we put in one of those Raspberry Pi powered boards to run it, which works pretty well. So Sandbad's actually a birth year pin because it's 1978. Yes. And that's one of those solid state, but it uses real chimes. So anyway, I've been having, I think I've got it. It's in the garage, but I finally, after fixing it up, I've leveled it out and put the glass back in. So I've been playing that. I still haven't broken 200,000 points on it, but I've gotten within 10,000 at least twice. So that's the other thing that I've been doing to occupy my time.
    8:31
    Speaking of time, Tony, it is time to go to pinball. Oh, that's a John Goodman classic. People are like, no, that's Stones. No, you don't understand. That's not the version Tony was singing.
    8:47
    But I know. So speaking of knowing things, we played a game that Matt sent in to us on the last episode.
    8:57
    I posted our results on the Facebook, and Matt did go in there, and he provided the answers. So I'm not going to go through the game again because obviously that would take a lot of time. People can listen to the last episode. But here is what Matt has recommended as games for us based off of how we answered the questions. For you, Tony, he recommended Volley, which I have no memory of Volley. I've never played. I looked it up. It's like a tennis-themed game. Attack from Mars, which is – Obvious. Okay, so the science of the game works because that is your most favorite game of all time. And Stern Star Trek, which you have played significantly. And then for me, Fireball, which I have played quite a bit. We know someone who owns one. uh brahm stoker's dracula which also a pretty good like if i could get a bally williams like wms dmd era game that's the one i want like it'd be that and attack from mars um and then he also like for on the modern end said avengers infinity quest which would not be like if i was picking elwynn games that would probably be the third one i would get obviously i got the one i i most wanted But Jurassic Park was way up there for me. To be fair to Matt, though, I think I would enjoy Avengers Infinity Quest in a home environment a lot more where I could finally figure out how I'm supposed to play it. Because I only play it in competition, really. I mean, I put in a few casual games on it, but I'm always there. And, like, it lights shots, so I understand what I need to do to score points. But I go into it with zero strategy. my strategy is okay I know this ball locks cool and gives me multi-ball I know I can get my Thor multi-ball I know like but then there are like gems and stuff infinity gems and I'm like I don't know what does the hamburger helper mitt want me to do and it doesn't tell me everybody has a plan until the ball is launched so yes but except me on Avengers in which case the plan is no deeper than don't drain shoot the lit shots because at least I can do that it's not a JGP game where everything's lit And I'm like, whatever. I don't know. The plan is to not have a plan. So thank you again, Matt, for submitting the game. And let's get into some news. This is actually, there's not much news. I really only have one news topic, in fact, Tony. But it's gotten a lot of discussion on the Pinside Forum, which isn't too surprising. And that is the launch of a new run of TNAs, or Total Nuclear Annihilations. and the issue i think that really triggered is the announcement came out it's 250 unit run they're going to start building them very very soon and the way it was advertised is it's basically the original tna except they are including by default with no option to remove them a bunch of the mods. So like these will come with shaker motors. These will come with plastic protectors. These will come with the drop targets that are RGB LED lit rather than like the solid ones I have. Right. So, okay. 250 unit count. They note that that's 250 units for 2022. So again, along the lines of the original release, they're not limiting. They're saying they can still go back and do more TNAs. difference is now is game is nine thousand dollars and when i bought it was six thousand and so as i noted you couldn't when you bought originally like you had that base 559.95 and then you could add some of these other options like i have the plastic protectors it was they were actually already installed on the game i didn't get a choice to have the plastic protectors it was do you want to buy this one with the plastic protectors or they had another one with a couple other things that I wasn't interested in. So anyway, sales-wise, it's been interesting to monitor because people are like, okay, what's going to happen here? I mean, there have been some people that are like, this is way too expensive for what that game is. This is ridiculous. There have been others that have gone as far as to say, I'm buying this because it's going to be a good investment. They're only going to go up in value. So I've seen both. People are still saying that in people. Yes. Not everyone, but there's a spectrum of opinions on it. So according to Spooky, they have – on the first day, they had noted – I have not confirmed this. I saw someone mentioned it in the thread I was watching that they have crossed 100 sales of this new version of TNA.
    13:34
    And this morning, though, I did go to their website, and I am still able to add it to the cart. So my impression is they have not sold out, but they have sold 100 plus. So maybe they've sold half. I don't know.
    13:54
    So I guess overall, I just thought we should talk about what are your thoughts about any of this, all of this, some of this?
    14:02
    Hey, I'm not surprised that they're just basically kicking out 250 units because there was going to be a surge of purchases. And if they don't sell them all, they've got a handful that they can sit on and sell until the next time they make another run of them. The price increase, I think it's a combination of factors. I think Bill of Materials is going to be part of it. Things are just more expensive than it was when they made their initial run.
    14:31
    So the price was going to have to go up, period. and the increase they made to it is such that I would assume that they're just trying to cover it because I'm sure wages have had to go up as well with how everything else has. I mean, everybody else in the country has been having to crank wages to try and maintain staffing. So I'm not surprised by the price increase. would I drop $9,000 on a TNA? No. I mean, as a comparison, and I know people both love and hate this comparison because it's so cruel, $9,000 is the MSRP for Godzilla Premium. That's why I said no. I like TNA quite a lot, but I'm not going to take TNA over Godzilla.
    15:25
    And that's all there is to it. I would have expected their price increase to have been to maybe 7,500. Yeah, and that number is in the realm. And in fact, a number I explicitly saw some people in the forums. But I think everyone, maybe not everyone, but I'll round up. Everyone understood what you've just conveyed, that the price had to go up from what it originally was. Right. Because of inflation. I mean, there are some interesting things one could debate about sunk costs. Like, they're not redeveloping the art. They're not redesigning the game. They're not da-da-da-da-da. But it gets a little tricky, too, because Scott doesn't work for Spooky. It's his license. I mean, it's his license. It's his game. So some of that stuff probably doesn't – it's not like Spooky rerunning Rob Zombie, which they developed themselves. It's easy enough to imply the inflation calculator to things, but inflation doesn't affect all items equally. The purpose of inflation is with the consumer price indexes to let you know about how much more as a percentage it costs to live as a human being. Right. But and one of the things that I would note is that with with TNA, the.
    16:46
    I mean, they're just they're a variety of things that are that are in play that you need you need to factor in. One is some of the people doing those price comparisons are going back to 2017 when TNA was, I guess, first sold. I bought mine in 2019. It was still six thousand. So you don't get to go back to the start. You have to go from when they last sold it at $6,000, and they were selling them for $6,000 in 2019. So it isn't actually as long of a period as people think because they could have chosen to raise that price at any point. Right. Just like Stern does, where it's like, nope, you didn't get Deadpool before January 2022. Then you have to pay the Godzilla price for Deadpool instead of the old Deadpool price. And, I mean, those pros went up like $900. It wasn't insignificant. Right. Of course, $900 is still not $3,000. That's another thing. It's so much. And another point, which is fair, is people say, well, this is spooky. They're smaller. They don't have a big economy of scale, which is absolutely true. But as you noted, what's going to happen with these other games, we are all assuming, I'm assuming, your statement makes it clear, you're assuming they're going to build the 250 and then be able to sell. If they don't sell them day one, they'll still sell them through. The assumption is they will go ahead and build them all, though. they're able to order the parts for 250 games. When they first did TNA, they ordered them in batches of 50. Right. So they have a bigger economy of scale now than they did back in that 2017 period, 2017 through 2019 period. So, I mean, is it a money grab?
