Episode 1164: "Robin to the Rescue?"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·23m 9s·analyzed·Nov 24, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Kaneda defends Beetlejuice scalping, blames Stern's pricing strategy, and hints at major unannounced games.

Summary

Kaneda discusses Robin's efforts to regulate secondary market scalping on Pinside, arguing that free market dynamics are inevitable and beneficial for the hobby. He critiques manufacturers' pricing strategies, particularly Stern's mistakes post-Godzilla, and teases upcoming high-demand games from Spooky and other manufacturers that will shift market dynamics. Kaneda promises to reveal mysterious warehouse infrastructure used by dealers/distros and positions himself as disrupting the traditional distribution model.

Key Claims

Robin makes hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from Pinside marketplace fees
medium confidence · Kaneda states Robin 'is making all this money' and 'makes money on every pinball machine sold on Pinside' without validating conditions or sellers
Beetlejuice is selling for $5,000–$7,500 over MSRP instantly, representing the hottest game in 10 years
high confidence · Kaneda directly states 'I have not seen a game sell for $5,000 to $7,500 over sticker instantly like Beetlejuice'
Stern raised all LE prices to $13,000 after seeing Godzilla fetch $13,000–$14,000 on secondary market
high confidence · Kaneda explains 'Stern made the biggest mistake ever when Godzilla was 10.5 and it sold out...They saw what Godzilla was going for and they got greedy and then they attached that price'
Stern LEs are now losing $3,000+ in value post-release (e.g., Star Wars (LE) brand new at $10,000 already down from $13,000 MSRP)
high confidence · Kaneda cites personal anecdote: 'I have a friend who just bought a Star Wars (LE). Game is brand new, 80 plays, $10,000. The seller took it instantly. Instantly, a Stern LE is losing $3,000 in value'
Spooky is producing multiple upcoming high-demand games; Kaneda claims insider knowledge of upcoming titles
medium confidence · Kaneda states 'I know what's coming from Spooky Pinball. I've been told what's coming from Spooky Pinball' and 'they're all going to be high demand games'
A major game from another major manufacturer is launching sooner than expected
medium confidence · Kaneda teases 'I also know that a major game is coming out from another major manufacturer sooner than you think'
Beetlejuice production will run January–January (12 months), and demand will cool once ~300 units are in circulation
medium confidence · Kaneda predicts 'They are starting to make this game in January...Once there's about like 300 Beetlejuice machines in the world, it's going to slow down a little bit'

Notable Quotes

“Robin deserves every penny he gets...the greatest pinball community in the history of the Internet. That is also maybe the worst moderated site in the history of the Internet.”
Kaneda @ early segment — Nuanced take on Pinside's value and criticism; establishes Kaneda's position on Robin's legitimacy despite moderation concerns
“There is no way to prevent this. And it is a good thing in the hobby. If we see games going for this, it means the games are great.”
Kaneda @ mid segment — Core thesis: secondary market premium indicates game quality and demand; scalping is inevitable and healthy
“Stern made the biggest mistake ever when Godzilla was 10.5 and it sold out...They saw what Godzilla was going for and they got greedy and then they attached that price.”
Kaneda @ pricing segment — Identifies root cause of Stern's current market failure; pivotal industry decision with lasting consequences
“I know what's coming from Spooky Pinball. I've been told what's coming from Spooky Pinball. I'm not going to confirm it right now, but just trust me, they're all going to be high demand games.”
Kaneda @ teaser segment — Claims insider access to Spooky pipeline; positions Kaneda as industry insider with advance intelligence
“I think this is good. And the reason why I think this is good is someone who's been in this hobby for 12 years...there's been such a huge depreciation across the board for so many people for so many years.”
Kaneda @ philosophy segment — Contextualizes Beetlejuice appreciation within historical market conditions; argues scarcity and appreciation are redemptive after years of losses
“When they oversaturated us with Star Wars, now nobody cares about Star Wars. Too many Marvel movies, what happens? You stop caring.”
Kaneda @ Stern philosophy segment — Draws analogy to content saturation; implies Stern has oversaturated market, diluting brand significance
“Stern's got some trouble. They gotta figure this out. They're not gonna be able to just keep cranking these things out and people are not gonna keep buying them.”