    18:22
    Some of it's inflation, some no, and some of it probably is. I mean, back when they ran TNA, one of the things I remember Charlie, the owner of Spooky had said was they were pricing the game under what their profit margin would have been on one of their default games. Ostensibly, I believe per his claim, because the game was so good that he wanted people to buy it and get it and be able to have it out there in the world. And they had, I think rightly, concerns that people were going to balk at a game that was costing more than a Stern Pro, but didn't have any ramps. And while that's not fair, A lot of people will look at that and they'll go, that game is too simple to be more expensive, even though there's a lot that was under the play field. Right. But that's not an issue anymore. There are 550 TNA 1.0s out there. The game's gotten a lot of love. That's what it's selling off of. Are you surprised that they did not sell out the 250 units day one? No. I was. No, I'm not. I know that the hobby's been changing, and we've seen that with the reaction to Toy Story 4, but I still, with Spooky, have just – and a lot of people disagreed with me, and a lot of people apparently are right, and I was wrong, that they still had that magic mix of, hey, we do the limited supply thing. We're the cool boutique. Yay, yay, yay. Bye, bye, bye. That would have worked on a game that they haven't released before. So you think Scooby-Doo's safe for selling out day one? I do. even there actually I think it's more likely than not but I would not be wholly surprised if it doesn't because of the economy and honestly no matter how much certain people like to try and make it seem like it's something amazing Halloween's not a great game and a lot of people dislike it yes and in the thread about the new tna run there were a number of people that were kind of like you know what spooky and others disagreed of course but there are a lot that were that were going in there saying you know what spooky has burned a lot of goodwill and usually they had a list of reasons but one of them on there was the poor reception to halloween and ultraman the sheer percentage of loss that people who have been flipping them out. Flipping is not the right word because they're not making money. People who are trying to get out of those games, selling them off.
    20:57
    Reports of people that have gone ahead, I guess, run the numbers and said, you know what? It's smarter for me to cancel my pre-order and lose my non-refundable deposit to Spooky than it would be to take full ownership of the game, paying them in full, and then selling it at such a loss. I'd rather just give up my grand or whatever they kicked in. And then the, I mean, I know, again, we had several people in TPN who bought Halloween and Ultraman. Most of them, I believe, not all of them, but I believe most of them that I know got it sold it, and they all sold it for a loss.
    21:30
    And, okay, we've seen that before with Spooky. Like, this isn't a new thing, but so few people got Rob Zombie because it's like a 300-unit game. They don't remember. They don't remember that. But there's that. There's the continued production quality issues that the company is known for. And there's just some other decision-making like, again, the reassertion of non-refundable deposits to get the TNA. On the TNA, I believe in the write-up – and apologies if I'm incorrect – that you cannot transfer the sale, which is something they've allowed before. and so one of the other things in addition to the non-transferring of the purchase is also this fang club they call it the spooky fang club which gets you like it's supposed to get you some stuff like i think there's some swag and things but the reason why just about everyone who joins it joins it is so they have the ability to get the games that they want because the fang club gets right a first purchase before it goes out to the public. And so that's being, as part of this whole Spooky's kind of got this tarnish on it, you know, beyond the Halloween Ultraman thing is like they have this item that you basically have to buy if you want to get any of the new releases or you feel you have to. Otherwise, you could be shut out. And it's been very polarizing, I think, as time has gone by because it auto-renews also. Ooh. See, I can understand that. It's one of those things that feels like just another cash grab. It is something that in a lot of hobbies outside of pinball wouldn't fly. It would not be an acceptable thing or it would exist and it wouldn't do great because most people would not care or would actively hate it. Pinball is this weird combination of expensive and niche, but it's not so niche that it can just live on its little laurels and being perfect. It's not like it's not Ferrari owner, Bugatti owner level niche, but it's expensive enough. And there's no but there's no entry level playing in pinball really either for purchasing. So it's not like watches where it's like, you're right. I don't have an Omega. I don't have a Rolex, but there's perfectly affordable Seikos and perfectly affordable Casios. and I can always go swatch. I mean, there's lots of options that still look good. It's just this weird little thing in this hobby that we've spoken about in the past that is just kind of, it opens itself up for all sorts of just little weird things that you don't really see anywhere else. And it's because it's the combination of expensive but not too expensive,
    24:43
    niche but not too niche, it's just this weird little sweet spot that lets it be extra weird. Yeah. And it's just, and again, and that's purported the auto renewal. I've never been a, a fan club member. Again, this was stuff that was coming up in the forums. Yeah. It's just, it's some, it just some of the things I see have been off putting to people especially when the quality of the game hasn really been I mean Halloween did not do a lot of favors for the company
    25:13
    And then another – now, you could bypass that on a lot of purchases if you go through their distributors. Oh, but wait. This version of TNA isn't available through distributors. You must buy direct through Spooky. Another thing that seems to prioritize – it feels to me kind of like that. There was a Vyra 40th anniversary runs of Stern. This is all about cash generation. Yes, there's an inflation portion built into this clearly that we have to respect. But all the, like, fan club first dibs. We don't know how quick the $250 will go. No distributor option.
    25:46
    All this stuff feels like, you know, 50% price increase. Feels like, all right, they, do you think they're hurting? Is this just a line filler and they've decided, you know what, we know this game's really popular and there are only 550 out there currently. let's see if we can get some sizable profit out of it or is it just we just need to fill the line for a few months and we think people will pay this amount i think because there is something to be said for trying to do what a lot of people feel jjp was trying to do with toy story 4 and that is taking the flippers out of the equipment like what is the ceiling they really i mean there's a high value to finding the ceiling why let the flippers flip and get profit if the game really trades for The thing that was so weird, though, is my understanding. I did not confirm this, but people were reporting that TNAs on the used market lately have been not butter cab versions, but like more normal versions. We're going for like 7 to 7,500 or 6,500 to 7,500, that sort of range. Right. And I can see a company going in and looking and seeing what used machines are selling for, where the flip potential is, and then going slightly above that. But that's not a 50% price increase. I can see where with Halloween, not, I mean, they still sold out. Right. So they have the nest egg that was built from a known sellout of a machine.
    27:19
    Even if they're not reselling well, even if they're not well-liked, they sold out unless there's has been a really large number of people who are abandoning their, their non-refundable prepays. And in which case they're sitting on a, on a handful of machines that have no buyer unless someone somehow stepped in for it, which would be an interesting thing, but there's no way we'll ever know that. I think they could be in, they could be in trouble. I think they could need that. That could be part of the reason why they jumped it up was to get as much cash as possible to kind of tide them through the next spin up of production and their next announcement and the next wave of cash that will come in from their preorder nonrefundable deposits.
    28:19
    Okay. Well, we will just have to wait and see. And I think this leads us very well into the next discussion I wanted to have, which is about pinball manufacturers broadly. So I saw a pinball pin side thread. I have a link to it in the show notes, which sort of asked a question that we've touched on in this podcast several times in various discussions. And that's whether the hobby can really support this many companies. That's where the thread was coming from. I'm going to take a different twist on it. But so what I thought might be fun for us to do is because I saw some people sort of ranking within that thread on Pennside. I thought it might be sort of a fun activity for us to rank the pinball manufacturers based off of how we feel the company will survive. So like the number one company is the one that's most likely to survive. This isn't which companies are our favorites. It's which ones do we think, purely opinion-based, because we don't know the inner details of these companies, are the most likely to survive just sort of any sort of situation, economic downturn, change in tastes, so on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I actually have a list of – and that's what I was doing here is I have a list of 10. I've chosen companies. There were some in the thread, but they didn't – it wasn't as comprehensive as I wanted it to be. This is probably overwhelming because I have 10, but these are all companies that have released a game. So alphabetically, here are the 10 that I want us to consider and have a discussion about. And incidentally, people, if you – you're all going to have your own ranks. Feel free to comment on the social media. Don't bother emailing eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com complaining to me why you think we underrated one or overrated another because we don't care.