Entities

Robinperson Kanedaperson Melissa Marquetteperson PinsideorganizationSpooky PinballcompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

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market_signal: Beetlejuice commanding $5,000–$7,500 premiums over MSRP instantly; highest secondary market appreciation observed in 10 years; driving regulatory push from Pinside
high · Kaneda: 'I have not seen a game sell for $5,000 to $7,500 over sticker instantly like Beetlejuice'
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product_strategy: Stern's decision to raise all LE prices to $13,000 post-Godzilla has resulted in immediate and sustained depreciation across entire LE lineup; Star Wars LE losing $3,000+ within days of release; strategy has backfired catastrophically
high · Kaneda: 'Stern made the biggest mistake ever when Godzilla was 10.5...They saw what Godzilla was going for and they got greedy...witnessed nothing more than a humongous loss across the board'
~
sentiment_shift: Declining confidence in Stern's ability to execute premium products; new Spike 3 platform criticized as cheaper-looking despite technical improvements; overproduction causing loss of game significance
high · Kaneda: 'Stern's got some trouble. They gotta figure this out...the new backbox, those thin speakers...It looks cheaper...I don't think they can charge the prices they're charging'
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community_signal: Pinside founder Robin proposing resale price caps on secondary market (inspired by European ticket scalping models); community debate over whether to regulate or embrace free market; Kaneda arguing regulation creates backdoor corruption
high · Kaneda: 'Robin is looking at this and saying, hey, maybe we should institute something like they do in Europe...when you try to meddle with these things, it just opens the door for even more corruption more shadiness more backdoor deals'
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Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.069