    30:17
    It's for fun. Don't take it so personal. It's serious business. This is super serial. What we say on our podcast could change the tides of the world. This is super serious business here. Okay. So alphabetically, we're going to consider American Pinball, makers of games like Legends of Valhalla, Hot Wheels, and Oktoberfest. Chicago Gaming Company, makers of games like the Cactus Canyon remake, Attack from Mars remake, and Medieval Madness remake. Dutch Pinball, makers of The Big Lebowski. Haggis, makers of Kelts and Fathom Revisited. Home Pin, makers of Spinal Tap, coming out, I believe, this month. It's supposed to be at a show in Australia. Thunderbirds is what they're best known for. Jersey Jack Pinball, makers of Toy Story 4, Guns N' Roses, and Wonka. Multimorphic, maker of the P3 platform with games such as Weird Al, Cosmic Cart Racing, and Heist. Pinball Brothers, makers of Alien and Queen Soon. Spooky Pinball, makers of Halloween, Rick and Morty, and TNA. And Stern Pinball, makers of Rush, Godzilla, and Mandalorian. So starting with who we think is most likely to survive, I think we're going to be in agreement on this one. But I would say so my number one survival company has to be Stern. Yeah. And I don't think there's a lot to say about it. It's just they are the most professionally established manufacturer. They've run multiple lines for years. They've existed in one form or another since the 1980s. They know what they're doing when it comes to producing pinball. And they've survived downturns before. I think that's a pretty fair assumption. If anybody's going to make it through, they'll soldier through.
    32:04
    Okay. So what would you put at number two? I'll keep track of yours on my sheet here too, so don't you fret.
    32:14
    Number two. I'm going to say Chicago Gaming. That's my number two also. Okay, we're in alignment. So what was your motivation for that? Chicago Gaming has what I feel is a comfortable niche. They have access to the popular older titles that they've done the remakes on. they're not reaching out there too hard like some other companies are trying to be their own super special thing. They're just a tight little niche that knows how to go on their own and has other income streams that help support them overall. And that's really what it came down to for me was the other – they build more than pinball. Right. And so they're an established manufacturer. Their pinball side is not particularly impressive in the sense like they are so slow at putting out new games and stuff. Like if they were just a pinball company, I would be very concerned. Right. But they aren't. They do like a whole arcade thing they seem to do. So because of that, yeah, I think they just they're so diversified that they'll be fine. Like worst comes to worst, they would just stop making pinball and probably still go on existing. So pretty good position. What's your number three company? We've been unified so far, Tony. Tony doesn't know my order. It's not in the OneNote. I have it written out on the Post-it Note. The Post-it Note. See, number three is interesting.
    33:53
    It's going to get harder. Because we have to tea-wee-wee. We don't know. It gets a little harder. We don't know about the behind-the-scenes on these things. I'm going to go hmm see it's way harder see and I think it'll actually just get easier once we get farther down like the first couple spots were easy then we're going to have this like middle area that's kind of rough hmm I'm going to go and go with Jersey Jack that's my number three this was hard because they've been bailed out They've already had to be bailed out. Okay. So, and that's a good point. And that the problem is, as far as I'm concerned, there were three companies in the fight for this number three position. I don't think any of them are in a healthy place right now. Okay.
    34:52
    So why did you end up choosing JJP for number three? I went with the JJP because while they're having issues, while they have issues, while they're slow on releases, while they have had to be bailed out already, I feel like they have a more solid fan base than the others to help support them. and their game releases are well-liked by the masses due to the quality and the depth,
    35:26
    whether you as an individual player agree with it or not or really like their games or not, there's still a larger group of people who very much worship their games. And I think that gives them kind of a life jacket, a safety ring, short of the economy getting even worse.
    35:49
    But this is a situation where I feel they're also not as badly hurt by their current slow rate of game release because it's not like they're reducing the number of games they put out in a year trying to balance things with increasing cost and other issues because they just put a game out. It's Jersey Jack. If they drop another game before three years go by, everyone will be surprised.
    36:17
    Well, I'm on some of the same lines. I'm more about the investors, though, is why I ended up putting them number three. So as you noted, there are things about Jersey Jack that would normally give me pause. Their existence for multiple years and still inability to my knowledge, if I'm recalling right, that they have never put out a game within 12 months of a prior game. Or if they did, it happened once. Right. But their average is much slower than that. It's not the proper pace, in my view, for a true big-time manufacturer. And unlike Chicago Gaming, they are not diversified. They are all pinball. But their line capabilities are significant. They're actually able to, part supply issues aside, turn out games at a pretty decent clip. But what I think to me, what it really comes down to is you mentioned their bailout. They are my understanding is the the family that has invested in them are billionaires like this is like a fun thing for them. And that and if you're just playing at pinball because you've got enough money that you really don't care, it's a great place to be in. And if your company is subsidized by an entity that doesn't – like maybe they really want it to turn a profit. But if it doesn't and they love pinball, as long as they stay in love with pinball, you could go on forever.
    37:40
    It's just an expense sheet on a – covered under the auspices of other far more successful companies. So that's what it comes down to. I think Jersey Jack falls way lower on the list if they don't have this like billionaire backing, but they do. Yes. But they do. So that's why for me, they're number three. So you mentioned you had kind of three fighting here for the third slot. So naturally, we now lead into what do you think is number four on our likelihood of survival total opinion based list that we're making here? Who's your number four, Tony? Would you like me to say mine first for once? I mean, you can if you want. Spooky's my number four. So is me. Okay. Same here. All right. So the reason why I'm putting spooky at number four was kind of some of those reasons you really got at with number three, with Jersey Jack. And that is there are some serious fanboys for – like it's the little boutique that could. That helps. But what I think is, Halloween issues aside, criticism of the Fang Club aside, criticisms of the 50% price increase on Total Nuclear Annihilation aside, their model makes a lot of sense for them. Like, limited boutique runs where they just focus on building that one game or maybe two different games with the same layout, whatever, whatever the approach is, and then move on to the next. And because they do the false scarcity of setting limited runs for everything aside from TNA, there's always that pressure. We see it with other things. We see it in wristwatches. We see it in other industries where they exploit the limited model. It's a company that basically just builds LEs.
    39:29
    And that means a lot of people feel safer even if they have problems with the game depth, the layouts, the build quality. You can push a lot of that aside if you still think, well, but the game's value helps be held as long as there's only a few of them out there. And that's the big question for me with Spooky and where they rank on this is if they continue to try and put out more and more games, Like if they grow the 1,250-unit Halloween run to – plus the 500 Ultramans to 1,750 Scooby-Doos with 750 Evil Dead. It's like they're – I think that they're putting the numbers are too big. It's no longer really limited when you start putting those numbers down. I think they need to dial back. I mean I would feel more confident. I think they need to stay no more than 1,000. That would be my – based off of that, unless they're going to change models, if they were to continue to do the boutique limited model, I think going past 1,000 is a mistake. And not just because of what we've been talking about here, but also because it's – I don't know if we are in a spot kind of pre-pandemic into the pandemic, Rick and Morty being the Rick and Morty license. it's not in my view it's not a good look when you're saying we're gonna have we're gonna have you're gonna all order and you're gonna maybe wait up to 18 months for a game that's not that's not a good look i think that they should at most honestly i think the sweet spot for them would be each run having a maximum of 1250 if it's like the uh halloween ultra man split where you would do 750 of the primary theme and 500 of another. Or maybe even going lower. Maybe do 750 and 250, which leaves you at 1,000. But I think 1,000 is the target point. I do like releasing two themes on a play field. It's a traditional pinball thing. It has happened many times in the past. And I think it makes a lot of sense if you can make it work, especially with the kind of niche themes that Spooky aims at.
    41:50
    But overall, unlike you, the fan base and the limited nature is why I think they sit best in this spot. If they keep dropping bad games, if they keep exploiting and angering that fan base, they'll drop, obviously, because what keeps them where they're at will go away. I agree. That's the – it's a combination of the limited nature plus the licenses that have popularity, at least enough popularity to move those particular number of units. And, of course, these are all not just our opinions, but also based on a snapshot in time. What they end up doing may change a variety of our calculations. So speaking of calculations, we're ready for what's fifth, halfway. What's at the 50% point? I'm going to change.
    42:45
    Let me rephrase. It's not a change. It might be a surprise to some people. Well, let me see if I'm surprised.