Oh, won't you stand by me? Won't you, won't you stand by me? Stand by me. Won't you stand by me? Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. It is the week of Thanksgiving and we have so much to be thankful for. All these manufacturers, all these games, but I'm very thankful for each and every one of you. Let me give a big shout out to our new Canada Club members. Mason, coming in hot baby, at $50 a month. Mason thank you so much you are offsetting my good friend Dan Jansen who just decreased his amount because I made fun of the fact that Dan thinks he deserves a Beetlejuice spot because he was at like $30 a month forever Dan I know you're gonna come back baby I know you're think you're teaching me some sort of lesson welcome to Jerry Cunningham welcome to pinball man I don't know who you are, pinball man. Let's welcome GB. Let's welcome Austin, Noah to the show, Jesse to the show. Let's welcome Thomas Lombardi, Joseph C. Merck, Melissa Marquette. I think she's been a member for a long time, Melissa Marquette over at Cointaker. Everybody, here's the thing about Canadian Pinball Podcast right now. We're starting to sort of kick a can down the road that people don't want kicked down the road. This mystery of a warehouse in Chicago. You know, there are people that actually think it does not exist. Like this is some conspiracy theory. It's like a photo of a UFO out there. There's no warehouse with thousands of games that all these dealers and distros drop ship from. Yeah, there is people. I've seen the photo and guess what's going to happen one day soon. Yours truly, Canadian Pinball Podcast will be the first pinball content creator ever to share the image of this facility. I know where it is. I know the address. I know the name. And there are two of them. It's not just one. There are two of them. And hey, isn't it time we all sort of maybe thought about all of what happens in this pinball market? and maybe some stuff needs to modernize. Maybe we need to contemporize how we get these pinball machines. So speaking of that, I was on Pinside this morning and I saw Robin, the founder of Pinside, making all this money. And I will say this, Robin deserves every penny he gets. If it was not for Robin, how many of you would have found the pinball community? How many of you would have had the friends you have if it was not for Pinside? So I don't begrudge Robin making his hundreds of thousands of dollars a year running what is arguably the greatest pinball community in the history of the Internet. That is also maybe the worst moderated site in the history of the Internet. But now he's trying to tackle something. And I think it's kind of hysterical because remember, Robin makes money on every pinball machine sold on Pinside. Did he do any work? You could argue he created the platform, but man, it's not the best. It really is not the best to sell a game. It's not like he's validating the game's conditions and the validity of the seller. He's just making money for nothing, just having a marketplace. But he's starting to see people sell their Beetlejuice spots and their Winchester spots for a lot of money. Now, what's his problem with that? Why does he care if someone wants to transfer a spot on a hot game for more money than they spent on that spot? And he's looking at this and saying, hey, maybe we should institute something like they do in Europe with ticket sales where you can set a ceiling by which this is the most amount of money you can resell the ticket for. They did this in Ireland when Taylor Swift went there. You really couldn't sell the ticket for more than the face value. And what happens in that scenario is, yeah, nobody's paying way over to go to the concert, but good luck trying to actually get a ticket then. So there's no real ability to ever have any secondhand market on those tickets. The only people that get lucky are the ones who get through the door first, and then no one else is ever going to be able to sell you a ticket because why would they give it up? And the face value of that ticket is worth so much more than the ticket itself. And so look, they put a limit on it. I don't know. I actually think all of this is kind of funny right now because the way I look at this whole world of pinball and selling stuff for more money and selling a game that you don't even want to take ownership of, selling a spot, if you will. The problem is it's easy to look at this stuff in a vacuum and say those people are scumbags for trying to trade their spot. Okay, because what happens when those people went in on games early and they lost a lot of money? Did you feel bad for them? No. Did you feel bad for people that weren't even trying to scalp their games? They simply put a deposit down on Toy Story because they heard all the rumors that it was Toy Story And then they didn realize it was like Toy Story 4 and it wasn that great And then all of a sudden people lost non deposits And guess what? Who keeps that $2,000? The dealer, distro or manufacturer. So why do they get to keep $2,000 deposit and then they get to go sell that game again and get a new deposit from a new buyer? So they are basically making double on a game in terms of their margin. They're making twice as much on their margin if someone walks away. So the whole thing is set up so that who absorbs the risk? Because that's what it's all about. Who's absorbing the risk if a deposit is non-refundable? You know, I never liked non-refundable deposits. I've always felt like they were put in place as a way to protect maybe the manufacturers because, you know, I think Spooky started this for the most part because people would order a game like Rob Zombie and then they would bail on their order late in the run of the game. So if they were making 500 Rob Zombies and 300 of them were made and they ordered parts for 500 games and then the consensus on the game is that it might not be that great, everybody who's number 301 to 500 starts to get cold feet because they start to see the early games sell for less than MSRP. So they cancel their order. So all of a sudden you might have like 80 orders canceled on a game and you have 500 parts. But if I make your deposit non-refundable, that will at least incentivize people not to bail. All right, so here we are today though. Here we are today and we have maybe arguably the hottest game in the last 10 years. I have not seen a game sell for $5,000 to $7,500 over sticker instantly like Beetlejuice. But I'm here to tell you right now, there's nothing Robin can do to stop it. There's nothing the dealers and distros can really do to stop it. All you can do is make it a little bit harder to do what these people are doing. But the free market will