    42:54
    Multimorphic. That's my number five also. I promise Tony hasn't seen my list. Why do people listen to this show? We agree too much on things. All right. Multimorphic. Yes. I put them at five also. Same reason for CGC. It's because of the P3 rock. They've got a secondary income line. If the P3 system just flat flops and they surrender it, the company is still going to exist because they still have a line. It might not be doing as good as it was back when it was being used by Spooky for their boards, but they still make something other than just straight machines. They still make boards. So as a company, they can still exist.
    43:38
    They'll be a small company, but it'll still exist. Yeah. Yeah, the fact that they do board work, the P-Rock line, the P3 Rock line, the other ancillary boards for like homebrew projects and stuff, it makes it hard to really predict on them. And that's why I've sort of put them at five. Obviously, they found a great deal of success with the Weird Al game in terms of people being interested. But kind of like we were talking about with Spooky, when they recently announced that a P3 platform order is a year out, it's not a great – people don't like to wait that long. Right. So that doesn't that doesn't do well when you can't keep up with orders, obviously, for any any manufacturer, in my opinion. But the reason why I don't put them as high as CGC, though, is with Haggis moving away because of the deal with Planetary for the revisited line from the P3 Rock, which they used for Celts with Spooky going to Penatar after having used P3 Rock for a few runs, starting with TNA. and using again here in TNA. So there'll be 250 sales. Those changes basically mean that only American Pinball seems to be relying on the board set from Multimorphic. And we know David Fix has mentioned that they want to move to their own board set because Ametron builds boards and Ametron's like the parent company too. Right. But they haven't done that yet. So I don't know. My big question is if all the other manufacturers aren't using that board set, is the homebrew community enough to keep Multimorphic around? Pre-Weird Al, I would say sure, absolutely. Post-Weird Al, I don't know how much.
    45:26
    People get that because there's a whole refund thing with the deposits. It's too soon to say because we haven't really hit those deadlines yet. Right, and that will be where it comes up to. Is there a bigger issue?
    45:39
    Because if, like you said, if Spooky and others had still used their boards, I'd have probably moved them up over Jersey Jack.
    45:52
    I wouldn't have moved them up that high because I think billionaire play money goes very far. At the bare minimum, they would have gone up a spot. But with this on, they're down, and the question is, can they survive if they have to start refunding Weird Al money? If Weird Al break – will they be able to successfully finish the Weird Al run, or will Weird Al break them? That's the question. And I think if they can successfully finish the Weird Al run, even if they don't have anything else that ever hits like Weird Al did, they'll be okay. They'll always have a niche spot. because at the bare minimum, like I said, even if it's for only just homebrew and little stuff,
    46:44
    that's probably enough to keep the company with a person or two in existence. I see what you're – yeah. I mean because the product has appeals to – Right. Like homebrewers are just the ones that I know. are drawn to being able to not have to worry about making a whole machine every time but focusing on a game using an existing play field or just designing the back third. So there are things like in the hobbyist realm where there could really be a market for P3. It's another discussion in terms of like long-term what the platform means to the public writ large. But we're not talking about that here.
    47:28
    Instead, what we're going to talk about is our number six company, Tony. Now I'm getting really curious because you indicated you had three companies kind of fighting around the third spot, and we just covered those. And we both were in unity on that, JJP Spooky and Multimorphic. So that's our top half. We're now in the bottom half of the companies, the companies that are getting shakier in our view. And I want to know what your number six is. I think it has to be American. Okay. That is not my pick, but I would like to hear your logic for American. I think they are in the process of setting themselves up to open up their market with their extra line work and starting to do, like they ran the contest for a homebrew to bake the machine, to open themselves up to do that kind of contract work. the kind of contract work we've typically seen we've seen Spooky do some of it we've seen CGC do some of it we've seen Stern do some of it in the past I think it's a good spot for a manufacturer to set themselves at and the fact that they have the I won't say direct backing but the subsidiary of Ametron helps give them more of a defense in depth to the type of stuff that will knock most places out. It gives them a little bit more wiggle room. They can weather the storm. What they really need to do is put out a bloody good game, which they've not done. Okay. I'll hold my American Pinball thoughts until when I get to them on my rank. So let me give you my number six. My number six might surprise you. touch. No. Come on. I said surprise you. Not be a bad choice. Oh, sheesh. Come on. What are you... Home pin, actually. Which you might think, what's the difference? That is not at all who I would have thought you would put in that position. Okay, so Thunderbirds. Last I saw. Lowest ranked game on the pin side. Top 357 or whatever we call it. Spinal tap. No one's really handled that game yet. It's going to be at that. It's already been shipped to go to the show. So we talked about that on a prior episode. So people will get to experience Spinal Tap soon enough. But the thing is, Home Pin gets to fall into that realm that we talked about with CGC and Multimorphic. They do more than just make pinball machines. It easy to forget because we never talk about them but they actually do arcade games as well And they supply parts in fact one of the big things when Thunderbirds was happening was the focus on all of the parts that the company was making themselves So given that, the thing is I don't understand their economies well enough. My biggest concerns are where they're located isn't where Pinball is located. They're based in Taiwan at this point. I think the owner describes himself as an Australian company, but he's based in China. Well, in Taiwan now. He was in China. So given that, I don't know. I have basically zero sense as to what his books are based off of. They can't be based off Thunderbird sales, though. I just don't buy it. The game was such a flop that I know he sold a lot to the Australian market, but I mean, how many of those people will trust him now? I just don't know because the game, by and large, just wasn't very popular. Saying all that aside, though, I've not heard that the arcade games were bad. I've not heard that the parts are bad. And the thing is the U.S. companies don't seem to need those parts, but maybe it's cheaper to get HomePens, I don't know, coil stops or boards or whatever than it is to ship from the U.S. So to like Australia, which is a big pinball market. So I think it stays small and niche, and I have a lot of – I don't know if he'll blow all of his money trying to successfully manufacture pinball machines. He sure doesn't seem to try and sell them very hard, but it is a diversified company. I had forgotten about that. And that is why I have them. I still wouldn't have put them over American. We finally have disagreed. But I had forgotten about that. We finally have disagreed. So we'll move on to number seven, and I'll go first because my number seven is American pinball. Okay. And since you've already talked about it, while you think about your number seven, I will wax poetically about why I put American at number seven. Now, you brought up some interesting points about just like they really need a good game, but they've got the structure in place. They've got the contest and all that. For me, most of these things are red flags. I get the distinct impression American Pinball has no idea what they're doing. and I'm worried about their long-term survival because my sense, again, all just my opinion, my sense is Ametron is just carrying them at this point and based off of interviews with Dave Fix, who's been brought in to turn the ship around, it sounds like Ametron was close to losing their patience with keeping American Pinball going. So I don't think they've got a lot more patience left and since Dave has come in, the only thing they've put out is Legends of Valhalla, a game they didn't even develop. So the idea of the contract manufacturing I think is an interesting one except I think we're in an economic downturn and I don't think there are going to be very many companies that want to take them up on the offer at this point. Not enough at volume to make any sort of difference. I don't know what their pricing is. How competitive are they for doing that versus say Pedretti Gaming in Italy which other companies like Pinball Brothers have been using. So I just don't, I get the idea, like on paper, it sounds like an okay idea, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating and I don't see people eating off of this line. You mentioned the need for a good game. They need a license. Like, that's one of the things that works so well for Spooky is like, Rick and Morty, Halloween is a better example. Halloween, it doesn't matter that the game is garbage, it's still a great theme. I mean, maybe they pay a price for that later, but currently, as we've noted, the initial sales on the deposits alone were very, very good.