do what the free market does. And again, this is not something that is essential to anybody. This is not a drug for cancer. It is not something that someone needs like an inhaler if you have asthma. This is a pinball machine that is sold to very, very well-off people for the most part. If you're buying $6,000 to $15,000 pinball machines, you, in the grand scheme of things, are doing much more well off than the majority of people in this country and the majority of people in the world. Okay. And you know this is how it works. This is how it works with any collectible hobby. And so we should be happy that we're seeing a game add this much value to the secondhand market. Why do you want to try to eliminate that? Because if you want to eliminate the profit and you want to eliminate people's ability to make money on a game, are you also going to help people and prevent them from losing money on a game? So if you're going to set a ceiling, Robin, by how much someone can scalp a spot of a Beetlejuice, think about that for a minute. Who gets to determine what the ceiling is on what a second hand Beetlejuice spot can go for? Because Robin is saying he wants to put a cap on it. So what is he going to say? I'm going to make it so you can only make $1,000 over MSRP anymore and you can't list it on Pinside. But is Robin going to put a cap on how much money people can lose when they buy a game like Venom LE? So you're okay people buying a Venom LE for $13 and losing $5,000 in one year. And you won't let that same buyer who speculated on a Stern LE, got the game, opened it up. And maybe there's guys out there that didn't even open it up. They bought a Venom LE and before they even got it, the game was tanking in value. So they just want to get out of it because they don't want to lose so much money. And so yeah, that guy's going to lose $5,000. So maybe that guy went and got a Beetlejuice spot and is like, hey, I'm going to make up my losses on Venom with this Beetlejuice spot. And I love pinball and I play a lot of pinball and it doesn't matter to me. I would rather just make the $5,000 to get back to being even in this hobby. And I want to sell my Beetlejuice spot. So that guy already lost $5,000. So he would just break even if he was able to sell $5,000 over his Beetlejuice spot. and you want to prevent him from being able to do that, but you won't look out for him if he's losing thousands of dollars on the Venom LE, on the John Wick LE, on the Foo Fighters LE. You know, you just named the game recently. They're all going down in value. I have a friend who just bought a Star Wars LE. Game is brand new, 80 plays, $10,000. The seller took it instantly. Instantly, a Stern LE is losing $3,000 in value. And I'm just here to tell you right now, There is no way to prevent this. And it is a good thing in the hobby. If we see games going for this, it means the games are great. It means the demand is there. And if you try to prevent it from happening, you know, it's never going to work. It's never going to work because trust me, when you try to meddle with these things, it just opens the door for even more corruption more shadiness more backdoor deals Okay And I just don get it You know what I don get also Think about it Why is it if you buy direct from a manufacturer why is the game the same price as if I buy from a dealer or a distro? How can a dealer or a distro make a margin on a game if I buy from them? How can they make like $2,500 on an LE and then if I buy direct from Stern, it's the same exact price. I don't get it. What was that $2,500 for? Shouldn't it be $2,500 cheaper if I buy direct? Where does that money go? Nobody wants to ask these questions. Everyone's pretending like all this incredible hard work is going on, that all these games are requiring constant maintenance. These are not cars. You don't have to take your pinball machine in for an oil change after like a thousand plays. Like every game does not need a tune up every time it's unboxed. I would argue that the majority of these games that are going to like non-psychos like us, the newbie buyer, they never maintain their games. They never have any idea what's going on. Most of them don't even update the damn code on the games. And so, yeah, I think it's a fun time to be in pinball. I think watching the people still complain about Beetlejuice, it's just going to get worse. But here's the thing that's going to slow it down. And I'm going to slow it down right now for each and every one of you. If you think Beetlejuice is the game that's going to go up to $20,000, it's not. It's going to be their next game. And it's going to be the game after that. Or maybe they might all go up to $20,000. But I'm here to tell you right now, I know what's coming from Spooky Pinball. I've been told what's coming from Spooky Pinball. I'm not going to confirm it right now, but just trust me, they're all going to be high demand games. I also know that a major game is coming out from another major manufacturer sooner than you think. So that's going to slow down a little bit the frenzy to get a Beetlejuice spot because you got to remember this, people. They are starting to make this game in January. It is going to take them from January all the way to next January to finish these Beetlejuice games. Once there's about like 300 Beetlejuice machines in the world, it's going to slow down a little bit. It just is because another game is going to come out that you're also going to really want. I think another game is going to come out that's even a level maybe above Beetlejuice. It might even be more premium looking. They might even nail it even better. Now, look, this is good. I think we are at a new period in pinball where a lot of really amazing stuff is going to come out. The reason why Beetlejuice is doing so damn well right now is the byproduct of four years of Stern machines missing the mark of four years of most of the Jersey Jack machines missing the mark. You got to remember Godfather, Elton John, Avatar. No, man, no. Harry Potter brought it back. Beetlejuice has brought it back. Stern Pinball needs a game that brings us back to them. And so this is what's going to happen in 2026. And you know, you know, we've got Back to the Future coming at the end of the year. You know, we got stuff coming from other manufacturers. It's going to be like Masterpiece or Bust. and it's really good. And I just think all of this effort to try to shut down the scalping and there's gotta be a way to do it. It's stupid. It's stupid. What there should be is more open, transparent, like auctioning happening around these games. That would be more fun. At least make it fun. To me, it's no fun seeing a Beetlejuice spot go up for like, I don't know, on pin side for $10,000 or best offer. It's not entertaining to watch that listing. You have no idea what it actually sold for. And so the only person doing auctions where we can actually see the secondhand value is Project Pinball. That's it. Nobody else wants to put a Beetlejuice spot up for auction. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I think a lot of us would be highly entertained to see more of these games just go up for auction, give everybody a fair shot to get one. How is that not fair? If a game definitely has like 5,000 or more people want it and they're only making 1,000, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna be a socialist like Robin and say, hey, let's cap the amount of money people can get for their spot? Or are you gonna be a capitalist and say, hey, let's just create a platform by which people can actually sell these games for what the market will bear and let's just make it exciting to watch and see what they go for. What's the problem with that? I think everybody needs to put on their big boy pinball pants and realize that this is good. And the reason why I think this is good is someone who's been in this hobby for 12 years and I've seen how this was 12 years ago. And I think now more so than ever, there's been such a huge depreciation across the board for so many people for so many years that it's just nice that we're getting things that people deem valuable, that people really want. Why would we try to limit what the value of those things can become? Now look the other part that I also do agree with it weird when people are like spooky should raise the prices like consumers should not be rooting for companies they love to charge them more for the same item The good news is this Unlike Stern Pinball that made the mistake, you got to go back. A lot of these newbies and the content creators who weren't in this hobby back then, they don't get this. Stern made the biggest mistake ever when Godzilla was 10.5 and it sold out and the secondhand market was around 13,000 for one or 14,000. They made the carnal mistake to raise every single LE to 13,000. That is the reason why they did it. They saw what Godzilla was going for and they got greedy and then they attached that price. The only reason why Godzilla was going for that is because it is arguably maybe the best game of all time. And now they've priced every single game that's come out since Godzilla as if it's the best game of all time. And what have we witnessed since then in the last like four years? We've witnessed nothing more than a humongous loss across the board. And there are people that don't want to talk about this. There's people that just want to like brush it under the rug. And I think this is like worth talking about. And so I'm just here to tell you right now, there's going to be a major game coming out, I will let you know before anybody else, a major game coming out sooner than everybody thinks. So that's going to soften the Beetlejuice frenzy. There's also going to be more confirmation of what's coming down the road from Spooky Pinball. That will soften maybe the Beetlejuice frenzy. It's going to create an even more frenzy for what's coming, but whatever. It is what it is. You know, there are those out there that are like, well, you know, maybe Spooky should look to get even bigger because the demand is bigger. I'm glad they don't want to do that. I like living in a world where people don't grow too big, where there's not too much of everything. I love a world in which we had to wait years for a Star Wars movie. When they oversaturated us with Star Wars, now nobody cares about Star Wars. Too many Marvel movies, what happens? You stop caring. None of them have significance anymore. None of them make you want to go into the theater and see them anymore. I saw the Fantastic Four. Glad I didn't see it in a theater. Boring. Boring. They just look like they've lost their way. None of these things matter anymore because you made too many of them. That's exactly the problem Stern has right now, making too many of everything. And none of them seem to have any significance anymore. Are they going to be able to design a game sometime soon that brings significance back to Stern Pinball? I'm worried about them, gang. I am. I don't like their new platform. I don't like the new backbox, those thin speakers. I get it sounds better, but it looks worse. So they made it sound better, but it looks worse. And I know they're trying to keep it looking like it's uniform in a lineup, but it just doesn't look as good. It looks cheaper. And I don't think the new Spike 3 platform looks better. I don't think they went far enough to make everything look more premium. And I don't think they can charge the prices they're charging if that's the product they're going to put into market. when I put a Beetlejuice next to a Walking Dead LE, the Beetlejuice looks so much better and it's gonna look so much better in person. And so yeah, Stern's got some trouble. They gotta figure this out. They're not gonna be able to just keep cranking these things out and people are not gonna keep buying them. How do you sell an LE for 13 when in just like a week or two, it then slides down to the same price as the premium? I mean, think about it. These guys are taking 10K for Star Wars LE. What does that mean? Imagine if you bought a Star Wars premium, what an idiot you are. You could have got an LE. And if you bought a Star Wars and LE, you feel like an idiot. So both premium and LE owners that bought new in box feel like idiots at the same time. Well done, Stern. You messed it all up. Everybody, we're going to have a lot of fun shows coming up. I got a lot of information. We're going to see that photo of the mysterious warehouse where everybody's drop shipping from Canada. Don't do it. don't blow up the spot of all these dealers and distros. All they're doing is sending a name and an address and making thousands of dollars. We're going to get in this game, baby. Canada's coming, baby. What's that saying like Hannibal's at the gates? Canada's at the gates, baby. You can feel it. And all I ask from each and every one of you, I'm not going to become a shill ever. I'm going to tell you exactly how I feel about every game. But if you want to buy a game, just think of Canada. Think of my family. Think of my kids. because we're going to do it, baby, and we're going to make it more fun, and we're going to blow up this old model that's been going on for way too long, and we're going to get you the best price on the planet. Even if I hate the game, I want to get you one, baby. Canada out. Happy Thanksgiving week. You son of a bitch! Thank you. Thank you.