    53:57
    And so American Pinball, they've only had Hot Wheels so far. Coming out here probably at Expo with Galactic Tank Force is not a winning move, but their new lead guy is like doubling down, going out on interviews, talking about how unlicensed things are the future and having release strategies of we're going to put games out on location into the Chicagoland area, like that's going to sell them. I just, I don't, I'm not a manufacturer. I may just be stupid here. But to me, I see all of these choices, and to me, most of the choices feel really wrong. See, I think you're right, especially on the unlicensed game thing, because that is, it's been proven to my satisfaction that an unlicensed game, no matter how good it is,
    54:49
    will always be outsold by a piece of trash game that's got a decent license. To me, it's the lesson that we have been taught for the last decade. And that's where I'm at. And setting quality aside on all of them, we've seen it time and again. Rick and Morty, Halloween, Weird Al. Licenses are moving these games. That's what it is. I don't see how anyone looks at this and then goes, space tanks. I just, I don't see it. And I'm also concerned because the company seems top-heavy. Like, they got a lot of designers. It reminds me of Deep Root. I'm like, why are we this top-heavy? So you got, I mean, obviously Barry Osler passed away, so he's not there anymore. But you've got Dennis Nordman working purportedly on multiple games. Dave Fix has been there a while now we only have Legends of Valhalla I just, I don't know I don't know, and they've let go of some of the past-net staff that they did have that were doing rules and stuff, like I think Coogler's not there anymore, I just I get it, that they needed to make some changes to try and make the company successful and the irony is, the company had some really community-supported things, like their build quality, compared to Spooky's, for example, compared to some other companies. American Pinball has kind of been held up as, like, they came out of the gate and they put out some interesting products. And while people might not have been thrilled about Houdini as a license, a lot of people liked how it played. Some didn't. Shots are tight but findable. Yeah. Oktoberfest, okay. Weird game. Some people loved it. A lot of people didn't. Terrible theme choice, but Hot Wheels finally picked a real theme. Unfortunately, you know, designed to be an on-location game. Came out right when the pandemic was starting. Not their fault. Right. But that was a direction that I thought made a lot of sense. Supposedly Galactic Tank Force is going to, when the head folds down, is going to look like a tank.
    56:55
    Who cares? Exactly. How many people keep the game's head folded down in their game room? No one. I'm flabbergasted.
    57:08
    This company seems completely listless. and unlike having a JJP scenario of billionaires is playing pinball, this is not like I think Ametron is going to lose their patience with this. I think they thought this was going to be easy. I think they were making a lot of boards that were going into pinball machines and I thought there's a huge market here. We could make some serious money, start up their own company. Now none of the competitors want their boards because they're a competitor and they don't have a hit. that's my take it's a solid take that's why I put them at 7 what is your number 7 I almost changed it don't be strong I almost changed it because as I said earlier when you put HomePen up I hadn't thought about HomePen secondary so that would move HomePen higher than what I originally thought but I'm still going to go with what's probably the surprise of all surprises I'm going to go with Penball Brothers Okay, so you're putting Pinball Brothers at number seven. Tell me why, because I am surprised that you put it at seven. Because they're the kind of cutthroat people that can always survive. They're the cockroaches of the pinball industry. Wow, those are some hard takes. You want me to insert some beeps?
    58:38
    But, I mean, Queen is what we've talked about in the past as one of the ultimate dad rock music licenses to Target and probably the last of the real big dad rock music licenses because it's getting played out. Alien, I never liked the game. I don't know. I've not played what they've done to it. But it is a solid theme choice. They should always sell well on theme. And the very fact that they exist shows that they're willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want. And that kind of attitude and that kind, allegedly, way of getting through everything will help companies survive even when things get bad, allegedly. Okay. Do you note that Tony has merely said these are his opinions, alleged thoughts, not true accusations? Yes. So put in that disclaimer. Some of my words were harsh and were purely for personal enjoyment of the listeners because we were trying to make things more different, allegedly, because some people could consider the way that company formed as being hinky.
    60:00
    That's quite a word. Okay. I'll get to Pinball Brothers later because obviously it wasn't my number seven. My number seven was AP.
    60:11
    So let's go to number eight. I guess, okay, I'll go. I'll say Haggis is my number eight. Me too. Okay. My reasoning is, obviously, they're a fairly young company. They've only had two titles come out. The problem is, and again, I think a lot of this was just unfortunate pandemic-driven stuff, but they were so slow in putting out Fathom Revisited that I think people are going to be reluctant to give them money for the next revisited title that they do versus Fathom Revisited. Fathom Revisited didn't exactly, as I understand it, allegedly, I'll say allegedly, didn't exactly fly off the shelf. They did sell out all of the LE version or whatever it was called, but my understanding was some distributors came in on the last day and bought up the rest is how that happened. So on paper, they sold out, but if it had been just left to the community writ large, it wasn't likely going to happen. Right. So also coupled with this softening of the pinball market, I don't know if high dollar 80s remakes is where it's at. I overall I still think doing the revisited series was a smart move for Haggis, a good way to build brand cachet to show that they could make a game because Celts unlicensed, not popular. Doesn't matter if it plays well or not, just not. You know, right. And it was hard for them to get it in front of Americans because this is an Australian based company. so it's expensive to bring the games over to where the main market is they've agreed to i think like a four or five game deal is what they indicated with planetary to do remakes but my understanding from the information that haggis shared is all the remakes are going to be like around this early 80s era so it's not like cgc's you know big nostalgia driven dmd remakes this is like an older you're like a generation earlier and people are going to go well we're getting a lot simpler game for the money so that's where they have like martin who we've entered we've had as a guest on the show before who's doing like new rules for it but it's like it made more sense pre-pandemic than it does now and i'm not i'm just not sure like i could see them going on maybe focused more on the Australian market, but my, again, just my opinion, all alleged, just guessing speculation is I'm wondering if like, I don't think that they like bankrupt. I'm just wondering if maybe they go, it's not going to work the way we thought and just sort of end it.
    62:43
    I wonder, I, I just, I'm not sure that's going to be as big as they had thought it was going to be two years ago. and that's kind of why I put them at eight. And my thoughts on your placement are pretty much the same as yours. You just said them more elegantly. Okay. So what's your number nine? Home pit. Okay.
    63:06
    And your reasoning is that their games suck or what? Okay. It's not just that. Their games have not been great. Spinal tap, we will see how it goes. I would consider it an exceedingly niche license. Not Thunderbirds niche, though, right? Honestly, I would consider it more niche than Thunderbirds. Really? Interesting. I would not.
    63:33
    But I guess Thunderbirds is a big deal in other markets besides the U.S. Right. Thunderbirds is a huge deal lots of places other than the U.S. And Spinal Tap, I mean, at that point, you're getting real niche. but as I said when I was first throwing this ranking together in my head I had them at this spot because I completely forgot about the parts business so the parts business alone could like you had have them much higher I do think overall I would be surprised to see any of the groups on this list from 7 on down surviving 10 years some of these that I've mentioned in my bottom half I don't think is going to survive three well let me get my number nine then so thank you for your home pin opinions my number nine is Dutch okay Dutch has exceeded my expectations by years at this point I still don't care for how the company is run I still don't think that this was the quote unquote right way to do it but credit where credit is due. We discussed repeatedly over a number of episodes on this podcast. We thought they were finished. They have continued somehow to, I'm going to use the term limp along selling big Lebowski's to new buyers. And then after, I don't know, I've seen anything from them hoping three, every three sales to, I think I saw someone on a, on a forum claim that it was more like every seven, but regardless that after they sell a few, They ship one to a pre-order buyer.
    65:16
    So the company continues to exist essentially just on Big Lebowski. I don't know if they're still doing Bright of Pinball 2.0 kits or not. They have mentioned, again, this I think was over a year ago at this point, there was a mention that I heard about them planning to do other pinball games beyond Big Lebowski. I don't think that ever happens. but maybe they last long enough to get the pre-order people for Lebowski made whole. Maybe they turn to the kit market, which seemed to kind of catch on fire again and do some stuff. And then maybe use that to help make it. The thing that I would struggle with, with them is at this build pace, like is big Lebowski really popular enough to continue? I mean, it's, I know it's a really popular movie, but it's the game, which I've never played, but by all accounts is a pretty good player. But is it a strong enough? I mean, it's been years. How many more new ones can they sell? I just like, they got to just be trickling at this point. I think you're right. I think so. I think they have to be. And so anyway, that they're my number nine. What, what's your number nine?
    66:23
    Oh, yours was home. I was going to say you're on. So you need, so that means Dutch is your 10th. Yes.
    66:31
    Anything you wanted to have? I'm keeping score right here. The only thing I would add is that I do respect that they are attempting to make all of their pre-order people whole.
    66:50
    And while I do not believe they will successfully make them all whole before it all falls apart on them, I think that if they somehow managed it and then just closed the doors and walked away, I would rank them much higher in the pantheon of pinball people, just period, than where they would be based upon when they first got into the trouble and first had their issues. That's a good point. Interesting. Well, for those keeping score at home, obviously by default, my 10th has to be Pinball Brothers. And this is pretty straightforward. It's not about how they moved assets and, well, we know they moved assets. Right.
    67:39
    How they moved assets. Legally moved assets. They legally moved them. It's a morality problem, not a legality problem. So, setting aside, it's not an issue of their formation. and it's not even an issue of the game quality. Some people love Alien. It was a game that I always liked the rules more than the layout.
    67:59
    Highway's game I had played and it did have a lot of mechanical issues. Pinball Brothers I've heard has on paper solved a number of those mechanical issues. However, I've also heard reports of people, including one who I think just got their Alien machine a couple of weeks ago and it quit starting games when they pushed the button. I mean, it's like there are still issues, but it doesn't have anything to do with that. It doesn't have anything to do with what the reception to Queen will be.
    68:27
    I think Hamill Brothers, this is total speculation on my part, doesn't have any intention of existing after Queen. Oh. And that's why I put him 10th on, because it's just about survival, and I don't think they want to. Like, I don't think they're going to go bankrupt. I think they plan to shut down. This is just a working theory of mine because what is Alien but a game that was already developed by Highway that they contract manufacturer and they had, I believe, with contractors make some modifications to the mechanics of what is Queen but a game that was essentially already designed. They had slightly modified, had someone come in and finish up the code. Not themselves, not their employees. My understanding is contractors and, again, having an Italian company do the build. This is what I think. I think they transferred what they could from Highway. Highway went out of business. They lost money on the deal despite the transfers like they had invested in Highway. This is what they are left with under their Pinball Brothers umbrella. And they are trying to recoup what they can. Maybe they've turned or will turn a profit. Maybe not. But that they will end themselves in a better state on their initial investment than had they done nothing. And so after that, I think they're done with pinball because anything new at this point will require them to hire designers, hire rules makers, hire manufacturing, or do contracting for all of it and develop. They'd actually have to develop games. This has been taking pretty much finished stuff and modifying it. The only other license I believe they had, if they even still have it, from Highway was Playboy. And it was not remotely near done, unlike Queen and Alien. And this isn't a market for that type of game anymore. No, no. But even saying that aside, it would take work to finish it. This stuff, I'm not saying they didn't have to. They did have to invest some stuff to get everything to, like, their fixes to Alien, and then Queen required more substantive work. But it was still most of the way there is my understanding. So that's why I put them at 10th is I actually think this was all about investment recruitment. Getting what I mean, why transfer all the other stuff? It took them forever before they really unveiled anything. There's been no rumors of anything new. And again, I'm not too it would be early for that because Queen's not been sold. But I just think that this is a – yeah, we put this together to kind of make lemonade out of the lemons of our highway investment. And when it's done, it's done. And they'll walk away and they'll be like, you know what? Doing this was smarter for us and our money than leaving the assets with highway to be split pennies on the dollar amongst us and all the other creditors. So we came out as good as we could.
    71:29
    That's an interesting theory that I had not contemplated really. and honestly it makes a lot of sense i um separately arrived at i believe but i i've had some uh some online discussions with jason knapp of nap arcade about that because i think he actually i think if i remember right he reached out to me asking about something like that and it was so funny because i had just the day before had an online stream conversation with joel engelberth who i mentioned earlier on one of his other prior live streams and i've just been starting to wonder this just the way they're doing it's like they're not building up their own capabilities but you think with the i would think with the licenses like you would be substantial enough that you wouldn't want to rely on a contract manufacturer anymore but if i were them and i didn't plan to stay in this long term i'd contract everything right because i don't have to let people go and stuff let's just yeah turn it to other builders turn it to other people that have expertise in this. Find other programmers and designers to tweak what we need tweaked. We're not starting from the ground up here.
    72:38
    Just have a threshold that's like this is the threshold of where we need to be to recoup our losses enough to call it good.
    72:48
    This is the threshold where we need to be to say hey, we had a good thing and there's no reason to go past it. When sales start to peter out, just walk away. And some of that, some of my logic on that is back when Deep Root was still existing, I had received word from someone at Deep Root that they had had discussions with Pinball Brothers about acquiring Queen and Playboy. Now, I don't think Deep Root was asking for Playboy. I think Pinball Brothers offered it. And if I remember the numbers, I believe they wanted $75,000 for Playboy and half a million for Queen, which Deep Root was like, absolutely not. Those are ridiculous amounts of money. But again, with that piece of knowledge in the back of my head, to me, that's like, well, Pinball Brothers was just trying to cash out right there. I mean, if you could get almost $600,000 just for the themes and wouldn't you walk away at that point? Probably was recouping most, if not all, of their loss, the actual loss at Highway that they sustained. I don't know. But yeah, so that's part of it is I thought, OK, well, you clearly tried to to in my assuming the report from deeper was true, tried to make it. You know, you tried to cash out with by overcharging on your life, in my opinion, overcharging on your licenses. And then you could have just walked away. I mean, I think they were already committed to doing aliens. So that wasn't part of the discussion. But but anyway, that's so anyway, that's that's our survival talk. yay so we were basically what the same through all right we were tony and i four tony and i agreed on on one through five so our top half we agreed on in the same order of stern followed by chicago gaming followed by jjp followed by spooky followed by multimorphic so we felt the strongest about that as our top half of survivalists and then we started to disagree more actually only agreed exactly on one on the bottom half but so home pin was my number six followed by american pinball followed by haggis followed by dutch followed by pinball brothers whereas your number six was american pinball followed by pinball brothers followed by haggis which eighth we was the one we both agreed on your ninth was home pin and your tenth was dutch yeah and I can see I mean I the bottom half I don think any of the bottom half survived I mean it tough to say American Pinball could turn it around even though I put them at seventh. I mean there's a way. They've actually – of all the ones that we talked about in the bottom half, they've got the most significant to my knowledge manufacturing basis. Right. So that's possible. Even Pinball Brothers, if they want to keep going at it, if they've got a good relationship with Pedretti doing the builds and stuff, maybe you would go along and you just don't have your own manufacturing and you outsource all of it. I mean Americans clearly kind of wanting to do that for people. So maybe that does work. And I'm wrong that the market's not going to turn from that because of impending recession stuff. And Haggis is hard to say because I don't know the scope of their – I mean it sounded like all their delays were just part-driven. Right. But I'm just not sure that their direction with the remakes that they've chosen is the right one to grow the company. I thought it was. But now I'm not sure. I think maybe I'm wrong.
    76:27
    Could be or it could just be that it slows it significantly. No, I cannot see how all five of these bottom ones survive. In fact, I'm going to say within my prediction is within three years, two of them go away for sure. That's what I think. I think that's a pretty safe prediction. But folks, write into us at Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. When I put the episode out, you can just comment if you're a Facebook person. Comment what you think what the ranking is. This is just about survival. We don't care what your favorite company is or your least favorite is. just logically thinking with what you know, what the rumors are, what your opinions are, what do you think the order is of survival? We only got one more thing, Tony. Rumor corner. And then you put in music.
    77:33
    So on today's rumor corner, I do have a new rumor for folks. Last rumor that we had, I felt the person was maybe pulling my leg. George Lazenby, Bond with JJP. Didn't feel so good. This rumor, I'm liking a lot more in terms of like I like its truthiness. It feels, you know, we don't know with the rumors. They might be good. They're rumors. This is not truthy corner. This is rumor corner. But this one's interesting. So I have received a report that Killer Clowns from Outer Space has been acquired as a pinball license. But here's the interesting thing about the rumor, Tony. The rumorer, is that what we call the source of the rumor, the rumorer? The rumorer did not know which company had it. And I was like, what? like their rumor didn't include a manufacturer that's weird now the reason i say that's weird is killer clowns on the surface people are probably like why would that be done that said i had heard i think on an on an interview that i know spooky pinball has talked about wanting to do killer clown like charlie and his son bug really like killer clowns from outer space it is a cult classic i mean and to tie it in even further there is a as i shared with you before i learned about this rumor there is a video game coming out of killer clowns from outer space it's going to be done like the friday the 13th multiplayer uh survival game but with killer clowns which the friday the 13th one apparently ran into licensing issue and the game really couldn't continue to be developed and added content because there was all jason or excuse Jason and Friday the 13th. There's a whole thing about who controls the licenses that makes it a big pain in the butt. But Killer Clowns probably didn't have that problem. And in fact, the person I heard that from about the Killer Clowns game was my sister. Because she wants it to play when it comes out. Because, much like Charlie and Bug, my sister and I grew up watching... We watched lots of stuff, but Killer Clowns from Outer Space was one of our childhood horror movies that we both really liked. It's so stupid. It's fun. So, okay. So to me, given that there is a report, the rumor is that the license is actually in hand. I've got to think it's got to be spooky. But what I'm curious, Tony, is if it's not spooky. If someone else, like if this is a Godzilla move, because Spooky wanted Godzilla really, really bad. They didn't get Godzilla. We were unfortunately forced to have Stern Pinball do it and Keith Elwin make the greatest game of all time. So, I mean, we just had to – sometimes we have to suffer like that. We got to suffer. Tony, I'm curious.
    80:38
    What do you – all right. Let me start with what do you think of the rumors? What do you think of Killer Klowns? I mean – Have you seen it? Oh, yes. Okay. I'm more of a Critters kind of guy. Oh, Critters.
    80:51
    Now, I saw Critters, I think, before Killer Clown. But, honestly, I would be more of an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes kind of guy. I rewatched that movie a year or two ago. I didn't remember it was that silly.
    81:08
    But it does scream right up Spooky's out. Okay. And it would make a lot of sense. for to be the Ultraman to Scooby-Doo. Okay. Or the Ultraman to whatever. Yes. I agree with you. In terms of other possible manufacturers, I had a couple of thoughts. One would be, that I think could be conceivably somewhat realistic is, we had heard talk quite a while ago now that Spooky was collaborating with CGC on a game, that CGC was going to do the build, but the game was going to be developed with the help of Spooky and there would be some sort of revenue share. Ben Heck, I believe, talked about this and that he was involved.
    81:57
    Since Spooky would be involved, I guess I could see Killer Clowns possibly being the title. It doesn't feel as right to me as Spooky doing it as the lesser of a dual play field, you know, a reused play field layout, but I could conceivably, I can kind of rationalize it. the only other guess I would have is Home Pin because hey they did Thunderbirds and they're doing Spinal Tap I guess cult classic Killer Clowns would be up their alley in that regard I mean they did plan to do a China zombie game at one point so they've not ruled out horror I just don't see anyone else doing it I don't it just it is too it's just too spooky yeah it is like I just imagine like if the Killer Clowns people went up to Jody Dankberg with Stern and said, hey, do you want our license? It's hard for me not to feel him just go, ew, to their face. Yeah. It's not like... Don't do that, Jody. Don't be mean like that. Godzilla is... It's Godzilla. I mean, I get that it's not the most modern license, especially when we're talking Toho Godzilla. Right. But I started to follow some Godzilla. I saw Godzilla growing up, but I wasn't like you. You're a big Godzilla fan. I'm a huge Godzilla fan. I've seen the Godzilla I follow them now Godzilla's Instagram is on point it's everywhere they have this adorable babyzilla show on YouTube kind of like the Hot Wheels show I guess I just saw a thing for Godzilla hot sauces for your wings yeah it's huge there is literally for an extended period of time I'm not sure how long. It might still be there. In one of the shopping districts in Tokyo, there's a theater with Godzilla's head peeking over it, roaring at the crowd every once in a while.
    83:55
    One of the – I did a search on – I was talking about – don't worry. I won't dive too much into wristwatches. But on Penn's side, there was a discussion with Nick Schell of Roanoke. He just got one of those red dial Aquases, and it's one of the better red dials. I actually did a search for it. I wondered what other red dial watches there were. One of the most popular ones that came up in discussion is a Grand Seiko Godzilla edition. I've seen it. It is amazing. It's a huge red watch. And everyone's like, in person, it's so much better too. It looks so good in the pictures. They're like, isn't it kind of big? And they're like, yeah, but it's Godzilla. Of course it's big. It has to be big. I mean, it wouldn't be on my wrist. But, yeah, I've seen it. It's amazing. So anyway, now we're talking about how much we like Godzilla. Okay. So Killer Klowns. probably Spooky would be our guess if the rumor is indeed true. Ultimately, I don't really care where you think it's being made. I just want to know, are you rumor-tained? I was rumor-tained. Now, if Spooky, instead of fighting for Godzilla, had gotten the Gamera theme. You know, I kind of wondered why. Maybe they didn't like him.
    85:01
    Maybe. He's full of turtle meat. I wonder if they got Ultraman after they didn't get Godzilla. That would be my guess. That was it. But, yeah, Gamera would have been right up the alley of Kaiju. I think so is Ultraman. But it would have made a lot of sense to be like, you know what? Gamera is pretty famous, too. I like Gamera. So video games, Tony. Video games. Short one. Sweet one. Interesting, just big, high-level stuff. The Microsoft Activision purchase. Yeah. Lots of the trials have started because there are so many trials. The first big one to start was actually the trial in Brazil. got some interesting information out of that one apparently Microsoft has stated to Sony that they plan on if it goes through they still plan on Call of Duty being on PlayStation properties for years past the end of the current existing marketing contract they have no current plans to change that situation there have been some public suggestions And honestly, as big as it is, it would cost them so much money to not put it out on places. Right. Just like Minecraft. Once they got Minecraft, would you pull it back? You make so much on it. Right. Which is why it's interesting to me that as all of these, because I know the trial in the UK is getting ready to start and stuff in the US and Brazil and all these other places are going. it's interesting to me how big of a deal this is being made about Microsoft Activision Blizzard, considering if it is done and it's completed, Microsoft will still like fourth or be in third place. Yeah. Move up to third. Right. Yeah. You've pointed that out a few times. I was on, this was months ago at this point, but I still remember, Oh, I got a lot of play on Reddit when Phil Spencer was, or no, it was in the, one of the legal cases might've been in the U S one where Microsoft, just because of the way it was phrased. People really laughed at what the Microsoft statement to the courts was, or to the Monopoly investigators was, Activision doesn't make anything unique. That's what they said.
    87:14
    And of course, their argument was like, you know, there's other FPS shooters, like there's Battlefield to call a duty. That was the angle. But the way it sounded was, Activision is completely devoid of creativity. Why is this a problem? I mean, why is it a problem? Come on. Sure. I just, I, I just don't understand why they can't, why, why their lawyers aren't just walking up going, oh, we might be a monopoly. This puts us in third place. Are the other two companies ahead of us monopolies? Because if we can't do this and going into third place makes us a monopoly, you need to go and ma bell some crap because that's what it is. Yeah. And I'm not going to speculate what will happen with the other countries. I struggle to think that the U.S. regulators would not allow the same. Right. Just because, I mean, we've seen far more – I mean, Sprint and T-Mobile combining is far more impactful, which ultimately just put them in third. Mm-hmm. So it's like – the thing is, it's like beyond those three, it's like – Yeah. And video games is different. Like, there's still going to be, like, fourth isn't like cricket versus mobile. It's not like that. It's not like, what is Ryan Reynolds meant or something like that? Where it's just, we're owned by Ryan Reynolds. Drink his gin. Use his phone. Yes.
    88:44
    He was Deadpool. Love him. Halo Infinite which is the newest Halo title and has had a plethora of issues it was not the launch title it was supposed to be it has not received anywhere near the reception that was expected for a Halo game has had to delay its next season which would be its third season I think of stuff until 2023 March of 2023 So that is going to end up with them going more than a year without any major stuff And they also had to announce that the split-screen local co-op that 343 had previously said Would be a requirement in all following Halo games going forward has been dropped I mean it's been a staple since the Bungie days I mean we've played it that way that has had huge backlash online that over the delay I found out about the delay reading the backlash about the local co-op drop because that's just such a fundamental part of Halo and they said it would be there and people were mad that it wasn't there at launch and they're like no no we're working on it it'll be there And now they're like, nah.
    90:16
    It's just like. Yeah. I mean, the talk is, should Microsoft pull Halo from 343? Are they mismanaging the property at this point? Obviously, gamers always react very extreme. They are always very extreme. They dislike. I mean, I don't know. It could be. This could be the straw that breaks the back. Sony and Tencent you know the two largest companies in video gaming but they're not monopolies so don't you worry right have increased their stakes in From Software developers of Elden Ring and all of those other games that are so freaking hard that I don't even waste my time and now they're all like the souls company yeah they're games that I think they look beautiful but I just see the difficulty stuff, and I'm just like, I don't have that kind of time or skill anymore. I'm so – I bet I would have tried Elden Ring, except I had such a bad experience with Sekiro, which I decided to try because I was frustrated with Dark Souls, but I heard Sekiro played different. Right. And it does. It's a parry system, and at least in Dark Souls, I could dodge. So I was like, oh, my gosh. I just didn't like it.
    91:32
    Aesthetic is great. Oh, gosh. everything they do is everything about the game other than that and I you know as I like to point out because I worked really hard at it I never had the DLC for Dark Souls but I played it I played it two and a half times I got every Xbox achievement in that game to prove that I wasn't a wimp but I just can't do it anymore at least not with Sekiro maybe it's too hard for me maybe I'm too old or I just don't have the patience but I'm just like it's too bad because the aesthetic of the games is incredible, but that, I don't know. It's this desire to just make it as hard as possible, and no one wants it to not be that way, and the company's having success, so why change? That's fine. I've got other games. There is a request out there for it, but they've increased their stakes. Sony's up to 14.09%. Tencent is up to 16.25%. And Katakawa is still the majority shareholder with 69.66%. Okay. So, but that's an interesting set of shifts going on. We might see their next games on PlayStation and phones. Exactly. Phone station. Don't you all have phone station? Following with Sony, Sony has increased the price of the PlayStation 5 everywhere except America. And that also didn't have a great reaction online because I saw those posts. Mostly, actually, I first saw it regarding Nintendo's response. Yes.
    93:13
    Because Nintendo responded that they've got no plans to increase costs. Microsoft says, we're not going to increase costs. And Spooky says it's up 50%. Oh, wait. That's right. We're in the wrong category. Oops. It's inflation. It had to go up this much. But I think to me the shocking thing wasn't that PlayStation increased. That doesn't surprise me. It's that they literally were like, we're not going to do it in the U.S. Just everywhere else. We're going to go. And it's not like they went up a little bit. Like in the U.K., they went up like 70 pounds. Wow.
    93:50
    So it's like, yeah, we're just going to do this, and then it's going to be good. Yeah, no, we're fine. They got paid for that FromSoftware buy with something. Apparently.
    94:00
    I'm curious. I'm guessing that Nintendo and Microsoft had a larger markup on the hardware. Hmm. So as prices have increased, it's either that they had a larger markup on the hardware or the parts, like the chips and parts company board companies, they have, have not had the same issues. Sony has had getting started. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's tough to say. I know Nintendo purportedly forever has always profited on their hardware. They've not been a company that embraced the use the console as the loss leader model. And so that logic would make sense for me. It would, I think, have to come down to the deals in the case of Microsoft, because spec-wise, Microsoft and Sony, they were the same price and the specs were pretty similar. Microsoft's, I guess, on paper was a little more powerful even. So you would assume they would end up with more of a cost issue, but perhaps their contracts locked in pricing or something, for example, and maybe Sony's didn't. Could be, or locked in pricing for longer. But then it's also interesting, curious to me that Sony is able to, like, they need a price increase, but not in the huge U.S. market where they would arguably make the most money with the price increase. so and they have huge market share from the ps4 days i mean i know i know microsoft series uh s and x are doing very good compared to it's not like the last gen which right because microsoft didn't blow their own face off like they did last year with overpricing a less powerful console and then having that whole drm nightmare um yeah i don't know it's just it's it's curious it It long-term maybe is a – I mean, the Switch is a lot less powerful, so I don't know. But with Microsoft being there and not raising the price and it being basically the same system, I don't know how well this goes for like – maybe that's why they didn't do it in the U.S. They were afraid they would lose too much market share. And that's my guess. That was my guess why they didn't make the bump in the U.S. Whereas like in Japan, they know the market share is going to be solid, so they could raise the price there. Right, because – and they've had problems getting – people are still having problems getting PlayStations in the U.S. Yes, I see that. I see problems getting PlayStations more than Microsoft. Right. So to have gone with them, people already having problems, and they've lost big chunks of what would have been purchases of PlayStations just because people could get an Xbox and they couldn't get a PlayStation. They'd be like, I want to upgrade. Okay, I'll just – I'll do this. Right. to have that going on and then increase the price. So not only is it still a fight to get a PlayStation, if you're lucky enough to find one, but now it's way more expensive than the Xbox, which just hurts so bad.
    97:03
    It's the thing that makes the most sense to me. But I'm sure they had their reason. It's just so weird. When I read it, I'm like, oh, they're doing a price increase. Interesting. I wonder if the others will follow. And then I'm reading the article. I'm like, they didn't increase the price in the U.S.? That's just – but it makes sense. Yeah. Kind of.
    97:22
    Embracer Group, we had a big discussion about Embracer Group last time. They have confirmed that the AAA game that was shifted to a different studio was indeed Knights of the Old Republic. Not a shock. Quite nice to have the confirmation. But, yeah, it has been confirmed. They've also finished their integration of all of the Western developers that they got from Square Enix. When Square dumped all of their Western developers, Embracer Group pulled them in. So the companies that made, was it Deus Ex and all those, they're all under Embracer Group now. And that has been completed. and since we've talked hardware we've talked big companies let's talk about the steam deck continuing to be super popular people are really liking it their production numbers have outperformed their estimates so much that they are sending out notifications to quarter four reservations for this year that their hardware is on the way. That's a nice thing.
    98:39
    I'm ending on a happy note for once. Wow. People who got their Steam Deck reservations in for quarter four of 22, which would have been the people dropping reservations in quarter one,
    98:53
    some of them are going to start receiving machines quarter three because they're just their production numbers are ahead of schedule, which I'm sure has something to do with a combination of their deals and where their companies are, that the hits that have happened recently and the new rounds of shutdowns, new rounds of issues in China have not hurt them as bad. Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of it seems to have so much come down to exactly like what type of tips and stuff you like. Stern had noted in a relatively recent interview, They're still struggling because one of the chips they need is a chip the F-150 uses, and they're still struggling to get those to Ford, which is, of course, a priority buyer. And then I also read an article that the graphics card shortages are done now and that if you want to get a graphics card at normal price, it's now viable.
    99:47
    Until NVIDIA takes the big hit because they're no longer allowed to sell in China. Poor NVIDIA. we finally got it we fixed it everybody graphics cards are on oh never mind that's right so that's what I had Dennis alright well that's it for the show so again if people want to reach out to us they can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast we're available on twitch, twitter, and instagram as eclectic underscore gamers and we'll be back probably in two weeks to bring you the latest in video games and pinball news. Or at least opinions. That's true, or opinions. Until then, I am Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.